Isaac Newton and the Catflap

I was watching an interesting programme on the history channel this morning over breakfast – Local Heroes. According to Adam Hart-Davis, Isaac Newton became distracted from his experiments by his cat being on the wrong side of the door. Now anyone who has cats knows that they are always on the wrong side of the door – it’s one of the great feline laws of the universe.

Newton’s solution was to cut a hole in the door and put cloth over it to keep the draught out. The cat could then come and go as it wished. So, Isaac Newton demonstrated that light was made up of different colours and gave us an insight into gravitational pull. A master of physics, he also gave us the catflap – which, I wonder, was his most important achievement?

Meow?

2 Comments

  1. Cat flaps, as great as they are, aren’t foolproof. If you live in a multi-cat household, and the flap is opaque, they often crash heads while trying to enter/leave through the same door from opposite sides! ;^)Visit me @ http://pimme.blog-city.com

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