Through science, we can not only answer fundamental questions but also describe everyday phenomena. For instance, recent studies have calculated how to properly hold a frisbee disc during a game of golf, determined where it is more comfortable to stand in enclosed smoking areas, and which shape of glass is best suitable for cold beer.
Physicist Anxo Biasi from the Sorbonne University in France formulated an equation describing the movements of cats when a person is nearby. His observations of his cat, Éme, aided him in creating this equation. The results were published in the American Journal of Physics.
Biasi treated the cat as a point particle moving in a potential created by the human. He hypothesized that "cats behave as if they can sense the force surrounding a person."
The researcher analyzed the behavior of his cat Éme and identified seven patterns characteristic of her daily "communication" with her owner, which may also apply to other cats:
The physicist considered that the cat experiences a "force" related to the external potential (caused by the presence of a person). The cat's position at time t relative to the person located at point x = 0 is denoted as x(t), with its value belonging to the set of real numbers. The mass of the cat (m > 0) and the friction coefficient (ϵ > 0), which accounts for the animal's fatigue, were also important for the equation.
According to Biasi, based on the results of his research and the analysis of feline behavior, one can vividly demonstrate how equations are formulated:
“This work entertainingly showcases the thought process involved in constructing physical models, which is rarely described in detail in books. <…> The model of the interaction between the cat and the human brings physics closer to non-specialists, illustrating the logic of constructing physical models through a curious and familiar situation,” the scientist concluded.