Okay, new question (sorry!). A superposition state is the sum of all the possibilities of all the states it could be in. Until we actually measure and know what state it is in. But that's not to say that it's not in a certain state until we measure? We just aren't sure yet. Just because we don't...
Wait, what? Is it that measuring actually affects the particle and destroys the pattern? Or is the pattern something I don't understand? I thought the pattern was the light and dark bands. How does it relate to probability?
Okay, I have a completely different question now. In the double-slit experiment, the particles can be considered waves as they produce an interference pattern. But when you go to measure which path they actually took, they act like particles when they hit the screen. This illustrates the...
So we don't know if the cat is either dead or alive until we actually check to see. It's just that we have to consider all possibilities before we check, so it is considered both until we know for sure?
Okay, I read all about Schrodinger's cat from like 50 different sources. I guess I'm confused about whether or not the cat is actually both alive or dead, or if it's just better to think of it that way because we don't actually know yet so we must think about it in probabilities.
I think that the wave function is the description of a particle's position at a point in time. But I'm not precisely sure what an eigenfunction is and how it is different. I know that certain eigenfunctions return certain values, and that even if you do not have a certain eigenfunction you can...