Schrodinger’s Cat
Schrodinger thought superposition states were ridiculous. To be
facetious he suggested the following scenario:
Place a cat in a closed box which has a vial of cyanide which will be
released when a radioactive decay releases a particle (α, β, Γ).
While radioactivity is characterized by a half life one cannot
predict when any specific atom will decay. Thus within the halflife with the box closed we don’t know if the cat is alive or dead.
According to QM the wavefunction of the situation can be written as:
ψ=
1
2
|cat alive>+|cat dead>
According to the Copenhagen interpretation of QM the cat is both
alive and dead but by looking in the box we collapse the superposition
2
1
state to measure the cat to be dead 50% of the time
or alive
2
50% of the time.
The Schrodinger Cat thought experiment which was
offered as a criticism of the Copenhagen interpretation
has prompted a great deal of thought into other
interpretations of QM
As only one example: Many World’s interpretation
Opening the box produces 2 realities: an observer who sees a live cat
and an observer who see a dead cat but the two realities don't
"communicate" with one another. All events lead to a bifurcation leading
to an ever growing number of realities and worlds.
Experiments have been done which probe superposition
states or reveal superposition states.
Bottom line: they can be generated experimentally.