What is the Buttered Cat Paradox? Have you ever heard about it? Let’s find out together.
We all know that cats always land on their feet while buttered toast always lands butter side down. So have you ever thought what would happen if we could combine these two sayings together. What would happen if we could stick a piece of buttered toast on the back of a cat and then drop this pack from the top of Burj Khalifa Would they ever land or would they just spin indefinitely?
The Buttered Cat Paradox Hypothesis
So, if we continue with our thoughts we could create a hypothesis about the end of this experiment. Cats, no matter the height, have mechanisms that help them spin and bring their feet facing downward. On the other side, the toast wants to keep the tradition, so it will try to flip and bring the buttered side down.
As these two approach the ground they will slow down and they’ll start rotating. At a very short distance above the ground, they will eventually start hovering, while both the cat’s feet and the buttered toast try to land in their respective ways. Doing so would create an antigravity. The idea was discussed in great detail for years and now this paradox has remained unanswered.
An explanation could be given if the project was approached from an engineering perspective. In this case, we have to examine both the cat and the toast as able to exert a rotational force upon themselves to always land in their respective orientations. This rotational force would be respective to their mass and as the cat contains obviously more we can assume that the net force in the body would be in the direction of the cat’s feet.
The Buttered Cat Paradox Solution
It seems hard to find the answer in who is the winner. Α hypothetical scenario would be that the cat would win this battle by landing on his feet. However, the toast would still try to turn butter side downwards. But the kitty would overcome this force through the friction with his paws on the ground.
What is your opinion about this paradox? What do you think that would happen if we could carry out this experiment?
