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A Formal Statement of Schrödinger's Cat Paradox

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

James H. McGrath
James H. McGrath*
Affiliation:
Indiana University at South Bend
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Extract

Schrödinger's argument about a “cat penned up in a steel chamber” is a timely challenge to those concerned with the philosophy of quantum theory; the argument prompts difficult decisions about correlated quantum mechanical systems, locality, reality and completeness. Here Schrödinger's own text is reproduced and, in view of the text, several plausible axioms and formal rules are chosen. Then, beginning with the axioms and using the rules, a contradiction is derived. This result establishes that Schrödinger's argument can be viewed as a paradox, a derivation of a contradiction from plausible assumptions. A final section of the paper refines the paradox and treats two possible resolutions as representative of a watershed issue in the foundations of quantum mechanics.

Comments concerning the method of formalization were provided when I applied the method to the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen argument (1978).

Type
Part IX. The Cat Paradox and Quantum Logic
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1980 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1980 , 1980 , pp. 250 - 263
Copyright
Copyright © 1980 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

1

In its earliest stages, this paper was encouraged by Bas C. van Fraassen and Roger T. Simonds and financial support was contributed by the Borden P. Bowne Foundation. Later, discussions with John D. Trimmer, Arthur Fine and Lonnie van Zandt influenced the course of research. Versions were read at physics colloquia at Purdue University and at the University of Notre Dame. For all this support it is a pleasure to acknowledge gratitude.

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