Schrödinger’s Cat: On the Paradox and Its Consequences

The ceremonial start of the school year began with remarks by the headteacher Anna Sobala-Zbroszczyk, as quoted by the coordinator Tomasz Mazur. The headteacher wished the entire school community hope, a good year, and many pleasant moments shared together. Emphasizing the need to maintain a balance between work and rest, she reminded everyone that life cannot consist solely of challenges. The coordinator, for his part, drew attention to the aspect of effort that accompanies growth. Quoting Epictetus, who claimed that a good wrestler gets angry at his coach if the coach provides him with an opponent who is too weak, Tomasz Mazur spoke of the toil, frustration, pain, and suffering that, though difficult to endure, help us grow as human beings. The president Krystyna Norwa warmly welcomed each grade and wished everybody a successful school year, full of good results and achievements.

The start of the new school year was marked by a lecture titled “Is It Still Worth Studying?” by Jan Chwedeńczuk, a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Warsaw. The professor spoke about the cycles of ice ages and interglacial periods on the Earth, which, due to rising CO² levels in the atmosphere, will most likely not repeat themselves in their current pattern. The human species, which has been existing on the Earth for several hundred thousand years, has developed certain skills so far and can still learn new things, but it seems that they—that is, we—do not have much time left to solve, among other things, the problem of global warming. Although, since the dawn of time, we have consistently lived with the thought of the approaching end of the world, or with the belief that things used to be better and that we shouldn’t count on the young, perhaps there is a solution that, in accordance with the idea of quantum superposition, has the potential to be both a curse and a blessing at the same time. Looking deep into the atom may lead us to build quantum computers capable of handling 2^N possibilities at once, and this offers hope for solutions in certain fields of knowledge. So let’s do our part, because perhaps it is worth it to study!

(Tekst: Beata Ciacek, translated with DeepL.com; photos: Beata Ciacek)