2010-11-05
Explanation
This comic riffs on the real-life physicist Erwin Schrodinger and his well-known thought experiment about quantum superposition. In the main panel, a character resembling Schrodinger is at a social gathering, explaining to another person that he has both a wife and a mistress. He argues that before he opens the door to his home, it is uncertain whether his wife, his mistress, both, or neither will be in the room -- and therefore, most of the time, he is only with "one quantum woman." The caption below reads: "Schrodinger failed to get that position at Princeton."
The joke works by taking Schrodinger's famous cat thought experiment -- in which a cat in a sealed box exists in a superposition of alive and dead states until observed -- and applying it to marital infidelity. Schrodinger uses the language of quantum mechanics to rationalize his philandering, claiming that because the state of who is in the room is uncertain before observation, he is technically only dealing with a single "quantum" partner. It is a hilariously bad-faith application of physics to personal ethics.
The caption adds historical comedy by suggesting this kind of reasoning is exactly why Schrodinger did not get a prestigious academic position -- the implication being that his colleagues found this argument as unconvincing as we do. Historically, Schrodinger was indeed known for unconventional personal relationships, which makes the joke land with an extra layer of biographical humor. The votey panel shows a shirtless Schrodinger gleefully saying "Okay, ladies. You be particle, and you be wave" -- extending the joke by having him use wave-particle duality as bedroom role-play, further blurring the line between his physics and his love life.