Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Cartoon Physics

For all the lovers of toons, here are O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion. Those who know science and have been tormented by the Satanic Newton's Laws of Motion will realize, this is Manna from heaven.

They are interesting and funny. But most importantly, they are highly consistent across movies and cartoon series. Here are the Cartoon Laws of Motion:
  • Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its situation. Then the regular laws of 32ft/s² take over. (The character walks off the edge of a cliff, remains suspended in midair, and doesn't fall until he looks down.)
  • Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation conforming to its perimeter (the "silhouette of passage").
  • Certain bodies can pass through solid walls painted to resemble tunnel entrances; others cannot. (Corollary: Portable holes work.)
  • All principles of gravity are negated by fear. (i.e., scaring someone causes them to jump impossibly high in the air.)
  • Any violent rearrangement of feline matter is impermanent. (In other words, cats heal fast and/or have an infinite number of lives.) Corollary: Cats can fit into unusually small spaces.
  • Everything falls faster than an anvil. (A falling anvil will always land directly upon the character's head, squashing him flat or driving him into the ground.)
  • A body will contort and stay contorted to any hole that is smaller than it. (Cat goes in mouse hole and comes out as a long semicircle.)
  • Any vehicle on a path of travel is at a state of indeterminacy until an object enters a location which is in the path of travel. (Wolf walks into road and gets run over by a bus.)

Source: Wikipedia

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