Originally published in Analog 1982
Collected in The Norton Book of Science Fiction

• Schrödinger's cat experiment is a thought experiment intended to illustrate what might happen if the concepts of quantum mechanics were applied to systems larger than the atomic or subatomic. Schrödinger was reacting to the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics which includes Werner Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, Neils Bohr's Principle of Complementarity, and John Von Neumann's concept of the collapse of the wave function. Basically, in quantum mechanics one cannot know with precision where a subatomic particle is at any particular moment in time.
• For example, suppose an airplane behaves like an electron.
  • You know that the airplane is flying somewhere in the Midwest but you don't know both where the plane is and how fast it is traveling.
  • You might be able to locate the plane within 50 miles and place its speed within 100 mph. If you then ask where the plane will be in two hours, your answer will be "It depends."
  • One way to answer the question is to describe the location of the plane in terms of probability (e.g., a 30% chance the plane is over Pittsburgh and a 20% chance it is over Cleveland).
  • The graph that would show the probably location of the plane is called the wave function of the plane.
• According to Marty Goa the contents of the room in the story can be described by an equation representing a complex probability wave mathematically equivalent to a half-live, half-dead cat.
• The wave-probability packet does not collapse until somebody comes to look; only then does one possibility become reality and the other vanish.

Adams, Cecil. "The Story of Schroedinger's Cat (an epic poem)" : poetic question about the nature of Schrödinger's cat experiment and an answer in verse.

The Well-Intended, but Not Quite Interactive, Schrödinger's Cat: a brief explanation and illustration of the experiment