Talk:Schrödinger's cat

Copied to Quantum Mind page
The following section was copied to the Quantum Mind page on 4 Feb 2018 by user: wcrea6:

Erwin Schrödinger described how one could, in principle, create entanglement of a large-scale system by making it dependent on an elementary particle in a superposition. He proposed a scenario with a cat in a locked steel chamber, wherein the cat's life or death depended on the state of a radioactive atom, whether it had decayed and emitted radiation or not. According to Schrödinger, the Copenhagen interpretation implies that the cat remains both alive and dead until the state has been observed. Schrödinger did not wish to promote the idea of dead-and-alive cats as a serious possibility; on the contrary, he intended the example to illustrate the absurdity of the existing view of quantum mechanics. However, since Schrödinger's time, other interpretations of the mathematics of quantum mechanics have been advanced by physicists, some of which regard the "alive and dead" cat superposition as quite real.

Is ö part of English Alphabet?
Since this is the English Wikipedia, shouldn't we use "Schroedinger", just like many of the articles linked in the bottom of the page do? Simanos (talk) 13:05, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
 * No. His name was Schrödinger, this is what most references use, and this is what Wikipedia uses in Erwin Schrödinger. Tercer (talk) 13:36, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Obviously, the same applies to his name article. You admit that many references use "Schroedinger". Many articles use "Schrödinger" as a professional courtesy, but they're not encyclopedias. I don't think some other languages use letters from outside of their alphabets. I find it somewhat perplexing that English Wikipedia does this. No need to get defensive about this like you did. I guess you have discussed this in the past and supported the change strongly or something. Simanos (talk) 02:28, 25 December 2022 (UTC)
 * We normally use original spelling: François Mitterrand, Miloš Zeman, Lech Wałęsa, Slobodan Milošević, Nguyễn Phú Trọng, Đinh Thế Huynh, etc. Why should Erwin Schrödinger be treated differently? — kashmīrī  TALK  08:57, 25 December 2022 (UTC)
 * The only reason to use "Schroedinger" is if it's hard to type an "ö". Happily, Wikipedia lacks that technical limitation. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 15:11, 25 December 2022 (UTC)
 * No, not the only reason. Wikipedia has the ability use other languages and alphabets, but this is the English version, and it should use the English alphabet. We don't use Chinese characters for Chinese names, except maybe in a parenthetical. English text should use the English alphabet. And yes, those non-English characters are hard to type. Roger (talk) 19:37, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh, just imagine that Wikipedia doesn't care an awful lot about some random user's willingness to type non-English characters. Because, well, if you want to co-author a global encyclopaedia article about Erwin Schrödinger, then you'll certainly care to have his name spelled in accordance with the MOS:ROMANISATION guideline. Hint: use Ctrl+C Ctrl+V. — kashmīrī  TALK  21:03, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Support using "Schrödinger" --ChetvornoTALK 21:28, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
 * @Roger: Going further by your logics, the French Wikipedia should not contain letters k and w in article titles, because they're non-French characters; or the Czech Wikipedia, the non-Czech letters q, w and x. Yeah, it'll be simply a superb way to build a global encyclopaedia. — kashmīrī  TALK  23:35, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
 * So if I buy a PC keyboard in Paris, will the k and w keys be missing? I doubt it. The French can probably cope with those letters just fine. But it is weird to use foreign characters, especially when there are English alphabet equivalents. I see the WP policy is "The use of diacritics (such as accent marks) for foreign words is neither encouraged nor discouraged". So we have no obligation to use that goofy character. Roger (talk) 22:14, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't know re. gadgets available in Paris. What I know is that in many Windows applications you can hit Ctrl+Shift+: followed by o on a standard English keyboard, and you'll get ö. Anyway, typing convenience is irrelevant as Wikipedia's notation policies are not based on someone's poor typing skills. Maybe editors who are unable to type foreign names correctly should stick to US-focused articles? — kashmīrī  TALK  23:49, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not from the USA (maybe Roger is), but I find your personal attack on US editors. Why are you so angry about this simple issue? I don't even care that much, especially seeing as it already permeates Wikipedia and would be a lot of work to change it all for little gain. But your attitude is really unbecoming... Simanos (talk) 23:43, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I find it strange to speculate about what the other Wikipedias are doing when we can just check: Erwin Schrödinger, cz:Erwin Schrödinger, Erwin Schrödinger, Erwin Schrödinger, etc. So no, nobody follows this policy of excluding non-native characters from the titles. Tercer (talk) 10:57, 28 December 2022 (UTC)
 * French Wikipedia should also not contain letters it doesn't have. Although it does have K and Q per https://www.frenchtoday.com/blog/french-pronunciation/french-alphabet-sounds/ as far as I can see. You keep trying to catch us in a "gotcha" moment. Is this what you consider arguing in good faith? Simanos (talk) 23:39, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Without exaggeration: that is the only reason. And it is completely inapplicable here. As of today, exactly 2 of the 43 references cited in the article were presented as using the oe spelling, and upon examining their originals, it turns out they actually used the ö. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 15:53, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, there's only 1 left now. There were more when I started this topic. I guess someone is changing the references. No big deal Simanos (talk) 23:34, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, we should change all those others too. No need to use whataboutism on me Simanos (talk) 23:36, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
 * @Simanos Just noting that the Oxford English Dictionary entry for *Schrödinger's cat* uses Schrödinger, with *Schrödinger cat* as a variant; their entry for the name itself (treated as an adjective) also uses *Schrödinger* throughout, but mentions *Schroedinger* as a variant. So they consider the version with ö to be the standard one. Musiconeologist (talk) 10:09, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Well I've a niece with an ö in her name and she's English and Gödel and Schrödinger is how I've always thought their names were spelled. I think any fight for the purity of the English alphabet has been long lost. Probably the variants with oe instead should also be in the leads though. NadVolum (talk) 12:01, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I am not sure about this. I think I don't know enough about English and Diacritic marks to have an opinion. I just objected to some of the offensive replies earlier that were too abrasive for no good reason. Roger and I made some good points too. You're right about the leads at least. Thanks! Simanos (talk) 22:15, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't suppose many would support spelling Charlotte Brontë without the umlaut!
 * NadVolum (talk) 18:04, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Proposal for new interpretation
There is a new interpretation of Schroedinger's cat that was recently published in Foundations of Physics: [L. Maccone, Schroedinger Cats and Quantum Complementarity, Found. Phys.54, 17 (2024).], which should be added to the interpretations. The basic idea is that Schroedinger's experiment is designed to give to a cat a property that is complementary (in Bohr's sense) to the property of being "dead" or "alive". As such, the cat does not possess (until the box is opened and the dead/alive property is measured) any value for the property of being dead or alive, simply because of quantum complementarity.

I think it's relevant for this page and should be added here as it's a new proposal which is different from the others present here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.111.33.14 (talk • contribs) 11:16, 5 June 2024 (UTC)