A physicist and Schrödinger’s cat walk into the Perimeter Institute

What happens when a group of physicists celebrate the 127th birthday of one of their own?

Apparently, the rolling cat above.

Also, they called the 90s up for some background “space” graphics.

Hilarity aside, the video is great an explains one of the most mind-bending concepts — especially for cat lovers — in theoretical physics.

The Dr. Seuss-type display is part of a YouTube video posted by researchers at Waterloo, Ontario’s Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics to mark Erwin Shrödinger’s 127th birthday. Shrödinger was a Austrian physicist, born August 12, 1887, whose worked earned him a Nobel Prize and laid the foundations for the quantum theories — and the futuristic practical applications — we know today.

To explain one of his theories — which, to put it simplistically, intended to debunk the quantum theory of the day that matter could exist in two states at once — Shrödinger’s Cat was born. The so-called “thought” experiment, in a nutshell is as follows: a cat is inside a box and if the box opens a poison gas will be released, but if it’s not opened the cat will die of starvation. The cat is, in theory, both alive and dead at the same time, though the paradox was intended to highlight the absurdity of certain quantum theories and their concepts of duality.

“Though Schrödinger’s intent was to highlight an apparent problem in the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, the thought experiment has become synonymous with the counter-intuitive realities of how nature works at the quantum level,” the Perimeter post states.

The video itself explains it better than I ever could, watch below.