What is Schrodinger's Cat Paradox?

A theory of quantum mechanics called "indeterminacy" says that mathematically, a particle can be in two states at the same time. Schrodinger wanted to show that it was not true, so he came up with an illustration. This experiment is only hypothetical, and can't really be done.

Schrodinger said that if you put a cat in a box with a poison that might kill it, at the end of an hour the cat has a 50% chance of being alive, and a 50% chance of being dead. According to quantum mechanics, since we can't see in the box to know if the cat is alive or dead, the cat is both alive and dead. Of course, we know that this is not possible, nothing can be alive and dead at the same time. This is just what Schrodinger wanted to show.



Submitted by Sean (Michigan, USA)
(May 6, 1998)



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