schroedinger’s cat is an intentionally absurd metaphor from when QM dorks were still arguing about spooky action at a distance.
Both the cat, the box, the vial of poison, and the cesium atom itself are all observers as far as a real QM wavefunction would care. But as i understand it, getting any utility out of the idea of real collapsing wave-functions requires treating at least the atom as if it wasn’t, and once we start including atomic scale things we might as well just include everything up to and including the cat.
schroedinger’s cat is an intentionally absurd metaphor from when QM dorks were still arguing about spooky action at a distance.
Both the cat, the box, the vial of poison, and the cesium atom itself are all observers as far as a real QM wavefunction would care. But as i understand it, getting any utility out of the idea of real collapsing wave-functions requires treating at least the atom as if it wasn’t, and once we start including atomic scale things we might as well just include everything up to and including the cat.
also schroedinger was an awful person so having him associated with a terrible metaphor is kind of great