Schrodinger's cat.... A quantum puzzle.

“Consciousness is a singular of which the plural is unknown; that there is only one thing and that what seems to be a plurality is merely a series of different aspects of this one thing, produced by a deception...”

No, these are not words of a mystic or a religious evangelist, but voiced and penned by one of the finest scientific brains, humanitarian, scrupulously honest and unbiased thinker; and in many ways, the father of Quantum physics - Erwin Schrodinger. Pure objective science is a curious Human endeavor. One starts out as an outright materialist, with all the doubts and suspicions of a scatological atheist; and after a while, if the scientist is sincere and interprets the results of his pursuit without a priori conclusions or assumptions – then it seems to inevitably lead the investigator towards an “inner self”, which gains more importance and validity in his pursuit that the initial quest or drive of discovering something fundamental and immutable in the world outside.. Einstein, Goddard, Eddington, Pauli, Oppenheimer, Planck- the list is endless; all of them after years of meticulous study of “objective” substratum of the world have come face to face with a void, a kind of wall of inner subjectivity that somehow escapes the net of experimentation and discovery, leaving them in a curious state of indecision. They knew deep down that they have hit upon something deeply profound and significant, and in acknowledging its presence, may have let go years and centuries of presumptions and hypotheses that have been the mainstay of physical sciences.. The inner world was revealing a completely new dimension of reality inseparable from consciousness that comprehends it; of which mystics have been silently whispering throughout the ages.

Schrödinger then, was a Quantum physicist, who lived in most exciting times of science in the last century, and one of the key scientists who participated in this tremendous adventure of understanding the atom. Like many of his peers, he too encountered the fundamental difficulty of placing the sub-atomic world within the boundaries of classical science. He realized that the basic premise of Newtonian universe was found foundering in the deep presence of atomic world. Its steadfast laws were no more applicable to the minute particles of energy that made up “solid” world that we know and perceive. For a honest scientist, this was a great moment of truth, an enigma – and to understand this microscopic universe a new vision was required; cleansed of all acquired prejudices - and that vision must necessarily include the “Observer”, which for so long was deliberately kept off scientific explanations, or taken for granted as something standing outside the sphere of scientific experiments.

The startling fact was that the only certainty exposed by the quantum world was its absolute uncertainty. As one looked deeper, the less probable was it becoming to posit anything there with precision. All that was happening inside were based on probabilities, or coincidences. Also the other paradoxical question that confronted scientists was: Whether the microscopic world were constituted of particles that could be located in space and time, or was it just a wave that propagated itself through undifferentiated space transforming itself on conditions instigating state changes. These were becoming the central enigmas to be resolved. And eminent scientists like Bohr and Einstein (particularly Einstein), were clearly uncomfortable and deeply bothered by the consequences of this impasse. Not only was the substratum of material world breaking down into states of probabilities, but it was becoming increasingly clear to them, that behavior at the sub atomic level was greatly influenced by the “subject” observing it. The solid “out there” world of physical science was began to melt into something “in here”. It was an itchy moment. After three hundred of classical physics and western insistence on Man against nature, here was a seminal point, which if, accepted or proved, would be a paradigm shift and revision in our understanding of reality, and a complete break from the past in so far as Newtonian physics was concerned. It needed a completely honest, intellectually towering scientist to make that leap and proclaim his allegiance to a new order of understanding - And Schrodinger was the Man who had the gumption to do it, and demonstrated the nature of ambiguity with an ingenious “thought experiment”..

Schrodinger hit upon a novel way of exhibiting this paradox to the scientific community. He developed a Zen like puzzle (popularly known as Schrodinger’s cat) that would make clear the ambiguity presented in sub-atomic universe. Here is how it goes: Imagine a cat in a sealed container with a radioactive substance and vial of lethal poison inside. The state of the cat - whether it is alive or dead in unknown to an observer. The experiment is set is such a way that if the radioactive substance disintegrates, then the vial of poison would break instantly killing the cat. But it is not possible to predict with any certainty whether such radioactive process will take place or not. We leave the sealed container in this state of limbo for one hour. During this time the cat is an alive/dead state - we don’t know its “real” state. After the expiry of an hour we open the lid and then witness the state of the cat. In other words, only when we observe the cat, does the state of it collapse into either living or dead; until then it inherently possessed the possibility of both the states. The very act of observation collapsed probabilities into a single outcome. Similarly, in the subatomic world, the state of its particles begin to realize themselves only when it is observed under conditions of experimentation, and does not have any independent existence of its own.

You have to mull over this to realize and understand the analogy that Schrodinger wished to bring out. In the world of Descartes and Newton, it would have been possible to state with certainty whether the cat is alive or dead, because there no probabilities to contend with and the word “solid” meant something immutable and out there waiting for us to be perceived. However, this this entire premise completely collapses within the atom.

Schrodinger was deeply convinced that quantum physics could only be understood in the light of Human consciousness and by cutting across blurry lines between subject and the object – which has been the language of Mystics across ages and religions. In 1944, he gave a series of lectures in Trinity college, Dublin, which was later published a “what is life”. It is perhaps the first attempt by a scientist to explain the fundamentals revelation of the quantum world to a layman. It is a beautiful book and is a must read for all. The quote I reproduced in the beginning of this essay was from this book, and in my opinion demonstrates a paradigm shift in scientific thinking; and in many ways, a deep reconciliation between science and religion as well…

God bless….