this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2025
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Explain Like I'm Five

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ELI5: what is a quantum state? (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 month ago by rtxn@lemmy.world to c/explainlikeimfive@lemmy.world
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I've been reading a lot about massive stellar objects, degenerate matter, and how the Pauli exclusion principle works at that scale. One thing I don't understand is what it means for two particles to occupy the same quantum state, or what a quantum state really is.

My background in computers probably isn't helping either. When I think of what "state" means, I imagine a class or a structure. It has a spin field, an energy_level field, and whatever else is required by the model. Two such instances would be indistinguishable if all of their properties were equal. Is this in any way relevant to what a quantum state is, or should I completely abandon this idea?

How many properties does it take to describe, for example, an electron? What kind of precision does it take to tell whether the two states are identical?

Is it even possible to explain it in an intuitive manner?

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[โ€“] MouldyCat@feddit.uk 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You're missing the essential element of this thought experiment - the poison gas canister in the box which releases the gas when an atom decays. That atomic decay is a quantum event that cannot be predicted even if one has perfect knowledge of the atom concerned, and in fact whether it has actually decayed or not only becomes real when it is measured ie observed. Thus, according to this experiment, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead at once, up until the box is opened and an observation made.

If you don't have that atomic decay, then the cat's health is merely unknown - it is either alive or dead, not both at once, but the scientist simply doesn't know which.

[โ€“] Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Username checks out. Cat is definitely dead.