  This law of “Inertia” will provide us with a few more experiments as curious as they are conclusive. Place a playing or an ordinary visiting card on a decanter; upon the card and just in the center, over the aperture of the decanter, put a small coin (a dime). Now, if with a sharp fillip, given horizontally on the edge of the card, you succeed in whisking it off (which is very easy), the coin will fall to the bottom of the decanter. The following phenomenon has taken place: the movement was too rapid to be transmitted to the coin, and the card alone was whisked off. The coin being no longer sustained by the card falls, of course, vertically, without having in the least come out of position. A sharp horizontal knock given with a penholder or small stick on the edge of the card, will produce the same result, but the fillip is more effective. |
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