40 Erwin Schrödinger Quotes on Quantum Mechanics, the Cat & Consciousness
Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger (1887–1961) was an Austrian-Irish physicist who developed the wave equation that bears his name, a fundamental equation of quantum mechanics that earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933. His thought experiment "Schrödinger's cat" remains one of the most famous illustrations of quantum paradoxes. Few know that Schrödinger was deeply interested in Vedantic philosophy, which influenced his scientific thinking, that he wrote a influential book on biology called "What Is Life?" that inspired Watson and Crick's discovery of DNA, or that his unconventional personal life — he lived openly with both his wife and his mistress — scandalized academic circles.
In late 1925, during a romantic holiday in the Swiss Alps with a mysterious companion (whose identity remains unknown to this day), Schrödinger experienced a burst of creative inspiration and derived his famous wave equation — the quantum mechanical equivalent of Newton's laws of motion. In just a few weeks, he produced a series of papers that provided a complete mathematical framework for quantum mechanics, describing matter not as particles but as waves. His famous cat thought experiment, proposed in 1935, was actually intended as a criticism of quantum theory — the absurdity of a cat being simultaneously alive and dead was meant to highlight problems with the Copenhagen interpretation. His observation that "the task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen, but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody sees" perfectly captures his gift for revolutionary reconceptualization.
Who Was Erwin Schrödinger?
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Born | 12 August 1887, Vienna, Austria-Hungary |
| Died | 4 January 1961 (aged 73), Vienna, Austria |
| Nationality | Austrian |
| Occupation | Theoretical Physicist |
| Known For | Schrödinger equation, Schrödinger's cat, Wave mechanics, Nobel Prize 1933 |
Key Achievements and Episodes
The Schrödinger Equation
In 1926, Schrödinger published his wave equation, which describes how quantum systems evolve over time. The equation treats particles as waves and provides a way to calculate the probability of finding a particle in any given location. It became the foundation of wave mechanics and one of the two main formulations of quantum mechanics, alongside Heisenberg's matrix mechanics. Schrödinger shared the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics with Paul Dirac for this revolutionary contribution.
Schrödinger's Cat
In 1935, Schrödinger devised his famous thought experiment to illustrate what he saw as the absurdity of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. He imagined a cat in a sealed box with a radioactive atom that might or might not trigger a poison mechanism. According to quantum theory, until the box is opened, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead — existing in a "superposition" of states. Schrödinger intended this as a critique of quantum theory, but the thought experiment became one of the most famous illustrations of quantum weirdness.
What Is Life?
In 1944, Schrödinger published What Is Life?, a slim book that asked how physics and chemistry could explain biological processes. He proposed that genetic information must be stored in an "aperiodic crystal" — a molecule with an irregular but specific structure. This idea directly inspired James Watson and Francis Crick in their quest to determine the structure of DNA. Crick later credited Schrödinger's book as a key motivation for his shift from physics to molecular biology.
Who Was Erwin Schrödinger?
Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger was born on August 12, 1887, in Vienna, Austria, into a cultured and intellectually vibrant household. His father, Rudolf Schrödinger, was a prosperous oilcloth manufacturer with deep interests in botany and chemistry, while his mother, Georgine Emilia Brenda, came from a family of distinguished chemists. Raised in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of fin-de-siècle Vienna, the young Erwin was educated at home by private tutors before entering the Akademisches Gymnasium, where he excelled in mathematics, physics, and ancient languages. He went on to study at the University of Vienna under Franz Exner and Friedrich Hasenöhrl, earning his doctorate in 1910 and his habilitation in 1914. This rich Viennese upbringing -- steeped in music, art, philosophy, and rigorous science -- shaped Schrödinger into the unusually broad-minded thinker he would become.
After serving as an artillery officer in World War I, Schrödinger held academic positions in Jena, Stuttgart, Breslau, and finally Zurich, where in 1926 he produced the work that would define his legacy. During an extraordinarily productive burst of creativity at the age of thirty-eight, he derived the Schrödinger wave equation -- a partial differential equation that describes how the quantum state of a physical system changes over time. Published in a series of landmark papers in Annalen der Physik, wave mechanics offered an elegant alternative to Werner Heisenberg's matrix mechanics, and Schrödinger proved that the two formulations were mathematically equivalent. This achievement earned him the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics, shared with Paul Dirac, "for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory." The wave equation remains, to this day, one of the most important equations in all of physics -- the quantum counterpart of Newton's second law.
In 1935, Schrödinger devised his most famous thought experiment: Schrödinger's cat. He imagined a cat sealed in a box with a radioactive atom, a Geiger counter, and a vial of poison arranged so that quantum decay would trigger the cat's death. According to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, until the box is opened and an observation is made, the cat exists in a superposition of being simultaneously alive and dead. Schrödinger intended the scenario as a reductio ad absurdum -- an illustration of the absurdity of applying quantum superposition to everyday objects -- but it became one of the most iconic images in the history of science and remains central to debates about quantum measurement, decoherence, and the nature of reality. Beyond physics, Schrödinger made a profound impact on biology with his 1944 book What Is Life?, based on lectures he delivered at Trinity College Dublin. In it, he proposed that the gene must contain a "code-script" carried in an aperiodic crystal -- a remarkably prescient idea that directly inspired James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins in their discovery of the structure of DNA. Watson later acknowledged that What Is Life? was the book that set him on the path to the double helix.
When the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, Schrödinger -- who had returned to the University of Graz -- was forced to flee due to his open opposition to National Socialism. After brief stays in Oxford and Ghent, he accepted an invitation from the Irish Taoiseach Éamon de Valera to become the founding director of the School of Theoretical Physics at the newly established Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies in 1940. He spent seventeen remarkably productive years in Dublin, publishing not only What Is Life? but also significant works on statistical thermodynamics, general relativity, unified field theory, and the philosophy of science, including Mind and Matter (1958) and My View of the World (1961). Schrödinger was deeply influenced by Vedantic philosophy and Eastern mysticism, and he spent much of his later career exploring the relationship between consciousness and the physical world, arguing that the mind could not be reduced to mere material processes. He returned to Vienna in 1956 and died there on January 4, 1961, leaving behind a legacy that stretches from the foundations of quantum mechanics to the birth of molecular biology and the philosophy of mind.
Schrödinger Quotes on Quantum Mechanics and Physics
Erwin Schrödinger's wave equation, published in a series of papers in 1926, provided the mathematical foundation for quantum mechanics and remains one of the most important equations in all of physics. Developed during a famously productive Christmas vacation at a ski resort in Arosa, Switzerland, in December 1925, the Schrödinger equation describes how the quantum state of a physical system changes over time, using a wave function that encodes the probability of finding a particle in any given state. His approach offered an alternative to Werner Heisenberg's matrix mechanics, and Schrödinger himself demonstrated in 1926 that the two formulations were mathematically equivalent — a unification that strengthened confidence in the new quantum theory. He shared the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics with Paul Dirac for "the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory," though he never fully accepted the probabilistic interpretation of quantum mechanics championed by Bohr and Heisenberg. These quantum mechanics quotes from Schrödinger capture the creative genius of a physicist whose equation opened the door to understanding the behavior of matter at the atomic scale.
"If we are going to stick to this damned quantum-jumping, then I regret that I ever had anything to do with quantum theory."
Remark to Niels Bohr during discussions in Copenhagen, October 1926, quoted in Heisenberg's Physics and Beyond (1971) -- On his frustration with discontinuous quantum transitions
"I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it."
Attributed remark on quantum mechanics, quoted in The Oxford Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (2005) -- On his discomfort with the philosophical implications of his own discovery
"Quantum physics thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe."
Quoted in The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra (1975), drawn from Schrödinger's philosophical writings -- On the interconnectedness implied by quantum theory
"One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device... one would, according to the Copenhagen interpretation, have to admit that the cat is both alive and dead at the same time."
"Die gegenwärtige Situation in der Quantenmechanik," Die Naturwissenschaften, 1935 -- The original statement of the Schrödinger's cat thought experiment
"The task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen, but to think what nobody has yet thought, about that which everybody sees."
Quoted in Problems of Life by Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1952), attributed to Schrödinger -- On originality in scientific thought
"The scientist only imposes two things, namely truth and sincerity, imposes them upon himself and upon other scientists."
Science and the Human Temperament (1935) -- On the ethical foundations of scientific practice
"The wave function is not a real thing in three-dimensional space. It is a mathematical tool that we use to calculate probabilities."
Paraphrased from Schrödinger's letters to Einstein, 1935, in Letters on Wave Mechanics (1967) -- On the interpretive status of his own equation
"The world is given to me only once, not one existing and one perceived. Subject and object are only one."
Mind and Matter (1958) -- On the inseparability of the observer and the observed
Schrödinger Quotes on Consciousness and the Mind
Schrödinger's famous thought experiment involving a cat simultaneously alive and dead in a sealed box, proposed in 1935, was originally intended not to celebrate quantum weirdness but to expose what he considered the absurdity of applying quantum superposition to macroscopic objects. The "Schrödinger's cat" paradox has since become the most widely known illustration of quantum mechanics in popular culture, appearing in everything from physics textbooks to television sitcoms, even though Schrödinger devised it as a reductio ad absurdum argument against the Copenhagen interpretation. His philosophical engagement with the measurement problem and the nature of quantum reality was informed by his deep interest in Indian Vedantic philosophy, particularly the concept of Brahman as a unified consciousness underlying all apparent diversity. Born in Vienna on August 12, 1887, Schrödinger was educated in the rich intellectual environment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and maintained throughout his life a polymath's interest in philosophy, ancient languages, and the foundations of biology. These consciousness and mind quotes from Schrödinger reveal a physicist whose inquiries extended far beyond mathematical formalism to the deepest questions about the nature of mind and reality.
"Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else."
Quoted in The Observer, January 11, 1931 -- On the irreducibility of conscious experience
"The total number of minds in the universe is one."
Attributed, drawing from My View of the World (1961) -- On the unity of consciousness inspired by Vedantic philosophy
"The mind, by its very nature, is a singulare tantum. I should say: the overall number of minds is just one."
Mind and Matter (1958) -- On the philosophical impossibility of plural consciousness
"Every man's world picture is and always remains a construct of his mind, and cannot be proved to have any other existence."
Mind and Matter (1958) -- On the subjective nature of our perception of reality
"The self is not so much linked to its predecessors by a causal chain as it is identical with them."
My View of the World (1961) -- On the continuity and unity of personal identity
"There is obviously only one alternative, namely the unification of minds or consciousnesses. Their multiplicity is only apparent, in truth there is only one mind."
What Is Life? with Mind and Matter (Cambridge University Press, 1967 combined edition) -- On the Vedantic concept of a single universal consciousness
"I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is very deficient. It gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart."
Nature and the Greeks (1954) -- On the inability of science to address meaning, beauty, and emotion
"The reason why our sentient, percipient, and thinking ego is met nowhere within our scientific world picture can easily be indicated in seven words: because it is itself that world picture."
Nature and the Greeks and Science and Humanism (Cambridge University Press, 1996 reissue) -- On why consciousness eludes objective description
Schrödinger Quotes on Life, Biology & Knowledge
Schrödinger's 1944 book "What Is Life?" was a remarkably prescient exploration of the physical basis of living systems that directly inspired the generation of molecular biologists who discovered the structure and function of DNA. In a series of lectures delivered at Trinity College Dublin in February 1943, he proposed that genetic information must be stored in an "aperiodic crystal" — a structure with a definite, non-repeating arrangement of atoms — a description that remarkably anticipated the double-helical structure of DNA discovered a decade later by Watson and Crick, both of whom cited Schrödinger's book as a major influence. He also introduced the concept of negative entropy (negentropy) to explain how living organisms maintain their highly ordered state by extracting order from their environment, an idea that influenced the development of information theory and non-equilibrium thermodynamics. After fleeing Nazi-occupied Austria in 1938, Schrödinger settled at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, where he remained for seventeen years and produced some of his most important philosophical and biological work. These life, biology, and knowledge quotes from Schrödinger demonstrate the power of bringing a physicist's perspective to fundamental questions about the nature of life.
"What we observe as material bodies and forces are nothing but shapes and variations in the structure of space."
Space-Time Structure (Cambridge University Press, 1950) -- On the geometric nature of physical reality
"Living matter, while not eluding the 'laws of physics' as established up to date, is likely to involve 'other laws of physics' hitherto unknown."
What Is Life? (1944) -- On the possibility that biology harbors undiscovered physical principles
"The chromosomes... contain in some kind of code-script the entire pattern of the individual's future development and of its functioning in the mature state."
What Is Life? (1944) -- The prescient vision of genetic coding that inspired the discovery of DNA's structure
"An organism's astonishing gift of concentrating a 'stream of order' on itself and thus escaping the decay into atomic chaos -- of 'drinking orderliness' from a suitable environment -- seems to be connected with the presence of the 'aperiodic solids.'"
What Is Life? (1944) -- On the thermodynamic miracle of living systems feeding on negative entropy
"Life seems to be orderly and lawful behaviour of matter, not based exclusively on its tendency to go over from order to disorder, but based partly on existing order that is kept up."
What Is Life? (1944) -- On why living organisms appear to defy the second law of thermodynamics
"The isolated knowledge obtained by a group of specialists in a narrow field has in itself no value whatsoever, but only in its synthesis with all the rest of knowledge."
Science and Humanism (1951) -- On the danger of specialization without integration
"If a man never contradicts himself, the reason must be that he virtually never says anything at all."
My View of the World (1961) -- On the inevitability of contradiction in serious intellectual inquiry
Schrödinger Quotes on Philosophy, Ethics & the Human Condition
Schrödinger's philosophical writings explored the relationship between science, ethics, and the human experience with a depth that reflected his engagement with both Western and Eastern philosophical traditions. His 1958 book "Mind and Matter" argued that consciousness is singular — that there is only one universal consciousness of which individual minds are different aspects — a view influenced by his study of the Upanishads and the writings of Schopenhauer. He believed that science, while extraordinarily powerful in describing the physical world, was fundamentally incapable of addressing questions of meaning, value, and subjective experience — a position he termed the "principle of objectivation" that excluded the knowing subject from the scientific picture of the world. Schrödinger returned to Vienna in 1956 and died there on January 4, 1961, leaving behind a scientific and philosophical legacy that continues to shape discussions at the intersection of physics, biology, consciousness, and the philosophy of science. These philosophy and human condition quotes from Schrödinger remind us that the greatest physicists have always recognized that the deepest questions about existence lie beyond the reach of any equation.
"In an honest search for knowledge, you quite often have to abide by ignorance for an indefinite period."
Nature and the Greeks (1954) -- On the patience required for genuine understanding
"The multiplicity is only apparent. This is the doctrine of the Upanishads. And not of the Upanishads only."
My View of the World (1961) -- On the convergence of Eastern philosophy and modern physics
"The present is the only thing that has no end."
My View of the World (1961) -- On the eternal nature of the lived moment
"Vedanta teaches that consciousness is singular, all happenings are played out in one universal consciousness and there is no multiplicity of selves."
My View of the World (1961) -- On the Hindu philosophical tradition that shaped his metaphysics
"No self is of itself alone. It has a long chain of intellectual ancestors. The 'I' is chained to ancestry by many factors... This is not mere allegory, but an eternal biological verity."
Quoted in A Life of Erwin Schrödinger by Walter Moore (1994) -- On the continuity of intellectual and biological inheritance
"The scientific picture of the world around me is very deficient. It gives me a lot of factual information... but it is ghastly silent about all that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us."
Nature and the Greeks (1954) -- On the limits of science in addressing the deepest human concerns
"Eternally and always there is only now, one and the same now; the present is the only thing that has no end."
What Is Life? with Mind and Matter (Cambridge University Press, 1967 combined edition) -- On the timeless character of conscious experience
"The world is a construct of our sensations, perceptions, memories. It is convenient to regard it as existing objectively on its own. But it certainly does not become manifest by its mere existence."
Mind and Matter, 1958
"If a man never contradicts himself, the reason must be that he virtually never says anything at all."
My View of the World, 1961
"The task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen, but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody sees."
Attributed, quoted in Problems of Life by Ludwig von Bertalanffy, 1952
"The total number of minds in the universe is one. In fact, consciousness is a singularity phasing within all beings."
My View of the World, 1961
"Quantum physics thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe."
What Is Life?, 1944
"We do not belong to this material world that science constructs for us. We are not in it; we are outside. We are only spectators."
Nature and the Greeks, 1954
"An organism's astonishing gift of concentrating a 'stream of order' on itself and thus escaping the decay into atomic chaos — of 'drinking orderliness' from a suitable environment — seems to be connected with the presence of the 'aperiodic solids.'"
What Is Life?, 1944 — anticipating the discovery of DNA's structure
"The scientist only imposes two things, namely truth and sincerity, imposes them upon himself and upon other scientists."
Science and Humanism: Physics in Our Time, 1951
"There is obviously only one alternative, namely the unification of minds or consciousnesses. Their multiplicity is only apparent, in truth there is only one mind."
Mind and Matter, 1958
"I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is very deficient. It gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart."
Nature and the Greeks, 1954
Schrödinger's Most Famous Quotes
In 1935, Schrödinger published a paper containing the thought experiment that would make his name a household word far beyond physics. He imagined a cat sealed in a box with a radioactive atom, a Geiger counter, and a vial of poison. If the atom decays, the poison kills the cat; if it does not, the cat lives. According to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, until someone opens the box, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. Schrödinger intended it as a reductio ad absurdum -- proof that something was wrong with quantum theory. Instead, it became the most famous illustration of quantum weirdness in history.
"One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber... the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat mixed or smeared out in equal parts."
"The Present Situation in Quantum Mechanics," Die Naturwissenschaften, 1935
During a romantic holiday in the Swiss Alps in late 1925 with a mysterious companion whose identity remains unknown, the 38-year-old Schrödinger experienced an extraordinary burst of inspiration. Over a few weeks, he derived a partial differential equation that described matter not as particles but as waves, providing a complete mathematical framework for quantum mechanics. The Schrödinger equation became the quantum equivalent of Newton's second law and earned him the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics, shared with Paul Dirac.
"The task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen, but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody sees."
Attributed, quoted in Problems of Life by Ludwig von Bertalanffy, 1952
In February 1943, Schrödinger delivered a series of public lectures at Trinity College Dublin titled "What Is Life?" The lectures, published as a slim book in 1944, asked a deceptively simple question: how can physics and chemistry account for the events that occur within a living cell? Schrödinger proposed that genetic information must be stored in an "aperiodic crystal" -- a molecule with an irregular but specific structure. The book electrified a generation of young scientists. James Watson read it as an undergraduate and later said it set him on the path to discovering the double helix of DNA. Francis Crick credited it as a key reason he switched from physics to molecular biology.
"The total number of minds in the universe is one. In fact, consciousness is a singularity phasing within all beings."
My View of the World, 1961
Frequently Asked Questions about Erwin Schrödinger Quotes
What did Schrödinger say about quantum mechanics?
Erwin Schrödinger made foundational contributions to quantum mechanics, most notably his wave equation published in 1926, for which he shared the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics with Paul Dirac. Despite being one of the creators of quantum theory, Schrödinger expressed deep unease with its philosophical implications. He famously stated "I do not like it, and I am sorry I ever had anything to do with it," referring to the Copenhagen interpretation's reliance on probability rather than determinism. His most celebrated thought experiment, Schrödinger's cat (1935), was designed not to illustrate quantum mechanics but to expose what he saw as its absurdity -- the idea that a cat could be simultaneously alive and dead until observed struck him as proof that the theory was incomplete. His philosophical resistance helped spark debates about quantum interpretation that continue among physicists today.
What is the meaning behind Schrödinger's cat quote?
Schrödinger's cat thought experiment, published in a 1935 paper titled "The Present Situation in Quantum Mechanics," was intended as a reductio ad absurdum -- a deliberate attempt to show that the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics leads to nonsensical conclusions when applied to everyday objects. In the scenario, a cat is placed in a sealed box with a radioactive atom, a Geiger counter, and a vial of poison. If the atom decays, the poison is released and the cat dies; if not, the cat lives. According to the Copenhagen interpretation, until the box is opened and an observation is made, the cat exists in a superposition of both alive and dead states. Schrödinger found this conclusion absurd and used it to argue that quantum mechanics must be incomplete. Ironically, the thought experiment became the most famous illustration of quantum superposition rather than its refutation.
What were Schrödinger's views on consciousness?
Schrödinger held remarkable views on consciousness that drew heavily from Vedantic Hindu philosophy, particularly the Upanishads and the writings of Schopenhauer. In his 1958 book Mind and Matter, he argued that consciousness is fundamentally singular -- that all individual minds are manifestations of one universal consciousness, not separate entities. He wrote "Vedanta teaches that consciousness is singular, all happenings are played out in one universal consciousness and there is no multiplicity of selves." He also argued that science, despite its power to describe the physical world, is "ghastly silent about all that is really near to our heart" -- meaning that the objective method of science necessarily excludes the subjective experience of the observer. These ideas anticipated modern discussions in the philosophy of mind and have influenced contemporary thinkers exploring the "hard problem" of consciousness.
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