Cats Do Always Fall on Their Feet: Of Cats, Space Race Astronauts — and Their Wonderful Righting Reflex
<p>A wonderful problem to study with enthusiastic students at, say, sophomore ("Feynman Lectures on Physics") level is the question of how a cat flips over during freefall to land on her feet, every single time, even if she accidentally falls. Let's get to the bottom of physics that allows the cat's amazing righting reflex.</p>
<p>Physics students learn about conservation of angular momentum, which means, amongst other things, that a rigid body falling in free space cannot begin spinning spontaneously without pushing against something — e.g. by throwing something or squirting a fluid, as in the Reaction Control Systems used in spacecraft, like the Apollo Command Module and Lunar Excursion Module. The RCSs on the LEM are shown below and are used to swivvel the LEM around to rotate it to the correct orientation in space at any one time:</p>
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