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A magazine held a competition, inviting its readers to submit
new scientific theories on ANY subject. Below is the winner:
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Subject: Perpetual Motion
When a cat is dropped, it always
lands on its feet, and when toast is dropped, it always lands buttered side
down. Therefore, if a slice of toast is strapped to a cat's back,
buttered-side up, and the animal is then dropped, the two opposing forces
will cause it to hover, spinning inches above the ground. If enough
toast-laden felines were used, they could form the basis of a high-speed
monorail system.
Further thoughts from another
reader:
I've been thinking about this
cat/toast business for a while. In the buttered toast case, it's the butter
that causes it to land buttered side down - it doesn't have to be toast,
the theory works equally well with Jacob's crackers. So to save money you
can just miss out the toast - and butter the cats directly.
Also, should there be an imbalance between the effects of cat and butter,
there are other substances that have a stronger affinity for carpet.
Probability of carpet impact is determined by the following simple formula:
p = s * t(t)/t? Where:
p is the probability of carpet impact
s is the "stain" value of the toast-covering
substance - an indicator of the effectiveness of the toast topping in
permanently staining the carpet.
Chicken Tikka Masala, for example, has a very high s value, while the s
value of water is zero. t? and t(t) indicate the tone of the carpet and
topping - the value of p being strongly related to the relationship between
the colour of the carpet and topping, as even Chicken Tikka Masala won't
cause a permanent and obvious stain if the carpet is the same colour. So it
is obvious that the probability of carpet impact is maximised if you use
Chicken Tikka Masala and a white carpet - in fact this combination gives a
p value of one, which is the same as the probability of a cat landing on
its feet.
Conclusions:
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A cat with Chicken Tikka Masala on its back will be certain
to hover in mid air, while there could be problems with buttered toast as the
toast may fall off the cat, causing a terrible monorail crash resulting in
nauseating images of members of the royal family visiting accident victims
in hospital, and politicians saying it wouldn't have happened if their
party was in power as there would have been more investment in cat-toast
adhesive research.
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Therefore it is in the interests not only of public safety but
also public sanity if the buttered toast on cats idea is scrapped, to be
replaced by a monorail powered by cats smeared with Chicken Tikka Masala
floating above a rail made from white shag pile carpet.
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