I love this low detail cat model Wikipedia used to try to explain how cats land on their feet.
@FamiliarAlien it's friend shaped
@FamiliarAlien what are any of these arrows even supposed to mean
@goddess I honestly don't quite understand this gif either. There's like a whole article explaining it if you want to try to make sense of it I'm too burnt out to properly brain today lol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falling_cat_problem
@goddess @FamiliarAlien
It's Angular momentum. Which is basically the product of rotational speed and offcenter mass.
In the air the Angular momentum of the cat can't change. So if they don't shift their mass around their speed of the rotation is constant. But in that case they won't always land on their feet.
So they shift their back off-center and do a 'belly dance' to shift mass around in a rotational manner...
@FamiliarAlien @PsyChuan this feels like a shitpost and i love it dearly for that
@dogo @FamiliarAlien @PsyChuan
It is somehow in a superposition of both being a shitpost (to those of us lacking the proper context and understanding) and a highly technical demonstration
@mawr @dogo @FamiliarAlien @PsyChuan
I agree and I believe every person should have seen this animated diagram once.
YT link
@mawr @dogo @FamiliarAlien @PsyChuan
Cat landing training https://youtu.be/l4mTNQLsD0c
@FamiliarAlien That Don Hertzfeld binge really messed with my mind. The cat looked like it was drawn in his style for a sec.