Will it fall? Scientists show how the brain's estimate of Newton's laws affects perceived object stability

Newton's laws of motion predict that an object will fall when its centre-of-mass lies beyond its base of support. But how does your brain know whether the tower will fall or not? Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany recently reported in the journal PLoS ONE that although the physical laws governing object stability are reasonably well represented by the brain, you are a better judge of how objects fall when you are upright than when you lay on your side.

Read the whole article on Science Daily

More from Science Daily