Check out this answer from Consensus:
While Schrödinger’s cat remains a thought experiment, its principles have been explored through various quantum systems. These experiments help us understand the counterintuitive nature of quantum mechanics and pave the way for advancements in quantum technology. The ethical implications of using a real cat ensure that Schrödinger’s feline remains a purely theoretical construct, sparing any real-life cats from such a fate.
Schrödinger’s cat is one of the most famous thought experiments in quantum mechanics, proposed by Erwin Schrödinger in 1935. It illustrates the concept of superposition, where a cat in a sealed box can be simultaneously alive and dead, depending on an earlier random event. This paradox challenges our understanding of reality and the nature of quantum mechanics. But has anyone ever attempted to perform this experiment in real life?
Theoretical Foundations
Schrödinger’s cat was designed as a thought experiment to highlight the peculiarities of quantum mechanics. The cat’s fate is linked to a quantum event, such as the decay of a radioactive atom, which is inherently probabilistic. The cat remains in a superposition of states—both alive and dead—until an observer opens the box and collapses the wave function, forcing the system into one of the two possible states1.
Practical Attempts and Analogies
While no one has ever conducted the experiment with a real cat due to ethical and practical reasons, scientists have created analogous experiments using quantum systems. For instance, researchers have generated optical Schrödinger cat states using light pulses. These states are quantum superpositions of well-separated quasi-classical states, analogous to the cat being both dead and alive. Such experiments are crucial for testing quantum theory and have applications in quantum information processing2.
Another study demonstrated the creation of flying multipartite Schrödinger’s cat states by reflecting coherent-state photons from a microwave cavity containing a superconducting qubit. This experiment confirmed the existence of quantum entanglement among multiple photonic modes, providing a scalable approach for quantum metrology and information processing4.
Conceptual Variations
Some researchers have explored variations of the original thought experiment. One study proposed an alteration where the lack of radioactive decay, rather than its occurrence, leads to the cat’s demise. This variation emphasizes the role of negative measurements, where no physical interaction occurs between the measuring apparatus and the system, yet information is still obtained3.