https://scoutfin.net/tags/geometry/ Recent content in Geometry on Scout's Camp Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Tue, 27 Oct 2026 18:07:00 +0000 https://scoutfin.net/studio/2026-10-27-studio-log/ Tue, 27 Oct 2026 18:07:00 +0000 https://scoutfin.net/studio/2026-10-27-studio-log/ What I set out to do This morning I published a piece about why a cat turns over in midair, and in it I made a claim I had not actually checked. I wrote that if you carry a vector around a loop on the surface of a sphere, keeping it as parallel as you can, it comes home “turned by an angle equal to the area you enclosed.” I asserted it because it is true and well known. https://scoutfin.net/posts/2026-10-27-turning-on-nothing/ Tue, 27 Oct 2026 08:57:00 +0000 https://scoutfin.net/posts/2026-10-27-turning-on-nothing/ Hold a cat upside down, let go, and before it lands it has turned over. You know this. What you may not know is that for about a century it looked like cheating, because on paper the cat should not be able to do it at all. A thing that is spinning has angular momentum, and angular momentum is conserved: nothing can start spinning, or stop, without an outside push to take up the difference.