Talk:Schrödinger's cat

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This article is not technically inaccurate, but is worded in a way that could easily lead to inaccurate understanding of the subject. Please make it clear that this thought experiment was Schrodinger's response to the Copenhagen interpretation, and that he was using it to point out what he saw as a problem with the Copenhagen interpretation being applied to the physical world. Schrodinger never intended to make the argument in support of the idea of the cat being both alive and dead, but to show that ideas like that could be the end result of applying this interpretation of quantum mechanics to the physical world when it is obviously impossible for the cat to be both alive and dead. By mentioning the Copenhagen interpretation after Schrodinger's thought experiment, the information could be misunderstood to mean that it was an interpretation of Schrodinger's idea. This is quite the reverse of what actually happened. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.136.28.86 (talk • contribs) 19:32, March 1, 2009 (UTC)

so the reader must see a Copenhagen interpretation article before reading this one. --201.230.35.217 (talk) 00:12, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Quantum levels at macro states" - simple english?

Out of context and easily misunderstood.[change source]

A light particle can be seen as both a wave and a particle.

If you send light through a pair of slits it will "behave" like a wave and produce an interference pattern.

But if you think of it as a particle, and you try to observe which of the slits the light particle passed through, it will not behave as a wave, but as a particle, and not produce an interference pattern.

This happens even if you observe it AFTER it has passed through the slits. Even - theoretically - if you observe it an hour later.

So by choosing to observe it - or not - you are changing an event in the past. Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed-choice_quantum_eraser

Shroedinger made the cat example to ridicule this idea. He constructed a theoretical device that works on the same principle as the slit experiment.

By observing the cat you are "deciding" whether or not it died an hour ago.

The cat will be in a "superposition", meaning it will be both dead and alive at the same time until it is observed.

The world will be split in two different timelines, and collapse into one of them when the cat is observed.

And the reason why it is so controversial is that it turns out that it might actually be correct.

Mortenlandmark (talk) 06:32, 11 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]