[PapaBear3625]

Whether or not the scientist opens the box is irrelevant, the cat is either alive or dead, not a superposition of the two states.

Variation on the cat experiment: instead of a cat, the physicist stuffs one of his grad students into the box. Does the grad student observing his own state collapse the wave function only from his own viewpoint, with his state being a wave function from the viewpoint of the physicist until he opens the box?

And if the grad student, upon being stuffed in the box, has vowed to kill the physicist if he survives the box, is the physicist's existence a wave function until the head of the department opens the lab door to check on him?

[ETL]

I would just call campus security.