A cigarette is standing vertically on its butt. You cannot touch it with any object(solids, liquids or gases). That goes for the foundation also. How can you make it drop? Asking another person to do it does not count.

take sheet of plastic material (ebonita(idon't know in english))  rub it on  hair (cat,dog whatever ), make a cilinder out of it with the radius of 2 cm  and put it ,with the hole ,around the cigarette.the cigarette being in the center of the hole. if u cange the position of the cilinder,making the cigarette to be in another part of the hole, any other than the center of the hole . it will cause the cigarette to fall .u can also try to tilt it .the physical ideea is that rubbing the plastic sheet on hair will cause the transmision of some  electrons from one side to the other. when the cigarette is in the middle of the hole it is in a state of equilibrium(being that the sum of all the forces r  equal to 0)  if u change that state (i.e. moving the cigarette in the whole by moving the whole ) the cigarette will fall (if u keep the cilinder a little higher than the half of the cigarette) because the forces don't add up to be 0 .

Posted by cosmin on 2005-01-19 00:05:26