Schrödinger's Cat
A cat sealed in a box, neither alive nor dead until somebody looks. The story was invented to show the idea was absurd.
193514 min read
Austrian theoretical physics
Erwin Schrödinger
1887 – 1961
Viennese physicist who formulated wave mechanics in 1926, giving quantum theory the equation that bears his name, and shared the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics with Paul Dirac. He was never reconciled to the Copenhagen reading of his own equation, and his 1935 cat scenario was written as a criticism of it, not an endorsement. He left Austria after the Anschluss, spent the war years at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, and there wrote "What Is Life?" (1944), which influenced a generation of molecular biologists.
2 entries
The Two Envelopes Problem
One envelope holds twice as much money as the other. The arithmetic says swap — then says swap back, forever.
1953 (Littlewood, crediting Schrödinger), 1989 (envelope form)19 min read