Cartoon Laws of Physics
Cartoon
Law I
“Any body suspended in
space will remain in space until made aware of its 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 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, cartoon characters are so absolute in their momentum that only a telephone pole or an
outsize 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 its perimeter.”
Also called the silhouette of passage,
this phenomenon is the specialty of victims of directed-pressure explosions and
of 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 capture it inevitably unsuccessful.
Cartoon
Law V
“All principles of
gravity are negated by fear.”
Psychic 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 chandelier, 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 a problem of art, not of science.
Cartoon
Law VIII
“Any 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,
accordion-pleated, spindled, or disassembled, but they cannot be destroyed. After
a few moments of blinking self pity, they re-inflate, elongate, snap back, or
solidify.
Corollary: A cat will assume the shape of its 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 also applies to the physical world at large. For that reason, we need the relief of
watching it happen to a duck instead.
Cartoon
Law Amendment A
“A sharp object will
always propel a character upward.”
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 nonexistent objects appear from behind
their backs at will. For instance, the
Road Runner can materialize signs to express himself without speaking.
Cartoon
Law Amendment C
“Explosive weapons
cannot cause fatal injuries.”
They merely turn characters
temporarily black and smoky.
Cartoon
Law Amendment D
“Gravity is
transmitted by slow-moving waves of large wavelengths.”
Their operation can be witnessed by
observing the behavior of a canine suspended over a large vertical drop. Its feet will begin to fall first, causing
its legs to stretch. As the wave reaches
its 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 its regular proportions until such time as
it strikes the ground.
Cartoon
Law Amendment E
“Dynamite is
spontaneously generated in ‘C-spaces’ (spaces in which cartoon laws hold).”
The process is analogous to
steady-state theories of the universe which postulated 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.
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