According to Wikipedia:
Schrödinger’s mind-game was meant to criticize the strangeness of [superposition]. Influenced by a suggestion of Albert Einstein, Schrödinger extrapolated the concept to a larger scale. He proposed a scenario with a cat in a sealed box, where the cat’s life or death was dependent on the state of a subatomic particle. According to Schrödinger, the Copenhagen interpretation implies that the cat remains both alive and dead until the box is opened.
Roughly put, and man do I only “roughly” claim to understand ANYTHING of quantum physics, Schrödinger used this as a thought experiment that, you can’t know where something is unless you measure it, but by measuring it, you fundamentally alter it. Until you measure it, the wave form state that has yet to collapse, and thus you could see one of two scenarios when you open the “box”. It’s only until you try to measure that this wave form collapses and you get an outcome.
My copy of Super Smash Brothers Brawl I ordered exists in a waveform of either “delivered” or “undelivered” every morning before I go check. I don’t know which until I go down the elevator to check. When I’m getting Yoshi ready for his walk, the chance that the game has been delivered is uncertain, but with each day it grows more certain. Every time I ride down the elevator, I try to think of the percentage chance that perhaps today, even after 14+ days since it allegedly shipped out of Hong Kong, it might have been delivered. I add 5% each day out of optimism, but every time the elevator door opens, the waveform collapses, and I end up with no game. I sigh, and then add one more day to my wait.
From now on, I’ll never skip on package tracking. This is getting ridiculous.
