Olive vectors
August 24, 2008 by cynthia
Here’s an interesting physics problem:
You have a flat plastic container full of virgin olive oil and one dozen jumbo green olives stuffed with feta cheese. The container measures 4×6x1.5 inches. The oil has been chilled to approximately 36 degrees, increasing its viscosity.
You drop the container from the second-from-the-top shelf of your refrigerator, at a height of approximately four feet. It strikes a solid maple floor on the tabbed corner normally used to open the container, bounces, then does a three-quarter turn. The lid opens as it rotates and the assemblage lands upside-down on a Tibetan wool rug with a pile approximately 1.25 inches thick.
Two olives remain in the container. Nine come to rest within a three-foot radius of the refrigerator. My question is, where did the 12th olive go?
–sigh–
Check the cat.
Trust me on this…
Puppy??
She got a PUPPY???
No, she didn’t. She just has a cat.
And, actually, the cat rushed over to the mess on the rug, did the ick-nose-wrinkle thing and backed off. So I’m sure that 6 months from now I’ll find a mummified olive in a really odd place. Right at the moment, though, I have a kitchen that smells like pizza’s been made here for a thousand years.
Heck, I know you. You’ll just pick up that wrinkly old olive and turn it into some obj’vitre. (Ya like my furin talk there??)