Falling Cat - Rotation with zero net angular momentum.

[A.T.]

I made an animation to explain how cats can initiate rotation and turn around during free fall, without violating the conservation of angular momentum:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGusK69XVlk

Some footage of real cats:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua4Gh_4XdwQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHhXbOhK_hs

A talk at MIT dealing with the falling cat at time 20:30:
http://techtv.mit.edu/collections/l...cle-smarts-stability-translation-and-rotation

 

[chrisbaird]

Well done. Somebody add some text and make this a FAQ so that we clink to it in the future.

 

[A.T.]

Thanks. Here some more videos on this:

This one in zero-g starts a bit mean but at 0:12 you can see the cat spin up very fast and make several full turns within a few seconds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUIokQ36rbA

Probably the first attempt to show how a cat does it. But the frame rate is much to low to see anything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wA3If87UhA