{"id":3713,"date":"2025-12-30T18:14:28","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T17:14:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skolasachu.com\/?p=3713"},"modified":"2025-12-30T18:14:28","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T17:14:28","slug":"lloyds-cat-in-the-box-quantum-paradox-on-the-chessboard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skolasachu.com\/en\/loydova-kocka-v-krabici-kvantovy-paradox-na-sachovnici\/","title":{"rendered":"Loyd's Cat in the Box: a Quantum Paradox on the Chessboard"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Schr\u00f6dinger's world-famous cat in the box, which the brilliant physicist wanted in 1935 to highlight the absurdity of the then interpretation of quantum mechanics, only to achieve the exact opposite, is known to almost every somewhat educated person. Well, let's not play with cats! However, almost no one knows that the king of humorous chess puzzles and problems, Samuel Loyd, created his own demonstration of quantum paradoxes in the form of a three-move chess problem several decades earlier. Of course, it is a joke, although I am not alone in sensing a clear analogy in his task. And besides... it's New Year's Eve, so why not, right? And for those who are not fond of quantum mechanics, the second task by Alexey Troitsky offers a return to the world of simple logic.<\/p>\n

To assess whether Loyd's task has the right to be compared with the famous thought experiment \u201ecat in the box,\u201c it is first necessary to remind readers or introduce them to its basic principles.<\/p>\n

Erwin Schr\u00f6dinger and his Live-Dead Cat<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

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Erwin Schr\u00f6dinger<\/strong> (1887\u20131961) was an Austrian theoretical physicist, one of the founders of quantum mechanics and the author of the famous wave equation, for which he received the Nobel Prize (1933).<\/p>\n

He was an extraordinarily creative man \u2013 both in physics and in his personal life \ud83d\ude42. He had a very warm, open, and what we would now call unconventional relationship with women, which he did not hide, and which went hand in hand with his vitalism. At conferences, he was reportedly often accompanied by a whole suite... let's say of young admirers.<\/p>\n

Intellectually, he was close to Albert Einstein, with whom he shared friendship and extensive correspondence especially in the 1920s and 1930s. Both shared deep admiration for each other and at the same time skepticism towards<\/strong> the then interpretation of quantum mechanics<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Schr\u00f6dinger was convinced that physics should describe reality, not just our knowledge of it \u2013 and it was precisely from this tension between equations and the world that his famous cat in the box was born!<\/p>\n

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Thought Experiment<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Imagine a closed box containing a cat, a radioactive atom, a detector, and a vial of poison. If the atom decays, the detector releases the poison and the cat dies; if not, the cat lives.<\/p>\n

Quantum physics, however, says that until we look, the atom is neither decayed nor undecayed, but somewhat both.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And this is the crux of the matter: according to this logic, the cat would be both alive and dead at the same time. Whether a living creature will peek out at us when we open the box, or we will experience bitter disappointment, is only decided upon opening it!\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

Erwin Schr\u00f6dinger did not invent this scenario because he believed it, but to show how strange the consequences of such an interpretation are. He wanted to say: somewhere between the atom and the cat, something escapes us, something fundamental that we do not yet understand.<\/p>\n

The cat in the box is more of a philosophical provocation than a physical experiment \u2013 AI would write a raised eyebrow of thought about what \u201eobserving reality\u201c actually means. <\/em><\/p>\n

An Unintended Child<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

What bothered Schr\u00f6dinger about quantum mechanics \u2013 and especially its then only accepted interpretation?<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The collapse of the wave function<\/strong>\n