Cat Terminal Velocity & the Cat-Butter Perpetual Motion Machine

So cats always land on their feet? Well – maybe they do – but that’s not what saves them from death.

It turns out that feline aerodynamics are such that a cat’s ‘terminal velocity’ – the constant speed it reaches when acceleration due to gravity is equal and opposite to the drag caused by air resistance – is generally not lethal. In fact, it turns out that cats can survive 90% of falls which would kill a human. And the higher the fall – the more likely the cat is to survive.

Who knew!

Now, imagine a universe where folk wisdom is true about cats landing on their feet – and Murphy’s law always holds in relation to buttered toast. That raises an interesting possibility for a perpetual motion machine: an irresistible force / immovable object kind of paradox!

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Happy Friday everyone :)