The highly respected scientists chose the famous Schroedinger's Cat exercise to pursue their proof. In this once purely theoretical exercise in thought, Schroedinger claimed that if one placed a cat in a sealed and impenetrable box, that not only would one not know whether said cat were dead or alive, but that the cat would be both dead and alive until one opened the box to see. The theory is that it is the act of measurement that gives the body being measured a state, that until such time as a body is measured it has no state.

The scientific apparatus utilized in the experiment was nothing short of spectacular. A huge re-sealable box, composed of lead, concrete, steel and titanium sheeting, fully insulated, fully sound-proofed, inside of which is a smaller simillar box held by vibration-proof stabilizers. Closing both boxes provided no known method of detecting what was in the inner box much less what state it was in. Outside the boxes is a myriad of detection and verification equipment. These ranging from high-speed cameras, motion detectors, sound detection and amplification equipment, x-ray photography equipment, infra-red sensors, to over a dozen specially trained eye-witnesses.

The scientists calculated, accounting for age, weight, diet, temperature, altitude, probability of undetected infectious disease, spontaneous combustion, and over a hundred other variables, that there was a likelihood of .03% that the cat would be dead at any one particular opening of the boxes. In addition, nearly four dozen different algorithms were devised to predict at which openings the cat would be alive, and at which openings the cat would be dead.

The big day came. The experiment was to start. Only one thing was missing. The scientists need a cat. They decided that in an experiment designed to detect random choatic state probability, it was best to start with a random cat. Fluffy, originally belonging to Ms. Knight of Butterfield Ohio, was placed into the inner box at 1300 hours on December 3rd. Her cute little shiny black face could be seen peering over the edge, the white spot on her forehead providing a perfect reference point, her little white paws contrasting brightly against the polished steel as she tried desperately to climb out. The experiment began. The boxes were closed. As a matter of courtesy, Ms. Knight was invited to observe.

Ten thousand times the boxes were opened, the condition of the cat was checked and verified almost a hundred different ways. Ten thousand times the boxes were closed. Ten thousand times the results were recorded.

Fluffy was then returned to her owner, Ms. Knight.

The results were spectacular. Scientific theory had predicted exactly correct the number of times the boxes would be opened and the cat found dead. Three. Three times in ten thousand. Exactly the .03% predicted. This result proved the validity of the experimental probabilities involved. Exactly.

Even more spectacular were the results of the comparisons of the predictions of the state of the cat at each opening. All of the predictions had failed. Not a single correlation. There was no known way to predict at which openings the cat would be alive and at which it would be dead. Proof again that while one could predict a probability, one could still not predict an individual event with any certainty whatsoever. The state of the cat had changed while it was in the boxes. The state of the cat was unknown while it was in the boxes. Schroedinger was a man ahead of his times.

Surely there is a Nobel prize for the researchers involved.

Experimental Summary:

The first 9996 openings of the boxes were identical. The outer box was opened, the inner box was opened, the cat poked out its head, cameras clicked and whirred, machines buzzed and flashed as the cat's state was recorded. The cat popped its head back down, the inner box was closed, the outer box was closed.

On the 9997th opening of the boxes, the cat popped its head up, and its state was again recorded as per the previous 9996 uneventful openings. The deviation from the previous openings arose during the attempt to close the inner box. Apparently, the cat failed to pop its head back down inside the box, and it was crushed by the weight of the lid as the box was being closed. Realizing that the box was not yet closed and therefore still counted as open, the scientists decided to again verify the state of the cat. It was verified that the cat was still alive, although its behaviour had seemingly changed from earlier repetitions. The cat was gently scraped from the edge of the box and placed in the bottom. It was again verified that the cat was alive, although somehow different. After verifying that no damage had come to either the inner or outer boxes, they were both closed.

Somewhere between this last opening, number 9997, and the next, 9998, the cat changed state.

The final three openings were again identical. In all three openings the cat was verified to be dead. There was no motion, no breathing, no sound, its mean temperature was dropping, and no heartbeat was detected even by the sophisticated X-ray, MRI, and ultra-sound equipment.