Schrödinger's cat: A thought experiment in quantum mechanics - Chad Orzel
View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/schrodinger-s-cat-a-thought-experiment-in-quantum-mechanics-chad-orzel Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger, one of the founders of quantum mechanics,...
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Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger is one of the founders of quantum mechanics,but he's most famous for something he never actually did:a thought experiment involving a cat.He imagined taking a cat and placing it in a sealed boxwith a device that had a 50% chance of killing the cat in the next hour.At the end of that hour, he asked, "What is the state of the cat?"Common sense suggests that the cat is either alive or dead,but Schrödinger pointed out that according to quantum physics,at the instant before the box is opened, the cat is equal parts alive and dead,at the same time.It's only when the box is opened that we see a single definite state.Until then, the cat is a blur of probability,half one thing and half the other.This...
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Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger is one of the founders of quantum mechanics,but he's most famous for something he never actually did:a thought experiment involving a cat.He imagined taking a cat and placing it in a sealed boxwith a device that had a 50% chance of killing the cat in the next hour.At the end of that hour, he asked, "What is the state of the cat?"Common sense suggests that the cat is either alive or dead,but Schrödinger pointed out that according to quantum physics,at the instant before the box is opened, the cat is equal parts alive and dead,at the same time.It's only when the box is opened that we see a single definite state.Until then, the cat is a blur of probability,half one thing and half the other.This...
