An American physicist has built a special model that allows one to calculate the flight of a cat when falling from a great height.
It is a well-known fact that no animal has such vitality as a cat. There are cases in which cats fell out of the window of a high-rise building and survived.
What helps cats survive falls from great heights, reports the scientific publication European Journal of Physics.
What was found out?
By constructing a model of a cat falling, the American physicist was able to explain the animal's ability to turn over in the air.
From a scientific point of view, the secret of a cat’s survivability lies “in the mechanics of a deforming body with variable angular momentum.”
Not everyone understands this, but it is this law that a cat uses when bending its back in the right way.
It also turned out that the cat is saved by aerodynamic resistance, which does not allow the speed to grow indefinitely.
Having conditionally “dropped” a model cat from the 32nd floor, the physicist came to the conclusion that the speed remains stable throughout the flight (24.5 meters per second).
And when approaching the tenth floor it reaches 20 meters per second.
And another important point that explains the cat’s survivability is shock absorption.
From a physics perspective, the ability of a cat's bones to "resist stress is directly proportional to their cross-sectional area."
To put it simply, the skeleton of cats experiences less stress when falling, compared to large animals or humans.
Author: Igor Zur