page_title: Schrödinger's cat in popular culture
section_title: Literature
hierarchical_section_title: Schrödinger's cat in popular culture / Literature
caption_attribution_description: English: Schrödinger's cat in the box, having its near-death experience.
context_page_description: Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment, usually described as a paradox, devised by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935. It illustrates what he saw as the problem of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, applied to everyday objects. The thought experiment presents a cat that might be alive or dead, depending on an earlier random event. In the course of developing this experiment, he coined the term Verschränkung.
context_section_description: It was not long before science-fiction writers picked up this evocative concept, often using it in a humorous vein.  Several have taken the thought experiment a step further, pointing out extra complications that could arise should the experiment actually be performed. For example, in his novel American Gods, Neil Gaiman has a character observe, "if they don't ever open the box to feed it, it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead."  Likewise, Terry Pratchett's Lords and Ladies adds the issue of a third possible state, in the case of Greebo, "Bloody Furious". (In Pratchett's later novel The Last Hero, Death attempts the experiment himself, but cannot understand the mechanics of it, wondering if it implies that he will kill the cat just by looking at it.) In Will Grayson, Will Grayson, by John Green and David Levithan, the Cat makes an appearance as an analogy for Will and Jane's relationship.
  Robert Anton Wilson wrote a trilogy of novels dealing with themes related to quantum mechanics, collectively known as the Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy.
  Douglas Adams describes an attempt to enact the experiment in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. By using clairvoyance to see inside the box, it was found that the cat was neither alive nor dead, but missing, and Dirk's services were employed in order to recover it, Dirk deducing that the cat had simply grown tired of being subjected to the experiment and wandered off (although he admits later that he was actually using the experiment as an attempt to determine the mental state of his friend Richard Macduff, Richard's logical arguments about why the experiment was pointless confirmed that he was mentally stable).
  In Libba Bray's book Going Bovine, three stoners argue whether the cat is alive or dead, or whether the person who opens the box creates the possibilities. There are constant references to a band called Copenhagen Interpretation, who disappear into thin air in the middle of a benefit concert.
  In Adam Felber's comic first novel, Schrödinger's Ball (2006), Dr. Erwin Schrödinger is a character, and there is much exploration of quantum mechanics.
  In the short story "Schrödinger's Cat-Sitter" by F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre (published in Analog magazine, July/August 2001), a time-traveler named Smedley Faversham visits the past to interview Erwin Schrödinger but gets tricked into taking care of Schrödinger's wife's cat while she is away and Schrödinger is visiting Max Planck. In attempting to take care of the cat, Faversham inadvertently locks it in a cabinet with a Geiger counter, a vial of acid, and a hammer, unintentionally enacting Schrödinger's thought experiment, but with results that remain as uncertain as in the original case.
  The title character (though not a main character) of Robert A. Heinlein's The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, a kitten named Pixel, is of indeterminate existence, and as such, has the ability to turn up in places that are specifically sealed to outside access.  When this ability is questioned, the answer is "He's Schrödinger's cat," leading to the response, "Then Schrödinger had better come get him."
  In Glynne MacLean's 2009 short story Viennese Meow Schrödinger's cat tells his version of the famous thought experiment.
  In the S.M. Stirling "T2" novel trilogy, John Connor mentally compares his, Skynet's technology and ultimately everyone's existence to the Schrödinger principle of entropy.
  In the Hellsing manga series by Kouta Hirano, one of the depicted Nazis is an artificial catboy named Schrödinger. He claims that he is everywhere and nowhere at the same time, which is similar to the cat being alive and dead at the same time. It is also said that he can only exist as long as he is aware of himself. In the second anime adaption, he eventually allows himself to be absorbed by the vampire Alucard, which causes his awareness to be clouded. This then spreads to Alucard, who vanishes for thirty years. Alucard returns after destroying the millions of souls within himself, giving him access to all of Schrödinger's abilities.
  On a somewhat more serio
caption: This artwork by ADA+Neagoe, originally published in Omagiu magazine.
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