"I always wondered how the "Dynamics of Cats" related to astronomy..."?
Asks the Mark the Fur Guy, and as it happens several other people around the blogosphere.
It sounded cooler than Dynamics of COATs
We acquired our second cat just before the first web presence occured
The blog name is actually the title page of my original Web Page - done for beta release Mosaic either in late 1993 or early 1994, when the Web Was Young.
I miss Mosaic.
I kept it, because I have cats; because I do dynamics; because I am still interested in computation, compact objects, astrophysics and theoretical physics
I now have numerous PhD students and postdocs, so I am in fact engaged in trying to get a solution for the "herding problem", any solution, even an approximate solution... especially a dynamical solution
'nuff said
PS: I also like being deliberately obscure when it suits me
Assume a spherical cat...
Sadly it is well known to be an intractable problem.
Brute force sometimes work, if enough resources are thrown at it.
Always get long term instability in those cases though.
Oh, Mosaic, OHHHH...
You bring back such memories! My salad days, when I was green!
The herding process seems to be generally one of attempting to exploit aversions the herdee may have whilst limiting their options for escape routes. Unfortunately cats also have in general an aversion to other cats, which induces them to disperse in different directions, and their ability to exploit the tunneling effect is well known to cat persons. Perhaps introducing something for which cats have positive tropisms may work better? Recordings of cans being opened? Odor de Tuna?
Well, one of my cats can attain high straight line speeds if tapped on the butt, but predicting where that line points is still a bit tricky. I think david is onto something with positive motivation. But I'm pretty sure your students and postdocs are tired of tuna :)
You need to keep up on the literature. The herding problem has been solved.
Kinda bulky and awkward dontcha think.
Anyway, I unfortunately never check the "human subjects" box when getting research approval - too much paperwork.
I fear I must rely on mental persuasion and kibbles.
And I thought it had something to do with a paper on cats falling off tall buildings. I had this vivid image of cats in wind tunnels. . .