The Results!

The book landed face down!  Wonder why?  So did we!


A reader claimed that their book initially with its front cover up on the table almost always landed face down.


He wondered if this had any bearing on the buttered-toast phenomenon.

We wondered if the book was as likely to land face up as it did face down and that the reader hadn't thrown his book off the table enough times to prove his theory correct.

After throwing our physics book off the table many times we found that the behavior of the falling book was far from random. 


The final state of the book is dictated by its rate of spin, which is typically too low for the book to complete a revolution and land face up.  The torque induced by gravity as the book goes over the edge simply does not lead to  sufficiently fast spin rate.

Much like this book the toast would land butter-side down if the tables they fell from were much taller, but alas, tables are the height they are because they must be convienent for human beings.

What's next?  Murphy's Law of Queues



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