Cats are funny. Their characteristic curiosity has led to many jokes about them. But the intervention of cats in science experiments --not even thought experiments-- is not usual.
The Shrodinger's cat paradox is a thought experiment about the uncertainty of everyday's activities, but for some personal reason he chose the personification of a cat trying to explain what uncertainty is about.
Briefly, the thought experiment goes like this: if we keep a cat inside a box with some mechanism that at some unpredictable time could kill the cat, then unless we open the box, we don't know if the cat is dead or alive. Therefore, until the box is opened an we see inside the box, the cat is in a dual state: dead and alive.
The explanation for this dual state involves some picky mathematics, but the following image simplifies explaining it a lot. Suppose a cat jumps from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, then ...
