A recent News Stand magazine invited readers to submit a new scientific
theory - Any new scientific theory. Among those recieved was the following:

Perpetual Motion

"When a cat is dropped, it always lands on its feet. When buttered toast is
dropped it always lands buttered side down. Therefore, if a slice of toast
is strappped to a cat's back, buttered side up, and then the assembly is
dropped over a caorpet, the opposing forces will cause it to hover, spinning
just above the ground. If enbough toast laden felines were used, they could
be used to power a high speed monorail system"

So far, so good. But this caused other people to start thinking, and in the
next issue, the magazine included a response from a different reader.

"I've been thinking about the cat / toast business. In the case of the
buttered toast, it's the butter that causes it to land buttered side down -
it works equally well with jacobs cream crackers. So to save money, you
could simply omit the toast - and butter the cats.

Also, should there be an imbalance between the effects of cat and butter,
there are other substances that have a stronger affinity for carpet.

Probability of carpet impact is determined by the following simple formula:
P = S x T(t) / T(c)

where:
P is the probability of carpet impact
S is the 'stain' value of the toast covering substance - and indicator of
the effectiveness of the toast topping permanently staining the carpet.
Chicken Tikka Masala, for example has a very high S value, whilst the S
value of water is zero.
T(c) and T(t) indicate the tone of the carpet and the topping - the value of
P being strongly related to the relationship between the colour of the
carpet, as even chicken tikka masala won't cause a permanent and obvious
stain if the carpet is the same colour as the food.

So, it is obvious that the probability of carpet impact is maximised if you
use chicken tikka masala and a white carpet - infact this combination gives
a P value of one, which is the same as the probability of the cat landing on
its feet.

Therefore, a cat with chicken tikka masala on its back will be certain to
hover in mid air, whilst there could be problems with the buttered toast as
the toast may fall off the cat, causing a terrible monorail crash resulting
in nauseating images oof members of the royal family visiting accident
victims in hospital, and politicians saying it wouldn't have happened if
their party was in power, as there would have been more investment in
cat-toast glue research.

Therefore, it is safe to say that in the interests not only of public
safety, but also public sanity, thet the buttered toast on cats idea be
scrapped to be replaced by a monorail pwered by cats smeared with chicken
tikka masala above a rail made from white shag pile carpet."

Amazing what people will come up with given too much time.