History UsefulNotes / SchrodingersCat

* In ''VideoGame/NetHack'' a monster known as the Quantum Mechanic will sometimes drop a box when it dies. When you open the box either a living cat will jump out or a cat corpse will be found inside. What's more, examining the code shows that which will be found is undetermined until you check -- [[DevelopersForesight as opposed to]] every other container in the game, the contents of which are determined when the box is spawned.

* ''VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}'' makes several references to it. See also the ''Portal 2: Lab Rat'' entry below.
** One of Rattman's [[RoomFullOfCrazy dens]] early in the game has a diagram of a cat apparently jumping out of a box, with quantum physics equations scribbled all over it.
** There's an achievement called Schrödinger's Catch, which involved catching a bouncing box before it hit the ground without knowing beforehand which way the box will bounce.
** Also mentioned by the [[KnowNothingKnowItAll Fact Core]] during the {{final boss}} battle:
--->'''Fact Core''': The Schrödinger's Cat paradox outlines a situation in which a cat in a box must be considered, for all intents and purposes, simultaneously alive and dead. Schrödinger created this paradox as a justification for killing cats.

* ''VideoGame/Bioshock2'' makes a reference to this with an EasterEgg in Dionysus Park. In Imago Fine Arts there are multiple ice chunks made of frozen seawater and within one of them is the corpse of Schrödinger the cat. If whacked or shot, Schrödinger bleeds but never shatters making him seem both alive and dead at the same time.
* ''VideoGame/BioShockInfinite'':
** The post-credits sequence. [[spoiler:[=DeWitt=] thinks his daughter is in her room, but he's not sure. As he opens the door, the screen cuts to black. Given the infinite amount of universes that could exist, she is both in and not in the room, and it is left up to the player which version [=DeWitt=] finds.]]
** Also, the game features something called "Reconciliation Sickness" which is, for all intents and purposes, Schrödinger's thought experiment GoneHorriblyWrong. Due to the interference of Elizabeth's extradimensional powers, the wave function ''doesn't collapse'', causing people who are alive in one possible timeline and dead in another to become trapped in a torturous state of undeath. One such victim is [[spoiler:Chen Lin, the Vox-aligned gunsmith.]]
** The early game Voxophone "Everyman All at Once" features a theological variant of the thought experiment:
-->''One man goes into the waters of baptism. A different man comes out, born again. But who is that man who lies submerged? Perhaps the swimmer is both sinner and saint, until he is revealed unto the eyes of man.''
** In ''Burial at Sea''-Episode 2, there is a hermetic chamber with the carcass of feline (presumably a cougar or a panther) inside it within Fink's lab, a reference to the experiment.
* One scene in the second ''VideoGame/{{Deponia}}'' game had Rufus wondering why a cat's food bowl was outside of a locked building, whereas the cat was inside. After filling the bowl with tuna to get the cat's attention, he speculates on how the cat can be inside and outside at the same time, name-drops Schrödinger, and claims that he and Goal are witnessing quantum physics at work. [[spoiler:The door has a cat flap.]]

** [=GLaDOS=] [[UnreliableNarrator claims]] to have actually done the experiment.

->"Do you know that thought experiment with the cat in the box with the poison? Theory requires the cat be both alive and dead until observed. Well, I actually performed the experiment. Dozens of times. The bad news is that reality doesn't exist. The good news is we have a new cat graveyard."
-->-- '''[=GLaDOS=]''', ''VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}: Lab Rat''

* Done wonderfully in the glee fanfic "Magical Thinking", which can be read [[http://gleefics.livejournal.com/782830.html here.]]
* In ''[[Fanfic/DevaSeries Academy Blues]]'', Laura develops a spell called "Schrodinger", which places her in a state between life a death, and allows her to literally be anywhere within a large radius. The spell is somewhat unstable, and she tends to fade in and out in different locations at random times. The spell encloses her body at the location she initiated the spell in a box of light.
* In ''Fanfic/SuzumiyaHaruhiNoIndex'', since Haruhi is an unknowing RealityWarper, if she is asked to guess a card randomly drawn from a deck, she will always get it right, even if she guesses a card ''that isn't in the deck''. The observers comment that it's like if someone did the Schrödinger's Cat experiment and pulled a dog out the box instead.

[[quoteright:320:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/schrodingerscat_fullpic_3667.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:320:[[RecursiveReality This poster is indeterminably funny or not until observed.]]]]

* ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'' uses Schrödinger's Cat in order to explain the Esper abilities: the state of the "cat" outside of their mind is whatever the user's mind deems it to be, allowing the manifestation of the abilities. Misaka Imouto tries to name her cat Schrödinger, but Touma shoots that idea down. That name is taboo for cats. He adds that anyone who would even ''consider'' putting a cat in a box with poison gas must really hate cats.
* The titular ''Anime/AngelsEgg'' makes a pretty good analogy to Schrödinger's Cat, but with the added twists that the longer time goes on without the egg hatching, the more likely that whatever was in it has become stillborn, if it ever existed at all[[note]](analogous to the cat dying of something other than the toxin like suffocation, starvation, or old age)[[/note]], and the only way to "collapse the waveform" would be to break the egg open, killing whatever is inside it for sure[[note]](analogous to shooting the box with the cat in it)[[/note]]. [[spoiler: This is what the man eventually does, with tragic consequences.]]

* ''Manga/MurasakiiroNoQualia'' has this play an important role, explaining the concept competently and using it equally so.
* In one episode of ''LightNovel/RascalDoesNotDreamOfBunnyGirlSenpai'', Futaba uses this thought experiment to explain an Adolescence Syndrome case.

* ''Literature/DirkGentlysHolisticDetectiveAgency'' saw Dirk begin to explain Schrödinger's cat normally, before talking about how he intervened in the experiment because the cat had gone missing. [[spoiler: Dirk turns out to be making it up to see if Richard, who has been acting very oddly, is capable of spotting complete nonsense (like someone actually performing an experiment where the outcome you're testing is what happens before you look) when he hears it.]]
* ''Literature/TheSalmonOfDoubt'' features half of a cat. Not a cat chopped in half and lying still, the very lively and normal-acting front part of a cat, which just kind of ''ends'' midway along. The cat's name is Gusty Winds, and near the end of what Creator/DouglasAdams had written before he died, Dirk comes across a road sign that says "Gusty winds may exist."

* An incarnation of Schrödinger's Cat appears in ''Literature/{{Wyrm}}''. It looks and acts a lot like the Cheshire Cat from ''Literature/AliceInWonderland''. [[spoiler:But it's actually an avatar of Wyrm.]]
* In ''Crushed'' by Laura and Tom [=McNeal=], this becomes a critical plot point after [[spoiler:Wickham reveals his past to Audrey]].

As you might know, even Wiki/ThisVeryWiki is fond of using this. It's the TropeNamer for:

* [[Wiki/SCPFoundation SCP]]-[[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-2144 2144]] is, in usual SCP fashion, an attempt to turn the trope into mild creepypasta. 2144 is a cat who is invisible to cameras, inaudible to microphones, and intangible to weighing scales, yet very lively and animate as long as it stays in an open area (humans can see/hear/touch it just fine, but they can't feel its heartbeat). If you force it into an enclosed area it immediately becomes comatose, but cameras and microphones can detect it again. Oh, and it emits deadly radiation and exhales hydrogen cyanide while comatose. Fortunately for everyone else it has an aversion to open doors and windows.

* [[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall Linkara]] criticises the experiment in one of his reviews. In his top 11 mistakes, he admits he missed the point somewhat.

** In ''Discworld/LordsAndLadies'' the motif is spoofed once again, when the cat locked in the box turns out to be Greebo.

* ''Manga/{{Hellsing}}'' actually has a character named Schrödinger, and he has a power to be 'everywhere and nowhere' -- allowing him to always be in all plot relevant spots at once, as well as to RetCon any damage he suffers. And he's a CatBoy. In fact, he has a pretty big purpose beyond comic relief: [[spoiler: He was designed to be the 'poison' against Alucard. When he offs himself and lets Alucard absorb him, Schrödinger can no longer tell where he is and is neither dead nor alive. By that extension, so is Alucard and he becomes 'imaginary numbers.' Alucard manages to return to Hellsing after 30 years by offing the 3 million plus lives in him except Schrödinger's, granting him his powers.]]

Sometimes though, it's just used to show off the [[AuthorAppeal writer's]] [[GeniusBonus cleverness]]. Or not.

This thought experiment immediately became popular as a metaphor for uncertainty of the [[TruthAndLies truth]], [[SlidingScaleOfFateVsFreeWill fate]], Quantum Physics, [[QuantumMechanicsCanDoAnything how quantum physics can do anything]], and whatever the hell is inside that box. Ironically, the original experiment [[PoesLaw was used to show how]] ''[[PoesLaw stupid]]'' [[PoesLaw the idea of superposition was]].

* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': Parodies in "Herpe the Love Sore", where Peter is tempted to open a box meant for Quagmire.

* In ''Comicbook/AnimalMan'', the final issue of the PeterMilligan-penned AlternateUniverse arc referred to Schrödinger's cat, and was titled "Schrodinger's Pizza."

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