Saving Schrodinger’s Cat

Photo by George Bonev on Unsplash

Is the cat dead or alive? The famous thought experiment that Erwin Schrodinger came up with in 1935 tries to present the quantum mechanics conundrum which he saw regarding the popular Copenhagen interpretation and its application.

According to the illustration, when we put a cat in a cage with a radioactive substance which, if an atom decays, would spring a hammer that would shatter a flask filled with poison, we wouldn’t know whether the cat is alive or not and the only way to find out is for us to open the box and observe for ourselves the state in which the cat exists.

We might even go so far as to use this illustration in a metaphysical sense to say that due to variables beyond our control, in a certain situation, one or more outcomes would be equally likely to occur but the value for such outcome will only be determined once we directly observe it. Now, scientists have conducted an experiment showing that the quantum shifts occurring at the point of observation may not necessarily instantaneous, rather it just happens very quickly, which means that there is a chance for us to save Schrodinger’s cat.

Dr. Zlatko Minev, first author of the research from Yale University, said: “When you open the box – in other words, when you begin your observation – usually in that time [the transition] appears abrupt and instantaneous.” But looking on a shorter timescale, it seems the situation is very different.

In other words, once the box is opened there is a process in which the cat keels over or not, with an early warning sign of when that process kicks off. Crucially it also seems the “jump” can be reversed midway through the transition, meaning Schrödinger’s cat might be brought back from the brink.

Since we’re looking at the experiment from a larger scale, the time during which the quantum shift happens in a moment’s notice however, if we scale it down to the minute quantum realms, the research suggests that the quantum “jump” occurs gradually and appears more like a “glide”. Within that moment researchers say, we can catch the transition midway and even reverse the outcome.

By Jeremiah