FAMILY FUN

New Zealand Tablet, 4 November 1909, Page 1758

FAMILY FUN

The Flying Sixpence. — A sixpence being placed in each hand and the arms extended -shoulder high, it is required to bring both coins into one hand without allowing the arms to approach each other. This is how it is done: — Place yourself so as to bring one hand just -over the mantelpiece, and drop the coin contained in such hand upon the mantelpiece. Then,, keeping the arms still extended, turn the body round' till the other hand comes over the coin. Pick it up, and .you have solved the puzzle, both coins being now in one hand.-

A Simple Coin and Card Trick. — Place a card on your forefinger, and on it place a sixpence. With - the right hand give the corner of the card a fillip so as to shoot it horizontally, hitting it neither \ip nor down, hut fairly in the middle. The card flies off to the other end of the Toom, and the coin remains motionless on the finger-tip. "Why is this? "Why does not the coin follow the card? The experiment is an example of inertia. A body at rest can not of itself modify, that motion. It is owing to this principle of inertia that when we strike our clothes with a stick we heat the dust out of them, and when we knock the handle into a hammer or a broom we do it best by striking the far end of the stick while holding the middle loosely in the hand. - - ■ -