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Reimagining of Schrodinger's Cat Breaks Quantum Mechanics -- and Stumps Physicists (nature.com)
In a multi-'cat' experiment, the textbook interpretation of quantum theory seems to lead to contradictory pictures of reality, physicists claim. New submitter Lanodonal shares a report: In the world's most famous thought experiment, physicist Erwin Schrodinger described how a cat in a box could be in an uncertain predicament. The peculiar rules of quantum theory meant that it could be both dead and alive, until the box was opened and the cat's state measured. Now, two physicists have devised a modern version of the paradox by replacing the cat with a physicist doing experiments -- with shocking implications.
Quantum theory has a long history of thought experiments, and in most cases these are used to point to weaknesses in various interpretations of quantum mechanics. But the latest version, which involves multiple players, is unusual: it shows that if the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct, then different experimenters can reach opposite conclusions about what the physicist in the box has measured. This means that quantum theory contradicts itself.
The conceptual experiment has been debated with gusto in physics circles for more than two years -- and has left most researchers stumped, even in a field accustomed to weird concepts. "I think this is a whole new level of weirdness," says Matthew Leifer, a theoretical physicist at Chapman University in Orange, California. The authors, Daniela Frauchiger and Renato Renner of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, posted their first version of the argument online in April 2016. The final paper [PDF] appears in Nature Communications on 18 September.
Quantum theory has a long history of thought experiments, and in most cases these are used to point to weaknesses in various interpretations of quantum mechanics. But the latest version, which involves multiple players, is unusual: it shows that if the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct, then different experimenters can reach opposite conclusions about what the physicist in the box has measured. This means that quantum theory contradicts itself.
The conceptual experiment has been debated with gusto in physics circles for more than two years -- and has left most researchers stumped, even in a field accustomed to weird concepts. "I think this is a whole new level of weirdness," says Matthew Leifer, a theoretical physicist at Chapman University in Orange, California. The authors, Daniela Frauchiger and Renato Renner of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, posted their first version of the argument online in April 2016. The final paper [PDF] appears in Nature Communications on 18 September.
The whole point of Schrodinger's cat experiment was to show that trying to apply certain quantum physics theories to reality resulted in absurd results.
To him (and Einstein), it was obvious that the cat could not be both alive and dead, and therefore the people pushing the superposition theory were obviously wrong.
It's a shame that his thought experiment has been taken to mean the exact opposite of what he was originally talking about.
"Conscious observer" has nothing to do with it. The Geiger counter rigged to the poison is the observer that collapses the wave state.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
You are correct.
And, by "measurement," we don't mean "humans looking at it."
The "measurement problem" was settled long ago in that there are a shit load of "measuring devices."
When a quantum interacts with anything , that's a measurement.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.