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
        speciality 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 generation, 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 reinflate,
        elongate, snap back, or solidify.
  
    Corollary: A cat will assume the shape of its container.

Cartoon Law IX.

    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 X.

    Everything falls faster than an anvil.