Quantum Superposition: Why reality can be strangers to your view Quantum mechanics is strange-and not only slightly strange, but also the head-lump, mind-brakes, brake-or-brain is strange. One of its most strange ideas is something called Quantum Superposition. In simple terms, this means small particles - such as electrons and photons - can be in more than one stage at the same time. Yes. The reality does not work in the way we think that it does. So ... what is superposition, really? In our everyday world, things behave in a predicted manner. A light switch is either current or off. A coin flip gives you a head or tail. Not in between, isn't it? But in the quantum world, particles play completely different rules. An electron, for example, does not choose only one lane - it can occur in many states at a time. Imagine flipping a coin ... and because of it having a head or tail, it both rotates in a magical spot of possibilities at the same time. This is a superposition. This only happens when you see - when you inspect - that the coin "chooses" and collapses in a result. Schrödinger's cat thought experiment This is the place where things also become strangers.

Back in 1935, physicist Irwin Shrodinger used a famous idea to explain how much strange quantum superposition is. He imagined a cat to close in a box with a radioactive atom, a vial of poison and a trigger. If there is a decrease in the atom, the poison is released and the cat dies. If it does not, the cat lives.