Oh Physics.....

On Friday we were covering Schrodinger's equation in Physics 222. We discussed Schrodinger's thought experiment of a cat in a box being in the superposition state of both dead an alive and when we look the cat will settle into either the state of dead or alive. It's a little confusing, and I haven't fully explained it here (there's a vial of poison in with the cat, that if broken kills the cat...).

One student asks: "Is there a more intuitive way of understanding superposition? 'Cause these examples of cats don't make any sense either..."

Dr. Durfee: "OK, well suppose I shoot one photon at a double slit... The photon interferes with itself because its wave function is a superposition of having gone through both slits...."

Yah, that's much more intuitive... I was dying as this was happening, literally, uncontrollable chuckling forceably being repressed so as not to disturb the class...