[1420] in Humor
HUMOR CLASSIC: Cartoon Physics
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (abennett@MIT.EDU)
Mon May 6 10:46:58 1996
From: <abennett@MIT.EDU>
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Mon, 06 May 1996 10:20:23 EDT
This one's from waaaay back (well, at least 1992)...
-Drew
Date: Sun, 5 May 96 11:18:54
From: acw@MIT.EDU
nFrom: cjackrel@ix.netcom.com (Chad Jackrel )
CARTOON LAWS OF PHYSICS
Cartoon Law I:
Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of
it's situation.
Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland. He
loiters in midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to look
down. At this point, the familiar principle of 32 feet per second
takes over.
Cartoon Law II:
Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter
intervenes suddenly.
Whether shot from a cannon or in hot pursuit on foot, chartoon
characters are so absolute in ther momentum that only a telephone pole
or an outsized boulder retards their forward motion absolutely. Sir
Isaac Newton called this sudden termination of motion the Stooge's
surcease.
Cartoon Law III:
Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation
conforming to it's perimeter.
Also called the silhouette of passage, this phenomenon is the specialty
of victims of direct-pressure explosions and reckless cowards who are
so eager to escape that they exit directly through the wall of a house,
leaving a cookie-cutout perfect hole. The threat of skunks or
matrimony often catalyzes this reaction.
Cartoon Law IV:
The time required for an object to fall twenty stories is greater than
or equal to the time it takes for whoever knocked it off the ledge to
spiral down twenty flights to attempt to capture it unbroken.
Such an object is inevitably priceless, the attempt to catch it
inevitably unsuccessful.
Cartoon Law V:
All principles of gravity are negated by fear.
Phychic forces are sufficient in most bodies for a shock to propel them
directly away from the earth's surface. A spooky noise or an
adversary's signature sound will induce motion upward, usually to the
cradle of a chandlier, a treetop, or the crest of a flagpole. The feet
of a character who is running or the wheels of a speeding auto need
never touch the ground, especially when in flight.
Cartoon Law VI:
As speed increases, objects can be in several places at once.
This is particularly true of tooth and claw fights, in which a
character's head may be glimpsed emerging from the cloud of altercation
at several places simultaneously. This effect is common as well among
bodies that are spinning or being throttled. A 'wacky' character has
the option of self-replication only at manic high speeds and may
ricochet off walls to achieve the velocity required.
Cartoon Law VII:
Certain bodies can pass through solid walls painted to resemble tunnel
entrances, others cannot.
This trompe l'oeil inconsistency has baffled generations, but at least
it is known that whoever paints an entrance on a wall's surface to
trick an opponent will be unable to pursue him into this theoretical
space. The painter is flattened against the wall when he attempts to
follow into the painting. This is ultimately the problem of art, not
science.
Cartoon Law VIII:
A violent rearrangement of feline matter is impermanent.
Cartoon cats possess even more deaths than the traditional nine lives
might comfortably afford. They can be decimated, spliced, splayed,
accordian-pleated, spindled or disassembled, but they cannot be
destroyed. After a few seconds of blinking self-pity, they reinflate,
elongate, snap back, or solidify.
Corollary: A cat will assume the shape of it's container.
Cartoon Law IX:
Everything falls faster than an anvil.
Cartoon Law X:
For every vengeance there is an equal and opposite revengeance.
This is the one law of animated cartoon motion that applies to the
physical world at large. For that reason, we need the relief of
watching it happen to a duck.
Cartoon Law Amendment A:
A sharp object will always propel a character upaward.
When poked (usually in the buttocks) with a sharp object (usually a
pin) a character will defy gravity by shooting straight up, with great
velocity.
Cartoon Law Amendment B:
The laws of object permanence are nullified for 'cool' characters.
Characters who are intended to be 'cool' can make previously
non-existent objects appear from behind their backs at will. For
instance, the road runner can materialize signs to express himself
without speaking.
Cartoon Law Amendent C:
Gravity is transmitted by slow moving waves of large wavelength.
Their operation can be witnessed by observing the behavior of a canine
suspended over a large vertical drop. It's feet will begin to fall
first, causing it's legs to stretch. As the wave reaches it's torso,
that part will begin to fall, causing the neck to stretch. As the head
begins to fall, tension is released and the canine will resume it's
regular proportions until such a time as it strikes the ground.
Cartoon Law Amendment D:
Explosive weapons cannot cause fatal injuries. They merely turn
characters temporarily black and smoky.
Cartoon Law Amendment E:
Dynamite is spontaneoulsy generated in "C-spaces" (spaces in which
cartoon laws hold).
This process is analagous to steady-state theories of the universe
which postulate that the tensions involved in maintaining a space would
cause the creation of hydrogen from nothing. Dynamite quanta are quite
large (stick sized) and unstable (lit). Such quanta are attracted to
psychic forces generated by feelings of distress in cool characters
(see amendment B which may be a special case of this law), who are able
to use said quanta to their advantage. One may imagine C-spaces where
all matter and energy result from primal masses of dynamite exploding.
A big bang indeed.
