Schrödinger posited that if one were to place a cat in a box with an outlandish combination of objects (including prussic acid, a Geiger counter, and a radioactive atom), one could approximate the principle of superposition. This concept is most commonly used to characterize light: a singular thing in two states of the quantum world. In this particular example, the cat would be both dead and alive for a time because the acid would only be released once the atom has decayed. The degradation takes place in a predictable amount of time, but one would not know if the cat was dead since the box obscures vision into it.
“Schrödinger’s Cat” was a thought experiment that was never actually performed as it involved poisoning a cat; however, the experiment may be done in the near future. Although it can be contested that viruses are not alive, influenza viruses are sturdy insulators that are small enough to be used as a superposable object. To do this, Drs. Romero-Isart and Cirac cooled viruses to subzero temperatures to resemble a “ground state” before bombarding them with a laser set to a resonant frequency that they can absorb. Influenza viruses in particular can survive in a vacuum, making them resilient under these conditions, but alas, they are not living… technically. Future endeavors are set to include animals, like tardigrades, small, but tough, arthropods.
-Andrew
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