Buttered toast phenomenon

The phenomenon is often attributed to a parodic poem of James Payn from 1884:[2][3] I never had a slice of bread, Particularly large and wide, That did not fall upon the floor, And always on the buttered side!

[4] However, several scientific studies have found that when toast is dropped from a table (as opposed to being thrown in the air), it more often falls butter-side down.

Given that tables are usually between two and six feet (0.7 to 1.83 meters), there is enough time for the toast to rotate about one-half of a turn, and thus lands upside down relative to its original position.

Matthews proceeds to deduce the limits for a safe average human height from a simple chemical bond model: if a skull is higher than three meters from the ground, then a fall will lead to its fracture due to fracture of the chemical bonds after its acceleration under the Earth gravity.

[15] A Wise Man of Chelm joke recounts a housewife being amazed at a slice of bread falling buttered side up one morning, contrary to the idiom.

After consulting the elders at the synagogue at some length, they conclude: "Madam, the problem is that you have buttered the wrong side of the bread.