Does Quantum Physics Imply that We Are Immortal?

Greg Taylor explores whether quantum physics implies that we will live forever.

Is Schrödinger's Cat immortal? And by extension, does that mean that both you and I will live forever as well?

In the famed thought experiment devised by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935, a cat, a flask of poison, and a radioactive source are placed in a sealed box. If an internal monitor detects the radioactivity from a single atom decaying, the poison is released into the sealed box, killing the cat. But in the weird world of quantum mechanics - or more specifically in this case, the 'Copenhagen interpretation' of quantum mechanics - the cat would supposedly remain in a state of 'superposition', both alive and dead, until an observation or measurement is made by an external observer opening the box, collapsing the wavefunction - and finding the cat either alive or dead. Schrödinger did not see this as a serious possibility - instead, his thought experiment was meant to show a problem with the Copenhagen interpretation. Read more