That Eureka moment.

[merlin617]

 I have for some time been considering the important question of weather or not a cat could be made to levitate and I can now announce that I have cracked it.

 I do not possess a cat so it would be necessary for someone else to do the practical side of the experiment but I will tell you how this remarkable feat can be achieved.
Firstly we have to agree on two scientific facts.
1. A cat will always land on its feet.
2. Toast will always land butter side down.
I believe that these two facts are a little known post script to Einstein’s theory of relativity and as such are written in stone and never vary. It is most important that we agree on these two principles.
So, to sum up so far. A cat must always land on its feet and buttered toast must always land butter side down.
To perform this remarkable feat you will need;
A Cat and four rounds of lightly buttered toast (it should not matter if the bread is brown or white). All you have to do is attach the four rounds of toast BUTTER SIDE UP to your cats feet. (Remember it must be butter side up or there may be some sort of reaction that may make your cat accelerate towards the ground at an exponential rate.) How you go about attaching the toast to your cats feet is beyond the scope of this paper, however I would advise wearing stout gloves in case Tiddles takes exception to you sticking or tying toast to its limbs.
Once you have securely allied  your toast to your cat all you have to do is drop the cat from a suitable height. Start low and build up gradually.
As the cat approaches the ground the toast will attempt to invert so as to land butter side down, but as we are already aware a cat must land on its feet so it will impose a force to remain upright equal to the force imposed by the toast to invert. You will now have a situation whereby the toast cannot land butter side down, but cannot invert because that would make the cat land on its back., which we know it cannot do, so you will have two equal forces opposing each other, the result of which will be that the cat will hover above the ground or levitate.
I have yet to work out any practical application for this phenomenon but please feel free to use this remarkable discovery in any way that you think might help humanity  :-k

[Disco Matt]

Previous research involving attaching the toast to the back of the cat with the butter side up was something of a failure, as the cat merely rotated at considerable speed about 2ft off the ground. This resulted in centrifugal force distributing butter over a wide area until the cord broke, leaving the experimenters with a very angry cat and butter everywhere.

[merlin617]

Previous research involving attaching the toast to the back of the cat with the butter side up was something of a failure, as the cat merely rotated at considerable speed about 2ft off the ground. This resulted in centrifugal force distributing butter over a wide area until the cord broke, leaving the experimenters with a very angry cat and butter everywhere.

I am aware of the previous research into this exciting field, however I am confident that my research is sound. I feel that I should point out what a close call the experiment you refer to was. Had the cord not had a low tensile strength then the cat would no doubt have continued to accelerate uncontrollably until it passed light speed, in which case it may have formed a black hole and sucked all surrounding matter. This I am sure you be aware, could have been a tad dicey  :shock:

[scampy]

result of experiment #1:

cat ate toast.

[Disco Matt]

Our hypothesis did not include that possibility!

We did however consider the risk of the spinning cat opening a portal into another dimension. As we have Dr Gordon Freeman on the research team and a few crowbars we felt this was unlikely to pose a problem.

[AndyN]

We have now tried this with two non blood related cats for added accuracy, one male , one female.

As a result we have discovered the theory is 50% true. The first cat hovered for 2-3 minutes perfectly controlling height with its tail and  direction byt turning its head...... before landing perfectly and eating the toast followed by the snake behind it (damn tough cat!)


The second cat seemed to struggle from the outset and crash landed at speed into the patio, not landing on its feet either.


so 50% true by my workings.

[woody]

Previous research involving attaching the toast to the back of the cat with the butter side up was something of a failure, as the cat merely rotated at considerable speed about 2ft off the ground. This resulted in centrifugal force distributing butter over a wide area until the cord broke, leaving the experimenters with a very angry cat and butter everywhere.

WOW if we could attach the cat to the transmission of a land rover
we could have our fist carbon neutral land rover and free road tax

as long as the cat doesn't
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 fart

[merlin617]

We have now tried this with two non blood related cats for added accuracy, one male , one female.

As a result we have discovered the theory is 50% true. The first cat hovered for 2-3 minutes perfectly controlling height with its tail and  direction byt turning its head...... before landing perfectly and eating the toast followed by the snake behind it (damn tough cat!)


The second cat seemed to struggle from the outset and crash landed at speed into the patio, not landing on its feet either.


so 50% true by my workings.

Your initial results are very promising, particularly the first test subject which appears to have performed unsurprisingly as I predicted although I am slightly concerned by the appearance of a snake! Perhaps some as yet unknown phenomena has occurred opening some sort of portal which allowed the reptile to pass through.
More concerning is the apparent failure of your second experiment. As my hypothesis is obviously correct I can only assume that human error in the attachment of the toast occurred. Perhaps you or one of your technicians attached a piece butter side up. As I made abundantly clear in my original paper and reiterate here, attachment of the toast is critical. It is also possible that some sort of magnetic anomaly caused by the inadvertent use of a hairdryer or tv set may have affected your results and caused the cat to crash. We must however try to put this early setback behind us and concentrate on the positive results you have so far achieved. Obviously we are pushing at the boundaries of science and failure is part of the learning process. Take heart and press on with this valuable work.  :-. 

[Discopoo]

We have now tried this with two non blood related cats for added accuracy, one male , one female.

As a result we have discovered the theory is 50% true. The first cat hovered for 2-3 minutes perfectly controlling height with its tail and  direction byt turning its head...... before landing perfectly and eating the toast followed by the snake behind it (damn tough cat!)


The second cat seemed to struggle from the outset and crash landed at speed into the patio, not landing on its feet either.


so 50% true by my workings.

Your initial results are very promising, particularly the first test subject which appears to have performed unsurprisingly as I predicted although I am slightly concerned by the appearance of a snake! Perhaps some as yet unknown phenomena has occurred opening some sort of portal which allowed the reptile to pass through.
More concerning is the apparent failure of your second experiment. As my hypothesis is obviously correct I can only assume that human error in the attachment of the toast occurred. Perhaps you or one of your technicians attached a piece butter side up. As I made abundantly clear in my original paper and reiterate here, attachment of the toast is critical. It is also possible that some sort of magnetic anomaly caused by the inadvertent use of a hairdryer or tv set may have affected your results and caused the cat to crash. We must however try to put this early setback behind us and concentrate on the positive results you have so far achieved. Obviously we are pushing at the boundaries of science and failure is part of the learning process. Take heart and press on with this valuable work.  :-. 

If the Second cat was male and had previously been nutered, the inbalance as a result caused by less weight at the rear end may have contibuted to the result ?