Schrödinger's cat

Schrödinger's cat is an experiment used in quantum mechanics (which is a branch of physics that deals with small particles like atoms and molecules). In the experiment, a cat is put into a box that also has a bottle of poisonous gas. The box is also attached to a machine with a tiny bit of radioactive material and a Geiger counter. The Geiger counter is used to measure radiation. The radioactive material has a 50% chance of decaying, and when the material decays it sends a signal to the machine that releases the poisonous gas and kills the cat inside the box. But since the radioactive material only has a 50% chance of decaying, it could go either way and the cat could either be dead or alive, so the cat is in a mixed state of being both dead and alive at the same time. This is known as the Schrödinger's Cat Paradox.