Erwin Schrödinger

Austrian physicist (1887–1961)

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Lived 1887–1961, aged 74Austria

Austria ScientistsScientist

Wikipedia
140 languages
Cross-language footprint
Rank in Austria
#8
Scientists
Era
1887–1961
Aged 74
Awards
12
recognised works

Summary

Updated 2026-06-08

The man who wrote the equation that predicts how quantum systems evolve — and who gave us the term "quantum entanglement" — is now mostly remembered for a cat that's simultaneously alive and dead in a box, a thought experiment he created to show how absurd the Copenhagen interpretation seemed.

Biography

About

Erwin Schrödinger was born in Vienna on 12 August 1887 and trained as a theoretical physicist in Austria. He devised the Schrödinger equation, the core tool for calculating wave functions and their change over time, and for that work shared the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics with Paul Dirac. His range was wide: he wrote on statistical mechanics, thermodynamics, color theory, general relativity, cosmology, and unified field theory, and in "What Is Life?" he approached genetics through the lens of physics. He lived with his wife and mistress, a domestic arrangement that contributed to his departure…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Erwin Schrödinger

Erwin Schrödinger

said9 Nov 1959

I insist upon the view that 'all is waves'.

— Letter to John Lighton Synge (9 November 1959), as quoted by Walter Moore in Schrödinger: Life and Thought (1989)

Erwin Schrödinger

said1952

we never experiment with just one electron or atom or (small) molecule. In thought-experiments we sometimes assume that we do.

— "Are There Quantum Jumps? Part II (1952)

Erwin Schrödinger

said13 Jun 1946

God knows I am no friend of probability theory, I have hated it from the first moment when our dear friend Max Born gave it birth.

— Letter to Albert Einstein (13 June 1946), as quoted by Walter Moore in Schrödinger: Life and Thought (1989)

Erwin Schrödinger

said1935

If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed.

— On the conditions of the "Schrödinger's cat" thought-experiment, as presented in The Present Situation in Quantum Mechanics (1935),

Erwin Schrödinger

said11 Jan 1931

Although I think that life may be the result of an accident, I do not think that of consciousness. Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms.

— As quoted in The Observer (11 January 1931); also in Psychic Research (1931), Vol. 25, p. 91

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