SCHRÖDINGER

SUPERPOSITION
The exact time of an electron’s decay is indeterminate. So is its location. Quantum Physics says, it exists in a superposed state. This means it is here and everywhere and both present and absent at the same time. Only by measuring it, its location and state will be defined. Erwin Schrödinger wondered whether this might also apply for example to a cat.

He devised the following thought experiment:
Inside a box are a radioactive element that decays very quickly, a cat and a container of a poisonous substance. It also contains a device with a Geiger counter that would smash the container of the poisonous substance with a hammer as soon as the detector registers that the radioactive element has decayed and so kill the cat.

Now the question is: could the cat in the box, much like an atom, exist in a superposition state? Could it be both – in the box and not in the box and simultaneously dead and alive?