At the heart of the quantum measurement problem is a profound misunderstanding of the subject-object relationship. A closer look at Fritz London and Edmond Bauer's work on the problem reveals Edmund Husserl's phenomenology at play. Recognising this provides a new way to explain the fate of Schrödinger's cat, writes Steven French.
Of all the mysteries associated with quantum physics, from entanglement to the Uncertainty Principle, perhaps the most fundamental is the so-called ‘measurement problem’. A striking way of seeing what’s at stake is by means of the infamous ‘Schrödinger's Cat’ thought experiment: inside a box is placed a cat and a sample of radioactive material, together with a Geiger counter connected to a device that, if triggered, will kill the cat (if you’re uncomfortable with the set-up, think of putting Schrödinger in the box).
According to quantum theory the state of this arrangement should be described as a superposition of sample-doesn’t-decay-geiger-counter-doesn’t-trigger-cat-alive and sample-decays-geiger-counter-triggers-cat-dead. However, when we open the box, we invariably observe either an alive or a dead cat. How may we account for this transition from the superposition to the definite state of either cat-alive or cat-dead?
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