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Buttered Toast Phenomenon
The buttered toast phenomenon is an observation that buttered toast tends to land butter-side down after it falls. It is used as an idiom representing pessimistic outlooks. Various people have attempted to determine whether there is an actual tendency for bread to fall in this fashion, with varying results. Origins The phenomenon is said to be an old proverb from "the north country". Written accounts can be traced to the mid-19th century. The phenomenon is often attributed to a parodic poem of James Payn from 1884: In the past, this has often been considered just a pessimistic belief. A 1991 study by the BBC's television series ''Q.E.D.'' found that when toast is tossed into the air, it lands butter-side down just one-half of the time (as would be predicted by chance). However, several scientific studies have found that when toast is dropped from a table (as opposed to being thrown in the air), it more often falls butter-side down. A study on this subject by Robert Matthews w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
LA LEY DE MURPHY
LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * La (musical note), or A, the sixth note * "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figure 8'' (album) * ''L.A.'' (EP), by Teddy Thompson * ''L.A. (Light Album)'', a Beach Boys album * "L.A." (Neil Young song), 1973 * The La's, an English rock band * L.A. Reid, a prominent music producer * Yung L.A., a rapper * Lady A, an American country music trio * "L.A." (Amy Macdonald song), 2007 * "La", a song by Australian-Israeli singer-songwriter Old Man River Other media * l(a, a poem by E. E. Cummings * La (Tarzan), fictional queen of the lost city of Opar (Tarzan) * ''Lá'', later known as Lá Nua, an Irish language newspaper * La7, an Italian television channel * LucasArts, an American video game developer and publisher * Liber Annuus, academic journal Business, organizations, and government agencies * L.A. Screenings, a tel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Society For Industrial And Applied Mathematics
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) is a professional society dedicated to applied mathematics, computational science, and data science through research, publications, and community. SIAM is the world's largest scientific society devoted to applied mathematics, and roughly two-thirds of its membership resides within the United States. Founded in 1951, the organization began holding annual national meetings in 1954, and now hosts conferences, publishes books and scholarly journals, and engages in advocacy in issues of interest to its membership. Members include engineers, scientists, and mathematicians, both those employed in academia and those working in industry. The society supports educational institutions promoting applied mathematics. SIAM is one of the four member organizations of the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics. Membership Membership is open to both individuals and organizations. By the end of its first full year of operation, SIAM had 130 me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Physical Phenomena
Physical may refer to: *Physical examination In a physical examination, medical examination, or clinical examination, a medical practitioner examines a patient for any possible medical signs or symptoms of a medical condition. It generally consists of a series of questions about the patien ..., a regular overall check-up with a doctor * ''Physical'' (Olivia Newton-John album), 1981 ** "Physical" (Olivia Newton-John song) * ''Physical'' (Gabe Gurnsey album) * "Physical" (Alcazar song) (2004) * "Physical" (Enrique Iglesias song) (2014) * "Physical" (Dua Lipa song) (2020) *"Physical (You're So)", a 1980 song by Adam & the Ants, the B side to " Dog Eat Dog" * ''Physical'' (TV series), an American television series See also {{disambiguation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Resistentialism
Resistentialism is a jocular theory to describe "seemingly spiteful behavior manifested by inanimate objects", where objects that cause problems (like lost keys or a runaway bouncy ball) are said to exhibit a high degree of malice toward humans. The theory posits a war being fought between humans and inanimate objects, and all the little annoyances that objects cause throughout the day are battles between the two. The concept was not new in 1948 when humorist Paul Jennings coined this name for it in a piece titled "Report on Resistentialism", published in '' The Spectator'' that year and reprinted in '' The New York Times''; the word is a blend of the Latin ''res'' ("thing"), the French ''résister'' ("to resist"), and the existentialism school of philosophy. The movement is a spoof of existentialism in general, and Jean-Paul Sartre in particular, Jennings naming the fictional inventor of Resistentialism as Pierre-Marie Ventre. The slogan of Resistentialism is "''Les choses ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Finagle's Law
Finagle's law of dynamic negatives (also known as Melody's law, Sod's Law or Finagle's corollary to Murphy's law) is usually rendered as "Anything that can go wrong, will—at the worst possible moment." The term "Finagle's law" was first used by John W. Campbell Jr., the influential editor of ''Astounding Science Fiction'' (later ''Analog''). He used it frequently in his editorials for many years in the 1940s to 1960s, but it never came into general usage the way Murphy's law has. Variants One variant (known as O'Toole's corollary of Finagle's law) favored among hackers is a takeoff on the second law of thermodynamics (related to the augmentation of entropy): In the ''Star Trek'' episode "Amok Time" (written by Theodore Sturgeon in 1967), Captain Kirk tells Spock, "As one of Finagle's laws puts it: 'Any home port the ship makes will be somebody else's, not mine.'" The term "Finagle's law" was popularized by science fiction author Larry Niven in several stories (for exam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Butter Battle Book
''The Butter Battle Book'' is a rhyming story written by Dr. Seuss and published by Random House on January 12, 1984. It is an anti-war story; specifically, a parable about arms races in general, mutually assured destruction and nuclear weapons in particular. ''The Butter Battle Book'' was a ''New York Times'' Notable Book of the Year. This book was written during the Cold War era and reflects the concerns of the time, as well as his own, regarding the perceived possibility that humanity could be destroyed in a nuclear war. It can also be seen as a satirical work, with its depiction of a deadly war based on a senseless conflict over something as trivial as a breakfast food. Plot elements of the book were adapted for Warner Bros. Animation's '' Green Eggs and Ham: The Second Serving''. Plot The Yooks and the Zooks live on opposite sides of a long curving wall. The Yooks wear blue clothes; the Zooks wear orange. The primary dispute between the two cultures is that the Yooks ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buttered Cat Paradox
The buttered cat paradox is a common joke based on the combination of two adages: * Cats always land on their feet. * Buttered toast always lands buttered side down. The paradox arises when one considers what would happen if one attached a piece of buttered toast (butter side up) to the back of a cat, then dropped the cat from a large height. The buttered cat paradox, submitted by artist John Frazee of Kingston, New York, won a 1993 '' Omni'' magazine competition about paradoxes. The basic premise, stating the conditions of the cat and bread and posed as a question, was presented in a routine by comic and juggler Michael Davis, appearing on ''The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson'', July 22, 1988. Thought experiments Some people jokingly maintain that the experiment will produce an anti-gravity effect. They propose that as the cat falls towards the ground, it will slow down and start to rotate, eventually reaching a steady state of hovering a short distance from the ground w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inertia
Inertia is the idea that an object will continue its current motion until some force causes its speed or direction to change. The term is properly understood as shorthand for "the principle of inertia" as described by Newton in his first law of motion. After some other definitions, Newton states in his first law of motion: The word "perseveres" is a direct translation from Newton's Latin. Other, less forceful terms such as "to continue" or "to remain" are commonly found in modern textbooks. The modern use follows from some changes in Newton's original mechanics (as stated in the ''Principia'') made by Euler, d'Alembert, and other Cartesians. The term inertia comes from the Latin word ''iners'', meaning idle, sluggish. The term inertia may also refer to the resistance of any physical object to a change in its velocity. This includes changes to the object's speed or direction of motion. An aspect of this property is the tendency of objects to keep moving in a straight li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
European Journal Of Physics
The ''European Journal of Physics'' is a peer-reviewed, scientific journal dedicated to maintaining and improving the standard of physics education in higher education. The journal, published since 1980, is now published by IOP Publishing on behalf of the European Physical Society. The current editor-in-chief is Mojca Čepič of the Ljubljana University, Slovenia. It does not include original research in physics, but rather: *Surveys of research at a level accessible to students *Original insights into the derivation of results *Descriptions of new laboratory exercises *Scholarly or reflective articles at appropriate levels *Descriptions of successful original student projects *Discussions of the history and philosophy of physics. *Reports of new developments in methods for teaching physics and in the physics curriculum. The journal had an Impact factor of 0.781 for 2020, according to the Journal Citation Reports. It is indexed In Chemical Abstracts, Engineering Index/Ei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Physical Constant
A physical constant, sometimes fundamental physical constant or universal constant, is a physical quantity that is generally believed to be both universal in nature and have constant value in time. It is contrasted with a mathematical constant, which has a fixed numerical value, but does not directly involve any physical measurement. There are many physical constants in science, some of the most widely recognized being the speed of light in a vacuum ''c'', the gravitational constant ''G'', the Planck constant ''h'', the electric constant ''ε''0, and the elementary charge ''e''. Physical constants can take many dimensional forms: the speed of light signifies a maximum speed for any object and its dimension is length divided by time; while the fine-structure constant ''α'', which characterizes the strength of the electromagnetic interaction, is dimensionless. The term ''fundamental physical constant'' is sometimes used to refer to universal-but-dimensioned physical cons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Naked Scientists
''The Naked Scientists'' is a one-hour audience-interactive science radio talk show broadcast live by the BBC in the East of England, nationally by BBC Radio 5 Live and internationally on ABC Radio National, Australia; it is also distributed globally as a podcast. The programme was created and is edited by Cambridge University consultant virologist Dr Chris Smith. Former ''Naked Scientists'' line-up members include producerPhil Sansom an Katie Haylor with adding ad-hoc technology perspectives. History [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
