I don't know where this started, but it's apparently doing the rounds of the Scientific Community collecting quite a dossier of appendices and further suggestions.

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When a cat is dropped, it always lands on its feet, and when toast is dropped, it always lands buttered side down. Therefore, if a slice of toast is strapped to a cat's back, buttered side up, and the animal is then dropped, the two opposing forces will cause it to hover, spinning inches above the ground. If enough toast-laden felines were used, they could form the basis of a high-speed monorail system.

.........and then this mail got this reply from one of the recipients:

I've been thinking about this cat/toast business for a while. In the buttered toast case, it's the butter that causes it to land buttered side down - it doesn't have to be toast, the theory works equally well with Jacob's crackers. So to save money you just miss out the toast - and butter the cats. Also, should here be an imbalance between the effects of cat and butter, there are other substances that have a stronger affinity for carpet.

Probability of carpet impact is determined by the following simple formula:

p = s * t(t)/tc

where p is the probability of carpet impact, s is the "stain" value of the toast-covering substance - an indicator of the effectiveness of the toast topping in permanently staining the carpet. Chicken Tikka Masala, for example, has a very high s value, while the s value of water is zero. tc and t(t) indicate the tone of the carpet and topping - the value of p being strongly related to the relationship between the colour of the carpet and topping, as even chicken tikka masala won't cause a permanent and obvious stain if the carpet is the same colour.

So it is obvious that the probability of carpet impact is maximised if you use chicken tikka masala and a white carpet - in fact this combination gives a p value of one, which is the same as the probability of a cat landing on its feet.

Therefore a cat with chicken tikka masala on its back will be certain to hover in mid air, while there could be problems with buttered toast as the toast may fall off the cat, causing a terrible monorail crash resulting in nauseating images of members of the royal family visiting accident victims in hospital, and politicians saying it wouldn't have happened if their party was in power as there would have been more investment in cat-toast glue research.

Therefore it is in the interests not only of public safety but also public sanity if the buttered toast on cats idea is scrapped, to be replaced by a monorail powered by cats smeared with chicken tikka masala floating above a rail made from white shag pile carpet.

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2000

Answers

Hahaha excellent, I knew this would come to light sooner or later.....it was started by a load of Irish Microsoft employees in Dublin.....I was on the initial mailing list as it was ongoing....absolutely hilarious :))

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2000

Brilliant, brilliant. I intend to write 'toute de suite' to the Nobel Institute in Stockholm to recommend the Peace Prize for this scientific extravaganza that offers a ready resolution to the worldwide problem associated with rapid-transit public transport, economical, efficient, with dramatically reduced environmental impact - both from the efficiency of the catorail system and the reduction in detergent discharged to our watercourses from washing butter, jam, chicken tikka masala etc. from light-coloured carpets. You are a true visionary, Softus Veterarinus.

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2000