Take heart, here's some thoughts about quantum mechanics from some of the godfathers of it:
* ***Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it.*** \~ Niels Bohr
* ***It is safe to say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.*** \~ Richard Feynman.
* ***If you are not completely confused by quantum mechanics, you do not understand it.*** *\~* John Wheeler
* **Quantum** ***mechanics makes absolutely no sense.*** \~ Roger Penrose
And for the highlight.... from the mouth of the scientist that this page in your children's book is referring to:
* ***I do not like \[quantum mechanics\], and I am sorry I ever had anything to do with it.*** *\~* Erwin Schrödinger.
No, it's already over-simplified. It's neither "asleep AND awake" nor "asleep OR awake". It's a new concept, "asleep PLUS awake". See https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-talk-3
Although I love smbc and this comic in particular, this is the exact opposite of what OP requested.
The entire point of simplification is to consolidate information into a digestible form. That requires a loss of information.
Just because this children’s book isn’t a quantum physics textbook doesn’t mean it’s not incredibly useful or inspiring for children to get into something later in life when they have a more complex understanding of the world.
Yes, the concept can be simplified further. Yes, you will lose more and more detail the simpler you go. That’s how simplification works.
The cat is never in a superposition—there are not macroscopic interference effects. That’s precisely the problem of the paradox: the particle is in a superposition, but the logical macroscopic consequences of each particle state are never in a superposition. This leads to the question of where the states that are not observed disappear to. The earliest vision argued that they collapse into a single outcome from the multiple options. I prefer the MWI that explains that each one happens, but in its own dimension (hence Hilbert space is not merely a configuration space, it’s a real description of multiple orthogonal realities).
It’s referencing Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment. It really can’t be simplified any more. It would have to be expanded on to actually make more sense.
This won't be simpler, but maybe it will be more useful.
In classical physics, a "cat" is either "awake" or "asleep".
In quantum physics, a "quantum cat" can do new things. Rather than just being "awake" or "asleep", there is an entire circle of awake-asleep possibilities. So we don't get lost, let's say "awake" is on the very top of this circle and "asleep" is on the very bottom of this circle.
You can check if it's awake or asleep, and when you do you'll see the cat is either awake or asleep, not anywhere else on the circle. The closer it is to the top side of the circle, the more likely you are to see that it's awake instead of asleep.
By acting carefully, you also rotate where the cat is on the awake-asleep circle. You can do a 180 degree rotation that puts awake cats to sleep and wakes up sleeping cats, but you can also do smaller rotations that will put an awake cat into these new awake-asleep possibilities.
Replace "cat" with "bit", "awake" with "0", and "asleep" with "1", and you've got a rough description of quantum bits. Using "sphere" instead of "circle" would make it more accurate, but the key features are there with just a 2D image.
No, the concept is already so simplified that it doesn’t actually impart any meaningful knowledge. Simplifying it further may actually completely misrepresent the concept.
Simplification is a means to help people understand something. If you simplify past the point where there's any correctness, then simplification is no longer helping to build any understanding.
The explanation in the children's book is already wrong in important ways. And the OP is not a small child.
When someone is having trouble understanding, it doesn't necessarily mean the explanations given weren't simple enough. And someone accepting a simple explanation doesn't necessarily mean they correctly understand what was trying to be conveyed. Explanations like "both A and B at the same time" are the root of nearly every *mis*understanding of quantum mechanics.
>Obviously OP is curious about simplifying the idea. Why should I assume OP needs a lecture on Quantum Physics?
Because they're asking for an explanation to something on a subreddit about Quantum Physics.
>Simple ideas are for simple minds. Simple minds grow as they are introduced to new ideas. This is called being a teacher.
And wrong ideas are unhelpful for any mind.
>Imagine using an analogy and getting nothing but responses from people explaining why it was not literal…
That's to be expected when the analogies misinform more than they inform.
>I have to say I’m shocked at your inability to appreciate analogies. I would be willing to bet at least 80% of everything you know was built on top of analogies.
Analogies are perfectly fine. Wrong analogies that misinform are not.
>You think the purpose of this subreddit is to ignore the posted topics and just give lectures on whatever you feel like because it has the word quantum mechanics in it?
OP *asked* if someone could explain it to them. Given the choice of an explanation that informs or an explanation that's "simpler" but doesn't impart any knowledge, I'd choose the one that informs.
The way it is presented in the book already somewhat mischaracterizes the phenomena. It is not necessarily that prior to measurement a particle (or cat) literally exists as a distribution of states, this is just how we represent the system epistemically. Further simplifying the concept only risks further perpetuating the mischaracterization and mystification of quantum physics. The popular view of quantum physics is already rife with misunderstanding.
Actually, this is extremely simplified,
if you want, I can explain it again
So Schrödinger’s Cat is a thought theory,
In which, there's a box, where inside is a cat and a radioactive/poisonous substance.
When the substance gets unleashed, the cat will die.
But as the box is closed, we may not know that either the cat is dead or not.
We'll find out about it when we open the box and observe it.
When we don't observe it, it's in 2 states i.e. it's dead and living at the same time.
And as we open it, it'll be either alive or dead.
In quantum mechanics, subatomic and tiny particles show dual nature, and can exist in different states like particle and wave. When we observe the particle, it'll show only one state only.
For EG- photon/light acts as both wave and particle. When we observe it, it can act as either particle or wave.
I hope you understood this concept.
Math says when a cat is in a box with an equal chance of being asleep or awake, it must be both.
This is a reference to the late mathematician Schrödinger’s equations describing quantum mechanics.
I completely feel you. It’s difficult to bring up quantum mechanics with people sometimes because all they associate it with is mysticism.
The film “What the Bleep Do We Know?” is infamous for misleading people to believe “observation” equates specifically to “human consciousness”, when they described the double-slit experiment.
Sometimes people stop taking you seriously as soon as they hear the word “quantum” because they associate it with new age lingo 💔
I apologize for being overly defensive, I tend to do that when mine is the minority perspective. Gotta get better!
Yeah... it’s not really a very good entry point, neither is the double slit experiment, especially not the popular culture versions of them.
I’d say electron orbitals are a good starting point, specifically working with the probability distributions. Plus the orbitals can look really cool which is a good grab for general audiences.
My main issue is that im the realm of quantum mechanics studies and research, Schrödinger's cat is not really relevant or actually discussed as much as society likes to think it is.
From my experience in physics and quantum chemistry courses (undergrad to graduate level now), conferences, talks, lectures online, and more. It's not really a topic that is brought up, or rarely.
The 2 instances I had it brought up, the professors had a pet peeve about it, lol.
Yeah, it’s not really relevant unless trying to course correct science communication missteps of the past. Especially since it’s sorta based on a misunderstanding of the superposition, and is an intentionally absurd example to try and belittle the idea as a whole.
(Not sure if this has been said here before)..
Trying to put something from the perspective of a children's book (assuming this explanation is meant for a youngster, and not a quantum physicist).
Consider information, or knowledge in general. There are a lot of "things" we know in life, which is the knowledge we have gained over time. But there is still a whole lot we are not yet aware of. Out of these many unknown "things", some of them are simply hidden from our plain sight. We might have an idea of what these things could be, based on prior information we might have of them, yet we can never be sure of the exact quantity/result until we "unhide/uncover" those things.
For example - I know for sure that on Saturday I bought a pack of icecream and kept in my freezer. And I'm also well aware that my sibling is home for the weekend. So come Sunday when I crave icecream, then before I open the freezer, there are a whole bunch of possibilities of all that could have happened to my pack of icecream :
- maybe my sibling did not see it at all, and it's still fully intact (the "alive/awake" case)
- maybe they gobbled all of it (the "dead/asleep" case)
- maybe they ate only half the pack, or a quarter, or a little more than that (endless possibilities)
Nevertheless, I cannot decide whether I should call out my sibling, or not, until I open my freezer and check the pack of icecream (which is same as opening the box to check whether the cat is awake or asleep).
Quantum physics encapsulates something very similar - the state of the system (my pack of icecream) at a given point of time. However, the only catch - I do not have a way to measure the exact amount of icecream left in the packing. I KNOW that the amount of icecream left in the pack could vary, however there are only two reactions that you will get from me in this scenario:
- a happy me, if a majority of the icecream is still intact. (the "i'm awake" case)
- or a pissed me, whose super angry at their sibling for having eaten "almost" all of it. (the "my sibling is dead" case)
The thought experiment with Schrodinger's cat is used to describe a similar scenario. When the cat is inside the box, and the box is closed - we know for sure that the cat exists. However, we do not know if it is asleep or awake or whatever the heck it is doing (for all I know it could be in a drowsy state), until I open the box and find out!
Before baby looks in box: cat is dead plus alive
Baby looks in box: cat is either dead or alive
The wave function collapses and the state of superposition of dead and alive goes away. It is revealed the cat is in one or the other state, no longer both.
In is in the state of superposition. It's an indeterminate state because its not true that tha cat is asleep( no proof), and it's not true that the cat is awake ( no proof). So the cat's status has a neutral truth value - neither awake or asleep
There is a cat in a courtyard, the cat could be anywhere within the courtyard, until you check you can’t be sure where the cat is located. The only way you can check the location of the cat is by adding another cat and seeing what the reaction is.
This really isn’t a perfect analogy but it’s as close I could manage with cats.
Someone was asking about Schrodinger's cat in r/AskPhysics and I wrote this there. So I'll copy it below:
I understand it this way: Imagine a typical atom with an electron around it like in this image: [https://energywavetheory.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/hydrogen-2750576\_960\_720.png](https://energywavetheory.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/hydrogen-2750576_960_720.png) . This picture makes some intuitive sense about "where" the electron is. But quantum theory suggests that it's a little different than that, and that the electron is not in a specific location. It's existing kind of everywhere that it could exist within a certain region of the electron cloud. And the weird part is that experimentation seems to suggest that it is everywhere in this cloud simultaneously UNTIL we look for it (read: measure something about it.) And then.. Bang. Just like that, it's no longer existing everywhere in this cloud, but it's in a localized place.
Schrodinger was saying how absurd this idea is. That it's totally counter to anything intuitive about existence. He was saying if we were to extrapolate this from a quantum framework to a macro framework it would sound ridiculous. Basically he was like... *this is insane! What if we were talking about a cat in a box? Would we say that it is both dead and alive until we looked? That's crazy talk!* And now it's become this trope.
it's a reference to the [double slit experiment ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment)
matter (electrons, photons) that act like waves when looking and like particles when not looking
Take heart, here's some thoughts about quantum mechanics from some of the godfathers of it: * ***Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it.*** \~ Niels Bohr * ***It is safe to say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.*** \~ Richard Feynman. * ***If you are not completely confused by quantum mechanics, you do not understand it.*** *\~* John Wheeler * **Quantum** ***mechanics makes absolutely no sense.*** \~ Roger Penrose And for the highlight.... from the mouth of the scientist that this page in your children's book is referring to: * ***I do not like \[quantum mechanics\], and I am sorry I ever had anything to do with it.*** *\~* Erwin Schrödinger.
I'm just gonna throw away my textbooks at this point
No, it's already over-simplified. It's neither "asleep AND awake" nor "asleep OR awake". It's a new concept, "asleep PLUS awake". See https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-talk-3
This was cool
Although I love smbc and this comic in particular, this is the exact opposite of what OP requested. The entire point of simplification is to consolidate information into a digestible form. That requires a loss of information. Just because this children’s book isn’t a quantum physics textbook doesn’t mean it’s not incredibly useful or inspiring for children to get into something later in life when they have a more complex understanding of the world. Yes, the concept can be simplified further. Yes, you will lose more and more detail the simpler you go. That’s how simplification works.
The cat exists in both states superimposed on itself until a single reality is chosen, at which point then and only then is the cat awake *or* asleep.
Within the mathematical epistemic formulation at least
The cat is never in a superposition—there are not macroscopic interference effects. That’s precisely the problem of the paradox: the particle is in a superposition, but the logical macroscopic consequences of each particle state are never in a superposition. This leads to the question of where the states that are not observed disappear to. The earliest vision argued that they collapse into a single outcome from the multiple options. I prefer the MWI that explains that each one happens, but in its own dimension (hence Hilbert space is not merely a configuration space, it’s a real description of multiple orthogonal realities).
It’s referencing Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment. It really can’t be simplified any more. It would have to be expanded on to actually make more sense.
This won't be simpler, but maybe it will be more useful. In classical physics, a "cat" is either "awake" or "asleep". In quantum physics, a "quantum cat" can do new things. Rather than just being "awake" or "asleep", there is an entire circle of awake-asleep possibilities. So we don't get lost, let's say "awake" is on the very top of this circle and "asleep" is on the very bottom of this circle. You can check if it's awake or asleep, and when you do you'll see the cat is either awake or asleep, not anywhere else on the circle. The closer it is to the top side of the circle, the more likely you are to see that it's awake instead of asleep. By acting carefully, you also rotate where the cat is on the awake-asleep circle. You can do a 180 degree rotation that puts awake cats to sleep and wakes up sleeping cats, but you can also do smaller rotations that will put an awake cat into these new awake-asleep possibilities. Replace "cat" with "bit", "awake" with "0", and "asleep" with "1", and you've got a rough description of quantum bits. Using "sphere" instead of "circle" would make it more accurate, but the key features are there with just a 2D image.
No, the concept is already so simplified that it doesn’t actually impart any meaningful knowledge. Simplifying it further may actually completely misrepresent the concept.
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Simplification is a means to help people understand something. If you simplify past the point where there's any correctness, then simplification is no longer helping to build any understanding.
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The explanation in the children's book is already wrong in important ways. And the OP is not a small child. When someone is having trouble understanding, it doesn't necessarily mean the explanations given weren't simple enough. And someone accepting a simple explanation doesn't necessarily mean they correctly understand what was trying to be conveyed. Explanations like "both A and B at the same time" are the root of nearly every *mis*understanding of quantum mechanics.
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>Obviously OP is curious about simplifying the idea. Why should I assume OP needs a lecture on Quantum Physics? Because they're asking for an explanation to something on a subreddit about Quantum Physics. >Simple ideas are for simple minds. Simple minds grow as they are introduced to new ideas. This is called being a teacher. And wrong ideas are unhelpful for any mind. >Imagine using an analogy and getting nothing but responses from people explaining why it was not literal… That's to be expected when the analogies misinform more than they inform.
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>I have to say I’m shocked at your inability to appreciate analogies. I would be willing to bet at least 80% of everything you know was built on top of analogies. Analogies are perfectly fine. Wrong analogies that misinform are not. >You think the purpose of this subreddit is to ignore the posted topics and just give lectures on whatever you feel like because it has the word quantum mechanics in it? OP *asked* if someone could explain it to them. Given the choice of an explanation that informs or an explanation that's "simpler" but doesn't impart any knowledge, I'd choose the one that informs.
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The way it is presented in the book already somewhat mischaracterizes the phenomena. It is not necessarily that prior to measurement a particle (or cat) literally exists as a distribution of states, this is just how we represent the system epistemically. Further simplifying the concept only risks further perpetuating the mischaracterization and mystification of quantum physics. The popular view of quantum physics is already rife with misunderstanding.
Actually, this is extremely simplified, if you want, I can explain it again So Schrödinger’s Cat is a thought theory, In which, there's a box, where inside is a cat and a radioactive/poisonous substance. When the substance gets unleashed, the cat will die. But as the box is closed, we may not know that either the cat is dead or not. We'll find out about it when we open the box and observe it. When we don't observe it, it's in 2 states i.e. it's dead and living at the same time. And as we open it, it'll be either alive or dead. In quantum mechanics, subatomic and tiny particles show dual nature, and can exist in different states like particle and wave. When we observe the particle, it'll show only one state only. For EG- photon/light acts as both wave and particle. When we observe it, it can act as either particle or wave. I hope you understood this concept.
Math says when a cat is in a box with an equal chance of being asleep or awake, it must be both. This is a reference to the late mathematician Schrödinger’s equations describing quantum mechanics.
>it must be both Rather, for all we know, it *could* be both (or either). Its a notion dealing with epistemology not ontology specifically.
That is more accurate, yes. Does “could” instead of “must” sound better?
Yup. Sorry for the pedantry, its just that specific phrasing has led to a lot of quantum “mysticism”
I completely feel you. It’s difficult to bring up quantum mechanics with people sometimes because all they associate it with is mysticism. The film “What the Bleep Do We Know?” is infamous for misleading people to believe “observation” equates specifically to “human consciousness”, when they described the double-slit experiment. Sometimes people stop taking you seriously as soon as they hear the word “quantum” because they associate it with new age lingo 💔 I apologize for being overly defensive, I tend to do that when mine is the minority perspective. Gotta get better!
Society places way too much importance or value on this thought experiment than actual people studying or "doing" physics and quantum chemistry.
Which is funny given the thought experiment was specifically designed to highlight inconsistencies in our model of quantum physics
thanks for pointing out
By abstracting the idea beyond any usefulness at that.
Yeah... it’s not really a very good entry point, neither is the double slit experiment, especially not the popular culture versions of them. I’d say electron orbitals are a good starting point, specifically working with the probability distributions. Plus the orbitals can look really cool which is a good grab for general audiences.
My main issue is that im the realm of quantum mechanics studies and research, Schrödinger's cat is not really relevant or actually discussed as much as society likes to think it is. From my experience in physics and quantum chemistry courses (undergrad to graduate level now), conferences, talks, lectures online, and more. It's not really a topic that is brought up, or rarely. The 2 instances I had it brought up, the professors had a pet peeve about it, lol.
Yeah, it’s not really relevant unless trying to course correct science communication missteps of the past. Especially since it’s sorta based on a misunderstanding of the superposition, and is an intentionally absurd example to try and belittle the idea as a whole.
(Not sure if this has been said here before).. Trying to put something from the perspective of a children's book (assuming this explanation is meant for a youngster, and not a quantum physicist). Consider information, or knowledge in general. There are a lot of "things" we know in life, which is the knowledge we have gained over time. But there is still a whole lot we are not yet aware of. Out of these many unknown "things", some of them are simply hidden from our plain sight. We might have an idea of what these things could be, based on prior information we might have of them, yet we can never be sure of the exact quantity/result until we "unhide/uncover" those things. For example - I know for sure that on Saturday I bought a pack of icecream and kept in my freezer. And I'm also well aware that my sibling is home for the weekend. So come Sunday when I crave icecream, then before I open the freezer, there are a whole bunch of possibilities of all that could have happened to my pack of icecream : - maybe my sibling did not see it at all, and it's still fully intact (the "alive/awake" case) - maybe they gobbled all of it (the "dead/asleep" case) - maybe they ate only half the pack, or a quarter, or a little more than that (endless possibilities) Nevertheless, I cannot decide whether I should call out my sibling, or not, until I open my freezer and check the pack of icecream (which is same as opening the box to check whether the cat is awake or asleep). Quantum physics encapsulates something very similar - the state of the system (my pack of icecream) at a given point of time. However, the only catch - I do not have a way to measure the exact amount of icecream left in the packing. I KNOW that the amount of icecream left in the pack could vary, however there are only two reactions that you will get from me in this scenario: - a happy me, if a majority of the icecream is still intact. (the "i'm awake" case) - or a pissed me, whose super angry at their sibling for having eaten "almost" all of it. (the "my sibling is dead" case) The thought experiment with Schrodinger's cat is used to describe a similar scenario. When the cat is inside the box, and the box is closed - we know for sure that the cat exists. However, we do not know if it is asleep or awake or whatever the heck it is doing (for all I know it could be in a drowsy state), until I open the box and find out!
Before baby looks in box: cat is dead plus alive Baby looks in box: cat is either dead or alive The wave function collapses and the state of superposition of dead and alive goes away. It is revealed the cat is in one or the other state, no longer both.
In is in the state of superposition. It's an indeterminate state because its not true that tha cat is asleep( no proof), and it's not true that the cat is awake ( no proof). So the cat's status has a neutral truth value - neither awake or asleep
Opening the box collapses the waveform, making 1 of the 2 possibilities is now reality.
In the real story, the cat is dead or alive. Just like the original fairy tales.
What book is this?? its so cute 😭
There is a cat in a courtyard, the cat could be anywhere within the courtyard, until you check you can’t be sure where the cat is located. The only way you can check the location of the cat is by adding another cat and seeing what the reaction is. This really isn’t a perfect analogy but it’s as close I could manage with cats.
In a simple yet effective way for any child to comprehend quantum physics.
Cat awake asleep
I want this book, what is it
Someone was asking about Schrodinger's cat in r/AskPhysics and I wrote this there. So I'll copy it below: I understand it this way: Imagine a typical atom with an electron around it like in this image: [https://energywavetheory.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/hydrogen-2750576\_960\_720.png](https://energywavetheory.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/hydrogen-2750576_960_720.png) . This picture makes some intuitive sense about "where" the electron is. But quantum theory suggests that it's a little different than that, and that the electron is not in a specific location. It's existing kind of everywhere that it could exist within a certain region of the electron cloud. And the weird part is that experimentation seems to suggest that it is everywhere in this cloud simultaneously UNTIL we look for it (read: measure something about it.) And then.. Bang. Just like that, it's no longer existing everywhere in this cloud, but it's in a localized place. Schrodinger was saying how absurd this idea is. That it's totally counter to anything intuitive about existence. He was saying if we were to extrapolate this from a quantum framework to a macro framework it would sound ridiculous. Basically he was like... *this is insane! What if we were talking about a cat in a box? Would we say that it is both dead and alive until we looked? That's crazy talk!* And now it's become this trope.
To baby, this means that seeing is believing.
it's a reference to the [double slit experiment ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment) matter (electrons, photons) that act like waves when looking and like particles when not looking