The poison is irrelevant. The cat is sealed in an airtight box with a limited oxygen supply. We have no evidence that Schrodinger thoughtfully attached an oxygen pipe to the box containing the cat, the Geiger counter and the poison). Whatever happens, the cat would be dead. Or in Schrodinger terms, it wouldn't exist any more.

In fact, this is a common misconception. What most people without a rigorous physics background don't realise about the experiment is that the "box" used by Schrodinger is not your common-or-garden variety. It is actually a BiOsphere eXperiment (BoX), and as such had a fully sustainable atmosphere contained within. These original experiments are now progressing along with technology and have culminated thus far into televised experiments known as "Big Brother" and "Jailbreak".

It is a difficult concept and Schrodinger has a lot to answer for. Maybe if Lucy didn't pester him so often when he was at his piano he wouldn't have given it up to invent physics.

Sorry, that was Schroder.

A modern application of the Schrodinger method could be a good way to liven up TV games shows. Each week the two leading contestants are put into two 'Schrodinger boxes'. There is a 50/50 chance that the poison will be released in either box. There would also be an interlock so that when one Geiger counter fires, the other is switched off.

So far, this paper has ignored the fact that all cats are 'Schrodinger Cats' with the innate ability to be on whichever side of door they aren't meant to be on. For example, if you definitely shut the cat out of the room, you will turn round and see cat sitting behind you in the middle of the room laughing its whiskers off. It can be in 2 states at once which also means it can be in 2 places at once and can decide which of those places it really wants to be. The cat you put out was simultaneously still in the room and it chose to pursue the 'in-the-room' state, not the 'outside-the-room' state. So any cat put into the box with poison and a Geiger counter won't really be in box. It will actually be pursuing an 'out-of-box' state and be in a neighbour's house eating tuna.

(Further reading: Pratchett & Joliffe book 'The Unadulterated Cat'. It explains the application of Schrodinger Cat stuff as applied to real life cats.)

It is well-known that only cats and spiders are able to be in two places simultaneously. Many people have forcibly ejected a neighbour's cat 3 times from their kitchen and turned round to see it sitting on top of fridge grinning at them. This suggests that Lewis Carroll's Cheshire Cat was also a Schrodinger Cat, when it vanished it was simply changing state to get to nicer location, but it did this slowly because it wanted to freak out Alice.

Some students of have suggested that this means that cats have access to matter transporter technology. The question is, did cats get the technology from the spiders, or did the spiders get it from the cats, or did they develop it independently in a form of convergent evolution? The students who made this suggestion had read a short SF about some chickens who developed transporter technology in order to cross a busy freeway. It's a good job these students didn't write the storyline for "Chicken Run" or it would have been a very short film.

However, let us return to the cat which isn't really in the sealed box (even though you were absolutely certain it was in there when you sellotaped the lid on), it is really in an 'out-of-box' state in a neighbour's house eating tuna and most likely watching a Jerry Springer show about people who put cats into small boxes with Geiger counters and vials of icky stuff labelled with a skull-and-crossbones logo.

So far, we have referred to the cat as a Schrodinger Cat. Does its ability to be in more than one place at any time make it a "Heisenberg Cat"? Currently, scientists are uncertain.

How can the layman differentiate between a stray and a Heisenberg Cat which has just popped in to visit for half an hour while its owner conducts a fiendishly clever experiment on a box containing a Geiger Counter, some poison and no cat? If you check the name tag of a supposed Heisenberg cat, the wave function will collapse leaving you with the official owner's name. The problem here is that cats like to explore all possibilities and often have more than one home. So what happens to the wave function?

Does the ownership remain uncertain for an infinite amount of time, regardless of the official ownership? Scientists and animal control officers have so far agreed on only two things:

1. This theory could result in a legal minefield about cat ownership.
2. What is the purpose of quarantine? One minute you lock kitty securely in a pen in case it turns into a mad, drooling rabid creature, but the minute your back is turned the cat has zapped into its out-the-box state and is living it up at the feline equivalent of an eat-all-you-like restaurant at number 23 Acacia Drive.

This neatly brings us to the determining factor in the Schrodinger/Heisenberg Cat discussion. The role of food.

Cats have an infinite number of potential homes of equal probability until the quantum state of any particular can of cat-food toggles from "shut" to "open", at which point the quantum state of the cat ownership also toggles into the vicinity of the opened food can. However, unlike quantum particles (where the process is irreversible) the ownership state of the cat reverts to the infinite-number-of probabilities state immediately after feeding, thus making cats the only entities able to defy the thermodynamic time arrow.

Also, cats have an infinite number of 'room states' which explains that when you put the cat out of the house and then turn round and look to check it hasn't come back in, you are changing the state of the cat to 'present' by the act of observing. If you look down and observe your cat, it will be
running towards its bowl demanding food. if you look up and walk, it will be underneath your feet shrieking at the injustice of being stepped on.

Let us return once again to Schrodinger's original experiment.  The whole point of the experiment with the cat was either to show that the uncertainty principle is a load of mumbo-jumbo or to illustrate how radically the quantum realm differs from our everyday, macroscopic perception. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle is a fundamental part of Quantum Mechanics, as are Schrodinger's equations. If Schrodinger had thought Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle was mumbo-jumbo, he wouldn't have dedicated his life to a field which depends on it. Unless of course he just hated cats.

There is no evidence that Schrodinger hated cats. Had he elected to use a mouse, we currently would be discussing whether Schrodinger had an irrational fear of mice. The whole point was that the experiment was theoretical. No such experiment was ever done in reality. No actual cats were exposed to the 50/50 chance of being poisoned in closed boxes since Schrodinger wasn't investigating whether Brand X of shampoo was more toxic to cats than Brand Y. It was a Gedanken experiment i.e. a 'thought experiment'. However, in designing this thought experiment, Schrodinger obviously hadn't thought about the fact that cats have nine lives. Had he considered this, he might well have chosen to use a mouse instead.

But thought experiments are meant to reflect reality. Therefore if Schrodinger's "Thought Cat" (TC for short) was to follow the normal biological laws regarding mammals, it would require "Thought Oxygen" (TO) to survive. The TC would convert the TO₂ into TCO₂ (Thought Carbon Dioxide) and a few other thought substances. When the theoretical level of TCO₂ gets high enough, the TC would theoretically suffocate. With regard to the nine lives issue, each of the new lives comes into existence within the TCO₂-rich environment, and promptly, but theoretically, suffocates. Simple (thought) biology.

In short, the TC is dead, it is no more, it has ceased to be, it is an ex-TC.

TC? Top Cat? Doesn't he live in a trashcan, not a box? Or is TC's trashcan part of Schrodinger's experiment? What happens if someone opened the trashcan to empty their trash - would it ruin the experiment?

However, as part of the thought experiment, the box is designed to be large enough to allow the cat to breathe (without suffocating) for the duration of the experiment (one hour in Schrodingers orignal plan) until the box is either opened or the poison is released. This proves that Schrodinger had no experience of cats in boxes or of feline claustrophobia. For cats there is a simple equation:

It is hard enough to keep a cat in a box for five minutes on the way to the vet's clinic. Cat owners therefore do not use standard boxes, they use cat carriers with airholes and mesh grilles and carry-handles. None of these boxes are fitted with Geiger Counter or poison as standard. The presence of airholes would have rendered the experiment useless since the whole point is that the cat is not observed for the duration of the experiment. However, the average cat operating under the box = trip to vet's clinic rule can claw its way out of a cardboard box in under 5 minutes. A cat of above average intelligence will pee in the box and simply push through the saturated cardboard. Schrodinger did not account for the effect of feline urine on either the Geiger Counter or the poison.

It is therefore plain that the cat would not stay in the cardboard box for the full duration of the experiment. It has three potential courses of action.

1. Claw its way out of the box and sit purring smugly at Schrodinger.
2. If the box is of more robust construction e.g. metal, it will simple opt to enter an alternative state in more feline-friendly surroundings (peeing on Schrodinger's pillows for good measure).
3. Stay in the box and risk losing all 9 lives through poisoning, suffocation or boredom.

Finally there is the question of the poison. What sort of poison was it? A gaseous poison would be useless if the theory that Thought Cats do not need to breathe is true. A cat which didn't need to breathe wouldn't inhale a poisonous gas. If the Thought Cat did need to breathe, it would already be dead of thought suffocation regardless of the poison. Schrodinger might have used an edible poison, but there is no guarantee that the cat will eat it. Since cats are capable of ignoring a plateful of gourmet cat food just to make an owner feel guilty, it stands to reason that Schrodinger's cat isn't going to eat poison, even gourmet poison. For a start, it will want to make Schrodinger feel guilty about locking it in a box for an hour. It's more likely that it's just Heisenberged itself out for a while because it doesn't like that flavour anyway.

I can't say that I completely understand "the cat thingy". Do cats exist if there's no poison gas and Geiger counters nearby to test with?

Question: if you buttered the back of a cat, which way down would it land?

Law 1: The Laws of Butterology demand that the butter must hit the ground.

Law 2: The equally strict Laws of Feline Aerodynamics demand that the cat cannot smash its furry back - it must land on its feet.

If the combined constructed of cat + butter were to land, nature would have no way to resolve this paradox (or purradox). Therefore it cannot fall.

When a cat is dropped, it always lands on its feet, and when toast is dropped, it always lands buttered side down. Therefore, if a slice of toast is strapped to a cat's back, buttered side up, and the animal is then dropped, the two opposing forces will cause it to hover, spinning inches above the ground. If enough toast-laden felines were used, they could form the basis of a high-speed monorail system.

In the buttered toast case, it's the butter that causes it to land buttered side down - it doesn't have to be toast, the theory works equally well with Jacob's crackers. So to save money you just miss out the toast - and butter the cats.

Also, should there be an imbalance between the effects of cat and butter, there are other substances that have a stronger affinity for carpet.

Probability of carpet impact is determined by the following simple formula:

'p' is the probability of carpet impact,

's' is the "stain" value of the toast-covering substance - an indicator of the effectiveness of the toast topping in permanently staining the carpet. Chicken Tikka Masala, for example, has a very high s value, while the s value of water is zero.

t? and t(t) indicate the tone of the carpet and topping - the value of p being strongly related to the relationship between the colour of the carpet and topping, as even Chicken Tikka Masala won't cause a permanent and obvious stain if the carpet is the same colour.

So it is obvious that the probability of carpet impact is maximised if you use Chicken Tikka Masala and a white carpet - in fact this combination gives a p value of one, which is the same as the probability of a cat landing on its feet.

Therefore a cat with Chicken Tikka Masala on its back will be certain to hover in mid air, while there could be problems with buttered toast as the toast may fall off the cat, causing a terrible monorail crash resulting in nauseating images of members of the royal family visiting accident victims in hospital, and politicians saying it wouldn't have happened if their party was in power as there would have been more investment in cat-toast glue research.

Therefore it is in the interests not only of public safety but also public sanity if the buttered toast on cats idea is scrapped, to be replaced by a monorail powered by cats smeared with Chicken Tikka Masala floating above a rail made from white shag pile carpet.

In essence, you have discovered the secret of antigravity. A buttered cat will, when released, quickly move to a  to a height where the forces of cat-twisting and butter repulsion are in equilibrium. This equilibrium point can be modified by scraping off some of the butter, providing lift, or removing some of the cat s limbs, allowing descent.

It has been theorized by some researchers that most of the civilized species of the Universe already use this principle to drive their ships while within a planetary system. The loud humming heard by most sighters of UFOs is, in fact, the purring of several hundred tabbies. The most obvious danger of feline antigravity propulsion is that lithe cats may manage to lick the butter off their backs. They will then instantly plummet. Of course the cats will land on their feet, but this usually doesn t do them much good, since right after they make their graceful landing several tons of red-hot starship and pissed off aliens crash on top of them. This suggests that aliens have not yet discovered tikka masala sauce and that some researchers really should stop watching Star Trek.

We must also consider the application of Murphy's Laws to this theory. Murphy's Laws are also known as Sod's Law or the Law of Perversity/Cussedness. In its simplest form, it states:

Here are some of the more likely outcomes of the application of Murphy's Law into Butterology/Feline Aerodynamics in an experiment involving a "cat + buttered bread" scenario. We leave the Application of Murphy's Law to "cat + tikka masala sauce" scenarios as a theoretical exercise for the reader.

As soon as you release said feline from a suitably high place, the strap used to tie the bread to the back of the cat will break, thus nullifying the bond between the bread and the feline. You may attempt to defy this by applying the butter directly to the cat's fur, in which case the cat will lick off part of your carefully calculated quantity of butter (i.e. that amount which holds the cat-butter assemblage in equilibrium)

In either case, a very cross cat will land on its feet, claws extended, upon a lawyer's brand new soft-top car - scratching the top to shreds if it is raised or depositing copious amounts of fear-induced feline excrement on the driver's seat if the top is lowered.

Meanwhile, the liberated piece of buttered bread will fall buttered side down, landing on the toupee of the only newspaper reporter foolhardy enough to cover this misguided experiment, resulting in a reference to you in the Weekly World News (or New Scientist), in which your name will appear adjacent to the phrase phrase "foolish quack".

At the same time, a concerned passer-by will report your experiment to the PETA, your country's main SPCA, anti-animal-experimentation groups etc etc, leading to your arrest, trial and conviction upon charges of animal abuse. Following headlines of "Cat-throwing scientist on cruelty charges" you will spend a couple of years answering to the name "Cindy" chosen by your love-starved cellmate "Butch". You will be banned from ever keeping animals and banned from the dairy products section of all major supermarkets.

Addendum:

The laws of butterology demand that the butter must hit the ground, and the equally strict laws of feline aerodynamics demand that the cat cannot smash its furry back. If the combined construct were to land, nature would have no way to resolve this paradox. Therefore it simply does not fall. You have discovered the secret of antigravity!

A buttered cat will, when released, quickly move to a height where the forces of cat and butter are in equilibrium. This equilibrium point can be modified by scraping off some of the butter, providing lift, or removing some of the cat's limbs, allowing descent.

Most of the civilized species of the Universe already use this principle to drive their ships while within a planetary system. The loud humming heard by most sighters of UFOs is, in fact, the purring of several hundred buttered tabbies. On Earth, the only loose ends delaying the full commercialization of this process is the matter of persuading the felines to:

a. work in teams.
b. not lick off the butter.
c. follow a flight plan.

As there seems to be a deficiency in feline herding instincts, any suggestions would be appreciated by the parties involved.

Newton's First Law of Cat Motion
A cat will move in a straight line, unless there is a really good reason to change direction.

Newton's Law of Feline Acceleration
A cat continues to accelerate at a constant speed until he needs to stop.

Newton's First Law of Pill Rejection
Any pill given to a cat has the potential energy to reach escape velocity.

Newton's Second Law of Pill Rejection
Any cat restrained for the purposes of administering a pill has the potential to reach escape velocity.

Newton's Law of Concentration of Mass
A cat's mass increases in direct proportion to the comfort of the lap she occupies.

Newton's Law of Feline Gravity Manipulation
Cats have the ability manipulate gravity, forming localised areas of strong gravitational attraction. This gives the impression of a cat growing heavier as it occupies a lap or bed. This is a linear effect with gravity increasing at a steady rate over time.

First Law of Energy Conservation (Feline Thermodynamics Law 1)
Cats know that energy can neither be created nor destroyed and will therefore use as little energy as possible.

Second Law of Energy Conservation (Feline Thermodynamics Law 2)
Cats know that energy can only be stored by a lot of napping.

Third Law of Energy Conservation (Feline Thermodynamics Law 3)
If the rate of energy uptake exceeds the maximum rate of energy storage, the difference will be emitted in the form of purring.

Boyle's Law of Cat Thermodynamics
Heat flows from a warmer to a cooler body, except in the case of a cat, in which case all heat flows to the cat.

Kirk's Law of Cat Magnetism
Dark coloured clothing attracts light coloured cat hair in direct proportion to the darkness of the fabric. The converse is also true.

Fanner's First Law of Cat Stretching (Nap-Associated Stretching)
A cat will stretch to a distance proportional to the length of the nap just taken.

Fanner's Second Law of Cat Stretching (Non-Nap-Associated Stretching)
The length of the stretch is directly proportional to temperature. Nose in tail (unstretched) is 'cold' while fully stretched is 'hot'. There are infinite gradations on this stretch/temperature scale.

Young's Law of Cat Sleeping
All cats must sleep with people whenever possible.

Kent's Corollary Young's Law of Cat Sleeping
The cat must select a position which causes maximum discomfort to people involved.

Holmes' Law of Vertical Feline Elongation
A cat can make its body long enough to reach the top of any surface which has anything remotely interesting on it.

Burt's Corollary to Holmes' Law of Vertical Feline Elongation
The cat can exceed its normal elongation if the item of interest is edible.

Burt's Law of Dinner Table Attendance
Cats will attend all family meals when anything good is served.

Burt's Law of Selective Listening
A cat can hear a can of tuna being opened (or the word 'vet') a mile away, but can't hear a simple command three feet away.

Euler's Law of Rug Configuration
When a cat is present, no rug may remain in its naturally flat state for long.

Ohm's Law of Obedience Resistance
A cat's resistance varies in inverse proportion to a humans desire for her to do something.

Henry's Law of Refrigerator Observation
If a cat watches a refrigerator long enough, someone will come along and take out something good to eat.

Revised Henry's Law of Kitchen Appliance Observation
If a cat watches a refrigerator, a stove, a kitchen cupboard or a microwave oven long enough, someone will come along and take out something good to eat.

Partington's Addition to Revised Henry's Laws of Kitchen Appliance Observation
If a cat stands directly behind a human in the kitchen, its tail will be trodden on; the human will then offer the cat something good to eat by way of apology.

Einstein's Law of Electric Blanket Attraction
Turn on an electric blanket and a cat will jump into bed at the speed of light.

Einstein's Law of Space-Time Continuum as Applicable to Felines
Given enough time, a cat will land in just about any space.

Einstein's Law of Cat Composition
A cat is composed of Matter + Anti-Matter + It Doesn't Matter.

Cheung's Law of Random Comfort Seeking
A cat will always seek, and usually take over, the most comfortable spot in any given room.

Colling's Law of Cat Disinterest
A cat's interest level will vary in inverse proportion to the amount of effort a human expends in trying to interest him.

Collings' Law of Cat Embarrassment
A cat's irritation rises in direct proportion to its embarrassment multiplied by the amount of human laughter. (Amount of human laughter = volume x duration²)

Collings' Law of Feline Vomiting
The frequency that a cat vomits on a given surface is directly proportional to the difficulty of cleaning the given surface and also proportional the likelihood of the given surface to acquire permanent stains.

Cheung's Modification to Collings' Law of Feline Vomiting
The frequency that a cat vomits, pees or has diarrhoea on a given surface is directly proportional to the difficulty of cleaning the given surface and also proportional the likelihood of the given surface to acquire permanent stains and odours.

Cheung's Law of Furniture Replacement
A cats desire to scratch furniture is directly proportional to the cost of the furniture.

Cheung's Law of Cat Landing
A cat will always land in the softest place possible.

Cheung's Second Law of Cat Landing
A cat will always land on its feet unless you are unpacking groceries, in which case it will land on your feet.

Schrodinger's Law of Cat Invisibility
Cats think that if they can't see you, then you can't see them.

Schrodinger's Accidentally Discovered Law of Object Occupancy
All bags and boxes in a given room must contain a cat within the earliest possible nanosecond.

Heisenberg's Law of Cat Probability (Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle as Applied to Cats)
It is not possible to predict where a cat actually is, only the probability of where it "might" be. As soon as you know where it is, it will move.

Pythagoras' Theorem of Feline Equidistant Separation
All cats in a given room will be located at points equidistant from each other, and equidistant from the centre of the room. The time taken to achieve equidistant spacing is proportional to the number of cats present.

Pratchett's Rule of Cat Chess
Where multiple cats are present in a large finite space, each cat must attempt to see at least two other cats but remain hidden from view itself.

Protagoras' Rule of Cat Obedience
As a rule, cats aren't obedient.

Aristotle's Law of Fluid Displacement
A cat immersed in milk will displace her own volume, minus the amount of milk consumed.

Law of Milk Consumption (Feline Capacitance)
A cat will drink his weight in milk, squared, just to show you he can. After a suitable delay, It will then exercise Cheung's Modification to Collings' Law of Feline Vomiting.

CHEMICAL ANALYSIS

Substance: Felinium (commonly called "Cat")
Symbol: Ct
Discoverer: Pharoahs
Atomic Mass: Accepted as 4 Kg, but there are known isotopes ranging from 3 Kg to 7 Kg
Occurrence: Common worldwide

1. Surface normally covered in fur, but there are known furless isotopes.
2. May have fishy odour at times, otherwise odour of warm suede.
3. Boils if pestered, freezes if caught doing something it shouldn’t, melts if treated correctly.
4. Yields if gentle pressure applied starting at nape of neck, along back towards base of tail (see ‘melts if’).
5. Bitter if not fed on time, sour if given cheap brands, sweetened by application of cream and smoked salmon.
6. Emits gentle purring sounds when in ideal conditions, may hiss in adverse conditions.
7. Specimens occur in many colours.

1. High affinity to meat and fish, absorbs large quantities of milk.
2. Explosive when in contact with Water (H2O), Dog (Dg) or Mouse (Ms)
3. Insoluble in liquids, temporary excitation caused by immersion in catnip.
4. Great money reducing agent especially in proximity to Vet (Vt).

1. Alarm clock.
2. Weight for holding duvet in place.
3. Lap warmer and relaxation device.
4. Door stop.
4. Rodent/bird control operative (in some specimens only).

1. Hisses if placed in close proximity to Caninium ("Dog") (Dg) or Veterinarium (Vt).
2. Hisses and explodes if placed in water.
3. Purring noise present when handled correctly.

1. Sharp bits in evidence during Tests 1 and 2 above.
2. Human food items may inexplicably vanish if left in contact with Cat.
3. Trip hazard (in the dark).
4. Suffocation hazard (on cold nights)
5. Produces noxious waste products.
6. May produce allergic reaction in some individuals.
7. Shredded furnishings.
8. Sheds surface covering intermittently.

1. All foodstuffs should be locked away.
2. Infra-red night-sights should be employed to avoid trip hazard.

These are the properties of the chemical element Pussium which is found in varying quantities in many homes.

• Related to Sodium and Potassium i.e. reacts violently with water.
• Great affinity for milk.
• Corrosive to flesh, particularly chicken, sausage etc.
• Reaction to heat: soaks it up.
• Reaction to fire: lies in front of it.
• Tendency to emit foul smelling gas after reacting violently with flesh.
• Smell when fresh: warm suede.
• Smell when old: stale and musty.
• Taste: not recommended, Pussium bites back.
• Toxicity to humans: Some humans highly intolerant of Pussium, symptoms: allergy, respiratory problems or irrational behaviour (yelling, shrieking); others addicted to Pussium (harmless except to bank account, flower beds and relations with neighbours).

Let's not concern ourselves with Shroedinger's Dog, a creature so incredibly stupid and perpetually confused it has difficulty being in one state at a time let alone being in two states simultaneously. When put into a box with a decaying vial of poison which might or might not release the poison, Shroedinger's Dog chews the vial thus ensuring it ended up in a dead state every time.

Pavlov's Cats is a far more interesting a subtle experiment into feline-human behaviour. Pavlov was a Welsh behavioural scientist who conducted experiments into ringing bells and cats eating food. His experiments went something along the lines of:

Day 1: Rang bell. Cat buggered off.

Day 2: Rang bell. Cat buggered off.

Day 3: Rang bell, but cat put paw on bell so it only made a 'thunk' sound.

Day 4: Rang bell, cat said he'd eaten earlier.

Day 5: Tried to ring bell, but cat had taken batteries out of bell.

Day 6: Cat rang bell. I ate food.

Sure enough, the Pavlov's Cat experiment proves that scientists can be conditioned to eat cat food and that cats eat only when it suits them. Many scientific discoveries have been made accidentally while trying ot prove something entirely different. The experiment might have worked had the cat not been buggering off to next door where it had already conditions Pavlov's neighbour to give it a nice plate of chicken liver. Who knows, it might even have rung the bell and conditioned him to open the door as well, just like my cat has conditioned me ...

Pavlov's second attempt, with new cat possibly went something like this:

Day 1: Rang bell. Cat (white) asleep.

Day 2: Rang bell. Cat (white) rolled over and snored.

Day 3: Rang bell. Cat opened eye (blue), yawned, complained about cheap brand of cat food.

Day 4: Rang bell. After 4 hour delay, cat woke up, ate food, went back to sleep.

Day 5: Read article about deaf blue-eyed white cats.

Day 6: Cat woke me up by sitting on head. Fed cat. Bought dog. Dog drools.