Wednesday Wisdom

WHO

Erwin Schrödinger was an Austrian physicist who was born on August 12, 1887, in Vienna, Austria-Hungary (now Austria), and died on January 4, 1961, in Vienna, Austria. He is known for his contributions to the development of quantum mechanics, particularly his formulation of the wave equation, which describes the behavior of subatomic particles.

Schrödinger studied physics and mathematics at the University of Vienna and later taught at several universities, including the University of Zurich, the University of Berlin, and the University of Oxford. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933, along with British physicist Paul Dirac, for his work on wave mechanics. In addition to his contributions to quantum mechanics, Schrödinger made significant contributions to other areas of physics, including thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. He also wrote several popular science books, including "What is Life?" in which he explored the relationship between physics and biology, bringing Metaphysics into the 20th century.

In 1927 he attended the Copenhagen meeting, also known as the Solvay Conferences on Physics, which was a historic gathering of some of the world's leading physicists in Copenhagen, Denmark. The conference was named after the Solvay Institute of Brussels, which organized the event. If physics were an Olympic sport, this would have been the dream team as it later produced 29 Nobel laureates. The conference was focused on the emerging field of quantum mechanics, and the published results revolutionized our understanding of the behavior of atoms and subatomic particles.

What he produced

"Schrödinger's cat" is a thought experiment in quantum mechanics proposed by the Austrian physicist in 1935. The experiment involves a hypothetical scenario in which a cat is placed in a sealed box along with a radioactive substance and a Geiger counter. The radioactive substance has a 50/50 chance of decaying within a specific time frame, and if it does, the Geiger counter will detect the decay and trigger a mechanism that releases poison, killing the cat.

This thought experiment was in response to Neil Bohr and Einsteins' preposition on quantum physics, called the Copenhagen which sought to explain how atoms rested in a state neither spinning one way or another until observed. Schrödinger, finding this counterintuitive and bizarre, made this analogy as a point on how classical physics and quantum physics differed in their laws. According to the principles of quantum mechanics, until the box is opened and observed, the atoms and particles are in a superposition of states, both "alive and dead" at the same time. It is only when the box is opened and observed that the cat's state collapses into either alive or dead. In quantum physics, this state is called superposition which is the principle that a system can exist in multiple states or configurations simultaneously. This means that the state of a system is not fixed until it is observed or measured. Superposition is a fundamental concept in quantum mechanics and has important implications for our understanding of the nature of reality.

One of the key implications of superposition is that particles, such as electrons or photons, can exist in multiple states or locations at once. For example, an electron can exist in a superposition of multiple energy levels in an atom, or a photon can exist in a superposition of multiple polarization states.

The principle of superposition tells us that reality may be more complex and uncertain than we initially thought and that our understanding of the physical world may be incomplete. It challenges our assumptions about *causality and **determinism and raises essential questions about the nature of measurement, observation, and reality.

In 380 BC, Plato questioned perception versus reality with his Cave Analogy in his book The Republic. In Plato's cave analogy, prisoners are chained to a wall in a cave and can only see shadows cast by objects passing in front of a fire. They believe these shadows to be a reality, but in fact, they are only a distorted representation of reality. Plato's cave analogy suggests that our perceptions of the world may be limited or distorted by our senses and that there may be a deeper reality beyond what we can directly perceive. This raises the possibility that there may be dimensions or aspects of reality beyond our current understanding or perception. 

Similarly, Schrödinger's cat analogy suggests that our understanding of reality may be incomplete or uncertain and that observation may play a crucial role in shaping our perceptions. The experiment highlights that reality may exist in a superposition state, with multiple possibilities existing simultaneously until an observation is made.

2023 Why do we care?

Schrödinger's cat has become a popular cultural reference and is often used as a metaphor for situations in which the outcome is uncertain until it is observed or measured. This is also a great example of how science and philosophy work in tandem to find logical explanations for the complex problems of the world.

The purpose of Schrödinger's thought experiment was to illustrate the bizarre and counterintuitive nature of quantum mechanics and to challenge any simple interpretation of quantum mechanics, which suggests that particles exist in all possible states until they are observed. Is it our perception or reality until it is observed? Maybe the most enduring first principle of Schroeder's Cat analogy is that he took Plato's analogy of observed classical Newtonian physics and brought the philosophical argument to the sub-atomic or quantum physic world.

So is the future determined by everything that has happened in the past or is the future influenced by the events of the past? Or does our perception change our reality? The deeper epistemological conclusion may be that like Schroeder's cat, we are in superposition at any given moment or that our reality doesn't exist without the observation of those around us.

*Causality refers to the idea that an event is caused by preceding events or conditions. For example, if a glass falls off a table and shatters, the cause of the shattering is the glass falling off the table.

**Determinism is the idea that all events are determined by prior causes, and that the future is completely determined by the past. This suggests that if we knew all the relevant causes and conditions of an event, we could predict with complete accuracy what will happen in the future.

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And now you know...

Philosophy is the art of thinking, the building block of progress that shapes critical thinking across economics, ethics, religion, and science.

METAPHYSICS: Literally, the term metaphysics means ‘beyond the physical.’ Typically, this is the branch that most people think of when they picture philosophy. In metaphysics, the goal is to answer the what and how questions in life. Who are we, and what are time and space?

LOGIC: The study of reasoning. Much like metaphysics, understanding logic helps to understand and appreciate how we perceive the rest of our world. More than that, it provides a foundation for which to build and interpret arguments and analyses.

ETHICS: The study of morality, right and wrong, good and evil. Ethics tackles difficult conversations by adding weight to actions and decisions. Politics takes ethics to a larger scale, applying it to a group (or groups) of people. Political philosophers study political governments, laws, justice, authority, rights, liberty, ethics, and much more.

AESTHETICS: What is beautiful? Philosophers try to understand, qualify, and quantify what makes art what it is. Aesthetics also takes a deeper look at the artwork itself, trying to understand the meaning behind it, both art as a whole and art on an individual level. A question an aesthetics philosopher would seek to address is whether or not beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder.

EPISTEMOLOGY: This is the study and understanding of knowledge. The main question is how do we know? We can question the limitations of logic, how comprehension works, and the ability (or perception) to be certain.