Althouse: "When a fly lands on a ceiling, does it execute a barrel roll or an inside loop?"

December 28, 2007

"When a fly lands on a ceiling, does it execute a barrel roll or an inside loop?"

Questions The Explainer never answered.

12 comments:

Ron said...: Do German flies use an Immelmann?

Do flies evade my flyswatter through some sort of chaff/flare combo?; 12/28/07, 8:14 AM
rhhardin said...: It grabs on with its front legs and winds up facing the opposite way.; 12/28/07, 9:06 AM
Anonymous said...: I agree with rhhardin. So does the straigtdope website and Natural History magazine.

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_043.html

So the question has been answered.; 12/28/07, 9:11 AM
rhhardin said...: You can nail flies pretty reliably by clapping your hands about two inches above them. That's where they go when the sense hands coming.

Lautreamont :

Here is the most expeditious, though not the best, way to kill flies: one crushes them between thumb and forefinger. Most writers who have treated this subject thoroughly have calculated with great plausibility that in a number of cases it is preferable to cut off their heads.; 12/28/07, 9:17 AM
Anonymous said...: with a compound eye, it does a triple, triple, triple curl forward and doubles back in a triple, triple, triple orbit! I thought everyone knew that!
Ted; 12/28/07, 9:19 AM
AllenS said...: They land on the ceiling, by doing a back flip.; 12/28/07, 9:47 AM
Simon said...: I voted for a different question - the one about the gravimetric consequences vis-a-vis other bodies in the solar system of eliminating Jupiter. I guess the answer would have to be "none" (save for the Jovian satellites), but I'm unsure enough that it'd be interesting to see an answer.; 12/28/07, 10:29 AM
Mr. Forward said...: 1: When Chuck Norris lands on a fly he executes a barrel roll, an inside loop and the fly.

2. There ain't no flies on Chuck Norris; 12/28/07, 2:28 PM
hdhouse said...: and all this time I thought that the room flipped over to accomodate them...; 12/28/07, 3:18 PM
KCFleming said...: Geez, if my fly ever got onto the ceiling, I'd just stop taking Cialis.

A barrel roll would just be showing off, and might induce priapism lasting 4 hours or more.

And an inside loop? Better bring a small sewing kit with you; those things can break you know.; 12/28/07, 4:46 PM
dbp said...: A House Fly, describes in great detail why each of our ideas on how they land are idiotic, then executes the landing in a way which seems obvious in retrospect.; 12/28/07, 4:58 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: I cannot contemplate the fly's landing pattern until I resolve the problem of how a cat would land if a piece of buttered toast was lashed to its back.; 12/29/07, 2:17 AM