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Monday, April 23, 2007

Butter me up

Cartoonist Greg Williams takes on a paradox involving two common observations: 1) A cat always lands on its feet, no matter what height you drop it from. 2) A piece of toast with butter or jam always lands spread-side down.

Here's Williams's stab at "the buttered-cat paradox":

Buttered_cat_comic.jpg

Turns out, naturally, that others have had this same idea, with varying levels of seriousness. Here's an article in the New Scientist about the conundrum, and here's a short animated film that considers the practical application of the cat-jam composite. Weightlessness! Why not use jam-slathered cats to power monorails? It's like biodegradable fuel.

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