LAWS OF PHYSICS CONTEST
GRAND
PRIZE WINNER
- When a cat is dropped,
it always lands on its feet, and when toast is dropped,
it always lands with the buttered side facing down. I
propose to strap buttered toast to the back of a cat; the
two will hover, spinning inches above the ground. With a
giant buttered cat array, a high-speed monorail could
easily link New York with Chicago.
RUNNERS-UP:
- Why Yawning Is
Contagious: You yawn to equalize the pressure on your ear
drums. This pressure change outside your eardrums
unbalances other people's ear pressures, so they must
yawn to even it out.
- The earth may spin
faster on its axis due to deforestation. Just as a figure
skater's rate of spin increases when the arms are brought
in close to the body, the cutting of tall trees may cause
our planet to spin dangerously fast.
- Communist China is
technologically underdeveloped because they have no
alphabet and therefore cannot use acronyms to communicate
ideas at a faster rate.
- If an infinite number
of rednecks riding in an infinite number of pickup trucks
fire an infinite number of shotgun rounds at an infinite
number of highway signs, they will eventually produce all
the world's great literary works in Braille.
HONORABLE
MENTION:
- Birds take off at
sunrise. On the opposite side of the world, they are
landing at sunset. This causes the earth to spin on its
axis.
- The reason hot-rod
owners raise the backs of their cars is that it's easier
to go faster when you're always going downhill. Besides,
they get better gas mileage that way.
- The quantity of
consonants in the English language is constant. If
omitted in one place, they turn up in another. When a
Bostonian "pahks" his "cah," the lost
r's migrate southwest, causing a Texan to
"warsh" his car and invest in "erl
wells."