Mrs. Murphy's Law

[Dingfod]

Commonly known as The Buttered Side Down Law, where anything dropped will fall as to do the most damage, such as a piece of buttered toast will almost certainly land buttered side down. It is often thought that this is due to the differing aerodynamic properties of the buttered side and the unbuttered side of the toast. The is absolutely not the case according to UK physicist and science write Robert A. J. Matthews*, who postulates that because the average table is only 30 inches in height the falling toast does not have time to rotate more than 270 degrees, but plenty of time to exceed 90 degrees, almost assuring a buttery landing for said toast.

What is your experience with buttered toast? Do you like it buttered before or after toasting? Do you use a toaster oven or a pop-up toaster? Do you even eat toast? Have you ever dropped it after buttering it? Which way did it land? If it happened more than once, which was did it land most of the time?



*source: Cecil Adam's Straight Dope

[viscousmemories]

I use a pop-up toaster and butter it (lightly) immediately. I don't remember ever dropping toast on the floor, but if I did I'm sure it landed butter side down and equally sure it was somehow my fault.

[godfry n. glad]

I toast on jags. I go for long periods without toast and then crave it.

Butter is not supposed to be on my diet, so I'll say that it's the jam side down, and I've had it happen both ways.

I think there is a definite "van at the corner" effect happening because when it lands load side down, there is a necessity of cleanup, which reinforces the mishap in one's memory. Having it land load side up is no big deal and the big question is "eat it or throw it away?" The relative significance of the two incidents is vastly skewed, in terms of impact upon memory and ability of later recall.

Jus' my

[Dingfod]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

I use a pop-up toaster and butter it (lightly) immediately. I don't remember ever dropping toast on the floor, but if I did I'm sure it landed butter side down and equally sure it was somehow my fault.

When I was a kid, my sisters and I came up with a little ditty "Better Buttered Before" because we used a toaster oven and buttered the bread before toasting, but when we visited my Grandma Marie's house, she had an ancient art deco popup toaster and buttered it after scraping all the burnt part off. I don't remember how the little ditty went, only that we called it what we did.

And, it probably was your fault if you did drop the buttered toast.

[livius drusus]

My favorite toast is how my daddy used to make it for me when I was a kid: toasted in standard slot toaster set at medium, lightly buttered with these really salty and strong Turkish butter that came in cylinders, and then rested on top of the slots so the residual heat melted the butter deep into the bread.

I don't recall ever dropping it either, but if I had, I would not apply the 10 second rule to buttered toast.

[ceptimus]

The obvious solution to this worrying problem is to not butter your toast at all, or to butter it on both sides.

[Shake]

How would you butter it before? I'd think it'd all drip down into the toaster.

Anyway, I like mine with LOTS of butter, dripping if possible.

Then of course there's the ultimate in such experimentation: tying a piece of butter toast to the back of a cat -- cats as we all know, always land on their feet -- and seeing which wins out: the cat or the buttered toast. There has been some conjecturing that that's how to make an anti-gravity drive: get scores of cats with toast strapped to their backs and watch as the whole combination just levitates above the floor, like opposing magnetic fields.

[godfry n. glad]

Originally Posted by Shake

How would you butter it before? I'd think it'd all drip down into the toaster.

Keyword: toaster oven

[Ensign Steve]

Originally Posted by godfry n. glad

I think there is a definite "van at the corner" effect happening because when it lands load side down, there is a necessity of cleanup, which reinforces the mishap in one's memory.

Agreed.

I like toast, but I don't remember if I ever dropped it. I remember one time I dropped a slice of pizza, and it landed toppings-side-down.

[curses]

A toaster oven is your best friend If toast (or any foodstuff for that matter) is dropped, it rarely gets a chance to hit the floor thanks to the cats. They're either under my feet or poised to intercept dropped items..but if the toast hits them, it's usually butter side down. But we tend to use peanut butter, so it's heavier

[Dingfod]

Perpetual motion: a cat, which always lands feet first, with buttered toast, which always lands buttered-side down, strapped to it's back.


More thread necrophilia coming to a forum near you.

[thedoc]

A peasant living in a hut outside of a small village in the Ukraine was settling down for the evening and prepared his simple meal of a piece of bread spread with goose fat. As he sat at his small table he accidentally knocked the bread off the edge of the table. He looked over the edge of the table and was reached down to pick up the bread and stopped in total shock. There on the floor was the bread, goose fat up. He jumped back in panic and so many thoughts were running through his head, of all the laws of physics being confounded, and the world coming to an end, that it took him a few minutes to calm down. Then he ran to the village and summoned the local town leader and explaining what had happened rushed him back to the hut. Soon word spread and the town elders realized they were facing a crisis and panic among the population, so they called a town meeting and decided to summon an expert from the university in the closest city. A messenger roused the professor and explaining the situation persuaded him to return with him to the man's hut to see first hand what had happened and help to avert the obvious disaster about to befall the whole world if not the universe itself. Finally arriving at the village he was lead to the hut where he confronted a large crowd and managed to restore some semblance of order by proclaiming that he would examine the scene and determine the cause of the disaster. The local constabulary managed to move the crowd back and the professor went inside to examine the offending piece of bread. After carefully measuring, and questioning the peasant at length, he went back outside and addressed the people there. "There is nothing to worry about," he said, "the answer is simple. This fool has spread his Goose Fat on the 'Wrong' side of the bread".

[Dingfod]

That would have been a good one for the jokes for English-speaking Germans thread.

[Ensign Steve]

Originally Posted by Dingfod

Perpetual motion: a cat, which always lands feet first, with buttered toast, which always lands buttered-side down, strapped to it's back.


More thread necrophilia coming to a forum near you.

And I find myself thanksing posts from 2005. They were good posts, damnit!

[Dingfod]

I was a lot smarter then, and funnier. Thanks, Obama.

[Corona688]

Originally Posted by Ensign Steve

Agreed.

I like toast, but I don't remember if I ever dropped it. I remember one time I dropped a slice of pizza, and it landed toppings-side-down.

I think they did this on mythbusters or some other science show. They got pretty consistent results of toast side vs height.

Why not carry your toast buttered-side down? It's not going to drip or anything unless you put on way too much.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by Corona688

I think they did this on mythbusters or some other science show. They got pretty consistent results of toast side vs height.

Why not carry your toast buttered-side down? It's not going to drip or anything unless you put on way too much.

Why not just eat it as soon as you put the butter on, and avoid the problem altogether.

[Dingfod]

Occam's razor.

[Angakuk]

Occam's butter knife.