Bah.
What if by checking on the cat, you accidentally cause a molecule to decay, and this killing the cat?
What if you just made the box out of glass, then you'd know for sure, but you'd also have to know for sure that the glass box didn't cause the death by some means (glass alergy perhaps).
What if you drop the box, the cat might be alive or dead - the only certainty would be that the cat is annoyed.
It's all theory at the end of the day, theory that physicists have had to defend for decades, so laymen can't simply tell them to stop being ridiculous. I mean, does anyone actually buy into this whole parallel universe stuff?
There is one certainty in all science, and that's that we know far less than we think we do. Schrodinger proved with his pussycat theory that if you dress a theory as a cute little kitty cat, then people will just accept it. For instance, how come this is the only theory that anyone talks about, as if it's gospel, it crops up all the time as some sort of sign from the gods of science.
Face it, even if the cat is not dead, it probably wouldn't last long in the box. So assume the cat is dead and get on with your lives.
