From a reader:
Jonah,
I’m not Quantum Mechanics Guy, so my grasp of this is going to be pretty rudimentary, but maybe NR has a science geek on staff who could draw a parallel between Krugman’s Cat and Schroedinger’s Cat. Since we can’t observe it we don’t know the condition of Krugman’s Cat at any given time, but by estimating how much the economy is going to improve and how badly Krugman will react to that improvement we can estimate how viciously his cat is kicked. As I understand Schroedinger’s Cat though, since we don’t actually see Krugman kick his cat, the condition of the cat would have to be expressed as being kicked and un-kicked to varying degrees at the same time.