Thieved from one of the UK bulletin boards
==============================================
Ive been getting a bit bored with the inactivity of the BB and the
seriousness with which the finance and techie boys approach the BB.
So I've done some thinking this afternoon and this is the
results............................................
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."
... However there are some potential refinements to the system....
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 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.
Probability of carpet impact is determined by the following
simple
formula:
p = s * t(t)/tc
where p is the probability of carpet impact s is the "stain" value of
the
toast-covering substance - an indicator of the effectiveness of the
toast
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 - 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 obvious 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 on its back will be certain
to
hover in mid air, while 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 shag pile carpet.
By the way, it was a good day in the market too:o)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Apr 29 2001 - 20:26:17 PDT