Every year I celebrate April Fool’s Day (April 1) by highlighting the lighter side of science.
Rheology is the branch of physics that deals with the flow of matter, primarily liquids. A recent issue of “The Rheology Bulletin” includes a scholarly article titled… wait for it…
“On the Rheology of Cats.”
Author Marc-Antoine Fardin (Université de Lyon, France) notes the ability of cats to mold themselves to fit into various containers, from boxes to glass bowls. “A cat appears as a solid material with a consistent shape rotating and bouncing, like Silly Putty on short time scales,” he writes. “At longer time scales, a cat flows and fills an empty wine glass.”
Fardin documents “a reliable technique to load Felis catus in different geometries”:
- Bring an empty box.
- Wait.
Empirical evidence that cats are liquid
Fardin’s work follows up on a previous article posted on boredpanda.com:
“15 Proofs That Cats Are Liquids.”
“Liquids take the shape of the container while maintaining a constant volume,” the article states. “That’s it. So cats are liquids.”
Isn’t science wonderful?
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