There are objects in our everyday lives that are simply there and seem as though they have always been. We do not know who invented them, when, or why. They are just there. However, today at ARISTOPET we want to reveal the identity of the person who invented the cat door, also known as a cat flap. The door that lets your ARISTOCAT roam freely, coming and going whenever it wants.
It was none other than Isaac Newton who “came up with” this brilliant idea. According to Cyril Aydon in “Curious Tales of Science,” while the scientist was working on his research, his cat would not stop meowing to get in and out of the house. This must have been quite annoying for Newton because it made it difficult for him to concentrate, although he probably also felt bad about not being able to devote enough time to his cat. So he decided to make a hole in the lower part of the door so that his kitten could go out and come in as often as she wanted. Legend has it that Newton covered the holes with felt to block the excess light that bothered him during his experiments, making his invention the precursor to the modern cat flap.
Over the years, these primitive holes evolved into the hinged panels with springs used today, which provide protection against wind and rain. In more sophisticated versions, they even became electronically controlled cat flaps or cat flaps with radio-frequency identification that can read the microchip implanted in the animal.
So we owe Newton a great deal in this field. Well, and in so many others. Because, as you know, Newton was a physicist, philosopher, theologian, inventor, alchemist, and mathematician. He described the law of universal gravitation and laid the foundations of classical mechanics through the laws that bear his name.
Newton is often called “the greatest scientist of all time.” It has been said of him that “he was the greatest genius who ever lived and also the luckiest, since a system governing the world can only be discovered once.”
Today at ARISTOPET we discovered that he was also probably quite the ARISTOPETER, since he cared about his cat’s well-being and devised a system to make it easier for her to move around and get in and out. At the time, he surely wasn’t aware of what had just happened in his home… when he made that hole in the door. But he revolutionized the lifestyle of the ARISTOCATS!
