Sunday, March 25, 2012

Safe landing:

Due to scientists' unwillingness to toss cats off buildings for experimental observation, science has been unable systematically to study the rate at which they live after crashing to the ground.
But
Cats' remarkable ability to survive falls from great heights is a simple and predictable matter of physics, evolutionary biology, and physiology, veterinarians and biologists say.


They are relatively small in weight, which means that over a high distance, they will fall more slowly, the laws of physics dictate, thus reducing the force at which cats hit the pavement.
Cats reach terminal velocity, the speed at which the downward tug of gravity is matched by the upward push of wind resistance, at a slow speed compared to large animals like humans and horses.

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