Schrödinger's Cat explained - Telegraph Common sense tells us this is not the case, and Schrödinger used this to highlight the limits of the Copenhagen interpretation when applied to practical situations. The cat is actually either dead or alive, whether or not it has been observed. "[It] prevents us from so naively accepting as valid a "blurred model" for representing reality," Schrödinger wrote. In itself, this would not embody anything unclear or contradictory. Schrödinger's Cat has been used to illustrate the differences between emerging theories in quantum mechanics, by testing how they would approach the experiment. For example, the "many worlds interpretation," developed in the 1950s, would argue that when the box is opened, the observer and dead-and-alive cat split into two realities, in one of which the observer sees a dead cat and the other an alive one. The experiment has also been widely influential in popular culture, having been referenced in TV shows such as Futurama, Doctor Who and The Big Bang Theory as well as appearing in the works of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett.