Is Schrödinger's Cat Alive?

Abstract

Erwin Schrödinger is famous for presenting his wave equation of motion that jump-started quantum mechanics. His disenchantment with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics led him to unveil the Schrödinger's cat paradox, which did not get much attention for nearly half a century. In the meantime, disappointment with quantum mechanics turned his interest to biology facilitating, albeit in a peripheral way, the revelation of the structure of DNA. Interest in Schrödinger's cat has recently come roaring back making its appearance conspicuously in numerous scientific articles. From the arguments presented here, it would appear that the legendary Schrödinger's cat is here to stay, symbolizing a profound truth that quantum reality exists at all scales; but we do not observe it in our daily macroscopic world as it is masked for all practical purposes, most likely by environmental decoherence with irreversible thermal effects.Quanta 2017; 6: 70–80.

Can Decoherence Solve the Measurement Problem?

“…Most significantly, deriving the wave function of a non-relativistic quantum mechanics from the fundamental reality accessible to us so far by the standard model of particle physics and utilized by the author in a series of publications [42,[58][59][60], illustrate quantum mechanics could be considered weird no more. We must recognize that there are two distinct parts of reality, the quantum and the classical with their characteristic rules, but one transitioning to the other.…”

How Dirac's Seminal Contributions Pave the Way for Comprehending Nature's Deeper Designs

“…On the basis of those characteristics of the wave function that represent a quantum particle, the mysterious uncertainty principle of quantum physics can now be understood as a perfectly natural incidence. The Fourier transform correlations between conjugate variable pairs of any wave packet have powerful consequences since these variables obey the uncertainty relation ∆x∆k ≥ 1 2 (35) where∆x and ∆k relate to the standard deviations σ x and σ k of the wave packet. This is a completely general property of a wave packet with a reality of its own and is in fact inherent in the properties of all wave-like systems.…”

“…Following is a consolidated account of resolutions of the perplexities of quantum mechanics, some of which has been presented in parts by the author in previous publications [34][35][36]. For simplicity, here we will be dealing solely with a single quantum particle, a multi particle extension of which is under preparation and will be presented later.…”

How Do the Probabilities Arise in Quantum Measurement?

“…Because in order to conduct the experiment, it would be necessary to remove all sources of environmental disturbances exposing the cat to exceptionally low temperatures and high vacuum that would stop the metabolic processes for its survival. Further examples of coherence of superposition in large quantum objects have been presented by Bhaumik [3].…”