{"id":149,"date":"2009-08-27T12:27:09","date_gmt":"2009-08-27T00:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/2009\/08\/27\/landing_gear_failure\/"},"modified":"2009-08-27T12:27:09","modified_gmt":"2009-08-27T00:27:09","slug":"landing-gear-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/2009\/08\/27\/landing-gear-failure\/","title":{"rendered":"Landing gear failure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night our cat failed to live up to the reputation of his species for executing four-footed landings when he lept off a perch in hot pursuit of a piece of string, landed on his front paws with too much forward rotation, performed a graceful flick-flack and thuded head first into the CD rack. After a couple of seconds looking very dazed he got to his feet again and decided (to our relief) he was still fit enough to teach that bit of string a lesson.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Which led me to looking up videos of cats landing on their feet. I think this one<\/a> is one of the best. (How did he get the cat to co-operate? – I have no idea!)<\/p>\n

It’s amazing how they do it. An Olympic high-board diver has the advantage of a push-off from the board in order to start his twisting motion, but a cat that is just released has no such luxury. There has to be conservation of angular (rotating) momentum as he falls – if one bit of him rotates clockwise, some other bit has to rotate anticlockwise.  Watch the cat’s tail here – it whips round the other direction to which the cat is rotating, while at the same time the legs are first drawn in to decrease its moment of inertia (like a spinning  ice skater draws in his arms to rotate faster) and then opened out to slow the rotation and prepare for landing.<\/p>\n

Maybe our puddy could benefit from watching. (NB no signs of lasting injury when we left him this morning…)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night our cat failed to live up to the reputation of his species for executing four-footed landings when he lept off a perch in hot pursuit of a piece of string, landed on his front paws with too much forward rotation, performed a graceful flick-flack and thuded head first into the CD rack. 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