The 'Schrödinger's cat' thought experiment was created to illustrate the principles of quantum mechanics. Schrödinger proposed a box containing a cat, a radioactive atom, and a radiation detector. If the atom decays, the detector triggers the release of cyanide gas, killing the cat. If not, the cat remains alive.
The experiment is designed to demonstrate the concept of entanglement, where the states of two or more particles are connected. In this case, the cat and detector are entangled, meaning their states are dependent on each other. According to quantum mechanics, the atom is in a superposition of states – both decayed and not decayed at the same time.
This thought experiment highlights the strange implications of quantum mechanics, where particles can exist in multiple states simultaneously. The wave function of the system is in a superposition of states, and it's only when we make a measurement that the wave function collapses, and the cat becomes either dead or alive.
