this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] AppleTea@lemmy.zip 35 points 8 months ago (5 children)

The point of the thought experiment is that a cat that is both alive and dead is absurd and clearly not what actually is happening. Schrödinger intended it to demonstrate that quantum mechanics was not a complete description of the universe, we're still missing something(s).

[–] BussyCat@lemmy.world 18 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Thank you, schrödingers cat is one of those things that a bunch of people have heard of but it seems nobody actually understands

[–] knatschus@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It's quantum science, yeah nobody actually understands it and schrödinger was one of first to publicly state that and while doing so helped people getting to understand what scientists have found out about the weird stuff that's going on the quantum level

[–] BussyCat@lemmy.world 6 points 8 months ago

Did it actually help people understand it?

In my experience most laymen’s explanation involve knowledge of the word superposition but not any clarity on what it is and they treat the cat in the box as a real cat

Every once in a while someone seems to understand it but that seem mostly limited to people who had to take a class on quantum/ statistical mechanics

[–] webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That may have been his intention but the many worlds interpretation is still a valid theory considered by equally professional scientists.

Personally i think when we are dealing with proper unknowns its best to not make any assumptions of what is normal/absurd at all. Some answers may literally beyond our comprehension.

[–] AppleTea@lemmy.zip 9 points 8 months ago

Some answers may literally beyond our comprehension.

Sure that may definitely be the case. But in practice, that means we should be exhausting the comprehensible possibilities first. Many Worlds is an explanation of last resort.

[–] determinism2@hexbear.net 5 points 8 months ago

This is an insane thing to write below clear photographic evidence to the contrary.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

no a poison box is a quantum cat duplicator and we have found a way to let our beloved deceased kitties live again

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 8 months ago

Yeah, but it also duplicates the cat owners, so there's one whose cat has died and a different one whose cat still lives.

[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 1 points 8 months ago

Oh good, I thought there was a cat inside every electron!