Therefore it simply does not fall.
That's right you clever mortal (well, as clever as a mortal can get), you have
discovered the secret of antigravity! A buttered cat will, when released, quickly
move to a height where the forces of cat-twisting and butter repulsion are in
equilibrium. This equilibrium point can be modified by scraping off some of
the butter, providing lift, or removing some of the cat's limbs, allowing descent.
Most of the civilized species of the Universe already use this principle to
drive their ships while within a planetary system. The loud humming heard by
most sighters of UFOs is, in fact, the purring of several hundred tabbies.
The one obvious danger is, of course, if the cats manage to eat the
Bread off their backs they will instantly plummet. Of course the cats will land
on their feet, but this usually doesn't do them much good, since right after
they make their graceful landing several tons of - starship and off aliens
crash on top of them.
And now a few words on solving the problem of creating a ship using the aforementioned anti-gravity device.
One could power a ship by means of cats held in suspended animation (say,
about -190 degrees Celsius) with buttered bread strapped to their backs, thus
avoiding the possibility of collisions due to tempermental felines. More importantly,
how do you steer, once the cats are all held in
stasis?
I offer a modest proposal:
We all know that wearing a white shirt at an Italian restaurant is a guaranteed
way to take a trip to the laudromat. Plaster the outside of your ship with white
shirts. Place four nozzles symmetrically around the ship, which is, of course,
saucer shaped. Fire tomato sauce out in proportion to the directions you want
to go. The ship, drawn by the shirts, will automatically follow the sauce. If
you use t-shirts, you won't go as fast as you would by using, say, expensive
dress shirts. This does not work as well in deep gravity wells, since the tomato
sauce (now falling down a black hole, perhaps) will drag the ship with it, despite
the counter force of the anti-gravity cat/butter machine. Your only hope at
that point is to jettison enormous quantities of Tide. This will create the
well-known Gravitational Tidal Force.
Flaws In the Flying Cat Theory: A Response Special to the Coastal Beacon
A logical analysis of the BFAD (Buttered Feline Antigravity Drive) propulsion
theory clearly demonstrates the impossibility of such a system.
Let us begin with a simple analysis.
-Buttered bread must fall butter side down.
-A cat always lands on its feet.
While both theorems are indisputable, the oracle offers no proof of the construct.
The oracle implies that anyone who 'would' test this construct would immediately
find the secret of BFAD.
This is clearly nonsense.
Let us assume a normal Einsteinian universe (although a Euclidean universe would
serve our purposes just as well, the Einsteinian is both cheaper and drinks
are readily available.)
To test BFAD, one must procure:
-Bread
-Butter (margarine, for some reason, will not work)
-A cat
-A strapping device.
-Let us assume that all of these are readily available.
First Step - Attach the strapping device to the cat.
See?
No cat.
What has happened? We have run up against an a priori universal law. By a priori,
we mean that it takes priority over either the Buttered Bread Principle or the
Law of Feline Landings.
What happens is that the instant a strapping device and a cat occupy the same
four dimensional space, the cat disappears.
Now, this can easily be tested, and has been repeatedly. There are two schools
of thought about this phenomenon.
The first holds that a cat and a strapping device are constituted out of different
fundamental building blocks. According to this theory, a cat is constituted
primarily of superquarks, (called meows by current theorists.) These superquarks
demonstrate qualities that are both atomic (constituted as they are of groupings
of normal quark particles) and feline (because these quarks exhibit characteristic
of "charmed" or "lucky" particles.) Again, according to
this theory, strapping materials are fashioned out of non-charmed particles.
Bringing the two together causes one or the other to cancel out. One aspect
of this theory that has not been sufficiently explained to date is the fact
that it is always the cat, not the strapping device, that disappears.
The second school of thought, and it is one that appears to be gaining ground
in academic circles today, holds that cats are, in fact, super-intelligent pan-dimensional
beings who exist in our four dimensional universe only because there is plenty
of good food and a lot of creatures stupid enough to provide the food, along
with plenty of attention. Whenever a strapping device appears, the cat simply
opens a door to a different series of dimensions, and goes on an extended tour.
According to this theory, purring is a cat's way of maintaining a constant balance
cycling across multiple dimensions. This school holds that antigravity is impossible,
but that theoretically, a REALLY good grip on
a cat, while reaching for a strapping device, could result in our ability
to cross dimensions with ease (barring scratches, that is.) Pessimists argue
that if there was anything really interesting in those other dimensions, cats
wouldn't spend so much time here, so why ask for a good scratching?
--
------------------------------------------
"There is a theory which states that if
ever anyone discovers exactly what the
Universe is for and why it is here, it will
instantly disappear and be replaced by
something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that
this has already happened."
-- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
Note From the Irishman: This is not my work :) I only wish. Whoever made this
up is a friggin genius, and I give all my kudos up to them. Please send me your
name or something so I can like give you some recognition! :)
Irishman2020@hotmail.com