A reading guide. Each article stands on its own; the groups are a map, not an order.
Our cats keep doing things that turn out to be physics problems. Each article starts from one behaviour, finds the paper that measured it, puts numbers into the model and says where the model stops. The last group borrows only the name. This guide grows as new articles are published.
Bodies in Motion
- Zero Angular Momentum: The Falling Cat and the Geometry of Shape Space
How a cat turns over without angular momentum, and why the answer is geometric.
Fluids and Heat
How Cats Drink: Inertia, Gravity, and the Froude Number at the Tip of a Tongue
Lapping as a balance of inertia and gravity.Are Cats Liquid? The Deborah Number and the Rheology of Cats
Whether something flows depends on how long you watch it.A Cat in a Box Is a Thermal Circuit
Curling up, bedding and cardboard as terms in a heat budget.
Senses and Sound
The Cat’s Eye: Slit Pupils, Thin-Film Mirrors, and 135-Fold Dynamic Range
A variable aperture and a reflector behind the retina.Why Cats Purr at 25 Hz: Vocal Fold Pads and the Physics of Self-Sustained Oscillation
A low frequency from a small larynx.
Cats in Name Only
- From Thought Experiment to Qubit: Schrödinger’s Cat at Ninety
From a 1935 objection to an engineered qubit.