An American / British magazine held a competition, inviting its readers to submit new scientific theories on ANY subject. Below is the winner:
Subject: Perpetual Motion
When a cat is dropped, it always lands on its feet, and when toast is dropped, it always lands buttered side down.
Therefore, if a slice of toast is strapped to a cat's back, buttered side up, and the animal is then dropped, the two opposing forces will cause it to hover, spinning inches above the ground. If enough toast-laden felines were used, they could form the basis of a high-speed monorail system.
......... and then the mail got this reply from one of the recipients
I've been thinking about this cat/toast business for a while. In the buttered toast case, it's the butter that causes it to land buttered side down - it doesn't have to be toast, the theory works equally well with Jacob's crackers. So to save money you just miss out the toast - and butter the cats. Also, should there be an imbalance between the effects of cat and butter, there are other substances that have a stronger affinity for carpet. Probability of carpet impact is determined by the following simple formula:
p = s × t (t) ⁄ t,
where p is the probability of carpet impact, s is the "stain" value of the toast-covering substance - an indicator of the effectiveness of the toast topping in permanently staining the carpet. Chicken Tikka Masala, for example, has a very high s value, while the s value of water is zero. t and t (t) indicate the tone of the carpet and topping - the value of p being strongly related to the relationship between the colour of the carpet and topping, as even Chicken Tikka Masala won't cause a permanent and obvious stain if the carpet is the same colour. So it is obvious that the probability of carpet impact is maximized if you use Chicken Tikka Masala and a white carpet - in fact this combination gives a p value of one, which is the same as the probability of a cat landing on its feet.
Therefore a cat with Chicken Tikka Masala on its back will be certain to hover in mid air, while there could be problems with buttered toast as the toast may fall off the cat, causing a terrible monorail crash resulting in nauseating images of members of the royal family visiting accident victims in hospital, and politicians saying it couldn't have happened if their party was in power as there would have been more investment in cat-toast glue research.
Therefore it is in the interests not only of public safety, but also public sanity if the buttered toast on cats idea is scrapped, it should be replaced by a monorail system powered by cats smeared with Chicken Tikka Masala floating above a rail made from white shag pile carpet.
..................
Needless to say there are some problems with this proposal. Not least is the difficulty of attaching the Chicken Tikka Masala to the cat.
As those interested in alternative sports are aware there is a proposal before the IOC to introduce Cat Bathing as a demonstration martial art in the Olympics. It seems likely that just as cats show a great negative affinity for water they might also demonstrate the same with Chicken Tikka Masala.
Alternatively they might try to eat it. This could certainly cause a problem since once the Chicken Tikka Masala has been consumed it is no longer on the cat. Thus research needs to be undertaken into how to add additional Chicken Tikka Masala while the monorail is in progress - could one (for example) spray it on and if so how to ensure it only lands on the top of the cat?
Further research needs to be performed in methods to keep the shag carpet clean -for example should each monorail push a steam cleaning device ahead of it? or is it sufficient to have a cleaning run every day?
Then what about leaves on the line? It could well be argued that autumnal leaves often look like Chicken Tikka Masala and thus would reduce the value of t (t) / t thus allowing for the new company to recycle old British Rail excuses in a new modern privatized age. Perhaps in autumnal months Chicken Tikka Masala could be replaced with the original buttered toast.