I was pondering life’s mysteries the other day, and the only one that was left unanswered was this: If cat’s always land on their feet, and butter always lands butter side down. What would happen if you were to butter the back side of a cat? Would it still land on it’s feet, would it land on it’s buttery side, or would it explode from the confusion?
Your answer would be greatly appreciated.
Erin Campbell
You’ll have to ponder a little harder. The mystery isn’t that butter always lands butter-side down (which would seem pretty obvious, actually), but that buttered toast will always land buttered-side down.
But that really doesn’t change the question, does it? Let’s experiment.
Heerrrreee, Pumpkin! kitty, kitty…
Sorry about the butter always landing butter-side down. It is quite late where I am, and well as that I AM human and can make mistakes i have obviously done so. I realised my mistake after i posted this. SO notice that I am making a correction to my original post: If “buttered toast” always lands butter-side down.
The stock answer to this question is that the cat with buttered toast strapped to it’s back (hereafter refered to as “the assembly”) will stop aproximately 18 inches from the floor, and the assembly will slowly spin about the long axis while the universe tries to sort out the paradox.
Unfortunately, there’s not been much research in this field, because the Animal Testing people complain that such experiments make the cat dizzy.
Don’t open the box! All the probability demension strings will collapse!
Who’s gonna clean up the mess, that’s what I’d like to know?
Somebody actually did some research on the buttered toast thing; I remember reading (in NewScientist, I think) that an ordinary slice of bread was just the right size to execute half a turn when dropped (actually when it slides off a level surface like a plate) from anywhere between waist and head height; drop it from higher (not likely to happen under normal circumstances) and it might execute a full turn and land butter-up, drop it from lower and it will execute less than half a turn and (unless it bounces) will land butter-up.
A buttered cat will land on it’s feet of course, which answer glosses completely over the humourous element of your question; you’ll have to forgive me - it was funny when I first heard it, ten years ago.
I can’t remember which web-comic I used to read that had a whole storyline about creating buttered-cat dynamos for cheap electricity. As I recall, the main downside (from the human’s point of view) was the noise made by a power-station full of rotating buttered cats
It was ‘Life at Bayside’, which seems to have sadly vanished, so I can’t post a link to the relevant story 
We did it before, in this little gem of a thread: A possible way to keep cats from falling.
I did this experiment for a science fair in high school. The minimum height I got for half turn was around two feet, and from 6-10 feet I could get full turns out of it. Moral? When carrying a plate with buttered toast across flooring that you don’t want to butter, try holding the plate above your head.
For some reason I am thinking the cat power would win over the buttered toast power, something about the feline will should come into play here. And strangely I can’t find a cite for this…
Feline Will vs Murphy’s Law (as it acts through buttered bread in this case)?
If cats were immune to Murphy’s Law, you wouldn’t hear so many stories of them getting rude awakenings in the Winter time when the car who’s engine block they’re sleeping in to keep warm gets started up.
But butter could be burned for fuel; cat fur might be useful as tinder. Butter the cat’s back, light a match, watch the fun … and power a 100-watt bulb, all at once.
Reminds me of the sound a dog makes when you soak him gasoline and throw a lit match on him:
ROWF!
But, only once…
It does eventually. Buttered toast on a cat’s back will cause the cat to spin roughly a foot off of the floor, thus creating, as ShadowWarrior points out, a viable power source. However, due to the second law of thermodynamics, eventually the butter will become dry and the cat will attempt to escape. This is why periodic maintenence by Buttered Cat Techincians (BCT’s) is necessary. Technically, the name is a misnomer as it is the toast and not the cats which are buttered, but it appears to have stuck.
>Who’s gonna clean up the mess, that’s what I’d like to know?
The cat will take care of the butter.