Murphy's Toast
Classical Mechanics
Level
3
When a toast, buttered on one side, falls off a table, why does it tend to fall buttered side down?
Because of the height of the table
It only seems this way due to selection bias
Because the buttered side is heavier
Because butter travels down faster than bread
This section requires Javascript.
You are seeing this because something didn't load right. We suggest you, (a) try
refreshing the page, (b) enabling javascript if it is disabled on your browser and,
finally, (c)
loading the
non-javascript version of this page
. We're sorry about the hassle.
1 solution
When the toast falls off the table it starts with buttered side up. Once over half of the toast is leaning over the side of the plate it starts to tilt over, giving it a slight rotational motion as it proceeds to fall to the floor. This rotational motion is such that typically the bread will complete a half-rotation after falling between 2 1/2 to 3 feet, which happens to correspond to the height range of an average kitchen table, resulting in the toast tending to land buttered side down.