Greetings all!
Did you know that a cat might be both a solid and a liquid? How can it be?! Keep on reading!
Did you know that a cat might be both a solid and a liquid? How can it be?! Keep on reading!
Image and the scientist's quote below from https://www.sunnyskyz.com/blog/2649/Physicist-Wins-Ig-Noble-Prize-For-Study-On-Whether-Cats-Should-Be-Classified-As-Liquids-Or-Solids
I recently read that Marc-Antoine Fardin, a French scientist, said "At the center of the
definition of a liquid is an action: A material must be able to modify its form
to fit within a container. If we take
cats as our example, the fact is that they can adapt their shape to their
container if we give them enough time. Cats are thus liquid if we give them the
time to become liquid."
For his work on the rheology (the study of the flow of
matter) of cats, he won the 2017 Ig Nobel Prize in Physics. This, of course,
took me to Improbable Research (https://www.improbable.com), which I found fascinating!
According to the Improbable Research website, “Our goal is to make people LAUGH, then THINK. We also hope to spur people's curiosity, and to raise the question: How do you decide what's important and what's not, and what's real and what's not — in science and everywhere else?”
The prizes are handed out by genuine Nobel Laureates in an annual gala ceremony at Harvard University. Below are some of the winners:
The prizes are handed out by genuine Nobel Laureates in an annual gala ceremony at Harvard University. Below are some of the winners:
2018
- MEDICINE — For using roller coaster rides to try to hasten the passage of kidney stones
- NUTRITION — For calculating that the caloric intake from a human-cannibalism diet is significantly lower than the caloric intake from most other traditional meat diets
- PEACE — For measuring the frequency, motivation, and effects of shouting and cursing while driving an automobile
2017
- ECONOMICS — For experiments to see how contact with a live crocodile affects a person's willingness to gamble
- MEDICINE — For using advanced brain-scanning technology to measure the extent to which some people are disgusted by cheese
2016
- BIOLOGY — Joint prize 1) for living in the wild as, at different times, a badger, an otter, a deer, a fox, and a bird; and 2) for creating prosthetic extensions of the researcher's limbs that allowed him to move in the manner of, and spend time roaming hills in the company of, goats
- LITERATURE — For the three-volume autobiographical work about the pleasures of collecting flies that are dead, and flies that are not yet dead
The site quotes Isaac Asimov who said “"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but, 'That's funny..." Reading about Improbable Research confirms that!
RESOURCES:
- https://www.sunnyskyz.com/blog/2649/Physicist-Wins-Ig-Noble-Prize-For-Study-On-Whether-Cats-Should-Be-Classified-As-Liquids-Or-Solids
- https://www.improbable.com
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheology
What did you think? Drop me a
line! But please do not try to squeeze your pets into containers to measure their liquidity!
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