A hard-core Harry Potter fanatic, my brother has in his possession almost every single Harry Potter merchandise imaginable to mankind, including the fairy tale story book from Book 7 that Dumbledore bequeathed to Hermione Granger, titled The Tales of Beedle the Bard.
Because it's the weekend, my parents insist that we remove all traces of a disarray from the whirlwind of the daunting five-day week that we thankfully endured amidst all the parade of HW and diminutive hours of sleep. After cleaning our room, my sister found the aforementioned book underneath her bed and suddenly siezed by an inexplicable desire to draw, she set out to draw the front cover of the book. At first, she held the book with her left hand and drew with her right. However, she eventually became frustrated with working with only one hand and instructed my brother to hold it for her, who after a certain amount of coercion grudgingly obliged. However, armed with my newly acquired physics knowledge of equilibrium and inertia, I suggested that my sister should separate the front and the back cover from the pages so that book won't fall down.
Unstable Equilibrium
Stable Equilibrium
The book cannot stand on its own because the object's center of gravity is being supported by a narrow base. In order to be in stable equilibrium, the object's center of gravity must be as low as possible, which is why the book falls down in order to achieve this requirement. However, when the book's coveres are fanned out, the object now has a broad base and the center of gravity is as low as possible. Thus, there are three conditions that must be met in order for an object to be in static equilibrium: the object should have a broad base, the center of gravity should be as low as possible, and that a vertical line drawn from the center of gravity must be within the object's base.
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