Fun Video: Schrodinger's Cat Explained

Schrödinger's cat is a famous illustration of the superposition principle in quantum theory, proposed by Erwin Schrödinger in 1935. As the video explains, the cat is both dead and alive, in what is called a superposition of states.

The cat illustrates a quantum wave function, which expresses all motion in the form of a series of probabilities. Until we open the box, there is a 50 percent chance the cat is alive and an equal chance it is dead. Until we look, those probabilities exist equally, and so the cat is in two states at the same time. Schrödinger's cat serves to demonstrate the apparent conflict between what quantum theory says is true and what we observe to be true. This theory is one of the stickiest areas of quantum physics and Schrödinger himself is rumored to have said, later in life, that he wished he had never met that cat.

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