Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Robert A J MaHhews
Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Aston, Birmingham B4 7ET UKt
Abstract. We investigate the dynamics of toast tumbling Resmne. Nous examinons la dynamique du toast dans sa
from a table to the floor. Popular opinion is that the final chute de la table au plancer. L'avis populaire tient a ce que Ie
state is usually butter-side down, and constitutes prima/ack toast tomhe habituellem.ent cote beurre par terre et que ceIa
evidence of Murphy's Law ("If it can go wrong, it will). The constitute Ie commencement de preuve de la loi de Murphy
orthodox view, in contrast, is that the phenomenon is (loi de la guigne maximum). En revanche, I'avis orthodoxe
essentially random, with a 50/50 split of possible outcomes. insiste qui'il s'agit d'un phenomene essentiellement dfr au
We show that toast does indeed have an inherent tendency to hasard, dont les reswtats possibles se divisent 50/50. Nous
land butter-side down for a wide range of conditions. montrons que Ie toast a, en effet, une tendance fondamentale
Furthennore, we show that this outcome is ultimately a arriver core beurre par terre dans des circonstances diverses
ascribable to the values of the fundamental constants. As et variees. De plus, nous montrons que ce resultat s'attribue
such, this manifestation of Murphy's Law appears to be an en derniere analyse aux valeurs des constantes
ineluctable feature of our universe, fondamentales. En tant que tel, eet exemple de la loi de
Murphy semblerait etre une caracteristique ineluctable de
notre uDivers,
to be empirical proof of the existence of Murphy's toast would have to fall from a height over an order
Law. Furthermore, there is a widespread belief of magnitude higher than the typical table for the
that it is the result of a genuine physical effect, often butter to have significant aerodynamic effects.
ascribed to a dynamical asymmetry induced by one Such estimates lend credibility to the widespread
side of the toast being buttered. 'orthodox' answer to the tumbling toast question:
Quite apart from whether or not the basic obser that it is essentially a coin-tossing process in which
vation is true, this explanation cannot be correct. only the bad outcomes are remembered. Indeed,
The mass of butter added to toast (�4g) is small there is some experimental evidence to support this.
compared to the mass of the typical slice of toast In tests conducted for a BBC-TV programme on
(�35 g), is spread thinly, and passes into the body Murphy's Law [I], buttered bread was tossed into
of the toast. Its contribution to the total moment of the air 300 times in a variety of situations designed
inertia of the toast-and thus its effect on the toast's to reveal the presence of Murphy's Law. In all
rotational dynamics-is thus negligible. tests, the results were statistically indistinguishable
from the 50/50 outcome expected from random coin
t Address for correspondence: SO Norreys Road, Cumnor, tossing, suggesting that seJective memory is the true
Oxford, 0X2 9PT UK; email IOO265.3005@compuserve.com explanation of Murphy's Law.
0143-C80T/9S11J.40172 + os $19.50 C 1995IO? Publishing Ltd & The European Physical Society
Tumbling toast, Murphy's Law and the fundamental constants 173
There are, however, two problems with this. First, and also assume that it has zero horizontal velocity;
by its very nature Murphy's Law might contrive to the important effect of a non-zero horizontal velocity
ruin any overt attempt to demonstrate its existence is addressed later. Finally we assume a perfectly
by such probabilistic means, This would make experi inelastic impact with the fioor with zero rebound.
mental verification of its existence very problematic. With these assumptions, the dynamics of the
A simple Bayesian probability analysis shows that lamina are determined by the forces shown in figure
there are grave difficulties with attempts to demon 1: the weight, mg, acting vertically downward, the
strate Murphy's Law if it is considered to be a frictional force, F, parallel to the plane of the
skewing of an otherwise symmetric probability distri lamina and directed against the motion, and the reac
bution in the direction of an unfavourable outcome. tion of the table, R. The resulting angular velocity
Second, and more seriously, Murphy's Law may be about the point of contact, W, then satisfies the
far more fundamental than a skewing of probability differential equations of motion
distributions: it may actually forbid certain favour
m6w=R-mg·cosO (I)
able outcomes from taking place. In the case of
falling toast, this implies that Murphy's Law might mbw2 = F- mg.sinB (2)
influence the dynamics of the toast at a fundamental
yet subtle level. If so, failure to reveal its presence m (k ' + 6')w = -mg6 ·cosO (3)
by carelessly hurling toast randomly into the air
would hardly be surprising. where k is the appropriate radius of gyration, such
that k' d' (3 for the rectangular lamina considered
As we now show, the dynamics of falling toast are =
indeed rather subtle, and do depend fairly critically here. Multiplying (3) hy 2w and integrating from the
on initial conditions. Nevertheless, in a broad range initial conditions w= 0 at ()= 0 leads to:
of realistic circumstances, the dynamics do lead to a W' = (6g(a).[1)(1 + 31)')].sinO (4)
bias towards a butter-side down final state. We pro
vide both theoretical and experimental evidence for where we have used 6 '" 1)a, with 'I (0 < 1/ .; I) being
this conclusion and show that the results have surpris the 'overhang parameter'. Equation (4) is the central
ingly deep origins. Specifically, we show that the fall equation of the tumbling toast problem, as it gives
of toast is a manifestation of fundamental aspects of the rate of rotation of the toast once it has detached
the nature of our universe. from the table from a specific state of overhang.
Unless the toast can complete sufficient rotation
on its descent to the floor to bring the buttered
2. Dynamics of falling toast side facing upwards, the toast will land buttered
side down. Thus if the toast begins its descent at
In what follows we model the tumbling toast problem an angle 1> to the horizontal, then for it to land
as an example of a rigid, rough, homogeneous rectan butter-side up again we must have
gular lamina, mass m, side 2a, falling from a rigid Wo'" > (3,,(2) - 1> (5)
platform set a height h above the ground. We con
where Wo is the free-fall 6 rotation rate and .,. the free
sider the dynamics of the toast from an initial state
fall time for the height of the table h, so that
where its centre of gravity overhangs the table by a
distance 80, as shown in figure1. Initially, we ignore .,.= [2(h -2a)(g]I/' (6)
the process by which the toast arrives at this state,
The frictional force acting on the lamina will prevent
Figure 1. The initial orientation of the rotating toast detachment until the lamina has rotated through at
least an angle 1>, at which point slipping occurs.
This minimum value of 1> follows from the usual
condition F p.R, where p. is the coefficient of static
=
that contact between table and toast is broken, the This was found to be
latter then tumbling about its CG at a rotational
rate Wo essentially unchanged from the original
For bread: ['1oJob, � 0.02
(12)
value. Although irregularity in the surface of the For toast: [TJoJo'" � 0.015
toast can prevent inunediate post-slip detachment,
experiments confirm that the value of Wo can be Both bread and toast are thus relatively unstable
taken as that induced by the initial overhang torque to tumbling from overhanging positions. Crucially,
of mgaTJo. Thus the free-falling toast rotates at a rate neither can sustain overhangs anywhere near as
large as the critical value given in (10). This implies
that laminae with either composition do not have
sufliciont angular rotation to land butter-side up
following free-fall from a table-top. In other words,
where the value of the critical overhang parameter 1'/0 the material properties of slices of toast and bread
and slip angle 1> at which detachment takes place may and their size relative to the height of the typical
be determined experimentally. To place a lower limit table are such that, in the absence of any rebound
on the overhang needed to avoid a butter-side down phenomena, they lead to a distinct bias towards a
final state, we insert (8) in (5), set 1> ,,/2 and solve
=
butter-side down landing. But before this can be
the resulting quadratic equation for "10: taken as confirmation of popular belief, however,
some practical issues must be addressed.
1-)[1 12"'J
�o >
60 (9)
where 0 '" '" /12(R - 2) and R '" h/a 4. The effects 01 non-zero horizontal velocity
For conventional tables and slices of toasts, we have
So far, we have ignored the means by which the toast
h � 75cm, 2a � l Oem leading to R � IS, 0 0.06
comes to be in the overhang condition shown in figure
�
J" d8/(sin
0 0)112 �
J�
0 dO/o112
tumbling toast: rearranging (9) we find The best approach is somewhat counter�jntuitive;
toast seen heading off the table should be given a
,,'(I + 31)') smart swipe forward with the hand. Similarly, a
R 2+ (24)
�