The physics of skulking and falling cats [podcast 63]

The twists and turns of explaining how cats twist and turn when they fall from above or skulk about — that’s what fills this week’s Improbable Research podcast.

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This week, Marc Abrahams  — with dramatic readings by Chris Cotsapis — tells about:

The Falling Cat Phenomenon — Kane, T. R., and M. P. Scher (1969). ‘A Dynamical Explanation of the Falling Cat Phenomenon.’ International Journal of Solids and Structures 5: 663–70.
Advanced Physics of the Falling Cat — Montgomery, Richard (1993). ‘Gauge Theory of the Falling Cat.’ Fields Institute Communications, 1: 193–218.


Cats skulking —Bishop, Kristin L., Anita K. Pai, and Daniel Schmitt. “Whole body mechanics of stealthy walking in cats.” PLoS One 3, no. 11 (2008): e3808. Here is a video, part of the study, of a skulking cat: 

The mysterious John Schedler or the shadowy Bruce Petschek perhaps did the sound engineering this week.

The Improbable Research podcast is all about research that makes people LAUGH, then THINK — real research, about anything and everything, from everywhere —research that may be good or bad, important or trivial, valuable or worthless. CBS distributes it, on the CBS Play.it web site, and on iTunes and Spotify).