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They say a watched pot never boils. This is, obviously, just an Olde Wyfes’ Tayle, but it demonstrates that old wives had a surprisingly sophisticated anticipation of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. Still, there are tayles and then there are tailes. So what if it’s a feline observer doing the watching? The theoretical mystery of Schrödinger’s Cat provides no clear answer, so more empirical evidence is needed. We had pasta for dinner last night, which provided us with an ideal test bed to answer this question once and for all.

Here’s the answer: as long as Inkblot was watching our pot last night, it didn’t boil. A little later he got distracted by some Cosmic Catnip, and the pot boiled. So even if you have a brain the size of a peanut, you count as a quantum mechanical observer of the universal wave function. Science marches on.

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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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