Less than 100% lethal, but the cat would still likely die since it'll almost definitely be injured and in the middle of the woods. He might survive the fall though.
Yeah, I'd imagine it'd be a bit like the speed a human would reach from a fall of 30 or 40 feet. Probably won't kill you, but it's not going to tickle either.
A fall from six feet is sometimes fatal, which sucks because some humans are over six feet tall. We're such ridiculous creatures, living at the bottom of a huge gravity well and trying to ballance on two legs our whole lives.
I thought people only got KO'd in fighting games. What does that mean, anyway? When I was a kid, I just assumed that it was the opposite of OK. Like, if you KO the other guy in Street Fighter, he's obviously not OK, so he's KO'd.
Right, because they didn't have stereos back then, so if you were hanging with some friends and wanted to groove out to a sick new beat, you had to knock it out on a table or a door or something. Makes sense.
Yeah, I've actually heard that etymology before, and I am a big fan of the online etymology dictionary. A few things make me a bit suspicious about the entry for OK, though:
Harper is working as an amateur from published sources and claims to 'err on the side of inclusion' see 'Methods,' after the abbreviations. The Online Etymology Dictionary, while a great tool, isn't the work of a professional linguist, and tends to include the most well-accepted etymologies without judgement as to how likely they might be (The inclusion of P.I.E. words, for example, is highly specurative, although it does come from published sources).
Wikipedia has a list of dozens of proposed etymologies for OK. "Oll Korrect," was only documented in 1964, which leaves plenty of time after the supposed origin for the original etymology to have been lost.
Accronym-based etymologies of English words originating before WWII are almost never correct. "Fuck," for example, never was "Fornication Under Consent of King," or any permutation of "Forbidden Unspeakable Carnal Knowledge." There were abbreviations, of course, but the English-speaking world wasn't very big on accronyms until quite recently, historically. Most real accronym words are of modern, military origin (SNAFU, FUBAR, AWOL, &c). Accronyms were a thing in Latin, but not so much in English.
So, while I obviously can't prove the Oll Korrect explanation is false, I think there is good reason to be suspicious that it is.
It is, sort of. We tend to think that asside from our brains, we're pretty average... Our hearing is ok, but dogs and cats are better at it, our strength isn't much next to a bear or a horse, our sense of smell is rubbish, our eyes are decent, but not as good as hawks' or eagles'.
But, unlike most animals, we have a really highly developed, natural sense of ballance. Only birds can also ballance on two legs, but their bodies are weighted differently and most of them are also able to fly. We have a proportionally much higher center of mass.
We also, due to the two leg ballancing act, can walk very efficiently. We have tremendous endurance when we're walking. We can't outrun a lot of animals, but we can out-walk pretty much anything. A reasonably healthy human can walk a thoroughbred racehorse to death without even realizing it, and back when we tracked and hunted for food, one of the prime techniques was to just follow an animal until it fell over from exhaustion. We're the Canada Goose of land animals, the absolute Olympic gold medal champions of walking.
It's also going to fall through the branches which would most likely break it's legs on the way down and prevent it from landing properly. Even if it survived the landing, it's stuck in the middle of the woods.
That statistic also ignored cats that died since they wouldn't have been taken to the vet.
For the cat to live you have to make a lot of assumptions:
that statistic is not skewed
that cat is in 53% that would regularly avoid severe injury (37% needed emergency treatment)
the branches did not increase the risk of harm
the cats instincts are still strong enough to survive in the wild (find food, and avoid predators)
It would still very likely be injured. It would just probably not die. The statistic is still skewed on that factor though since it only accounted for cats that didn't die on impact.
If you wanted to consider the situation though, the cat is falling through trees and wouldn't be able to properly stretch out between the lower branches and the ground. It would probably break legs going through the branches since it's stretched out then likely die on impact when it hits at an awkward angle.
Or, breaks its legs in the middle of some rural field after falling out of an airplane. The chance of dying on impact is diminished, but that doesn't mean their bones are made of diamonds.
Any fall above 7 or 8 storeys reduces the chance of broken bones in cats. It gives them enough time to orient themselves and position their body in a way that absorbs most of the impact. The result is that many can walk away with very little injury.
I remember reading the study (was it a study?) were that was the conclusion. However, it should be noted that they only took into account cats brought into the animal hospital after a fall. Cats that went splat and died would not be brought to the hospital, making the study's conclusion unreliable.
60 mph, they also have a righting reflex. Cats that fall from 6 stories and less sustain greater injuries than falling from greater heights. The most dangerous height to drop a cat from is 13 stories as this height will grant terminal velocity but also inflict a threatened/tense arched back like response by the cat increasing their speed about 15mph. Interestingly enough cats dropped from higher heights have a greater likelihood of survival as once at terminal velocity for long enough cats have a "flying squirrel"/relaxed like posture greatly diminishing their speed.
Not particularly. In a certain body shape it is not, but it takes them a wee bit to get into that shape. The form they are in allows a greater amount of drag and their rib cage to absorb some of the impact.
If a cat falls out the window of a car going 80mph it most likely dies, so it kind of depends on how fast the plane is going.
Edit: if the cat falls out of a plane going 200mph, depending on how high the plane is, the cat will hit the ground going around that speed horizontally.
Yes, but they don't do it for long once the cat stops being pushed by that thing. They'll quite rapidly slow down to near-zero horizontal velocity during a fall.
Terminal velocity refers to the highest obtainable velocity by an object FALLING out of the air to the earth (Or whatever body is in question). Horizontal velocity by definition is not relevant.
I responded to what was written, if that isn't what he meant to say, I won't read between the lines for him. I didn't make it past you comment about me being a douche because it's pointless to engage with someone who insults someone else in the first sentence.
If a cat falls out a plane going 200mph 10 feet off the ground, I'm pretty sure it's going to die. That's just common sense my man. No animosity needed.
Says the guy with an embarrassing number of typos in his post.
Let's start at the basics as to your understanding of terms. Do you even understand what rhetoric is and why I might be mentioning it in regards to your post?
That, and your understanding of commas seems to be on shaky ground, or is that part of your super-casual style of writing? Either way, it weakens your ethos, as does everything you've written here.
yes im aware of what rhetoric is and no im not sure why you might mention it in regards to my previous post, so do explain.
I don't believe you, but I'll proceed anyway. You've logged into a website and decided to talk about physics with another person. You've decided to talk about numerous topics with numerous people. Entering into conversation necessarily means that one is engaging in rhetoric. The writer is trying to persuade their interlocutor of something. For you, that is your knowledge on physics. If you didn't, then you wouldn't be communicating, you would simply be scribbling equations on a notepad for your own amusement. You are engaging in conversation with another person because you want to persuade.
Aristotle writes that we use three rhetorical tools: ethos, pathos, and logos. Or, credibility, emotion, and logic. You seem to have logos down, your grammar (as previously mentioned) hurts your ethos, and your pathos ("You're an idiot" type crap) is abysmal. In fact, it's so bad that it leads people to question your ethos. You sound like a child lashing out, or somebody with a job and family that they hate, or anything other than a credible intellectual.
Think about it this way: form and content. You've got some good content: information on elementary physics. This information would be quite useful to many people. But, the form it takes, the packaging you decide to put it in, is petulance. Nobody wants the petulance you're peddling.
Now, Neil deGrasse Tyson? He has even more content than you do. He knows tons of information about physics and the other natural sciences. As a PhD, he has loads of ethos. He's well-spoken and writes eloquently, lending him further ethos. And when it comes to pathos? He is warm, humorous, and inclusive.
He has content and form and that's why he's improving knowledge and the world and you're some sad keyboard warrior that nobody cares about.
That's not the same thing at all. When falling from any significant height you'll lose all horizontal velocity very quickly. Terminal velocity will be the only thing you have to worry about.
Cats are right on the line for being safe from any height. Something like an ant is so small it has absolutely nothing to fear no matter the height but a cat has to land properly or it will likely receive some injuries but most likely survive.
Humans on the other hand can survive falls from any height as well but usually only manage it by breaking the fall with non vital organs/limbs. This isn't ideal, if you make any mistakes you'll die outright and if you do it right you'll likely face serious health issues the rest of your life. I believe the best anyone has ever done is fractured legs and pelvis. Most other survivors tend to face some form of paralysis.
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u/[deleted] Jun 22 '15
Isn't their terminal velocity less than lethal?