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Schrödinger's cat Syllabification: Schrö·ding·er's cat
Pronunciation: /ˌSHrōdiNGərz ˈkat/ /ˌSHrā-/

Definition of Schrödinger's cat in English:


A cat imagined as being enclosed in a box with a radioactive source and a poison that will be released when the source (unpredictably) emits radiation, the cat being considered (according to quantum mechanics) to be simultaneously both dead and alive until the box is opened and the cat observed: the talk promises to demystify all the secrets of quantum physics, including Schrödinger’s cat, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, and parallel universes

The concept was described by Erwin Schrödinger in 1935. He conceived of it as a thought experiment to illustrate (or ridicule) a theory, associated with Niels Bohr, according to which the quantum state of a particle could not be known until an observation was made; prior to that it had to be described physically in terms of all possible states

More example sentences
  • A first example of the alleged strangeness that comes with quantum mechanics is provided by the mystery of Schrödinger's cat.
  • Have ANY of you come up with your own solutions to Schrödinger's cat?
  • Schrodinger's cat is an icon of modern physics - but what is it exactly?

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