The inner life
Schrödinger's Cat
Direct answer
Schrödinger's Cat: Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment of 1935 in which quantum theory, applied literally, describes a cat in a sealed box as alive and dead at once until the box is opened.
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At a glance
- Also called
- schrodinger's cat, schrodingers cat explained, cat in a box thought experiment, schrodinger cat paradox
- Found in
- Consciousness & Spiritual Psychology
- Related
- Quantum Superposition, Wave Function, Copenhagen Interpretation, Observer Effect
Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment of 1935 in which quantum theory, applied literally, describes a cat in a sealed box as alive and dead at once until the box is opened.
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What is Schrödinger's cat in simple terms?
Erwin Schrödinger imagined a cat shut in a steel chamber with a tiny amount of radioactive substance, a Geiger counter, a hammer and a flask of poison. If one atom decays within the hour, the counter trips the hammer and the cat dies; if none does, it lives. Quantum theory describes the atom as a superposition of decayed and undecayed, and so, followed through, describes the whole chamber as a blend of living and dead cat.
Schrödinger called this ridiculous. His point was that an account acceptable for atoms becomes absurd when carried up to everyday things, so something in the account of measurement was missing. No cat was ever boxed. The image is often quoted as though it showed that reality waits on a human mind, which is one contested reading among several and was not his own.
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What sets Schrödinger's Cat apart
The construction has one essential feature: an amplifier. A single atomic event is coupled, through counter, hammer and flask, to something large and unmistakable, so the vagueness that theory allows an atom is forced onto a creature that plainly cannot be vague. Schrödinger's own phrase for the result was a living and dead cat smeared out in equal parts. In the same year he coined the word entanglement, and the cat is an example of it: the state of the animal cannot be described apart from that of the atom.
- Author: Erwin Schrödinger, 1887 to 1961
- Published: Die Naturwissenschaften, 1935
- Apparatus: radioactive sample, Geiger counter, hammer, flask of hydrocyanic acid
- Time allowed: one hour, with an even chance that one atom decays
- Einstein's parallel: a keg of gunpowder both exploded and unexploded, in a letter of 1935
Often mistaken for something else: Wigner's friend, proposed by Eugene Wigner in 1961, puts a human observer inside the sealed laboratory in place of the cat, to ask whether a conscious witness changes the argument.
The story behind Schrödinger's Cat
The cat appears in one paragraph of Schrödinger's paper The Present Situation in Quantum Mechanics, printed in the German journal Die Naturwissenschaften in 1935. It followed an exchange of letters with Albert Einstein, who had proposed a similar case with a keg of gunpowder, after the Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen paper of that year. From the 1970s the theory of decoherence explained why large warm objects are never seen in such blends.
Why Schrödinger's Cat matters
Schrödinger's Cat is the best known picture of the measurement problem, and knowing its purpose guards against the claims built on it.
How to read Schrödinger's Cat
Physicists cite it to pose the question of where quantum description gives way to definite facts; in common speech it stands for any undecided state.
Schrödinger's Cat in practice: an example
A reader told that an unanswered letter is like Schrödinger's cat, both yes and no, is hearing the image used as a figure of speech.
Where readings of Schrödinger's Cat go wrong
Schrödinger's Cat is an argument about a theory, not an experiment on an animal, and it does not show that looking or wishing settles what is real.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Consciousness & Spiritual Psychology
- Aliases
- schrodinger's cat, schrodingers cat explained, schrödinger's cat meaning, cat in a box thought experiment, schrodinger cat paradox
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
What is Schrödinger's cat in simple terms?
It is an imagined cat in a sealed box whose life depends on whether one atom decays. Because quantum theory describes the atom as both decayed and not, it seems to describe the cat as both dead and alive until someone looks.
Is Schrödinger's cat really alive and dead at the same time?
Schrödinger thought not; he devised the case to show that the idea is absurd. Physicists still differ on the right account, but all agree that no one would ever observe a cat in such a blend.
Why did Schrödinger invent the cat?
To criticise the view that a quantum system has no definite state until measured. By tying the fate of a cat to one atom he showed what that view implies for ordinary objects, and left the puzzle for others to resolve.
