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 pasture land. 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.