Transcript:

So let's say you're sitting on a dining table and you have a piece of toast which is buttered on the top. Now you place it on the dining table and very gradually just push it off of the edge. So if this is the edge of the dining table, this is the toast, you gently push it, and eventually, the toast will start falling.

Let it fall, and you will notice that almost all the time, the toast lands with the buttered side on the floor. The butter is right on the floor.

It has nothing to do with the butter, though. It has everything to do with the height of the table. Most tables, most dining tables, are 30 to 36 inches off of the floor, something like that.

And as the toast is falling off of the edge, it is also rotating. So, the time it takes for the toast to reach the ground allows it to rotate 180 degrees so that the buttered surface ends up on the floor. It is just that way the physics works out.

You can set up the equations and all this, and here's the reference to it. One guy has already done it. And here's a graphical representation of the answer. Notice how the grey and the dark black flip as the toast falls.

So that's the physics of the toast as it falls on the floor. It always lands with the buttered side down.