Schrödinger’s Cat is surely dead. I should have prefaced this with ‘spoiler alert’ but in my defense, you’ve had 86 years to see this particular movie so my best guess is if you’ve haven’t seen in by now, you probably won’t. As you my know, probably from the title, I’m referencing a thought experiment based on a conversation between Erwin, of the aforementioned Schrödinger’s Cat fame, and Albert Einstein. And thought experiments are a bit easier than the physical ones because of the absence of beakers and bunsen burners and not having to thoughtfully hold test tubes aloft while quizzically gazing at them.
The experiment of thought involves putting a cat, a flask of poison and a radioactive source in a sealed, and, apparently, opaque box. The part about the box being opaque was not mentioned in writings about the experiment, but should have been brought up because it’s an important point.
If an internal monitor in the box detects a single atom decaying (I guess multiple atoms decaying is okay), the flask shatters, the poison is released, and the cat becomes a superhero; and the superhero cat’s grand-daughter is Catwoman, and she saves the world in every Catwoman comic. Catwoman seems like it should be two words, Cat Woman, or at least hyphenated as Cat-Woman. Spider-Man gets the hyphen but Batman doesn’t. I have a bone to pick with the Superhero community because of the inconsistent use, or non-use, of hyphens. And it’s odd that hyphenate doesn’t have a hyphen in it but if I question that, I have to ask why phonetic isn’t spelled like it sounds and wonder why did Kiefer Sutherland never had to pee, not even once, in nine seasons of the television series 24.
The cat actually, and sadly, dies; but you knew that as it’s the title of this post. In the comics, if one is exposed to gamma rays or bitten by a radioactive spider or falls down a well and attacked by bats, we get the The Incredible Hulk or Spider-Man or Batman; in real life, you’d get cancer or more cancer or institutionalized and addicted to red pills and Tony Robbins cassettes.
The thought experiment implies that, after a while, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. But when one looks in the box, the cat is either alive or dead, not both alive and dead. So the experiment is really about quantum mechanics and poses the question of when, exactly, quantum superposition (again, no hyphen - I’m not sure why we’re being so stingy with hyphens - Wheel of Fortune gives them to you for free) ends and reality resolves, devolves, or dissolves, into one possibility or the other.
I’m not sure why Erwin thought is was necessary to kill, or not kill, a fictional cat. And my best guess is this is where the imagined abuse of pretend cats has come from. Curiosity killed the cat. A heavy down pour is described as “Raining cats” (and dogs - but not raining men, hallelujah). When describing a confined space, the term is, “No room to swing a cat.” And if you did swing a cat in a confined space to determine if it was confined or not, the cat would not likely survive. When tackling a problem, one frequently says, “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.” My question is, how many ways do you need?
Back to the experiment: it proposes that after a while, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. The conversation between Irwin and Albert took place almost 90 years ago and the average house cat lives to be between 10-15 years. There’s no mention of this being a super hero cat but Dr. Schrödinger never brought up that the box wasn't translucent so I guess he’s not one for detail. So we’ll have to assume this is an average herd-worthy cat that’s got the cream. This average cat would live less time when left in a box with no food but with poison and a metal detector. And it’s quite clear that, the cat, without food or water, likely died 85 years and 51 weeks ago.
I’m sorry to break it to you Mr. Schrödinger and ruin your thought process, but my super-position is that your cat is clearly dead.
