I’ve been reading about quantum mechanics, not so much what it is but rather how the theoretical physicists of the early 20th C attempted to explain it. Years were spent attempting to derive mathematical explanations for how tiny invisible sub-atomic entities exist, interact and behave, and what form they assume in time and space.

The elusiveness of the endeavor led some theoretical physicists to determine that quantum existence was a closed system beyond the known structure of physical science, an idea refuted by brilliant thinkers such as Albert Einstein.

Still, the observed behavior of sub-atomic entities defied explanation. They could be waves or particles, their position and momentum impossible to determine with certainty. The thought experiment offered by Erwin Schrodinger emphasized the counterintuitive dilemma by suggesting photons presented into a closed box in which a cat was placed with a cyanide capsule triggered by particle but not wave suggested multiple scenarios: a cat dead in one, alive in another not reduced to a single truth until viewed by an observer, exacerbating the mystery of what quanta truly are, which leaves us within an unknowable realm beyond the reasoned three-dimensional world our limited intellects can conceive.