Calculus, I dunno. But they seem familiar with the paw-dratic equation.
I can refute this. I don’t know calculus at all, and I can catch a ball. O_o
I do love dogs, though, so if you want me to play with one all day in the name of science, so be it! And they are so happy doing it! My friend’s dog will just stand there and use his face to block the ball, then happily jump around chasing it after it rebounds, then bring it back for more. It is hillarious.
I recall a blurb, possibly in Scientific American a few years ago, which said that after a careful study of baseball outfielders, it was determined that they place themselves in the path of the ball by locating themselves at a point where they no longer perceive the parabolic nature of the ball’s trajectory, i.e. where the ball exhibits no lateral motion relative to their line of sight. So, amazing ly enough, baseball players don’t perform calculus (at least not the way it’s taught in school) either.
In fact there are any number of real-world situations where, surprise surprise, we do not set up an arbitrarily-placed origin with X and Y axes on the fly and calculate our motion from there. Shocking, but true.
I don’t know about calculus, but our dog, Nipper can tell time. Every night at exactly 11 p.m. (even if he’s been sound asleep), he begs to be let out. At first, we thought it had to do with the news coming on the tv…but, even if we’re watching a video he does it. 11 p.m…on the dot. Now, call me crazy (many have), but the only way I can figure out how he does it is by reading the clock.
Is this possible or do dogs have some ESP-like circadian rhythm that tells them the time?
I already knew that he could count…but this is beyond-o.