Cats and mind-full mechanics: what happens when quantum physics meets the brain

Nineteenth-century physicists Sir George Gabriel Stokes and James Clerk Maxwell were inspired by cats' gymnastic abilities, particularly their capacity to land on their feet. This fascination led them to conduct experiments in "cat-turning" in the 1850s. Maxwell humorously recounted a tradition that he had discovered a method of throwing cats so they would not land on their feet, even suggesting he used to throw cats out of windows. The article also mentions Nobel laureate Frank Anthony Wilczek, who received the prize in 2004 for his work on asymptotic freedom in strong interaction theory, though his connection to the cat experiments is not detailed.