Saturday, November 28, 2009

Buttered cat paradox

Facts:
When dropped from some height -
  • Cats always land on their feet.
  • Buttered toast always lands buttered side down.
The paradox arises when one considers what would happen if one attached a piece of buttered toast (butter side up) to the back of a cat, then dropped the cat from a large height.
The experiment will produce an anti-gravity effect. As the cat falls towards the ground, it will slow down and start to rotate, eventually reaching a steady state of hovering a short distance from the ground while rotating at high speed as both the buttered side of the toast and the cat’s feet attempt to land on the ground.
With a giant buttered cat array, a high-speed monorail could easily link New York with Chicago.
[The one obvious danger is, if the cats manage to eat the bread off their backs, they will instantly plummet. Of course, the cats will land on their feet.] 

-- 
I read the quote first time in book named 'Don\'t make me think'.
Checked the wikipedia for concept.
Image is taken from tambayan.ph site

2 Comments:

अभिजीत said...

LOL ! what a paradox !

Actually I have an idea (inpired by tamil actor villu :D )based on this paradox.

Our hero from India ties a cat at his front side & buttered bread at this backside and jumps from tall building. Of course, he carries parachute as it is sensible movie. But he doesn't open it at first. After jumping from building, due to cat-buttered bread paradox, he starts floating in between. After 12 Hrs, he he releases the cat & opens the parachute & Guess what ? He lands in USA.

Jitesh Shah said...

or it was probably a Schrodinger's cat. It both landed on the feet and on the back at the same time.