It is one of the most bizarre ideas ever produced by the human mind. It is an imaginary experience, in which a cat, in the guise of a guinea pig, is alive and dead at the same time! And we are not talking about spiritism, but quantum mechanics, the branch of physics that studies the strange world of subatomic particles (smaller than atoms).
The hypothesis was conceived by the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger, one of the most brilliant scientists of the 20th century. His intention was to show how the behavior of subatomic particles seems illogical if applied to a situation that is easy to visualize, like a cat trapped in a closed box. In the situation proposed by him, the animal’s life would be at the mercy of radioactive particles. If they circled the box, the cat would die; otherwise he would remain alive. Until then, there is nothing more.
The story gets crazy even when analyzed according to the laws of the subatomic world, according to which both possibilities can happen at the same time – leaving the animal simultaneously alive and dead.
But what if a scientist looked inside the box? He wouldn’t see anything else, just a cat – dead or alive. This is because, according to quantum physics, if there was the slightest interference, such as a light source used to observe the phenomenon, the parallel realities of the subatomic world would collapse and we would only see one of them.
Therefore, there is no point in trying to carry out the experience in practice. Did you find it difficult to understand this madness? Alright, the best physicists have the same problem. “This example shows that we still don’t understand the deeper implications of quantum mechanics”, says Dutchman Gerardus ‘t Hooft, winner of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Surrealist experience
1 – The box where the hypothetical Schrödinger experiment would be carried out contains a container with radioactive material and a Geiger counter, a radiation detector device. If this material releases radioactive particles, the counter senses its presence and triggers a hammer, which, in turn, breaks a vial of poison.
2 – According to the laws of quantum physics, radioactivity can manifest itself in the form of waves or particles – and a particle can be in two places at the same time! The white waves drawn here represent the probabilities of this double reality occurring, when, in the same fraction of a second, the vial of poison breaks and does not break.
3a – Here the cat appears alive, because, in this version of reality, nothing was detected by the Geiger counter.
3b – Here the cat appears dead, because in this other version of the same instant of time the Geiger counter detected a particle and activated the hammer. The poison in the broken vial killed the cat.
4 – Following Schrödinger’s reasoning, the two realities would happen simultaneously and the cat would be alive and dead at the same time until the box was opened. The presence of a beholder would end duality and he could only see either a live cat or a dead cat.
the owner of the idea
Austrian physicist wins Nobel Prize
Erwin Schrödinger was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1887, and became one of the scientists who most contributed to the development of quantum mechanics.
His controversial hypothesis of the simultaneously alive and dead cat was launched in 1935, two years after he won the Nobel Prize in Physics. Schrödinger died in 1961.