Schrodinger's Cat Explained So That Even You Can Understand

As a promotion for my blog I am giving all those who subscribe a free high-resolution download of a painting I did called Schrodinger's Cat.    For those who don't know who Schrodinger was or why his cat is so important, here is a dumbed-down explanation. 

Schrodinger was a scientist who was colleagues with Einstein.  I bring up Einstein mostly so that you can easily reference the time period (early 20th century).  However, there were many other scientists of lesser fame that were also critical in developing the quantum mechanics theory.  Quantum mechanics is a way of understanding the things that we cannot see on our human scale, such as atoms, molecules, and such.  The theory, in part, states that it cannot be known what state a particle is in unless observed. It is instead in a state of probables... it probably is this, or probably is that.   I've linked an article from the PBS website which helped me with this statement.

Schrodinger's Cat 2 - This was the second in my series based on Schrodinger's thought experiment.

Okay, back to Schrodinger and his poor cat.  He believed that the quantum mechanics theory was all well and good when applied to [particles] on a smaller scale, but he wanted to prove that it would not work on a larger [seen by the human eye] scale.  Schrodinger proposed the following thought experiment to disprove this part of the theory .  

Schrodinger's Cat 3 - The third and last painting in my series based on the famous thought experiment.

So, there's this cat in a box.  We can't see the inside the box.  Obviously.  However, we know that inside of the box there is a flask filled with poison and that if certain scientific conditions are met, the poison will be released, killing the cat.  (I am avoiding the scientific conditions because I don't want to confuse you OR me!)  I guess you could say it is on a time-release but we don't know how much time it has.  It could be ten minutes or it could be one trillion years.  Is Schrodinger's cat dead or alive?  According to quantum mechanics, it is both DEAD and  ALIVE!  Not only is this perplexing to me (and probably you, too) but it was also to Schrodinger, which was exactly his point.  

Schrodinger's Cat - The first painting I did in the Schrodinger series.

The process of creating this painting started with finding the equation in a science book from the library.  I wrote (with graphite pencil) this equation on the primed (wood) board I would eventually paint on. I also did some preliminary drawing or skribbling!    With acrylic paint I put some light transparent washes onto the board with purples yellows and blues.  I did some more drawing with graphite on to the dried acrylic surface.  The brighter values such as the large triangular structure in the center of the painting  and the bright yellow "door" were done in oil paint.  The painting is relatively small, probably about the size of the computer monitor you are looking at now (unless you are viewing on a smart phone!)