Buttered toast phenomenon

Origins

Written accounts can be traced to the mid-19th century. The phenomenon is often attributed to a parodic poem of James Payn from 1884:

| I never had a slice of bread,

Particularly large and wide,

That did not fall upon the floor,

And always on the buttered side!

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). A study on this subject by Robert Matthews won the Ig Nobel Prize for physics in 1996.

Explanation

The problem has been studied modelling the toast being pushed from the edge of a table. However, if the table is over 10 ft tall, the toast will rotate a full 360 degrees, and land butter-side up. If the toast is pushed from the table at a high enough speed (1.6 m/s), it will not rotate enough to land butter-side down.

Professor Robert Matthews argued that the phenomenon is ultimately based in fundamental physical constants, reasoning that the height of a table from which toast might fall is directly related to the height of humans, and human height itself derives from chemical bond principles (if a person's skull is higher than three meters from the ground, then a fall will lead to the fracture of its chemical bonds). For this work, Matthews earned the 1996 Ig Nobel Prize for physics.

Other factors

Although some may expect the weight of the butter on one side to affect the falling process, mathematician Ian Stewart describes its effect on the dynamics and aerodynamics as "negligible", as it is mostly absorbed into the centre of the slice of toast.

Jokes

The buttered cat paradox is a question that asks if toast always lands butter side down and cats always land on their feet, what would happen if a slice of toast were attached butter-side-up to the back of a dropped cat?

A Wise Man of Chelm joke recounts a housewife being amazed at a slice of bread falling buttered side up one morning, contrary to the idiom. After consulting the elders at the synagogue at some length, she is told: "Madam, the problem is that you have buttered the wrong side of the bread."

References

References

1. Martin, Gary. "'Why does bread always fall buttered side down?' - the meaning and origin of this phrase".
2. (2005). "Dictionary of Proverbs". Wordsworth Editions Ltd..
3. Manser, Martin H.. (2007). "The Facts on File Dictionary of Proverbs". [[Infobase Publishing]].
4. Matthews, Robert. (27 May 2001). "Breakfast at Murphy's (or why the toast lands butter-side down)". [[The Daily Telegraph.
5. Matthews, R. A. J.. (1995). "Tumbling toast, Murphy's Law and the fundamental constants". European Journal of Physics.
6. Bacon. (2001). "A closer look at tumbling toast". American Journal of Physics.
7. Inglis-Arkell, Esther. (13 December 2011). "An Experiment That Solves The World's Most Important Question: How to Keep Toast from Landing Buttered-Side Down". [[io9]].
8. Devlin, Keith. (July 1998). "Buttered Toast and Other Patterns".
9. (16 December 2007). "Butter Side Down".
10. Stewart, Ian. (1995). "The Anthropomurphic Principle". [[Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics]].
11. Matthews, R A J. (18 July 1995). "Tumbling toast, Murphy's Law and the fundamental constants". [[European Journal of Physics]].
12. (5 October 1996). "Ig Nobel Falls for "Tumbling Toast"". Deseret News.
13. Wollard, Kathy. (2009-08-17). "Why does a falling piece of toast always seem to land on the buttered side?". How Come?.
14. Morris, Scot. (July 1993). "I Have a Theory...".
15. [[Ruth von Bernuth]], ''How the Wise Men Got to Chelm: The Life and Times of a Yiddish Folk Tradition''