WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.140 Okay, let's unpack this fascinating, brilliant, 00:00:03.339 --> 00:00:06.960 and, well, profoundly complex figure, Erwin Rudolf 00:00:06.960 --> 00:00:11.220 Josef Alexander Schrödinger. It's a name everyone 00:00:11.220 --> 00:00:13.980 sort of knows. Right. We know the name because 00:00:13.980 --> 00:00:17.160 of two things, a mind -bending equation and a 00:00:17.160 --> 00:00:20.140 very famous, potentially deceased feline. Exactly. 00:00:20.460 --> 00:00:23.760 But the genius behind those concepts was anything 00:00:23.760 --> 00:00:26.679 but simple. For the general public, Schrodinger 00:00:26.679 --> 00:00:29.379 is either the man who defined modern quantum 00:00:29.379 --> 00:00:31.839 mechanics, or he's the guy who came up with the 00:00:31.839 --> 00:00:34.380 idea of a half -dead cat stuck in a box. And 00:00:34.380 --> 00:00:37.140 our mission today is to go far deeper. We're 00:00:37.140 --> 00:00:38.880 going to dive into the sources to understand 00:00:38.880 --> 00:00:41.039 the theoretical physicist, the philosopher, the 00:00:41.039 --> 00:00:44.039 political exile, and critically, the deeply complicated 00:00:44.039 --> 00:00:46.439 and controversial man that his history reveals. 00:00:46.780 --> 00:00:48.320 Yeah, there's a lot to unpack. We're talking 00:00:48.320 --> 00:00:50.460 about an Austrian -Irish theoretical physicist. 00:00:50.600 --> 00:00:54.039 He shared the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics. with 00:00:54.039 --> 00:00:56.359 Paul Dirac. And the sheer scope of his intellectual 00:00:56.359 --> 00:00:58.219 output is just staggering. I mean, he didn't 00:00:58.219 --> 00:01:00.280 just invent wave mechanics. He inspired biology, 00:01:00.579 --> 00:01:02.740 wrestled with the nature of consciousness, and 00:01:02.740 --> 00:01:05.280 defined an entirely new vocabulary for how we 00:01:05.280 --> 00:01:08.379 discuss subatomic reality. That's the core of 00:01:08.379 --> 00:01:10.659 the challenge when studying him. You have to 00:01:10.659 --> 00:01:13.640 balance these monumental, world -changing scientific 00:01:13.640 --> 00:01:16.840 contributions, which really center on the Schrodinger 00:01:16.840 --> 00:01:19.019 equation. The fundamental description of how 00:01:19.019 --> 00:01:21.640 a quantum system evolves dynamically in time. 00:01:21.719 --> 00:01:23.739 Right. You balance that with the philosophical 00:01:23.739 --> 00:01:26.620 legacy, which is mostly defined by Schrodinger's 00:01:26.620 --> 00:01:29.810 cat. Which, as we'll see, is so often misunderstood. 00:01:30.109 --> 00:01:32.849 It really is. That thought experiment was actually 00:01:32.849 --> 00:01:35.629 a profound act of rebellion against the very 00:01:35.629 --> 00:01:38.709 theory his equation made possible. This tension 00:01:38.709 --> 00:01:41.769 between creation and rejection is, I think, the 00:01:41.769 --> 00:01:43.849 narrative thread we'll be following today. So 00:01:43.849 --> 00:01:46.129 let's establish the context for his entire life. 00:01:46.329 --> 00:01:48.909 It seems like his nonconformity was rooted in 00:01:48.909 --> 00:01:51.450 a pretty diverse background. It really was. Schrodinger 00:01:51.450 --> 00:01:54.670 was born in Vienna in 1887. And his personal 00:01:54.670 --> 00:01:57.230 history starts with this blended heritage. which 00:01:57.230 --> 00:01:59.269 I think provided the foundation for his later 00:01:59.269 --> 00:02:01.810 very wide -ranging intellectual interests. He 00:02:01.810 --> 00:02:04.590 wasn't a standard uniform upbringing then. Not 00:02:04.590 --> 00:02:07.849 at all. His father, Rudolf Schrodinger, was a 00:02:07.849 --> 00:02:10.710 dedicated botanist and a Catholic. His mother, 00:02:10.889 --> 00:02:14.129 Georgene Bauer, was Lutheran. And to top it off, 00:02:14.250 --> 00:02:17.229 her father was a chemistry professor at TU Wien. 00:02:17.550 --> 00:02:19.770 So you have this blend of disciplines right there 00:02:19.770 --> 00:02:21.449 in the house from the very beginning, science 00:02:21.449 --> 00:02:24.050 and philosophy, botany and chemistry. It's all 00:02:24.050 --> 00:02:26.229 there. And it wasn't just the mix of disciplines, 00:02:26.349 --> 00:02:28.849 but the cultural mix, too. The sources point 00:02:28.849 --> 00:02:30.930 out a key advantage he had from a very young 00:02:30.930 --> 00:02:33.930 age, one that really facilitated his future international 00:02:33.930 --> 00:02:37.060 career. Let me guess, language. You got it. He 00:02:37.060 --> 00:02:39.039 was an only child and his maternal grandmother 00:02:39.039 --> 00:02:42.020 was British. So because of that, he learned English 00:02:42.020 --> 00:02:44.460 outside of any formal schooling. And that fluency 00:02:44.460 --> 00:02:46.759 would have been invaluable. It allowed him to 00:02:46.759 --> 00:02:49.460 engage with the global scientific community and 00:02:49.460 --> 00:02:51.719 later, you know, to move across countries with 00:02:51.719 --> 00:02:54.159 relative ease. Especially when political necessity 00:02:54.159 --> 00:02:56.840 forced him to. It was a huge advantage. So he 00:02:56.840 --> 00:02:58.439 spent his foundational years at the University 00:02:58.439 --> 00:03:02.379 of Vienna from 1906 to 1910. He studied under 00:03:02.379 --> 00:03:05.009 some pretty influential figures. Oh, absolutely. 00:03:05.270 --> 00:03:08.009 People like Frances Exner. And his doctoral advisor 00:03:08.009 --> 00:03:11.710 was Friedrich Hasnerl, who was himself a student 00:03:11.710 --> 00:03:14.969 of the renowned physicist Ludwig Boltzmann. That's 00:03:14.969 --> 00:03:17.469 an incredible intellectual lineage right there. 00:03:17.669 --> 00:03:20.469 It is. And it anchors him firmly in the tradition 00:03:20.469 --> 00:03:24.080 of classical deterministic physics. Particularly 00:03:24.080 --> 00:03:26.780 statistical mechanics, which was Boltzmann's 00:03:26.780 --> 00:03:29.400 specialty. This is a really critical detail. 00:03:29.599 --> 00:03:32.280 Because he wasn't trained in the revolutionary 00:03:32.280 --> 00:03:34.580 quantum ideas that were just starting to bubble 00:03:34.580 --> 00:03:37.180 up. He was trained in the mechanics of the previous 00:03:37.180 --> 00:03:40.159 century. And that, I think, explains why he spent 00:03:40.159 --> 00:03:43.280 the first decade of his career not as a theorist, 00:03:43.280 --> 00:03:46.659 but as a practical, rigorous experimentalist. 00:03:46.759 --> 00:03:48.639 That's the detail that really surprised me in 00:03:48.639 --> 00:03:50.919 the source material. We think of him purely as 00:03:50.919 --> 00:03:53.620 this mind that dealt in abstract equations. I 00:03:53.620 --> 00:03:56.659 know, right? But before 1919, he was hands -on, 00:03:56.699 --> 00:03:58.939 collaborating heavily with Exner. So what kind 00:03:58.939 --> 00:04:01.280 of experiments was he doing? It's a crucial insight 00:04:01.280 --> 00:04:04.460 into his intellectual evolution. We see him exploring 00:04:04.460 --> 00:04:07.120 applied fields that required immense empirical 00:04:07.120 --> 00:04:10.620 rigor. Things like electrical engineering, atmospheric 00:04:10.620 --> 00:04:14.659 electricity, and atmospheric radioactivity. This 00:04:14.659 --> 00:04:16.860 background means his theories weren't just mathematical 00:04:16.860 --> 00:04:19.439 constructs. They were rooted in physical observation. 00:04:20.189 --> 00:04:22.550 And his early research wasn't just, you know, 00:04:22.569 --> 00:04:25.230 busy work. He was successful. The sources point 00:04:25.230 --> 00:04:27.110 to some specific highlights. A great example 00:04:27.110 --> 00:04:30.050 comes from 1912. He wrote a detailed article 00:04:30.050 --> 00:04:32.850 on something called dielectrism, basically the 00:04:32.850 --> 00:04:35.110 study of electrical insulators and how they react 00:04:35.110 --> 00:04:37.709 to electric fields. Okay, pretty technical stuff. 00:04:37.949 --> 00:04:41.610 Very. Then, in 1913, he moved into atmospheric 00:04:41.610 --> 00:04:44.560 studies. He produced a theoretical estimate of 00:04:44.560 --> 00:04:46.500 the height distribution of radioactive substances. 00:04:46.939 --> 00:04:49.620 He calculated how much radon and thoron should 00:04:49.620 --> 00:04:52.339 be present at various altitudes to explain the 00:04:52.339 --> 00:04:54.319 radioactivity they were observing in the atmosphere. 00:04:54.560 --> 00:04:57.079 So that sounds like a highly specific, measurable 00:04:57.079 --> 00:04:59.819 prediction. Exactly. And the sources confirm 00:04:59.819 --> 00:05:02.439 this wasn't just hypothetical. Extremes that 00:05:02.439 --> 00:05:04.240 were later carried out in a place called Zham 00:05:04.240 --> 00:05:07.189 confirmed his theoretical estimate. And that 00:05:07.189 --> 00:05:09.810 work got him some recognition. A lot of recognition. 00:05:10.170 --> 00:05:12.269 It was so significant that it earned him the 00:05:12.269 --> 00:05:14.509 prestigious Haninger Prize of the Austrian Academy 00:05:14.509 --> 00:05:18.730 of Sciences in 1920. His final physical experiment 00:05:18.730 --> 00:05:21.509 before he fully shifted gears was on coherent 00:05:21.509 --> 00:05:24.730 light in 1919. So by the time he became a full 00:05:24.730 --> 00:05:26.709 -time theorist, he had established credibility 00:05:26.709 --> 00:05:29.709 in multiple experimental domains. That progression 00:05:29.709 --> 00:05:32.389 from foundational classical training through 00:05:32.389 --> 00:05:35.569 practical experimental success to eventual abstract 00:05:35.569 --> 00:05:38.689 theory, it really makes his later resistance 00:05:38.689 --> 00:05:41.350 to the probabilistic quantum interpretation seem 00:05:41.350 --> 00:05:44.410 less like intellectual stubbornness. And more 00:05:44.410 --> 00:05:47.129 like a deeply felt commitment to a deterministic 00:05:47.129 --> 00:05:49.970 reality. Yes. It absolutely frames his philosophical 00:05:49.970 --> 00:05:52.730 resistance. But that academic progression was... 00:05:52.879 --> 00:05:55.300 like for so many others, abruptly put on hold. 00:05:55.420 --> 00:05:57.620 Global conflict. He served throughout the Great 00:05:57.620 --> 00:05:59.360 War as a commissioned officer in the Austrian 00:05:59.360 --> 00:06:02.740 fortress artillery from 1914 to 1918. He was 00:06:02.740 --> 00:06:04.759 stationed in strategically important areas like 00:06:04.759 --> 00:06:07.079 Gorizia and Duino. Serving in the artillery is 00:06:07.079 --> 00:06:09.420 such a stark contrast to his scholarly work, 00:06:09.560 --> 00:06:11.860 and once the war was over, his career just took 00:06:11.860 --> 00:06:14.759 off with extraordinary speed. It suggests institutions 00:06:14.759 --> 00:06:17.480 were desperate to bring minds like his back into 00:06:17.480 --> 00:06:20.750 academia. It was dizzying acceleration. I mean, 00:06:20.750 --> 00:06:24.930 in just two years, from 1920 to 1921, he held 00:06:24.930 --> 00:06:28.209 four different positions. Four. Four. He was 00:06:28.209 --> 00:06:31.170 an assistant to Max Wien at Jena, then an associate 00:06:31.170 --> 00:06:34.110 professor at Stuttgart, rapidly followed by a 00:06:34.110 --> 00:06:36.050 full professor position at the University of 00:06:36.050 --> 00:06:38.810 Breslau before finally finding a long -term post 00:06:38.810 --> 00:06:41.889 at the University of Zurich in 1921. Wow. That 00:06:41.889 --> 00:06:44.550 kind of rapid institutional ladder climbing confirms 00:06:44.550 --> 00:06:47.449 his reputation was already solid. He was a brilliant 00:06:47.449 --> 00:06:49.949 and highly sought after theoretical mind right 00:06:49.949 --> 00:06:52.290 at the dawn of the quantum age. No question about 00:06:52.290 --> 00:06:55.029 it. So Schrodinger lands in Zurich. He's established, 00:06:55.290 --> 00:06:57.370 respected, but still intellectually rooted in 00:06:57.370 --> 00:06:59.610 the classical mechanics of his training. And 00:06:59.610 --> 00:07:02.509 it's here that he begins the, shall we say, reluctant 00:07:02.509 --> 00:07:05.290 process of engaging with the chaotic new ideas 00:07:05.290 --> 00:07:08.230 of the old quantum theory. Ideas championed by 00:07:08.230 --> 00:07:11.740 figures like Planck. Bohr and Sommerfeld. Yeah, 00:07:11.779 --> 00:07:13.939 he was definitely an intellectual latecomer to 00:07:13.939 --> 00:07:16.000 the quantum party. And what was the state of 00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:18.279 that party at the time? The scientific community 00:07:18.279 --> 00:07:20.360 was grappling with this fundamental disconnect 00:07:20.360 --> 00:07:23.259 between the success of classical physics on large 00:07:23.259 --> 00:07:26.519 scales and its spectacular failure on atomic 00:07:26.519 --> 00:07:29.420 scales. They had the ideas, you know, quantized 00:07:29.420 --> 00:07:32.420 energy levels, wave particle duality, but they 00:07:32.420 --> 00:07:35.680 lacked a unified, manageable mathematical framework. 00:07:36.060 --> 00:07:38.259 And he absorbed these influences, especially 00:07:38.259 --> 00:07:40.779 after that rapid institutional movement in Germany. 00:07:41.019 --> 00:07:43.620 But the key breakthrough moment is really well 00:07:43.620 --> 00:07:46.860 documented. Oh, it is. The year 1926 is one of 00:07:46.860 --> 00:07:48.639 the most important years in the history of science. 00:07:48.800 --> 00:07:51.420 And it's because of Schrodinger. He didn't just 00:07:51.420 --> 00:07:53.740 contribute to the discussion. He defined the 00:07:53.740 --> 00:07:56.040 language of quantum reality. And the story goes 00:07:56.040 --> 00:07:58.259 that he was inspired by Louis de Broglie's hypothesis. 00:07:58.860 --> 00:08:01.269 That's right. de Broglie had proposed that all 00:08:01.269 --> 00:08:04.670 matter exhibits wave -like properties. So Schrodinger 00:08:04.670 --> 00:08:07.189 asked the next logical question. If electrons 00:08:07.189 --> 00:08:10.009 are waves, what is the wave equation that governs 00:08:10.009 --> 00:08:12.490 them? And he developed that wave equation, the 00:08:12.490 --> 00:08:15.410 one that redefined reality for us, while suffering 00:08:15.410 --> 00:08:18.430 from tuberculosis in a sanatorium in Orosa, Switzerland. 00:08:19.230 --> 00:08:21.949 It's an incredible testament to the power of 00:08:21.949 --> 00:08:24.790 a single mind during forced isolation. It really 00:08:24.790 --> 00:08:27.230 speaks to the deep intellectual capacity that 00:08:27.230 --> 00:08:30.110 can thrive on isolation. He published the foundational 00:08:30.110 --> 00:08:32.610 paper introducing the time -independent equation 00:08:32.610 --> 00:08:36.730 in January 1926. It was titled Quantiserum als 00:08:36.730 --> 00:08:40.000 Eigenwertproblem. quantization as an eigenvalue 00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:42.460 problem. Let's break down the significance of 00:08:42.460 --> 00:08:44.460 that title for, you know, our more informed listener. 00:08:44.759 --> 00:08:47.980 Why eigenvalue problem? In simple terms, eigenvalues 00:08:47.980 --> 00:08:50.539 represent specific discrete values that emerge 00:08:50.539 --> 00:08:53.600 as solutions to certain equations. For Schrodinger, 00:08:53.679 --> 00:08:55.700 the eigenvalues in his equation corresponded 00:08:55.700 --> 00:08:58.620 precisely to the discrete quantized energy levels 00:08:58.620 --> 00:09:01.100 of the atom. The exact levels that Bohr had proposed 00:09:01.100 --> 00:09:03.360 years earlier, but couldn't really explain from 00:09:03.360 --> 00:09:06.299 first principles. Exactly. Yeah. Bohr had the 00:09:06.299 --> 00:09:09.169 right idea. but he lacked a rigorous fundamental 00:09:09.169 --> 00:09:12.250 equation to derive it. And the first paper's 00:09:12.250 --> 00:09:14.950 success was monumental because it demonstrated 00:09:14.950 --> 00:09:17.649 that this new wave mechanics produced the correct 00:09:17.649 --> 00:09:20.769 energy -egion values for a hydrogen -like atom. 00:09:21.240 --> 00:09:24.019 It was immediate, stunning verification that 00:09:24.019 --> 00:09:26.159 this framework was right. But the output didn't 00:09:26.159 --> 00:09:29.000 stop there. The sources emphasized the breathtaking 00:09:29.000 --> 00:09:31.679 speed and cohesion of the following work. It 00:09:31.679 --> 00:09:34.340 was published in rapid succession. This wasn't 00:09:34.340 --> 00:09:37.000 just a single flash of insight. It was a complete 00:09:37.000 --> 00:09:40.059 conceptual overhaul delivered in four pillars. 00:09:40.440 --> 00:09:42.919 It was an incredible run. The first paper laid 00:09:42.919 --> 00:09:45.019 out the time -independent equation, establishing 00:09:45.019 --> 00:09:47.539 the framework. The second paper followed just 00:09:47.539 --> 00:09:49.960 four weeks later. Four weeks? That's unbelievable. 00:10:01.330 --> 00:10:03.610 So he was showing it wasn't a one -trick pony. 00:10:04.169 --> 00:10:07.590 Precisely. The conclusion was undeniable. This 00:10:07.590 --> 00:10:09.549 equation was not a one -off tool for hydrogen. 00:10:09.690 --> 00:10:12.509 It was a fundamental law applicable across all 00:10:12.509 --> 00:10:14.879 sorts of quantum systems. Now, the scientific 00:10:14.879 --> 00:10:17.379 landscape at that time was dominated by Werner 00:10:17.379 --> 00:10:20.179 Heisenberg's abstract, non -intuitive matrix 00:10:20.179 --> 00:10:23.399 mechanics. Right. That method used tables of 00:10:23.399 --> 00:10:26.519 numbers matrices to describe observable quantities. 00:10:26.940 --> 00:10:29.620 And while it was mathematically sound, it was 00:10:29.620 --> 00:10:31.720 conceptually alienating for a lot of physicists. 00:10:32.059 --> 00:10:34.559 It wasn't visualizable. Not at all. Yeah. And 00:10:34.559 --> 00:10:36.620 so how did Schrödinger address this competition? 00:10:37.620 --> 00:10:40.090 That was the work of the third paper. published 00:10:40.090 --> 00:10:42.149 in May of that year. And this was the unification. 00:10:42.490 --> 00:10:45.250 This was the crucial act of unification. Schrödinger 00:10:45.250 --> 00:10:47.470 demonstrated the mathematical equivalence of 00:10:47.470 --> 00:10:49.649 his intuitive continuous wave mechanics approach 00:10:49.649 --> 00:10:52.809 to Heisenberg's discrete abstract matrix mechanics. 00:10:53.070 --> 00:10:55.529 There were two different paths, one based on 00:10:55.529 --> 00:10:58.110 waves, one on matrices, that led mathematically 00:10:58.110 --> 00:11:01.090 to the exact same physical answers. So that cemented 00:11:01.090 --> 00:11:03.210 wave mechanics and matrix mechanics is two sides 00:11:03.210 --> 00:11:06.129 of the same coin. It consolidated the field and 00:11:06.129 --> 00:11:08.190 must have earned Schrödinger immense respect. 00:11:08.720 --> 00:11:11.340 It was pivotal, but now we need to slow down 00:11:11.340 --> 00:11:13.980 a bit on the technical detail of the final paper 00:11:13.980 --> 00:11:17.179 because it reveals a critical mathematical elegance. 00:11:17.440 --> 00:11:21.039 The fourth paper addressed systems that change 00:11:21.039 --> 00:11:23.980 over time, the time -dependent Schrodinger equation. 00:11:24.539 --> 00:11:26.519 Which is really the more powerful version. It's 00:11:26.519 --> 00:11:28.720 perhaps the most powerful, because it describes 00:11:28.720 --> 00:11:31.820 the dynamic evolution of the quantum state, how 00:11:31.820 --> 00:11:34.879 the wave function changes over time. That's essential 00:11:34.879 --> 00:11:37.100 for understanding things like transitions, scattering 00:11:37.100 --> 00:11:39.700 problems, and interactions. But mathematically, 00:11:40.139 --> 00:11:43.379 you ran into a wall of complexity. How so? Solving 00:11:43.379 --> 00:11:45.620 the wave equation for these dynamic systems naturally 00:11:45.620 --> 00:11:48.779 led to incredibly complex, higher -order differential 00:11:48.779 --> 00:11:51.379 equations. We're talking fourth - and sixth -order 00:11:51.379 --> 00:11:53.759 equations, which are nearly impossible to manage. 00:11:53.840 --> 00:11:56.100 analytically. And the mathematical move he made 00:11:56.100 --> 00:11:58.620 to resolve this is what truly reveals the depth 00:11:58.620 --> 00:12:01.799 of his genius. He reduced all that chaos into 00:12:01.799 --> 00:12:04.460 manageable physics. Precisely. To prevent those 00:12:04.460 --> 00:12:07.539 chaotic, complex, high -order solutions, he introduced 00:12:07.539 --> 00:12:09.820 a complex solution to the wave equation. Meaning 00:12:09.820 --> 00:12:13.659 he used imaginary numbers. He did. And this mathematical 00:12:13.659 --> 00:12:16.940 maneuver involving imaginary numbers immediately 00:12:16.940 --> 00:12:20.159 reduced the differential equation from the chaotic 00:12:20.159 --> 00:12:23.649 fourth or sixth order down to a single first 00:12:23.649 --> 00:12:25.850 -order differential equation. Now, for the non 00:12:25.850 --> 00:12:28.129 -physicists listening, why was that mathematical 00:12:28.129 --> 00:12:31.389 move so revolutionary for the practical application 00:12:31.389 --> 00:12:33.929 of the equation? Because it made the physics 00:12:33.929 --> 00:12:36.470 calculable. A first -order differential equation 00:12:36.470 --> 00:12:39.169 is the simplest kind. It's the quantum mechanical 00:12:39.169 --> 00:12:43.009 equivalent of Newton's F equals ma. By introducing 00:12:43.009 --> 00:12:45.470 complexity in the form of imaginary numbers into 00:12:45.470 --> 00:12:48.129 the solution, he achieved profound simplicity 00:12:48.129 --> 00:12:51.029 in the overall framework. So this simplified, 00:12:51.230 --> 00:12:53.889 dynamic, time -dependent equation became the 00:12:53.889 --> 00:12:55.870 definitive starting point for all subsequent 00:12:55.870 --> 00:12:57.990 calculations in quantum physics and chemistry. 00:12:58.289 --> 00:13:00.269 That's it. He didn't just write an equation. 00:13:00.350 --> 00:13:02.350 He developed a full, unified, and simplified 00:13:02.350 --> 00:13:04.570 framework for atomic theory in about six months. 00:13:04.830 --> 00:13:07.230 He fundamentally changed how we look at matter 00:13:07.230 --> 00:13:09.409 and, importantly, how we calculate its behavior. 00:13:09.980 --> 00:13:12.179 And that framework was recognized seven years 00:13:12.179 --> 00:13:15.980 later by the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics, which 00:13:15.980 --> 00:13:18.399 he shared with Paul Dirac specifically for the 00:13:18.399 --> 00:13:21.000 discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory. 00:13:21.240 --> 00:13:23.879 And yet, almost immediately after achieving that 00:13:23.879 --> 00:13:26.960 ultimate conformity, a Nobel Prize Schrodinger 00:13:26.960 --> 00:13:29.759 demonstrated that he was equally nonconformist 00:13:29.759 --> 00:13:32.220 in his professional and personal life, which 00:13:32.220 --> 00:13:35.440 led to rapid instability. Let's track that instability. 00:13:36.209 --> 00:13:39.090 In 1927, he succeeded the great Max Planck at 00:13:39.090 --> 00:13:40.610 the University of Berlin. That's one of the most 00:13:40.610 --> 00:13:43.009 prestigious chairs in the world. But the rise 00:13:43.009 --> 00:13:45.629 of Nazism quickly made his position untenable. 00:13:45.789 --> 00:13:47.929 He was ethically and morally opposed to the Nazi 00:13:47.929 --> 00:13:50.190 regime's anti -Semitism. And he was vocal about 00:13:50.190 --> 00:13:53.309 it. He left Germany in 1933, the very same year 00:13:53.309 --> 00:13:55.529 he won the Nobel Prize, and moved to Magdalen 00:13:55.529 --> 00:13:58.110 College, Oxford. And that act of protest was 00:13:58.110 --> 00:14:00.350 a defining characteristic of the man. He was 00:14:00.350 --> 00:14:02.809 prioritizing principle over immense professional 00:14:02.809 --> 00:14:07.039 security. He was. But his time at Oxford and 00:14:07.039 --> 00:14:09.080 his subsequent lecture invitation at Princeton 00:14:09.080 --> 00:14:12.960 in 1934 revealed the flip side of his nonconformity. 00:14:13.139 --> 00:14:16.320 His brilliance was undeniable, but his unconventional 00:14:16.320 --> 00:14:19.320 domestic life was a severe impediment to institutional 00:14:19.320 --> 00:14:21.879 acceptance in the 1930s. Right. This is where 00:14:21.879 --> 00:14:24.220 it gets complicated. This is the profound collision 00:14:24.220 --> 00:14:27.039 point. He lived with both his wife, Ann Marie 00:14:27.039 --> 00:14:30.419 Bertel, or Annie, whom he married in 1920, and 00:14:30.419 --> 00:14:33.379 his mistress. institutions like Oxford and Princeton 00:14:33.379 --> 00:14:36.419 were simply not prepared or willing to accommodate 00:14:36.419 --> 00:14:39.440 or ignore a menage a trois. And the sources indicate 00:14:39.440 --> 00:14:41.340 he was actually offered a permanent position 00:14:41.340 --> 00:14:43.340 at Princeton, but declined. Almost certainly 00:14:43.340 --> 00:14:46.320 because of this issue. He simply refused to compromise 00:14:46.320 --> 00:14:48.399 his personal arrangement for professional stability. 00:14:48.779 --> 00:14:51.100 It's a remarkable portrait of a genius who felt 00:14:51.100 --> 00:14:53.440 comfortable defying social convention just as 00:14:53.440 --> 00:14:55.960 easily as he defied classical physics. Absolutely. 00:14:56.279 --> 00:14:59.269 But speaking of defiance. Despite inventing the 00:14:59.269 --> 00:15:01.429 fundamental tool of the quantum world, he was 00:15:01.429 --> 00:15:04.330 deeply fundamentally uncomfortable with the philosophical 00:15:04.330 --> 00:15:07.090 interpretation of what that tool suggested about 00:15:07.090 --> 00:15:10.289 reality. This is the great paradox. He gave the 00:15:10.289 --> 00:15:13.169 world wave mechanics, but he detested the standard 00:15:13.169 --> 00:15:16.149 probability interpretation of quantum theory. 00:15:16.470 --> 00:15:19.450 The Copenhagen interpretation, championed primarily 00:15:19.450 --> 00:15:22.799 by Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. That interpretation 00:15:22.799 --> 00:15:25.240 suggested that reality only becomes definite, 00:15:25.480 --> 00:15:28.539 a particle or a wave when observed, and that 00:15:28.539 --> 00:15:31.919 until observation, particles exist in a superposition 00:15:31.919 --> 00:15:34.679 of all possible states. And Schrodinger wanted 00:15:34.679 --> 00:15:38.019 an intuitive, continuous, deterministic reality, 00:15:38.379 --> 00:15:41.000 not a probabilistic, observer -dependent one. 00:15:41.200 --> 00:15:43.700 He believed the theory was incomplete and deeply 00:15:43.700 --> 00:15:46.519 flawed in its interpretation. He continued to 00:15:46.519 --> 00:15:48.659 refer to his theory strictly as wave mechanics, 00:15:49.039 --> 00:15:51.639 resisting the shift to the generalized and philosophically 00:15:51.639 --> 00:15:54.820 challenging quantum mechanics. His dissatisfaction 00:15:54.820 --> 00:15:57.440 drove his most influential later work. And the 00:15:57.440 --> 00:16:00.360 sources confirm he coined the term quantum entanglement 00:16:00.360 --> 00:16:03.159 in 1935 specifically to highlight the bizarre 00:16:03.159 --> 00:16:05.639 nature of the theory he created. He absolutely 00:16:05.639 --> 00:16:08.940 did. Entanglement describes a connection between 00:16:08.940 --> 00:16:11.759 two or more quantum particles, such that their 00:16:11.759 --> 00:16:14.039 states are linked, regardless of the distance 00:16:14.039 --> 00:16:16.419 separating them. He called it the phenomenon 00:16:16.419 --> 00:16:19.159 that enforces its entire departure from classical 00:16:19.159 --> 00:16:22.240 lines of thought. So for him, this non -locality, 00:16:22.259 --> 00:16:25.019 the instantaneous influence between distant particles, 00:16:25.259 --> 00:16:27.899 was a violation of common sense and classical 00:16:27.899 --> 00:16:30.740 causality. He saw it not as a triumph of quantum 00:16:30.740 --> 00:16:33.659 theory, but as an indictment of its interpretational 00:16:33.659 --> 00:16:36.340 framework. We even have that fantastic fiery 00:16:36.340 --> 00:16:39.200 quote that captures his philosophical disdain 00:16:39.200 --> 00:16:41.159 for the way his beautiful wave theory was being 00:16:41.159 --> 00:16:43.700 used by the proponents of the Copenhagen school. 00:16:43.940 --> 00:16:46.580 It reveals the purist and the esthetician in 00:16:46.580 --> 00:16:49.820 him. He reportedly complained angrily to his 00:16:49.820 --> 00:16:52.210 students that Now the damn Guttman physicists 00:16:52.210 --> 00:16:55.110 use my beautiful wave mechanics for calculating 00:16:55.110 --> 00:16:58.750 their shitty matrix elements. Wow. It's the rage 00:16:58.750 --> 00:17:00.909 of a physicist who believed in continuity and 00:17:00.909 --> 00:17:03.970 elegance. Seeing his work co -opted for abstract 00:17:03.970 --> 00:17:07.150 statistical calculations that completely undermined 00:17:07.150 --> 00:17:09.690 his worldview. And this entire philosophical 00:17:09.690 --> 00:17:12.450 war culminated in the most famous thought experiment 00:17:12.450 --> 00:17:15.680 in science, Schrödinger's cat. And we must remember 00:17:15.680 --> 00:17:17.859 the cat was never meant to be a serious proposal. 00:17:18.220 --> 00:17:21.519 It was a conceptual weapon, a reductio ad absurdum. 00:17:21.680 --> 00:17:24.740 Proposed in 1935, following his correspondence 00:17:24.740 --> 00:17:27.519 with Albert Einstein regarding the famous EPR 00:17:27.519 --> 00:17:30.259 paradox, the cat experiment was specifically 00:17:30.259 --> 00:17:33.319 designed to ridicule the standard views of Bohr 00:17:33.319 --> 00:17:36.339 and Heisenberg regarding superposition. He wanted 00:17:36.339 --> 00:17:38.920 to show that if superposition applied to microscopic 00:17:38.920 --> 00:17:42.140 particles, it must logically apply to macroscopic 00:17:42.140 --> 00:17:44.740 objects, and that the result was absurd. Exactly. 00:17:44.799 --> 00:17:46.579 So let's walk through the setup for the listener. 00:17:46.680 --> 00:17:49.619 You have a box. Inside, there's the cat, a radioactive 00:17:49.619 --> 00:17:52.220 source, a Geiger counter, and a vial of poison. 00:17:52.480 --> 00:17:55.440 If the single quantum atom decays, the counter 00:17:55.440 --> 00:17:57.660 is triggered, the poison vial breaks, and the 00:17:57.660 --> 00:18:00.019 cat dies. Straightforward enough. But here's 00:18:00.019 --> 00:18:02.299 the quantum twist. Under the Copenhagen interpretation, 00:18:02.880 --> 00:18:05.500 before observation, the atom is in a superposition. 00:18:05.920 --> 00:18:08.420 It's both decayed and undecayed at the same time. 00:18:08.779 --> 00:18:11.000 Since the cat's fate is intrinsically linked 00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:13.700 to the atom's quantum state, then the cat, a 00:18:13.700 --> 00:18:16.819 macroscopic object, must also be in a superposition 00:18:16.819 --> 00:18:19.019 of states, both dead and alive simultaneously. 00:18:19.619 --> 00:18:22.319 And the moment the box is opened, the act of 00:18:22.319 --> 00:18:25.180 observation collapses the quantum state, forcing 00:18:25.180 --> 00:18:27.680 the cat to suddenly be definitively one or the 00:18:27.680 --> 00:18:29.799 other, alive or dead. Schrodinger's point was 00:18:29.799 --> 00:18:33.319 simple. We know a cad cannot be simultaneously 00:18:33.319 --> 00:18:37.660 dead and alive. This literal macroscopic absurdity, 00:18:37.680 --> 00:18:40.940 a fuzzy contradictory feline, must therefore 00:18:40.940 --> 00:18:44.460 expose the profound flaw or incompleteness in 00:18:44.460 --> 00:18:46.839 the Copenhagen interpretation when bridging the 00:18:46.839 --> 00:18:49.119 gap between the quantum and classical worlds. 00:18:49.339 --> 00:18:52.059 It's just so powerful that the most common cultural 00:18:52.059 --> 00:18:54.420 shorthand for quantum mechanics is a critique 00:18:54.420 --> 00:18:56.819 designed by the very man who wrote the fundamental 00:18:56.819 --> 00:19:01.619 equation of the field. political, and professional 00:19:01.619 --> 00:19:04.839 instability for him. The philosophical nonconformity 00:19:04.839 --> 00:19:07.200 was matched by geographic instability driven 00:19:07.200 --> 00:19:09.700 by European politics. After leaving Oxford, he 00:19:09.700 --> 00:19:11.619 took a position at the University of Graz in 00:19:11.619 --> 00:19:14.920 1936, returning to his native Austria. He was 00:19:14.920 --> 00:19:17.099 likely seeking some stability after the Oxford 00:19:17.099 --> 00:19:19.480 and Princeton episodes. But any sense of permanence 00:19:19.480 --> 00:19:22.759 was obliterated by the Angelus in 1938. The sudden, 00:19:22.839 --> 00:19:26.299 swift Nazi annexation of Austria. Yes. And because 00:19:26.299 --> 00:19:29.599 of his established history, His outspoken opposition 00:19:29.599 --> 00:19:32.940 to Nazism and his self -imposed flight from Germany 00:19:32.940 --> 00:19:36.980 in 1933, Schrödinger immediately became a person 00:19:36.980 --> 00:19:39.859 of interest and a target for the new regime in 00:19:39.859 --> 00:19:42.460 Graz. He was in genuine physical and professional 00:19:42.460 --> 00:19:45.220 danger. The sources reveal this led him to a 00:19:45.220 --> 00:19:51.910 painful, desperate measure. It was an agonizing 00:19:51.910 --> 00:19:54.250 conflict. He tried to comply with the new regime 00:19:54.250 --> 00:19:56.490 to protect his ability to work and live freely, 00:19:56.609 --> 00:19:59.390 signing a document expressing support. He later 00:19:59.390 --> 00:20:02.099 regretted this deeply. telling Einstein, I wanted 00:20:02.099 --> 00:20:04.119 to remain free and could not do so without great 00:20:04.119 --> 00:20:06.619 duplicity. And it didn't even work. It didn't. 00:20:06.640 --> 00:20:08.880 Even this act of compromise failed to secure 00:20:08.880 --> 00:20:10.940 his safety. The University of Graz dismissed 00:20:10.940 --> 00:20:13.380 him anyway for political unreliability. He suffered 00:20:13.380 --> 00:20:15.200 harassment and was instructed not to leave the 00:20:15.200 --> 00:20:17.220 country, yet he still managed a daring escape. 00:20:17.539 --> 00:20:19.980 He fled to Italy with his wife, thanks to the 00:20:19.980 --> 00:20:22.400 help of others, before taking temporary visiting 00:20:22.400 --> 00:20:26.130 positions at Oxford and Ghent universities. This 00:20:26.130 --> 00:20:28.250 period of flight, moving between countries and 00:20:28.250 --> 00:20:32.069 institutions, lasted until 1940, when an extraordinary 00:20:32.069 --> 00:20:34.789 opportunity arose. And that opportunity was Dublin, 00:20:34.990 --> 00:20:37.430 a surprising haven orchestrated by a head of 00:20:37.430 --> 00:20:41.589 state. The Dublin years, from 1940 to 1955, were 00:20:41.589 --> 00:20:43.769 perhaps the longest period of sustained intellectual 00:20:43.769 --> 00:20:46.650 focus in his life, and they yielded some of his 00:20:46.650 --> 00:20:49.769 most influential, if non -quantum, work. It all 00:20:49.769 --> 00:20:52.349 came from a personal invitation from Iman de 00:20:52.349 --> 00:20:54.950 Valera, Ireland's Toisic, who was a scientist 00:20:54.950 --> 00:20:57.690 himself, trained in mathematics. De Valera was 00:20:57.690 --> 00:20:59.430 determined to establish a center of advanced 00:20:59.430 --> 00:21:02.049 research in Ireland, so he personally recruited 00:21:02.049 --> 00:21:03.990 one of the world's greatest scientific minds 00:21:03.990 --> 00:21:06.769 to anchor this new institution, the Dublin Institute 00:21:06.769 --> 00:21:10.309 for Advanced Studies, or DIAS. He joined Dyess 00:21:10.309 --> 00:21:12.730 as director of the School of Theoretical Physics, 00:21:12.970 --> 00:21:16.829 holding that post until he retired in 1955. He 00:21:16.829 --> 00:21:19.450 even became a naturalized Irish citizen in 1948 00:21:19.450 --> 00:21:23.089 while retaining his Austrian citizenship. This 00:21:23.089 --> 00:21:25.109 period really underscores Ireland's commitment 00:21:25.109 --> 00:21:27.710 to supporting scientific excellence during a 00:21:27.710 --> 00:21:30.650 time of global war and instability. I found the 00:21:30.650 --> 00:21:32.349 source material on his connection to Ireland 00:21:32.349 --> 00:21:35.589 quite fascinating. He wasn't Irish. Yet he sought 00:21:35.589 --> 00:21:37.710 to root himself there through a surprising cultural 00:21:37.710 --> 00:21:40.250 belief. It was an effort to integrate culturally. 00:21:40.589 --> 00:21:43.309 The sources note that in a 1940 interview with 00:21:43.309 --> 00:21:46.309 the Irish press, he spoke of the supposed Celtic 00:21:46.309 --> 00:21:48.650 heritage of Austrians. Really? Yeah, suggesting 00:21:48.650 --> 00:21:50.710 a deeper connection between us Austrians and 00:21:50.710 --> 00:21:53.450 the Celts, based, he argued, partly on linguistic 00:21:53.450 --> 00:21:55.950 evidence of Celtic place names in the Austrian 00:21:55.950 --> 00:21:58.650 Alps. It was perhaps a romanticized personal 00:21:58.650 --> 00:22:01.609 way of claiming a spiritual and cultural connection 00:22:01.609 --> 00:22:03.809 to his adopted home. And during these Dublin 00:22:03.809 --> 00:22:05.930 years, he produced a work that had nothing to 00:22:05.930 --> 00:22:07.950 do with solving the time -dependent wave equation, 00:22:08.210 --> 00:22:11.390 but whose influence reached far, far wider into 00:22:11.390 --> 00:22:13.390 the world of biology. The book What is Life? 00:22:13.789 --> 00:22:17.529 Published in 1944. This book is monumental, not 00:22:17.529 --> 00:22:20.470 for its physics, but for its audacity. That's 00:22:20.470 --> 00:22:22.710 a great way to put it. Schrödinger applied a 00:22:22.710 --> 00:22:26.390 physicist's lens, specifically the laws of thermodynamics 00:22:26.390 --> 00:22:29.089 and statistical mechanics, to the most profound 00:22:29.089 --> 00:22:32.559 questions of genetics and life itself. The book 00:22:32.559 --> 00:22:35.140 addressed the crucial question, how can genetic 00:22:35.140 --> 00:22:37.859 material be stable, permanent, and yet small 00:22:37.859 --> 00:22:40.599 enough to reside within a cell, without being 00:22:40.599 --> 00:22:43.539 destroyed by the random thermal motion that characterizes 00:22:43.539 --> 00:22:45.799 all matter? His argument revolved around the 00:22:45.799 --> 00:22:48.680 concept of order. Yes, he introduced the concept 00:22:48.680 --> 00:22:51.599 of nogentropy, or negative entropy. Entropy is 00:22:51.599 --> 00:22:54.160 the measure of disorder, and the second law of 00:22:54.160 --> 00:22:56.880 thermodynamics states that disorder must always 00:22:56.880 --> 00:22:59.640 increase in a closed system. But life seems to 00:22:59.640 --> 00:23:02.420 violate this law. It creates and maintains highly 00:23:02.420 --> 00:23:05.319 ordered structures. So Schrodinger argued that 00:23:05.319 --> 00:23:08.619 living systems maintain order by constantly drawing 00:23:08.619 --> 00:23:11.240 orderliness from their environment or feeding 00:23:11.240 --> 00:23:13.700 on the gentropy. They take in energy and excrete 00:23:13.700 --> 00:23:16.059 heat and waste, thus increasing the entropy of 00:23:16.059 --> 00:23:17.519 the universe around them while maintaining their 00:23:17.519 --> 00:23:20.099 own complexity. But the truly revolutionary part 00:23:20.099 --> 00:23:22.680 was his proposal for the physical structure of 00:23:22.680 --> 00:23:25.990 the genetic code. Right. He argued that for the 00:23:25.990 --> 00:23:28.230 genetic material to be stable and carry such 00:23:28.230 --> 00:23:31.029 a complex code, it couldn't be a simple molecule. 00:23:31.130 --> 00:23:34.210 It had to be in a periodic crystal, a complex, 00:23:34.210 --> 00:23:36.910 non -repeating chain molecule that was stable 00:23:36.910 --> 00:23:39.950 due to quantum mechanics, not classical thermal 00:23:39.950 --> 00:23:43.470 stability. This, a periodic crystal, he said, 00:23:43.589 --> 00:23:46.119 contained the full pattern of development. And 00:23:46.119 --> 00:23:48.759 this seemingly theoretical proposal had an immediate 00:23:48.759 --> 00:23:51.660 practical impact. It links theoretical physics 00:23:51.660 --> 00:23:54.500 directly to the most famous biological discovery 00:23:54.500 --> 00:23:57.079 of the 20th century. The sources confirm this 00:23:57.079 --> 00:23:59.759 essential historical detail. James G. Watson, 00:23:59.960 --> 00:24:03.200 in his memoir DNA, The Secret of Life, and Francis 00:24:03.200 --> 00:24:06.619 Crick, in What Mad Pursuit, both explicitly credited 00:24:06.619 --> 00:24:09.559 Schrodinger's book as a crucial, galvanizing 00:24:09.559 --> 00:24:11.980 inspiration for their work. So the book gave 00:24:11.980 --> 00:24:13.740 them the intellectual confidence that they were 00:24:13.740 --> 00:24:16.680 looking for a complex, stable molecule. The aperiodic 00:24:16.680 --> 00:24:19.500 crystal. And that molecule, discovered in 1953, 00:24:19.859 --> 00:24:22.720 was the DNA double helix structure. It's powerful 00:24:22.720 --> 00:24:25.240 proof that sometimes breakthroughs in one field 00:24:25.240 --> 00:24:27.460 require the foundational thinking from a completely 00:24:27.460 --> 00:24:30.750 different domain. Absolutely. But while inspiring 00:24:30.750 --> 00:24:33.710 biology, Schrödinger himself was still fighting 00:24:33.710 --> 00:24:35.930 his personal war against quantum randomness. 00:24:36.069 --> 00:24:38.849 He dedicated significant effort during the Dublin 00:24:38.849 --> 00:24:41.549 years to the pursuit of a unified field theory. 00:24:41.730 --> 00:24:44.049 His dream was a theory that would unite gravity, 00:24:44.289 --> 00:24:47.029 electromagnetism, and the nuclear forces within 00:24:47.029 --> 00:24:49.369 the deterministic framework of Einstein's general 00:24:49.369 --> 00:24:51.869 relativity. And he engaged in extensive, well 00:24:51.869 --> 00:24:54.049 -documented correspondence with Einstein on this 00:24:54.049 --> 00:24:57.720 topic. Both men were seeking a classical, deterministic, 00:24:57.759 --> 00:25:00.519 continuous field description. They were hoping 00:25:00.519 --> 00:25:03.119 to bypass the probabilistic and discontinuous 00:25:03.119 --> 00:25:05.640 nightmare that was mainstream quantum mechanics. 00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:08.140 Two titans working together, trying to put the 00:25:08.140 --> 00:25:10.359 genie of quantum uncertainty back in the bottle. 00:25:10.539 --> 00:25:13.519 Did he succeed? Unfortunately, no. His final 00:25:13.519 --> 00:25:16.599 major attempt was his 1947 announcement, the 00:25:16.599 --> 00:25:19.220 affine field theory, presented at the Royal Irish 00:25:19.220 --> 00:25:22.900 Academy. This was met with a very lukewarm reception. 00:25:23.099 --> 00:25:25.160 Even from Einstein. Especially from Einstein. 00:25:25.440 --> 00:25:27.759 He published a critique that called the results 00:25:27.759 --> 00:25:31.759 preliminary and inconclusive. The theory failed 00:25:31.759 --> 00:25:35.099 to lead to the desired unification. And the sources 00:25:35.099 --> 00:25:38.059 indicate that following this failure, Schrödinger 00:25:38.059 --> 00:25:40.400 essentially gave up his formal work on unification 00:25:40.400 --> 00:25:43.460 and reportedly never again collaborated with 00:25:43.460 --> 00:25:46.319 a major theoretical physicist. So he failed to 00:25:46.319 --> 00:25:49.980 unite the forces, but... Did his attempt or even 00:25:49.980 --> 00:25:52.119 his methodology contribute anything foundational 00:25:52.119 --> 00:25:54.640 to the next generation of unification theorists? 00:25:54.880 --> 00:25:56.759 Well, the significance of the failure is that 00:25:56.759 --> 00:25:58.980 it demonstrated the deep difficulty of marrying 00:25:58.980 --> 00:26:01.960 gravity with the quantum world using a purely 00:26:01.960 --> 00:26:04.559 classical field theory, the approach both he 00:26:04.559 --> 00:26:07.579 and Einstein insisted upon. Their shared resistance 00:26:07.579 --> 00:26:09.720 to the reality of quantum mechanics led them 00:26:09.720 --> 00:26:12.079 down a path that ultimately proved fruitless 00:26:12.079 --> 00:26:14.509 for that generation. So it was a dead end. In 00:26:14.509 --> 00:26:17.490 a way. But the rigor they applied and the problems 00:26:17.490 --> 00:26:19.630 they defined did help future theorists understand 00:26:19.630 --> 00:26:22.849 the vast gulf they were trying to bridge. Schrodinger 00:26:22.849 --> 00:26:24.450 has essentially confirmed that any successful 00:26:24.450 --> 00:26:27.029 unification would require accepting, rather than 00:26:27.029 --> 00:26:29.210 circumventing, the quantum nature of reality. 00:26:29.589 --> 00:26:32.509 If the quantum world caused him profound scientific 00:26:32.509 --> 00:26:35.809 discomfort, his real intellectual refuge seemed 00:26:35.809 --> 00:26:38.589 to lie in pure philosophy. That's where he could 00:26:38.589 --> 00:26:41.029 actively reconcile his scientific rejection of 00:26:41.029 --> 00:26:43.549 multiplicity with his spiritual craving for unity. 00:26:43.960 --> 00:26:46.759 He was influenced heavily by two giants of continental 00:26:46.759 --> 00:26:50.119 philosophy, Arthur Schopenhauer and Baruch Spinoza. 00:26:50.220 --> 00:26:52.299 And his philosophical interests were not merely 00:26:52.299 --> 00:26:55.339 a hobby. No, they were the backbone of his resistance 00:26:55.339 --> 00:26:58.119 to the quantum consensus. Schopenhauer in particular 00:26:58.119 --> 00:27:00.559 was the gateway. Schopenhauer argued that the 00:27:00.559 --> 00:27:03.180 world we perceive is merely representation or 00:27:03.180 --> 00:27:05.539 subjective interpretation, and behind that is 00:27:05.539 --> 00:27:08.519 the fundamental will or unified reality. We see 00:27:08.519 --> 00:27:10.839 the direct echo of this influence in his later 00:27:10.839 --> 00:27:14.059 lectures. The sources reference his 1956 lecture, 00:27:14.319 --> 00:27:16.900 Mind and Matter, which contains a strikingly 00:27:16.900 --> 00:27:19.700 Schopenhauerian line. He stated that the world 00:27:19.700 --> 00:27:22.640 extended in space and time is but our representation. 00:27:23.640 --> 00:27:26.579 This is almost a direct restatement of the opening 00:27:26.579 --> 00:27:28.660 sentiment of Schopenhauer's main philosophical 00:27:28.660 --> 00:27:32.720 work, the world as will and representation. For 00:27:32.720 --> 00:27:35.559 Schrödinger, science was powerful. but it could 00:27:35.559 --> 00:27:38.420 only ever describe the representation, the external 00:27:38.420 --> 00:27:41.160 manifestation, not the underlying will or consciousness 00:27:41.160 --> 00:27:43.759 that perceives it. But his philosophical engagement 00:27:43.759 --> 00:27:47.259 went far further than European thought. It extended 00:27:47.259 --> 00:27:49.579 deeply into Eastern religion and the ancient 00:27:49.579 --> 00:27:52.319 philosophies of India. Yes. Schopenhauer's work 00:27:52.319 --> 00:27:54.720 was the key conduit that introduced Schrodinger 00:27:54.720 --> 00:27:58.420 to Indian philosophy, specifically the Upanishads 00:27:58.420 --> 00:28:00.380 and the non -dualist school of Advaita Vedanta. 00:28:00.720 --> 00:28:02.720 This is where the narrative thread of rejecting 00:28:02.720 --> 00:28:05.119 multiplicity becomes absolutely explicit. And 00:28:05.119 --> 00:28:07.099 even though he was an atheist, the sources note 00:28:07.099 --> 00:28:09.240 his strong interest in Eastern religions and 00:28:09.240 --> 00:28:11.359 pantheism. It seems he viewed his scientific 00:28:11.359 --> 00:28:13.980 work itself as an intellectual approach to divinity. 00:28:14.140 --> 00:28:16.880 He absolutely did. The core tenet of Advaita 00:28:16.880 --> 00:28:19.019 Vedanta is the concept of Brahman, the ultimate 00:28:19.019 --> 00:28:21.839 reality, and Atman, the individual soul, being 00:28:21.839 --> 00:28:24.180 fundamentally the same. The whole idea is tat 00:28:24.180 --> 00:28:27.299 -fa -masi, that art thou. The ultimate rejection 00:28:27.299 --> 00:28:30.519 of duality and multiplicity. And Schrodinger 00:28:30.519 --> 00:28:33.099 embraced this, using religious symbolism, even 00:28:33.099 --> 00:28:35.240 while remaining skeptical of organized religion. 00:28:35.500 --> 00:28:38.079 And he arrived at an astonishing conclusion about 00:28:38.079 --> 00:28:41.400 consciousness, drawn from this synthesis of physics 00:28:41.400 --> 00:28:44.279 and Eastern philosophy, which perfectly mirrors 00:28:44.279 --> 00:28:47.279 his scientific resistance to wave function collapse. 00:28:47.759 --> 00:28:50.240 It's the ultimate synthesis for him. It is. He 00:28:50.240 --> 00:28:52.700 embraced the idea of the unification of minds 00:28:52.700 --> 00:28:55.160 or consciousnesses. He argued that the apparent 00:28:55.559 --> 00:28:57.960 complicity of individual minds, you and me as 00:28:57.960 --> 00:29:00.480 separate entities, is only an illusion arising 00:29:00.480 --> 00:29:03.779 from our perception of time and space. He stated 00:29:03.779 --> 00:29:07.299 unequivocally, in truth, there is only one mind. 00:29:07.339 --> 00:29:10.279 This is the doctrine of the Upanishads. So he 00:29:10.279 --> 00:29:12.779 was proposing that the singular you experiencing 00:29:12.779 --> 00:29:15.660 reality is merely a temporary manifestation of 00:29:15.660 --> 00:29:18.579 a universal unified consciousness. Why did he 00:29:18.579 --> 00:29:20.319 feel compelled to argue this from a scientific 00:29:20.319 --> 00:29:22.700 perspective? Because of the observer problem 00:29:22.700 --> 00:29:26.079 in quantum mechanics. If observation is necessary 00:29:26.079 --> 00:29:29.000 to collapse a wave function, where does the collapse 00:29:29.000 --> 00:29:32.559 occur? Does it collapse in the cat's eye? In 00:29:32.559 --> 00:29:35.339 the physicist's brain? He saw a deep logical 00:29:35.339 --> 00:29:38.480 impasse. He believed the only way out was to 00:29:38.480 --> 00:29:40.980 assume that consciousness itself cannot be a 00:29:40.980 --> 00:29:42.960 physical product of the brain. And he said that 00:29:42.960 --> 00:29:45.440 directly. He explicitly stated that consciousness 00:29:45.440 --> 00:29:47.960 is absolutely fundamental and cannot be accounted 00:29:47.960 --> 00:29:51.279 for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely 00:29:51.279 --> 00:29:53.319 fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms 00:29:53.319 --> 00:29:55.619 of anything else. That is a staggering statement 00:29:55.619 --> 00:29:58.059 from one of the fathers of modern physics, a 00:29:58.059 --> 00:30:00.559 declaration that consciousness transcends the 00:30:00.559 --> 00:30:03.559 very physics he helped create. It's the key takeaway 00:30:03.559 --> 00:30:06.440 about his intellectual life. His entire career 00:30:06.440 --> 00:30:08.680 was dedicated to finding unity and continuity, 00:30:08.960 --> 00:30:11.619 whether it was unifying fields, unifying physics 00:30:11.619 --> 00:30:14.359 and biology, or unifying consciousness. And his 00:30:14.359 --> 00:30:16.359 later years were marked by this philosophical 00:30:16.359 --> 00:30:19.119 emphasis and further resistance to the mainstream 00:30:19.119 --> 00:30:22.180 scientific consensus. When he returned to Vienna 00:30:22.180 --> 00:30:25.680 in 1956, he refused to speak on nuclear power. 00:30:26.109 --> 00:30:28.170 due to his skepticism about its implications. 00:30:28.549 --> 00:30:31.430 Right. And instead, he gave a purely philosophical 00:30:31.430 --> 00:30:34.470 lecture, doubling down on his non -materialist 00:30:34.470 --> 00:30:37.509 worldview. And he continued his resistance to 00:30:37.509 --> 00:30:40.150 standard quantum theory, turning firmly against 00:30:40.150 --> 00:30:43.009 the concept of wave -particle duality, the idea 00:30:43.009 --> 00:30:45.210 that quantum entities can behave sometimes like 00:30:45.210 --> 00:30:48.220 waves and sometimes like particles. He promoted 00:30:48.220 --> 00:30:51.619 the wave idea alone, seeking a continuous fluid 00:30:51.619 --> 00:30:54.839 description of reality rather than the discontinuous 00:30:54.839 --> 00:30:57.480 probabilistic jumps required by the particle 00:30:57.480 --> 00:30:59.660 interpretation. He was always searching for a 00:30:59.660 --> 00:31:02.200 reality that felt more intuitive. Always. In 00:31:02.200 --> 00:31:06.039 fact, in 1952, he published work that retrospectively 00:31:06.039 --> 00:31:08.140 anticipated one of the most radical alternative 00:31:08.140 --> 00:31:11.000 interpretations of quantum mechanics. the many 00:31:11.000 --> 00:31:14.099 worlds interpretation. How so? He suggested that 00:31:14.099 --> 00:31:16.180 the different terms of a superposition evolving 00:31:16.180 --> 00:31:18.680 under his equation are not alternatives, but 00:31:18.680 --> 00:31:21.190 all really happen simultaneously. So instead 00:31:21.190 --> 00:31:22.950 of the observer collapsing the wave function, 00:31:23.269 --> 00:31:25.569 Schrodinger essentially suggested that the universe 00:31:25.569 --> 00:31:28.650 splits, meaning the dead cat and the alive cat 00:31:28.650 --> 00:31:31.130 are both real, just existing in different simultaneous 00:31:31.130 --> 00:31:34.029 universes. Which helps resolve the observer problem 00:31:34.029 --> 00:31:37.369 by saying everything possible happens. A far 00:31:37.369 --> 00:31:39.890 cry from the single definite reality proposed 00:31:39.890 --> 00:31:42.990 by Copenhagen. As we transition, we must address 00:31:42.990 --> 00:31:45.890 the difficult truth that Schrodinger's professional 00:31:45.890 --> 00:31:48.650 brilliance and philosophical depth contrasts 00:31:48.650 --> 00:31:50.809 sharply with the documented complexities and 00:31:50.809 --> 00:31:53.710 controversies of his personal life. Which repeatedly 00:31:53.710 --> 00:31:57.130 caused professional instability and now necessitates 00:31:57.130 --> 00:32:00.009 a profound reappraisal of his legacy. We have 00:32:00.009 --> 00:32:02.329 to adhere strictly to the factual reporting provided 00:32:02.329 --> 00:32:04.950 in the sources and biographies here. He married 00:32:04.950 --> 00:32:08.230 Anne -Marie Bertel, or Annie, in 1920, and their 00:32:08.230 --> 00:32:10.150 marriage was unconventional from the outset. 00:32:10.650 --> 00:32:12.829 The Ménage à Trois arrangement became highly 00:32:12.829 --> 00:32:14.970 visible and professionally damaging during his 00:32:14.970 --> 00:32:17.509 time at Oxford and Princeton. When he fled to 00:32:17.509 --> 00:32:20.670 Dublin in 1939, this arrangement continued. He 00:32:20.670 --> 00:32:23.230 obtained visas for himself, his wife, and another 00:32:23.230 --> 00:32:26.170 woman, Hilda March, who was the wife of an Austrian 00:32:26.170 --> 00:32:30.289 colleague, Arthur March. Schrödinger had fathered 00:32:30.289 --> 00:32:33.089 a daughter with Hilda in 1934, and the Tysitch, 00:32:33.269 --> 00:32:36.049 Emond de Valera, personally secured a visa for 00:32:36.049 --> 00:32:38.779 March to live with them in Dublin. This domestic 00:32:38.779 --> 00:32:41.160 arrangement was acknowledged, if not accepted, 00:32:41.400 --> 00:32:44.180 by the highest levels of Irish government. This 00:32:44.180 --> 00:32:46.279 arrangement, however, only scratches the surface 00:32:46.279 --> 00:32:48.740 of the deeply concerning details regarding his 00:32:48.740 --> 00:32:51.500 relationships. Biographers have reported serious 00:32:51.500 --> 00:32:53.779 and disturbing information about his predilection 00:32:53.779 --> 00:32:57.160 for young women. Indeed. The primary source for 00:32:57.160 --> 00:32:59.920 many of these details is the authoritative 1989 00:32:59.920 --> 00:33:03.700 biography by Walter Moore. Moore described Schrodinger 00:33:03.700 --> 00:33:06.559 as having what he termed a Lolita complex and 00:33:06.559 --> 00:33:09.640 a predilection for teenage girls. This is a profoundly 00:33:09.640 --> 00:33:11.900 difficult and sensitive topic, and we have to 00:33:11.900 --> 00:33:14.519 report the documented facts impartially as they 00:33:14.519 --> 00:33:16.619 appear in the sources. The sources specifically 00:33:16.619 --> 00:33:19.339 detail a relationship that began around 1926. 00:33:20.059 --> 00:33:22.420 Schrodinger was 39, and he was tutoring a girl 00:33:22.420 --> 00:33:24.539 named Ithie Younger, who was 14 at the time. 00:33:24.829 --> 00:33:26.490 Moore relates that the tutoring relationship 00:33:26.490 --> 00:33:29.049 escalated, including a fair amount of petting 00:33:29.049 --> 00:33:31.849 and cuddling, and that Schrodinger became infatuated 00:33:31.849 --> 00:33:34.329 with his pupil. The relationship became sexual 00:33:34.329 --> 00:33:37.089 not long after her 17th birthday. And later, 00:33:37.230 --> 00:33:40.130 in 1932, when she was 20, she became pregnant. 00:33:40.410 --> 00:33:43.009 That's right. While Schrodinger offered to take 00:33:43.009 --> 00:33:45.329 care of the child, he refused to divorce his 00:33:45.329 --> 00:33:47.910 wife, Annie, which led Ithy to arrange for an 00:33:47.910 --> 00:33:50.900 abortion. This pattern was apparently consistent 00:33:50.900 --> 00:33:53.460 throughout his life and was rooted in a problematic 00:33:53.460 --> 00:33:56.259 worldview regarding women. Biographer Walter 00:33:56.259 --> 00:33:58.960 Moore explicitly stated that Schrodinger's attitude 00:33:58.960 --> 00:34:02.099 toward women was that of a male supremacist. 00:34:02.430 --> 00:34:04.950 The sources note that he also utilized his own 00:34:04.950 --> 00:34:07.230 diary entries, where he expressed attraction 00:34:07.230 --> 00:34:09.809 to women who were as nearly connected to the 00:34:09.809 --> 00:34:12.469 preferred springs of nature as men of strong, 00:34:12.650 --> 00:34:15.429 genuine intellectuality. And this behavior continued 00:34:15.429 --> 00:34:17.769 through his time in Ireland, where he was supposedly 00:34:17.769 --> 00:34:21.489 seeking intellectual peace. Yes. The source material, 00:34:21.769 --> 00:34:23.869 including articles from Der Standard, states 00:34:23.869 --> 00:34:26.230 that while in Ireland, he fathered children from 00:34:26.230 --> 00:34:28.869 two other women, one described as a 26 -year 00:34:28.869 --> 00:34:31.150 -old and the other a married political activist. 00:34:31.670 --> 00:34:34.389 However, Moore's biography clarifies that neither 00:34:34.389 --> 00:34:36.550 of these women were his students. But there was 00:34:36.550 --> 00:34:40.250 another incident. Yes. Moore's account also described 00:34:40.250 --> 00:34:43.210 a deeply troubling episode in Ireland where Schrodinger 00:34:43.210 --> 00:34:45.750 was infatuated with a 12 -year -old girl named 00:34:45.750 --> 00:34:49.090 Barbara McEntee. He reportedly only stopped pursuing 00:34:49.090 --> 00:34:51.630 the relationship after receiving a serious word 00:34:51.630 --> 00:34:55.150 from a concerned third party, but later listed 00:34:55.150 --> 00:34:57.469 her among the unrecredited loves of his life. 00:34:58.000 --> 00:35:00.699 These facts, documented in his own papers and 00:35:00.699 --> 00:35:03.280 detailed by biographers, has led to a significant 00:35:03.280 --> 00:35:05.739 institutional reconsideration of his legacy, 00:35:05.920 --> 00:35:08.380 particularly where he spent those years in Dublin. 00:35:08.559 --> 00:35:11.059 Absolutely. The tension between his genius and 00:35:11.059 --> 00:35:13.500 his actions reached a critical point. In January 00:35:13.500 --> 00:35:16.940 2022, Trinity College Dublin, where he gave highly 00:35:16.940 --> 00:35:19.679 influential lectures, announced a tangible and 00:35:19.679 --> 00:35:22.059 necessary response. They renamed a lecture theater. 00:35:22.510 --> 00:35:24.389 A lecture theater that had borne his name since 00:35:24.389 --> 00:35:27.250 the 1990s was formally renamed to the generic 00:35:27.250 --> 00:35:29.670 Physics Lecture Theater, and his portrait was 00:35:29.670 --> 00:35:33.170 removed. That action speaks volumes. It wasn't 00:35:33.170 --> 00:35:35.489 taken lightly, and it was explicitly linked back 00:35:35.489 --> 00:35:37.449 to the sources we've discussed. PCD released 00:35:37.449 --> 00:35:40.329 a statement acknowledging the indisputable scientific 00:35:40.329 --> 00:35:43.289 contribution of Erwin Schrödinger while acknowledging 00:35:43.289 --> 00:35:46.369 disturbing information, much of it from Schrödinger's 00:35:46.369 --> 00:35:49.360 own diaries, which is now also known. It shows 00:35:49.360 --> 00:35:51.559 that institutions are actively grappling with 00:35:51.559 --> 00:35:54.280 the complexity of separating or perhaps acknowledging 00:35:54.280 --> 00:35:57.519 the fusion of scientific genius and documented 00:35:57.519 --> 00:36:00.059 personal misconduct. It's a powerful moment of 00:36:00.059 --> 00:36:03.280 reappraisal. It is. Schrodinger died, fittingly, 00:36:03.280 --> 00:36:06.420 in his native Vienna on 4 January 1961 at the 00:36:06.420 --> 00:36:10.139 age of 73 of tuberculosis. And even his burial 00:36:10.139 --> 00:36:12.519 involved a final curious contradiction. He was 00:36:12.519 --> 00:36:15.119 a lifelong atheist. Yet he was buried in a Catholic 00:36:15.119 --> 00:36:17.489 cemetery in Albach. The sources indicate the 00:36:17.489 --> 00:36:19.670 local priest allowed the burial only after learning 00:36:19.670 --> 00:36:21.510 that Schrödinger was a member of the Pontifical 00:36:21.510 --> 00:36:24.050 Academy of Sciences, a position he had held since 00:36:24.050 --> 00:36:28.050 1936. So, despite the necessary and painful re 00:36:28.050 --> 00:36:30.769 -evaluation of his personal life, his intellectual 00:36:30.769 --> 00:36:33.409 contributions remain colossal and fundamentally 00:36:33.409 --> 00:36:36.409 undeniable. They reshaped our understanding of 00:36:36.409 --> 00:36:38.469 the physical world forever. Without question. 00:36:38.610 --> 00:36:40.829 At the most technical level, the Schrödinger 00:36:40.829 --> 00:36:44.099 equation remains his most enduring legacy. It 00:36:44.099 --> 00:36:46.219 is the definitive equation of wave mechanics 00:36:46.219 --> 00:36:49.579 used daily across physics, chemistry, material 00:36:49.579 --> 00:36:52.639 science, engineering disciplines to predict molecular 00:36:52.639 --> 00:36:56.059 behavior and quantum phenomena. It is the cornerstone 00:36:56.059 --> 00:36:58.420 of modern science. And for the general public, 00:36:58.519 --> 00:37:01.000 the philosophical weight of his ideas persists 00:37:01.000 --> 00:37:03.480 through popular science, even if the general 00:37:03.480 --> 00:37:05.519 understanding of his most famous experiment is 00:37:05.519 --> 00:37:08.179 divorced from its original critical intent. That's 00:37:08.179 --> 00:37:10.659 where Schrodinger's cat comes in. The thought 00:37:10.659 --> 00:37:13.300 experiment designed to illustrate absurdity remains 00:37:13.300 --> 00:37:16.159 his most enduring popular legacy because it perfectly 00:37:16.159 --> 00:37:19.119 encapsulates the strange, counterintuitive nature 00:37:19.119 --> 00:37:22.059 of the quantum classical boundary. He forced 00:37:22.059 --> 00:37:23.920 science to confront the limits of interpretation. 00:37:24.340 --> 00:37:27.139 He is justly recognized as one of several individuals 00:37:27.139 --> 00:37:30.260 called the father of quantum mechanics. And the 00:37:30.260 --> 00:37:32.739 physical commemorations of his monumental impact 00:37:32.739 --> 00:37:35.719 span the globe and even the solar system. They 00:37:35.719 --> 00:37:38.420 certainly do. He has a crater named after him. 00:37:38.619 --> 00:37:40.659 the Schrodinger crater on the far side of the 00:37:40.659 --> 00:37:43.780 moon. Closer to Earth, the Erwin Schrodinger 00:37:43.780 --> 00:37:45.900 International Institute for Mathematical Physics 00:37:45.900 --> 00:37:49.460 was founded in Vienna in 1992. And his face was 00:37:49.460 --> 00:37:52.320 on money. For years, his likeness was prominent 00:37:52.320 --> 00:37:56.440 on the 1983 -97 Austrian 1 ,000 -shilling banknote. 00:37:57.139 --> 00:37:59.159 Buildings are named in his honor at the University 00:37:59.159 --> 00:38:01.719 of Limerick in Ireland and the Erwin Schrodinger 00:38:01.719 --> 00:38:05.460 Zentrum in Berlin. Even CERN, the home of particle 00:38:05.460 --> 00:38:07.880 physics, has a root Schrodinger. And a Google 00:38:07.880 --> 00:38:11.219 Doodle, of course. His 126th birthday in 2013 00:38:11.219 --> 00:38:14.280 was celebrated with a Google Doodle, recognizing 00:38:14.280 --> 00:38:17.380 his profound influence. So as we conclude this 00:38:17.380 --> 00:38:19.519 deep dive, what does this synthesis of the sources 00:38:19.519 --> 00:38:22.360 tell us about Erwin Schrodinger? We have explored 00:38:22.360 --> 00:38:24.480 the man who created the definitive equation of 00:38:24.480 --> 00:38:26.960 wave mechanics, coined the concept of quantum 00:38:26.960 --> 00:38:29.239 entanglement, and wrote the book that inspired 00:38:29.239 --> 00:38:32.010 the discovery of DNA structure. And he was an 00:38:32.010 --> 00:38:35.409 uncompromising intellect who sought unity, continuity, 00:38:35.750 --> 00:38:38.269 and deterministic elegance across every field 00:38:38.269 --> 00:38:41.130 he touched. I think it tells us that genius is 00:38:41.130 --> 00:38:44.030 defined by paradox. His intellectual stature 00:38:44.030 --> 00:38:46.530 is immense. His ability to synthesize classical 00:38:46.530 --> 00:38:49.130 physics, quantum theory, biology, and philosophy 00:38:49.130 --> 00:38:53.280 is unparalleled. And this is directly contrasted 00:38:53.280 --> 00:38:56.639 by a fierce nonconformity. A nonconformity that 00:38:56.639 --> 00:38:58.719 drove both his courage -flinging Nazism and his 00:38:58.719 --> 00:39:01.260 documented personal flaws, which ultimately required 00:39:01.260 --> 00:39:04.280 his legacy to be physically revised in institutions 00:39:04.280 --> 00:39:07.000 like Trinity College Dublin. He was a rebel who 00:39:07.000 --> 00:39:09.179 rejected atomization in physics, philosophy, 00:39:09.380 --> 00:39:11.880 and domestic life. And that drive resulted in 00:39:11.880 --> 00:39:13.800 both his greatest triumphs and the most painful 00:39:13.800 --> 00:39:15.940 aspects of his history. So what does this all 00:39:15.940 --> 00:39:18.360 mean for us, the learners, as we try to integrate 00:39:18.360 --> 00:39:21.099 this complex reality? gets really interesting. 00:39:21.380 --> 00:39:23.199 We discussed Schrodinger's ultimate conclusion, 00:39:23.480 --> 00:39:25.659 drawn from his reading of the Upanishads, that 00:39:25.659 --> 00:39:28.380 the apparent multiplicity of our individual consciousnesses 00:39:28.380 --> 00:39:30.639 is an illusion. That, in truth, there is only 00:39:30.639 --> 00:39:33.380 one mind. Right. So if this towering figure, 00:39:33.500 --> 00:39:36.159 who understood the mechanics of matter better 00:39:36.159 --> 00:39:38.840 than almost anyone, ultimately believed that 00:39:38.840 --> 00:39:41.420 all individual perception is fundamentally unified 00:39:41.420 --> 00:39:44.820 and continuous, what does that mean for the unique, 00:39:44.980 --> 00:39:48.599 solitary reality you perceive every day? It provides 00:39:48.599 --> 00:39:52.559 a final, provocative thought. When you face paradoxes, 00:39:52.559 --> 00:39:54.440 whether the scientific paradox of the quantum 00:39:54.440 --> 00:39:57.079 world or the everyday contradictions of life 00:39:57.079 --> 00:40:00.039 itself, consider the possibility that the boundaries 00:40:00.039 --> 00:40:01.960 you perceive between yourself and the universe, 00:40:02.199 --> 00:40:04.719 or between your consciousness and others, might 00:40:04.719 --> 00:40:07.400 be a fundamental illusion. If Schrodinger sought 00:40:07.400 --> 00:40:10.119 continuity in the quantum wave function, perhaps 00:40:10.119 --> 00:40:12.179 we should seek continuity in our own experience, 00:40:12.519 --> 00:40:15.639 recognizing that the one mind he described is 00:40:15.639 --> 00:40:17.380 the only thing that can make sense of a half 00:40:17.380 --> 00:40:19.679 -dead cat. Something for you to explore on your 00:40:19.679 --> 00:40:19.960 own.