Tablecloth Trick The classic whip-off the tablecloth trick is a must! email to friend
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The classic "whip off" the tablecloth trick is a must for any aspiring science demonstrator who wants to be amazing! This experiment is guaranteed to either bring down the house or to get you into a lot of hot water. The idea is really quite simple - yank the tablecloth out from under a beautiful place setting without destroying the meal. It’s easy if you take a science lesson from Sir Isaac Newton.

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Materials

The secret to your success is to make table cloth without any hems. For practice purposes, cut a piece of cloth that is approximately 3 foot square. You can also graduate to a larger size as you perfect your skill. Select a tabletop that is perfectly flat, preferably with a straight edge. Look carefully at the bottom of the dinner plates, saucers and glasses that you use to make sure that the bottom surface is smooth. When selecting plates, glasses and utensils, remember that heavier is better.

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Spread the tablecloth out onto the tabletop making sure there are no wrinkles. Place the cups, plates and utensils on top of the tablecloth close to the edge of the cloth (for starters). This makes for less tablecloth to have to pull out from underneath the stuff on top.
The trick is to grab the ends of the tablecloth with both hands and quickly pull the cloth straight down to the ground. The secret is the quick, downward motion. Keep saying to yourself, “Pull down… not out.”
The only way to make this work is to just do it! Start with only a dinner plate and do it over a carpeted floor. You’ll be amazed when it works and you’ll add a saucer, then a cup and so on. Okay, stop reading this and try it!

How does it work?

After you take your bows and graciously accept your standing ovation, be sure to thank Sir Isaac Newton for his help in making you an overnight success. Plain and simple, the secret is inertia. Newton first described inertia as the tendency for an object at rest to remain at rest, unless a force acts upon the object. Inertia for an object in motion is the tendency for that object to remain in motion, unless a force acts upon the object. In terms of the tablecloth trick, inertia is important because according to the law the objects (the stuff on the table) will not move unless an outside force moves it. This is known as Newton's First Law of Motion.

There are three different segments to discuss. Initially, all objects are at rest. Objects at rest tend to stay at rest. When you pull the cloth, friction acts on the objects in the direction of the pull for a short time. The tablecloth is slippery, so these forces are small, but the objects do accelerate. When the tablecloth is free of the objects, the objects slide on the tabletop. The objects accelerate in a direction opposite to the pull, coming to rest in a short distance.