A TRICK WITH PENNIES

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 81, 29 December 1934, Page 17

A TRICK WITH PENNIES

Here is n trick to do at your Christmas parties, Raise your elbow exactly on a level with your shoulder, with your hand bent in till it touches your shoulder. See that your elbow makes an absolutely level surface. Then, with your other hand, place a small pile of pennies on your elbow. As soon as they are quite steady, in one movement withdraw your elbow and grao with your hand, the hand of the arm on which the pennies had been resting. If you do it quickly enough, and skilfully enough, you will gatch the pennies, still in a pile, before they fall. But you will have to practise. You ought soon to be able to do it so skilfully that you will be certain to succeed if you try it at a party.

The reason why you are able to da this is connected with what scientist* call “the law of the inertia of matter.? That means that matter does rot do things by itself, like plants do, and animals and human beings. If it is still, it stays till something moves it. It it is moving it goes on till something stops it. This law holds the pennies together for just a moment before they fall, and in that moment you must ba quick enough to catch them.