Buttered cat theory for lswot

[Rstegman]

This is ripped from my story ideas for January.
You can read all my idiocy for the month, and past months at
http://crafts.xprodigy.net/cgi-bin/cc1/ ... l?forum=28

11 )
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It is known that if you drop a cat, it will land on its feet. It is believed that if you dropped a buttered toast, it will fall butter side down. The theory is that if you strap buttered toast onto the back of a cat, and drop it, it will stop inches above the ground and spin, as the toast and cat are trying to get into optimal position to land. The theory then says that if you create a whole bunch of these spinning entities, one can use them to levitate a monorail train for extreme efficiencies. The question is, What if this were true?
In actuality, when a cat falls, something like a minimum of five stories, it turns its head right side up, and the body twists to follow the head. It takes a distance for this reaction to happen. There are stories of cats falling as far as twenty five stories and surviving, broken legs, but surviving the fall because of this reaction.
I think Myth busters tested the toast thing, but I did not see the results. I would assume that the buttered side is heavier than the rest of the toast so there would be a statistical edge to that side landing first. Aerodynamics indicate that either the toast will fall on the edge, or tumble in the fall. I think statistically, though, the buttered side would get a percentage more landings than the other side. What this really is about, is that we remember when the toast lands butter side down as we have to clean the floor and we get dirt in the butter. When the toast lands bread side down, we pick it up and it is less memorable.
The cat landing on its feet would have a higher precedence over the odds of toast landing butter side down. the toast would have to ruin the aerodynamics of the cat or the mass shift of the cat, for it to have a chance of landing first.
The theory, therefore, depends on the idea that butter falling first, and cats landing on their feet, is caused by some magical happenstance. the nature of the cat's feet and the buttered bread means that they will land first every time. Gravity actually repels the cat's body and the unbuttered side of the toast.
The theory then is dependant on this repellant force. Because the butter and the cat's feet are drawn down to the ground, and the back of the toast and the cat's body is repelled, tied together, gravity will repel the combination until one gains the upper hand.
Now one thing to keep in mind is that butter will eventually melt into the toast. Heavy butter will splatter when spun like what we are talking about. One must then assume that the toast is necessarily cold and the butter is on real thin. Since the effect of the butter is to make a mess, frozen butter would lose its effect. When it touched down, it would not leave a mess, and therefore not be attracted by gravity. One must also presume that if the toast got warm enough, the butter would soak into the toast and no longer be on the surface, making the toast useless for attracting gravity.
We can assume that the repellent force is a bit higher than is required to levitate the spinning combination. If one were to apply additional pressure to the cat and butter, the repelling forces would hold it up. It might be a pound, or several pounds. It might get stronger the closer the feet of the cat gets to the surface.
I just realized something. This would not be a gravity thing. It would be repellent to any surface. if the cat and toast were falling on the deck of a mile high bridge, or at the dry lake surface of Death Valley, It would still hover. This is a surface repellent thing. Using gravity as the cause was easy but surface repellency is tougher, unless the surface of things focuses the gravity repellant properties. that might work for this.
Ok, One simply has to work out how strong the repellant force is compared to the weight of the cat and the toast. One can then work out how many cat-toast combinations are required to levitate a monorail car with a full passenger list. There has to be room for the spinning cats, the equipment to attach and support the car to them, and room to reach in and handle them if there is a problem. Also, one should have more than the cats necessary in case some run out of spin or somehow touches ground. there should be something to protect them from being squished if all the cats suddenly stop spinning, losing the lift.
Getting the cats to spin is a tough thing. One cannot simply spin them. the spinning only works if they fall. If a train runs out of spinning cats, there has to be a way to get them spinning again. Since this train is usually elevated, one might drop them on a harness until they almost touch ground below, and then raise them up quickly and put them over the monorail surface before the effect stops. Another might be to lift the monorail high off the tracks and drop it suddenly. the cats, reacting to the fall, turn their heads and the bread follows their action to cause them to spin again. How high the monorail has to be lifted, and how to accomplish this is something else. It could be that the cat frame is slid out from under the cars, raised above the track level by combination light posts and cranes, and dropped to the running deck of the elevated way. When they start spinning, the frame is pulled beneath the jacked up car and when the weight is added, the car can continue on again.
There is nothing said about the effects on cats. Dizzy cats tend to make a mess. It could be that at the end of each run, the cat rack is swapped out. The cats are fed, watered and rested. they might make only one run a day. Each day they are attached to the racks and raised high to get the spinning going. Starting one cat at a time would be too labor intensive, especially if you intend to keep them spinning for some time.
Animal rights people will not like this all that much. They will say it is cruel to cats. Of course some people will automatically respond "And your point is?" I will leave this debate to some other note.
With the cats levitating the monorail cars, One only needs to apply forward motion. This could be air plane propellers, or a standard automobile power train hanging out the front and back of each car. Because there is no friction due to the levitation of the cats, it will not take much power to get up to speed.
Now cats will spin in opposite directions. The harnesses they are in might automatically turn them around so they are all spinning so the bottom side acts like a car wheel on the pavement. The friction of the spinning cats might add a bit of thrust to the cars, along with a bit of the effect of the legs of the cat coming close to the surface of the trackway. This would reduce the amount of power to move the train, making it even more efficient.
Problems mentioned earlier in this note was that of the temperature of the butter. Because frozen butter does not make a mess and therefore loses attractiveness to the ground, this system cannot be used in cold weather without somehow keeping the butter at the right temperature. Also if the butter melts into the bread, it will no longer make a mess, and therefore also lose its attractiveness. It cannot be used in warm weather. To solve this, one would have to add a form of air conditioning to the undercarriage of the monorail. Send warm or cool air to keep the butter at the right temperature to have the best effect.
The most likely failure of the system is where the butter either soaked in or froze up. It loses attractiveness and the cat suddenly is standing on the ground. If there were automatic systems attached to the toast to add more butter during a journey, one could solve part of the problem. Adding warm butter over frozen butter will get you some extra distance. It would not be a perfect solution. the only perfect solution would be to heat up the undercarriage to keep the butter soft. How often these monorails would run in poor weather would be the real question. One would add heating systems to keep the butter within acceptable temperatures if one gets six months of winter each year. One adds coolers if the temperatures stay hot six months a year. Some areas might not need any of this, not running just a few weeks each year due to temps.
As to a story with this, one might chronicle someone trying to make money with such a complicated system, keeping cats spinning and getting the car traveling faster than a horse can run. This would be best when horses are the normal form of transportation, either before steam engines, or after the fall of civilization.
Another way to use this is as a background piece where someone chooses to take public transportation and gets on a cat train. The cats wailing is weird, but the ride is good and is cheeper than other modes. The person then goes on their way for the rest of the story, possibly riding it once in a while as part of the background, just as one would ride a subway or a bus.

[Henry J]

But, what if the butter-side-down rule only applies when the surface (ground, floor, whatever) is something that somebody would have to clean up if butter were spilled on it? Seems likely that the ground under this monorail would not be in that "cat"egory...

Meow.

Oh, and a side note to the author of this, er, article - as William Shatner is reputed to have once said: "get a life!".

Henry

[lswot]

Ah......NOW I get it.

This recitation was like watching an episode of NUMB3RS and trying to follow the logic............. You know it's there.....you just can't put a name to it....... ...so to speak.

Oh.....and thanks, Rstegman.......

[Rstegman]

Henry,

Someone saw what I was doing before,

and told me to get a life,

so doing this was my solution.

Good choice I think...

[lswot]

[Henry J]

Roger,
Re "Someone saw what I was doing before, [...]"

Ah, so you switched from the evol/cre "debate" to contemplating vehicle propulsion by cat?

Henry

[lswot]

[Henry J]

Doesn't all that eye rolling get tiring after a while?

[brian]

That's the only exercise some of us get!

[lswot]

It's either that or a , Henry.

[Henry J]

[DonaldTurner]

That's the only exercise some of us get!

What do you mean, Brian? There's also all of the exercise that our fingers get working the remote control!