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the hardness of cat claws
Monday, November 5 2001
For a brief time this afternoon, Edna the cat was in my lap as I sat in front of my computer. She saw my cursor move across the screen and reached out to grab it, foiled by the surface of the monitor. Seeking to taunt her further, I grabbed a window by the dragbar and moved it back and forth, and though she made many attempts to snare it with her claws, she was powerless to catch it. As I searched the web for mouse.jpg, I realized that her repeated clawing at the monitor had left visible scratches. Later on I determined that her claws had cut not just through the anti-glare coating, but into the glass itself. Bummer. I had no idea that cat claws were harder than glass! According to all the web sources I've checked, fingernails, horns, hairs and other keratins never exceed 3 on the Mohs's scale, whereas glass is 5. Perhaps cats have evolved a process whereby the tips of their claws are hardened by some mineral such as silica. If this is so, I can find no documentation of it.
In the evening, Gretchen and I watched the psychological thriller Memento on cable teevee. It was a provocative mindfuck the likes of which I haven't seen since Being John Malkovitch and the Matrix, though large parts of it didn't make much sense. What, for example, was the motive for the actions taken by the character played by Carrie-Anne Moss? Yet, when the film was over, I knew that I'd been deeply affected, because when I went to the bathroom the tangible objects in my hands seemed to have taken on a greater significance, as if they were the embodiment (or replacement) of memories in my head.
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