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The surprisingly complicated physics of why cats always land on their feet:
Scientists are not immune to the alluringly aloof charms of the domestic cat. Sure, Erwin Schrödinger could be accused of animal cruelty for his famous thought experiment, but Edwin Hubble had a cat named Copernicus, who sprawled across the papers on the astronomer's desk as he worked, purring contentedly. A Siamese cat named Chester was even listed as co-author (F.D.C. Willard) with physicist Jack H. Hetherington on a low-temperature physics paper in 1975, published in Physical Review Letters. So perhaps it's not surprising that there is a long, rich history, spanning some 300 years, of scientists pondering the mystery of how a falling cat somehow always manages to land on their feet, a phenomenon known as "cat-turning."
"The falling cat is often sort of a sideline area in research," physicist and cat lover Greg Gbur told Ars. "Cats have a reputation for being mischievous and well-represented in the history. The cats just sort of pop in where you least expect them. They manage to cause a lot of trouble in the history of science, as well as in my personal science. I often say that cats are cleverer than we think, but less clever than they think." A professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Gbur gives a lively, entertaining account of that history in his recent book, Falling Felines and Fundamental Physics.
Over the centuries, scientists offered four distinct hypotheses to explain the phenomenon. There is the original "tuck and turn" model, in which the cat pulls in one set of paws so it can rotate different sections of its body. Nineteenth century physicist James Clerk Maxwell offered a "falling figure skater" explanation, whereby the cat tweaks its angular momentum by pulling in or extending its paws as needed. Then there is the "bend and twist" (not to be confused with the "bend and snap" maneuver immortalized in the 2001 comedy Legally Blonde), in which the cat bends at the waist to counter-rotate the two segments of its body. Finally, there is the "propeller tail," in which the cat can reverse its body's rotation by rotating its tail in one direction like a propeller. A cat most likely employs some aspects of all these as it falls, according to Gbur.
Gbur is quick to offer a cautionary word of advice to anyone considering their own feline experiments: "Please don't drop your cats!"—even in the name of science. Ars sat down with Gbur to learn more about this surprisingly prolific area of research.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Sunday December 29 2019, @08:09PM (7 children)
We had lots of cats when I was a kid, so we put it to the test. Cats do not always land on their feet. Did they even conduct experiments that a 10-year-old could do, or were they like Archimedes, who taught that women had fewer teeth but couldn't be arsed to count his wife's teeth?
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @08:30PM (2 children)
I hope you ran your tests by dropping the cats on a bed or other soft surface?
There was one cat in the college dorm that was known to be pretty lazy, and it wouldn't land on its feet most of the time, couldn't be arsed to bother.
(Score: 4, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 29 2019, @09:21PM (1 child)
If it was in a college dorm, it was probably too stoned to land on its feet.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Monday December 30 2019, @03:01AM
We were told that his mother was a male and never checked, to nobody believed me that the lump hiding under my blankets on Labour Day was giving birth.
Same as they didn't believe me years later when he died on April Fools Day.
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(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 29 2019, @09:20PM (1 child)
Gathered reports from across the world indicate that cats do best at living up to the myth when falling from less than three stories or more than seven stories. I'm not sure why anything in between significantly increases their risk of injury but it does appear to.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by coolgopher on Sunday December 29 2019, @11:17PM
I recall reading something about this likely being due to reaching terminal velocity around seven stories. Higher than three and a cat knows it's in trouble and tenses up, which is bad. Once terminal velocity is reached, it stops accelerating and de-tenses, putting it in a better position for a safer landing. Citation needed, etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 30 2019, @02:38AM (1 child)
Do they have teeth extracted during the operation?
That said, even if cats did always land on their feet, this type of research is useless. It has only slightly more value than gender studies garbage. Eliminate English departments and focus on researching science that actually matters and affects people's lives.
(Score: 3, Funny) by barbara hudson on Monday December 30 2019, @03:07AM
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