Cat in the box

I was reading the manga "Extra Heavy Syrup" (see picture) by Ogawa Yayoi lately and it got me interested in the concept of quantum mechanics and the thought experiment of Schrödingers cat. I'm not a scientist and I like to transfer difficult ideas into a context that I can understand. I can not claim to understand quantum mechanics, but I found the idea of it and the experiment of Schrödingers cat fascinating. Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961) was an austrian physicist who apparently had a very lively imagination and a disturbed relationship to cats. In 1935 he came up with the following theoretical experiment: Imagine a closed box in which you put a cat and a canister containing poisonous gas which is triggered by a device with an unstable radioactive nucleus with a 50% chance to decay within one hour. Leave both for said hour. If you think in the lines of the typical human brain you would expect that after that hour the cat is either dead or alive. If you are a follower of quantum mechanics there would be a state/time at which the dead cat and the living cat co-exist. The intent of Schrödinger's modell was to prove the absurdity and/or paradox of quantum mechanics, which was based on the behaviour of atoms and obviously does not easily translate into our every day life.



I like to think of Quantum Mechanics as "anything goes as long as we can't see it". (because "every possibility that is not proven to be wrong must hence be correct" just sounds a bit too wild). Let's say I lock my children into their room and leave the house for an hour for a quiet walk around the romantic November scenery of northern Germany. They could completely destroy their rooms (most likely scenario) or they could sit patiently and wait for me to return. Does that mean in terms of quantum mechanics I have two sets of three children for the time of that walk? Three realistic seeming children who would completely misbehave and go for each others throats and another set of three children who sit quietly to be released from their room possibly while reading Dostojewski? As much as I would like to see that, I know I am stuck with the first set. And of course I know that my ideas are far from Schrödinger's - his idea of the cat being simultanously both alive and dead was referring to the quantum superposition which goes back to the theory that unstable nuclei undergo a in-between state of transition in which they are both decayed and undecayed. It is a theory that does not go down easily in every day reality.
Just imagine my face if I would ever open the door while realitiy is still in quantum mechanical modus and see 6 children sitting in the room - all mine. Or wait - who says that only two possibilities can co-exist. There could be a third set of my children performing open heart-surgery on the goldfish. And a fourth set talking swedish and discussing the best investment strategies and the future of world finances. The more I think about it the less inclined I feel to ever go on a walk all by myself.