Cats and conservation of angular momentum

[leblon]

 A very nice video showing how a cat can turn in the air despite the law of conservation of angular momentum. Basically, the front and back parts of the cat have equal and opposite angular momentum at all times. In the end the cat's body has rotated by 180 degrees. 

I guess the confusing thing about all this is that formally momentum and angular momentum seem very analogous. But while conservation of momentum implies that the center-of-mass of an isolated body remains at rest if it was at rest initially, there is nothing analogous for the angular momentum, in general (provided we are talking about a body which is not rigid). 

Comments

[alexanderr]

напомнило задачу про космонавта, который крутил в пальцах карандаш и таком образом поворачивал всю орбитальную станцию куда ему было надо