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Perpetual motion.....

  • 28-04-2000 9:31am
    #1
    LoLth
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,339 ✭✭✭✭


    Don't know if it was posted before but it's funny anyway...

    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."



    ........but this idea got this reply from one of the readers....



    QUOTE



    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 I think 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. Consider that the probability of carpet impact is determined by
    the following simple formula:



    P = S * t(t)/tc



    where P is the probability of carpet impact, and S is the "stain" value
    of the toast-covering substance - an indicator of the effectiveness of
    the 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.



    tc and t(t) indicate the tone of the carpet and topping respectively -
    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 clear 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 plastered
    on its back will

    be certain to hover in mid air. Contrastingly, 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 wool shag pile carpet.


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