Buttered Cats - Discuss
 

A cat always lands on it's feet.
Toast always lands buttered-side down.

So if I take my cat and strap a piece of toast (buttered side up) onto his back, and then throw him out of the window, which side up will he land?

Re: Buttered Cats - Discuss
 

I'm guessing that the cat has slightly more inteligence that the piece of toast so the cat will land on his feet...

Re: Buttered Cats - Discuss
 

It's a thought experiment. You have to work on the basis that both pieces of information are true and it is an impossibility for the toast to land buttered side down....

Re: Buttered Cats - Discuss
 

Perhaps the toast will cushion the cats fall and hense the cat will be saved ???

Re: Buttered Cats - Discuss
 

Some important research conducted by a Dutch team seems to confirm what you are suggesting....

Re: Buttered Cats - Discuss
 

Can't seem to open :confused:

Perhaps tonight I shall take th kittens and carry out my own experiment, do you think it has to be real butter ???

Re: Buttered Cats - Discuss
 

Oh yes, I'm not sure that Murphy's law works with Flora or peanut butter.

It's also imperative that the kittens refrain from licking the butter from the toast, otherwise the anti-gravity effect will disappear resulting in a nasty fall.

Re: Buttered Cats - Discuss
 

Do you think it will mar the experiment if one cat is Ginger and White and the other is Black and White ???

Re: Buttered Cats - Discuss
 

Well, do they both have equal numbers of feet?

Re: Buttered Cats - Discuss
 

I love this theory and have done since I 1st heard it :D

If you google it, you get the following from http://www.begent.org/toast.htm


Variation on The Cat and Buttered Toast Theory...

An American magazine held a competition, inviting its readers to submit new scientific theories on ANY subject.
Below is the winner:

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.

.....and then this mail got this reply from one of the recipients:

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 just miss out the toast - and butter the cats.

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.

Therefore 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 glue research.

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

Re: Buttered Cats - Discuss
 

This is why BE rocks....

We've solved the energy crisis with chicken tikka masalla cats and it's still 4 hours to sundowner time...

Re: Buttered Cats - Discuss
 

Sorry have to disagree here as the stain factor of water on silk is actually very high.... he needs to relppk at his theory

Re: Buttered Cats - Discuss
 

Yes but black and white's feet are bigger !!!

Re: Buttered Cats - Discuss
 

Yes, but the reference material for the bottom mono-rail is white shag carpet. One would have to study the cost/performance benefits of using wet cats with silk rails.

Re: Buttered Cats - Discuss
 

Well he'll just float a bit higher then. If you were to remove one of his feet, I imagine that he would spin at high velocity due to an out of balance centripetal moment acting about his inertial tensor.