Talk:Falling cat problem

This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Mathematics Low‑priority This article is within the scope of WikiProject Mathematics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of mathematics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.MathematicsWikipedia:WikiProject MathematicsTemplate:WikiProject Mathematicsmathematics Low This article has been rated as Low-priority on the project's priority scale. Physics Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Physics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Physics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PhysicsWikipedia:WikiProject PhysicsTemplate:WikiProject Physicsphysics Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

I don't see how gauge theory directly is involved in this problem. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.20.60.201 (talk) 03:28, 11 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

This paper uses gauge theory to model the three dimensional change in orientation while conserving angular momentum. Certainly gauge theory did not come out of the problem. 68.197.174.59 (talk) 21:19, 12 October 2010 (UTC)Reply

Right, and as that paper points out, the falling cat problem is a prototype for the application of Shapere & Wilczek's gauge theory methods to deformable bodies. One could probably argue that this is in fact what makes the falling cat problem notable enough for a wikipedia article. The current wording of the article makes it sound like Montgomery invented the gauge theory methods, so I'll update that with a reference to Shapere & Wilczek. Spatrick99 (talk) 20:55, 30 July 2011 (UTC)Reply

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 August 2019 and 10 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Katzalee.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 21:08, 16 January 2022 (UTC)Reply

I see a problem with the cat animation. With a 90-degree angle between the two halves of the cat, as each portion makes a full 360-degree rotation, the orientation of the body should counter rotate by 1/sqrt(2) * 360 in the opposite direction. The animation instead seems to shows a rotation of 180 degrees for the body of the cat. If I'm not mistaken (and I could), the animation would be correct if the angle between the two halves were 60 degrees.--Gciriani (talk) 19:36, 2 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

There are two problems with this article:

1) There are journal articles which comprehensively show (mathematically) how cats right themselves. Are there any active Wikipedian mathematicians who are willing to use their understanding of maths and physics to elucidate how a cat is able to right itself during free fall? Being a lowly programmer, my rudimentary and rusty understanding of discrete mathematics, calculus and linear algebra will not be enough. I also don't want to blindly copy-paste formula that I do not have a proper understanding of.

2) Some infidel decided to declare this article as "low-priority" which is incorrect. Just who does this person think he is? Cats are an inveterate part of the internet and human culture in general. This article should therefore be re-prioritized accordingly to "top-priority" for its importance in physics and human culture. If you doubt me, just go to a Youtube and you will see that I am right...

In a few months and weeks this article will hopefully reach featured article status. RawPotato (talk) 23:25, 3 June 2014 (UTC)Reply

Jumping Cat - Slow Motion

23.121.191.18 (talk) 22:29, 15 May 2019 (UTC)Reply