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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment, usually described as a paradox, devised by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935. It illustrates what he saw as absurdities in the views that other physicists had about quantum mechanics (ideas later labeled the Copenhagen interpretation), by applying them not to microscopic objects but to everyday ones. The thought experiment presents a cat that might be alive or dead, depending on an earlier random event. In the course of developing this experiment, he coined the term Verschränkung (entanglement).[1]
According to historian of science Robert P. Crease, Schrödinger's thought experiment did not become widely known until the 1970s. In 1972 Ursula K. Le Guin learned about it while reading about quantum mechanics for her novel The Dispossessed; Crease credits her 1974 short story "Schrödinger's Cat" with bringing the concept into popular culture.[2] Other science-fiction writers soon picked it up, often using it in a humorous vein.[3] Works of fiction have employed Schrödinger's thought experiment as plot device and as metaphor, in genres from apocalyptic science fiction to young-adult drama, making the cat more prominent in popular culture than in physics itself.[4][5][6][7]
Schrödinger's cat has been a motive in many science fiction works, and used as a title of a number of them, including Greg Bear's "Schrödinger's Plague" (Analog, 29 March 1982), George Alec Effinger's "Schrödinger's Kitten" (Omni, September 1988), F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre's "Schrödinger's Cat-Sitter" (Analog, July/August 2001), Rudy Rucker's "Schrödinger's Cat" (Analog, 30 March 1981), and Robert Anton Wilson's Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy (1988), illustrating various interpretations of quantum physics.[8][9] In addition to novels and short stories, Schrödinger's cat has appeared in film,[10][11][12] poetry[13][14] theatre,[15][16] live-action television,[17] cartoons,[18][19][20] music,[21] and webcomics.[4]
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