Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy

The Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy is a trilogy of novels by American writer Robert Anton Wilson consisting of Schrödinger's Cat: The Universe Next Door (1979), Schrödinger's Cat II: The Trick Top Hat (1980), and Schrödinger's Cat III: The Homing Pigeons (1981), each illustrating a different interpretation of quantum physics. They were collected into an omnibus edition in 1988.

Wilson is also co-author of The Illuminatus! Trilogy (1975), and Schrödinger's Cat is a sequel of sorts, re-using several of the same characters and carrying on many of the themes of the earlier work.

The name Schrödinger's Cat comes from a thought experiment in quantum mechanics. The first book, The Universe Next Door, takes place in different universes in accord with the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics; in the second, The Trick Top Hat, characters are unknowingly connected through non-locality, i.e., having once crossed paths they are joined in quantum entanglement; and the third book, The Homing Pigeons, places characters in an "observer-created universe" in which consciousness causes the collapse of the wavefunction.

Taking place in Unistat, which is the novel's parallel to the United States, the novels have intertwining plots involving a wide array of characters, including:

• Epicene Wildeblood, a.k.a. Mary Margaret Wildeblood, a transsexual woman who throws great parties
• Frank Dashwood, president of Orgasm Research
• Markoff Chaney, a prankster
• Hugh Crane, a.k.a. Cagliostro the Great, a mystic and magician
• Furbish Lousewart V, author and President of Unistat
• Marvin Gardens, author and cocaine addict
• Eve Hubbard, scientist and alternate President of Unistat