A perplexing problem

2Timothy2

Rangers Lead the Way
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I realize there is a jokes forum, but figured this would be better received here.


In response to the question: "Buttered bread on cat's back, what hits the ground first?"

From: ken#NoSpam.capitalnet.com (Ken)

First the source of the forces must be understood. The force acting on the
bread is not the butter, as some may think. Without the bread, butter
wouldn't land bread side up, and therefore the force could not possibly be
in the butter. We know the force is not the bread because it has been
experimentally proven that bread does not land any particular side down
without butter. The bread/butter force is caused by the fusing of bread and
butter particles together. This fusion causes energy to be released in the
form of shifting gravity and anti-gravity energy to opposite sides of the
bread/butter continuum. The gravity energy naturally shifts to the butter
since it is denser then the bread, while the anti-gravity energy shifts to
the bread side.

The energy in a cat for landing on its feet comes from the feet themselves.
This has been proven experimentally. Cats without feet have a near zero
success rate of landing on their feet. We will call this energy cat foot
energy.

Considering the equal but opposing bread/butter and cat foot forces one
would expect the cat to spin violently about its axis. However the strength
of these forces must be considered. A regular cat is not structurally
stable enough to withstand the torque the spinning causes. I should not
have to describe the way the cat's limbs give way, the way the legs wrench
around until the feet are on the same side of the cat as the butter. And
thus the cat can then land on its feet, butter side down.

We are now researching the possibility of using structurally reinforced
cats for levitation systems, but so far the cost is too high to be
practical. Several attempts at producing economically viable systems were
made by separating the feet so that the instability of the cat would not be
a factor. At first there was dificulty because there was no cat to tie the
bread to. Later it was discovered that when not attached to a cat the feet
lost their cat foot force over time. It is hypothesized that the feet need
to be living to exert the cat foot force, and so far no practical method
has been found for keeping the feet alive other than a cat.

Attempts are also being made to breed flat cats with no legs (only feet).

There are many other problems related with this method of levitation as you
may well imagine, but they are beyond the scope of this discussion.

Harold G Sputsberry PHD
Institute for Alternative Energy Research



From: "Randall D. Wald" <randy#NoSpam.rwald.com>

The outcome of this experiment would seem to be uncertain. This is
reminiscent of the Uncertainty Principle, which would suggest that this is
actually a quantum case. The cat-toast construct can exist in two states:
butter-side down, or feet-side down. Most researchers would have you chose
between the two states, but they ignore the most obvious of solutions: the
cat-toast construct will exist in both states at once! It will
simultaneously be butter-side down and feet-side down. This duality shall
continue until the cat-toast construct is observed by a researcher, at
which time the cat will panic and escape the bonds holding it to the toast.

Conclusion: Clearly, we have made an error in selecting the feline on which
to experiment; we were accidentally using Schroedinger's cat.



From: "Zachary Fabert" <zfabert#NoSpam.worldnet.att.net>

All of the preceding theories have been base on an incorrect use of
Murphy's Law. Jenning's Corollary states, "The chance of the bread falling
with the buttered side down is directly proportional to the cost of the
carpet." Therefore the side on which the cat/buttered toast arrangement
will land is actually dependant on the surface over which the cat is
dropped. If the cat is dropped over a brand new carpet, then the buttered
side must contact the ground, however, if the cat is dropped over dirt the
cat's feet will contact the ground. There is one unexplained phenomenon,
if the cat is dropped over water a mysterious force causes the cat's claws
to be strongly attracted to the face of whoever dropped the cat, resulting
in several scratches.