-
Asked by smithmoorebell to Ben, Clare, Ezzy, Mario, Sam on 15 Mar 2012.
-
Elizabeth Pearson answered on 14 Mar 2012:
They don’t. Their just very good at righting themselves wehn they fall as long as they have enough time. Also because they don’t weigh as much as us there’s not such a hard impact when they land so their bones don’t break.
-
-
Clare Burrage answered on 15 Mar 2012:
Cats only land on their feet if you drop them from high enough up. They need time to be able to rotate their bodies. They can turn themselves around in mid-air because they can turn the front and back parts of their body almost independently. It works because of conservation of angular momentum!
They first tuck their front legs in, this makes the front half of the cats body easier to turn (we say it reduces the moment of inertia), and extend their rear legs which has the oppsite effect of making the rear half of the cat harder to turn (it increases the moment of inertia).
Then the cat is able to turn the front part of its body quite far, while still conserving angular momentum by moving the back part of its body a little bit, but not very far.Then the cat does the opposite, it extends the front legs and tucks in the back legs so that they can rotate the back part of their boady a long way, while only moving the front part of their body a little way in the opposite direction.
The cat keeps doing this until it’s the right way up.
Comments