Erwin Schrodinger (1887-1961) was an Austrian-Irish physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933 for his formulation of the Schrodinger equation, the fundamental equation of quantum mechanics. He is best known to the public for Schrodinger's cat, a thought experiment illustrating the paradoxes of quantum superposition. He also wrote the influential book What Is Life? (1944), which inspired Watson and Crick's discovery of DNA.

What Is the Schrodinger Equation?

The Schrodinger equation describes how the quantum state of a physical system changes over time. It is the quantum mechanical equivalent of Newton's second law of motion. The equation uses wave functions to describe the probability of finding a particle in a particular state. It is the foundational equation of quantum mechanics and its solutions describe the behavior of atoms, molecules, and subatomic particles.

What Is Schrodinger's Cat?

Schrodinger's cat is a thought experiment proposed in 1935 to illustrate what Schrodinger saw as the absurdity of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. A cat is placed in a sealed box with a radioactive atom, a Geiger counter, and a vial of poison. If the atom decays, the poison is released and the cat dies. According to quantum mechanics, until the box is opened and observed, the atom exists in a superposition of decayed and not-decayed states, meaning the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. Schrodinger intended this as a critique, not a description of reality.

What Is What Is Life?

What Is Life? (1944) is a book in which Schrodinger applied physics to biology, proposing that genetic information must be stored in an aperiodic crystal (a molecule with irregular but precise structure). This insight directly influenced James Watson and Francis Crick, who cited the book as inspiration for their discovery of the double helix structure of DNA in 1953.

Can You Talk to Schrodinger?

Erwin Schrodinger is available as an AI companion on HoloDream. The cat is both alive and dead. He intended that as a criticism.