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"One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following diabolical device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Gieger counter there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small, that perhaps in the course of one hour one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges and through a relay releases a hammer which shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The first atomic decay would have poisoned it. The wave-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and the dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared into equal parts."
From "The Present Situation in Quantum Mechanics: A Translation
of Schrödinger's 'Cat Paradox' Paper" by John D. Trimmer
Republished in Quantum Theory and Measurement.
