The cat that wouldn't die

In 1935, the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger published a rather critical three-part review of what he called the ‘present situation’ in the relatively new theory of quantum mechanics. For the most part, Schrödinger’s review, written in German, is dry and technical, and not the kind of thing that would detain anyone outside the narrow academic world of quantum physics. But in one short paragraph, written with his tongue firmly in his cheek, he gave flight to a fancy that, 90 years later, continues to resonate in popular culture. The paragraph concerned Schrödinger’s eponymous cat. How did an obscure argument about a mathematically complex and rather baffling theory of physics become embedded in public consciousness as an extraordinary exploration of the human psyche? This essay tells the story. Here’s what Schrödinger wrote (in the English translation by John D Trimmer): One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following di ... Read full article.