The Original Schrödinger's Cat Revisited: Schrödinger's Schrödinger

Schrödinger's Cat has acquired many descriptions and interpretations since its introduction in 1935. This paper returns to Schrödinger's original text and separates what Schrödinger explicitly constructed from what is inferred from the construction. Schrödinger specified a steel chamber, “a tiny amount” of radioactive substance, a Geiger counter, relay, hammer, poison, a one-hour interval, equal possibilities that one atom decays or none does, and “the first atomic decay” as the decisive occurrence. He then described the wave function of the entire system as containing the living and dead cat “mixed or smeared in equal parts.” However, not knowing which of two mutually exclusive states is true, or being unable to rule out either, does not imply that both are physically true. The distinction involves not only Schrödinger's Cat but also Schrödinger's YOU—the observer outside the steel chamber who lacks information. Moreover, the causal chain from atomic decay to the cat's death contains additional physical and biological conditions. The original construction should therefore distinguish the physical cat, its quantum-mechanical description, and the information available to YOU.