Once upon a time, there lived a man in the outskirts of Quantum Village. Schrödinger was his name, and he had a cat called Schrödinger­scat. Schrödinger loved his cat, and he had lived in the village for many years in peace and contentment.

Now Schrödinger was a smart man, and he liked to perform many scien­tific exper­i­ments in his lab. One such exper­i­ment consisted of a little box with a piece of radioac­tive material in it. Who knows what he was planning to do with it? Schrödinger was a smart man.

One cold winter day, Schrödinger­scat went missing. Smart man that he was, Schrödinger realized that his cat must have wandered into his lab, and must have shut himself inside his little box filled with radioac­tivity. Now, Schrödinger faced a dilemma — should he open the box to free his cat?

People like you and I might wonder what the fuss was all about, but Schrödinger was a smart man. He realized that as long as he didn’t look into the box, his cat was both dead and alive, thanks to the wonderful and myste­rious laws of Quantum Village. But if he ventured to look inside the box, the cat could either be alive or dead, but not both. Schrödinger was perplexed; what was he to do? Dare he risk opening the box? After several hours of indeci­sion, Schrödinger finally decided to look. “I might as well open the box and learn the fate of my dear cat,” he thought aloud.

Alas! When he opened the box, poor Schrödinger­scat was lying there, dead. Schrödinger was stricken with grief, and it is said that he was never quite the same again.

Moral of the story: Curiosity killed the cat.