vikasj007 said:
JENNING'S COROLLARY- the chances of the bread falling with the buttered side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.
The corollary is true, but who the heck is Jenning?
It's Newton's Laws, plain and simple (1st, 2nd, and Universal Law of Gravitation).
Consider the edge of the table as your pivot point. As long as the center of gravity is on the table, there is more torque holding the bread on the table than there is rotating it off the table. Once the center of gravity is off the table, there will be more torque rotating the bread off the table than holding it on. As long as the angle between the bread and table top is small, the center of gravity will remain pretty much stationary, giving the bread a constant angular acceleration. At around 30 degrees or so, the center of gravity is going to start sliding away from the edge of the table. The torque imbalance is greater, but the force of gravity is also now divided between giving the bread a downward motion and supplying torque to the bread. Eventually, the entire piece of bread has left the table. At this point, there is no more angular acceleration. Whatever the angular velocity is at this point will remain constant for the duration of the bread's fall to the floor.
Theoretically, the amount of rotation the piece of bread will experience during the fall will be the same every time the bread is nudged off the table. The only pertinent variables are the length of the bread and the height of the table (the height of the table determines how much time the bread has to rotate). In the real world, where you can expect the table height and toast length to fall within a very narrow range of values, a couple of other things will affect the bread's fall:
1) How much time the bread spent on the edge of the table. The more time the bread spends on the edge of the table, the higher the angular velocity when it finally leaves the table. Knock the bread off the table violently so the time spent on the edge of the table is virtually zero and the bread doesn't rotate at all - it sails across the room like a frisbee and splatters bread and jelly on the wall.
2) Air currents. Bread isn't very stable and it's fall can be affected by air currents. It's better to eat bagels. They're much more predictable when they fall off the table.
3) Finally, and most important, is the surface the bread falls on. One of the most significant variables in this experiment is the chance of getting a 'bad bounce' when the bread hits the floor. It's very hard to predict whether the bread will wind up butter side up or butter side down in a house with a gravel floor. On the other hand, if your house has a gravel floor, it doesn't bother you when your kids leave Legos laying around.
The best surface to drop bread on is plush carpeting. You almost never get a bad bounce, making the results very predictable. There's even an equation to determine the chances of the bread falling butter side up or butter side down:
BSD = \frac{cos \left(\sqrt{\frac{h_t}{t_l}}-\pi\right)}{2} * FQ^2 +.5
BSD = chance of landing butter side down
h_t is the height of the table
t_l is the length of the toast
FQ is the floor quality based on the following scale:
.1 = Gravel (A[angular])
.2 = dirt
.4 = hard tile
.8 = all-weather carpeting
1.0 = plush carpeting
Floor covering ceases to be the most significant variable when
a) you eat from ten-foot tables
b) you eat from a traditional Japanese style table, sitting on the floor with your legs crossed
c) you're into those dainty English style tea parties and eat short little pieces of toast
d) you're from Texas where the length of your toast is longer than the height of the table
Anyway, how is this a song? Is it a rap song? I tried singing it, but it turned out wierd...but close enough. Check this out:http://www.scientainment.com/max.pdf
