Schrodinger's thought experiment was that you put a cat in a box with a dangerous radioactive quantum element:
- If the radioactivity has already decayed away, the cat is fine.
- But if the radioactivity hasn't decayed yet, it kills the cat.
The new quantum theory was that radioactivity is random, and so whether Schrodinger's cat is dead or alive is random - the cat's mortality is like a coin that hasn't been flipped yet.
And the really weird part is the coin doesn't get flipped until you open the box (leading Einstein to famously protest, "God does not play dice.")
The cat is randomly dead or alive until you look which forces a reality to emerge.
This thought experiment has been revived recently as a bit of black humor in the phrase: Schrodinger's Strait - referring to the Strait of Hormuz being randomly open and closed, and that sadly only by attempting to sail through the Strait can a ship force the reality to emerge: is the strait open or closed?
Get your hands and mind on all 540+ metaphors.