Note to self: To get Toady to answer your question immediatley, make it about questions.
It depends on the hight. To low and they cant turn around and to highthey break there bones. This said i want to see a cat fall from 2Z-levels unharmed.
...
Math time!
According to
Wikipedia, the typical housecat has a mass between 4 and 5 kilograms, so let's assume 4.5 kilograms is the typical mass of our Dorf's cat. We know they don't seem to eat, so we don't need to take full/empty stomachs into the equation.
Let's assume that one Z level is around about 1.5 meters. Yes, I know that Toady hasn't given us any concrete figures on dimensions, and I think he said at one point that he dosen't really want to as that will cause all kinds of complications from the community, but we're going to have to make some assumptions. Sadly, real physics doesn't work on Z levels.
So we're talking about a three meter drop.
If we assume that the gravity works the same as normal, and that the planet has as much mass as our Earth, g should be about 9.8, and as v^2=u^2 + 2ax, where v is the final velocity, u is the initial velocity (here, zero), a is acceleration (here, 9.8 m/s^2 down), and x is the displacement (here, 3 meters down), the final velocity of this daring cat should be... the square root of 58.8 meters a second.
In other words, roughly 7.67 m/s, ignoring air resistance. So the cat's momentum is 34.51 kg m/s at impact.
Does anyone know the compressive strength of a cat's leg bone?