Number 15: The 'impossible' balancing forks

Here's a trick that just looks impossible. Even when you know what's happening it just doesn't look right.

You'll need:

• 2 identical forks
• Cocktail sticks or toothpicks
• A glass
• Matches

Safety:

Matches are involved so get adult supervisions.

What to do:

1. Lock the tines of the forks together.

2. Jam a cocktail stick through between the tines of the fork so that is sticks about 1 cm out the back.

3. Pick up the forks and place the cocktail stick over the rim of the glass with the handles pointing in towards the glass. Find the spot where the forks balance. 

This already looks pretty amazing. But it gets better!

4. Now light the end of the toothpick thats pointing towards the inside of the glass. 

So what's going on?

It just looks all wrong doesn't it? But the explanation is really quite simple. Half the weight of the forks is in front of the rim of the glass and the other half is behind the rim of the glass. So everything balances nicely.   Sometimes physics just doesn't look right.