7 thoughts on “When Laws Of Physics Are Violated”

  1. “This doesn’t mean dogs necessarily understand physics, with its complex calculations, says Völter. But it does suggest that dogs have an implicit understanding of their physical environment.”

    I think they categorize a lot of things as being human stuff.

    I’m curious what the refresh rate on the monitors was. Did they use a refresh rate that fits with dog vision or did they find dogs that can tolerate a human refresh rate?

  2. I’m sure cats understand also, although that didn’t stop one of ours, when we had them, from hoping that gravity wouldn’t work for just long enough to catch the bird on the branch that he could get to from our first floor outside deck area. Nope, still works.

  3. We share animals’ innate wiring for local physics, which is reflected in how human language works. You can spill paint on the floor in any language, but you can never spill the floor with paint because gravity is actually the action. All higher animals understand how hit, push, drop, slide and fall work, or else they’d be easy pickings.

  4. Their reactions can be comic as well.

    My mother taught a TV Calculus course on the local college PBS station. Back in the old Black & White days with stage makeup you put on with a trowel…

    We sat down to watch the first episode quietly and were joined by our two Siamese cats. The cats were “suspicious” because Mom was obviously sitting there and her voice was coming out of the RCA CRT color TV. They circled it while sniffing it when *Pzzap* they were shocked by a static discharge — at that point we howled with laughter. The cats were *not* amused and sat with their backs to the TV ignoring it as hard as they could.

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