Let's say you had a perfect pencil, with a point which was just that one point (see this question). The pencil's mass was perfectly distributed, and there are no flaws in the craftsmanship. Let's say you had it oriented vertically (like you were going to balance it), and it was exactly straight up and down i.e. the pencil's center of mass is directly above the point where the pencil is touching the ground. In the universe where this pencil is, there are no outside forces which can affect the pencil, other than gravity.
Which way will the pencil fall, after you let go?
Is it random?
No comments:
Post a Comment