Adam Becker

At this point, the Schrodinger equation says, okay, look, the chunk of radiation that could be emitted by this metal, it either has or has not been emitted.

The wave function says, well, it's been emitted and not emitted, which means that the detector has and hasn't been tripped.

which means that the glass vial has and has not broken.

So the cat in there is, according to the Schrodinger equation, is sort of part dead and part alive, or both dead and alive.

It's in this state called a superposition, which is sort of generally the state that most things are in most of the time, according to the Schrodinger equation.

But according to the usual way of thinking about quantum physics, this sort of very unsatisfying and incomplete idea that you just shut up and don't think about what it means to measure, when you open the box, then the cat is either dead or alive.

And somehow opening the box made that happen.

And that's ridiculous, Schrodinger said.

You know, maybe particles can be in one place or more than one place at a time.

But cats are either dead or alive.

And if you open the box and find a dead cat, then the minute before you open the box, the cat was either dead or dying.

And if you open it and find a living cat, it's not like it was not entirely living before you open the box.

Everett solved this problem a different way.

Okay.

Everett said, no, no, no, no, no.

It's all Schrodinger all the time.

So when you open the box...

You know, the cat's both dead and alive before you open the box.

And then when you open the box, you get entangled with the stuff in the box.

So, Everett said, sure.