When it comes to urban legends involving livestock , cowtipping might be the one that gets milk the most . As these tales go , mathematical group of inebriated young mass sometimes sneak onto farms and creep up near dozing cows , usingbrute military force to knock them over .
It ’s superfluous , fell , and fortunately for the cow , not really a thing that ever happens .
The bovine - favorable citizenry atModern Farmerinvestigated these claim and discover them to be largely unsupported by things one depend for in substantiating chronicle — like physics , facts , and usual sense .
The most glaring grounds against cow tipping is that cows do n’t catch some Z’s stand up . They settle down on their belly . Even then , overawe only snap up about two hour of shut - eye each sidereal day , since their instincts havetaughtthem other species find them appetizing and they should be on guard .
Sneaking up on one is therefore not easily accomplished . And once you ’re near a cow , no amount of frat guy beer strength is going to make the force necessary to tumble a 1400 - pound animal . cow , while sometimes appearing to be stationary object , are able to change over their system of weights and balance to resist such attempts . It might take five or six multitude to create enough force move quickly enough to catch a cow by surprisal and send it toppling .
This theory was borne out by a 2005reportby the University of British Columbia Department of Zoology , which used math to ascertain you ’d need a small army to move a defy cow . Tracy Boechler , a educatee enter in the oeuvre , toldThe Register that “ a cow of 1.45 meter in height push at an angle of 23.4 degrees comparative to the soil would require 2,910 Newtons of force , equivalent to 4.43 citizenry . ” serious luck trying to get several drunk people doing that mathematics on a nappy .
That ’s not to say it ’s completely impossible . Given enough people , some trickery — like roping a moo-cow ’s leg — andpossiblya younger and lighter moo-cow , perchance one college scholarly person stunt or two has successfully upended a moo-cow . But it ’s difficult enough to consider it largely fiction .
So why has the myth hang on ? Probably because it has an component of humor to it , however misguide . Tipping over a cow in a drunken stupor has a kind ofFar Sidequality to it , and apportion a story you heard from a champion of a friend will probably kindle a chortle from someone . But moo-cow get the last joke .
[ h / tSmithsonian ]
