Cecil, you're my final hope
 Of finding out the true Straight Dope
 For I've been reading of Schrödinger's cat,
 But none of my cats are at all like that.
 This unusual animal (so it is said)
 Is simultaneously live and dead!

 What I don't understand is just why he
 Can't be one or the other, unquestionably.
 My future now hangs in between eigenstates.
 In one I'm enlightened, the other I ain't.
 If you understand, Cecil, then show me the way
 And rescue my psyche from quantum decay.
 But if this queer thing has perplexed even you,
 Then I will AND won't see you in Schrödinger's zoo.

                   - Randy F., Chicago

 Schrödinger, Erwin!  Professor of physics!
 Wrote daring equations!  Confounded his critics!
 (Not bad, eh?  Don't worry.  This part of the verse
 Starts off pretty good, but it gets a lot worse.)
 Win saw that the theory that Newton'd invented
 By Einstein's discov'ries had been badly dented.
 "What now?" wailed his colleagues.  Said Erwin, "Don't panic,
 No grease monkey I, but a Quantum mechanic.
 Consider electrons.  Now these teeny articles
 Are sometimes like waves, and then sometimes like particles.

 "If that's not confusing, the nuclear dance
 Of electrons and suchlike is governed by chance!
 No sweat though - my theory permits us to judge
 Where some of 'em is and the rest of them was."
 Not everyone bought this, it threatened to wreck
 The comforting linkage of cause and effect.
 E'en Einstein had doubts, and so Schrödinger tried
 To tell him what quantum mechanics implied.
 Said Win to Al, "Brother, suppose we've a cat,
 And inside a tube we have put that cat at -

 "Along with a solitare deck and some Fritos,
 A bottle of Night Train, a couple mosquitoes
 (Or something else rhyming) and, oh, if you got 'em,
 One vial prussic acid, one decaying ottom
 Or attom - whatever - but when it emits,
 A trigger device blasts the vial into bits
 Which snuffs our poor kitty.  The odds of this crime
 Are 50 to 50 per hour each time.
 The cylinder's sealed.  The hour's passed away.  Is
 Our pussy still purring - or pushing up daisies?

 "Now, YOU'd say the cat either lives or it don't
 But quantum mechanics is stubborn and won't.
 Statistically speaking, the cat (goes the joke),
 Is half a cat breathing and half a cat croaked.
 To some this may seem a ridiculous split,
 But quantum mechanics must answer, 'Tough shit.
 We may not know much, but one thing's fo'sho':
 There's things in the cosmos that we cannot know.
 Shine light on electrons - You'll cause them to swerve.
 The act of observing disturbs the observed -

 Which ruins your test.  But then if there's no testing
 To see if a particle's moving or resting
 Why try to conjecture?  Pure useless endeavor!
 We know probability - certainty, never.'
 The effect of this notion?  I very much fear
 'Twill make doubtful all things that were formerly clear.
 Till soon the cat doctors will say in reports,
 'We've just flipped a coin and we've learned he's a corpse.'"

 So said Herr Erwin.  Quoth Albert, "Your're nuts.
 God doesn't play dice with the universe, putz.
 I'll prove it!" he said, and the Lord knows he tried -
 In vain - until fin'ly he more or less died.
 Win spoke at the funeral: "Listen, dear friends,
 Sweet Al was my buddy.  I must make amends.
 Though he doubted my theory, I'll say this of the saint:
 Ten-to-one he's in heaven - but five bucks says he ain't."

                - Cecil Adams, The Straight Dope