STRANGE SCIENCE FAIR WINNERS
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:
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 worlds great literary
works in Braille.
Why Yawning Is Contagious: You yawn to equalize the pressure on your
eardrums. This pressure change outside your eardrums unbalances other
people's ear pressures, so they must yawn to even it out.
Communist China is technologically underdeveloped because they have no
alphabet and therefore cannot use acronyms to communicate ideas at a faster
rate.
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.
Honorable Mentions:
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.
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."