was once held for people to submit their theories on any subject. Following are the winners.

        Fourth Runner-Up
Subject: Probability Theory

         If an infinite number of rednecks riding in an infinite number of pickup trucks fire an infinite number of shotgun rounds at an infinite number of highway signs, they will eventually produce all the world's great literary works in Braille.

Third Runner-Up
Subject: Biomechanics

Yawning is contagious because (a) your yawn equalizes the pressure on your eardrums and (b) the pressure change outside your eardrums caused by your yawning unbalances other people's ear pressures, and so they yawn to even it out.

Second Runner-Up
Subject: Symbolic logic

Communist China is technologically underdeveloped because its people have no alphabet and, therefore, cannot use acronyms to communicate technical ideas at a faster rate.

First Runner-Up
Subject: Newtonian Mechanics

The earth spins faster on its axis due to deforestation than it normally would. In support of this theory, consider that when a figure skater's arms are brought in close to her body, her rate of spin increases. Analogously, the cutting down of trees causes the planet to spin faster than would be the case were trees not to be cut down.

Honorable Mention
Subject: Linguistics

The quantity of consonants in the English language is fixed. Therefore, if a consonant is in one place, it will turn up in another. So when a Bostonian "paks his ca," the dropped Rs migrate southwest causing a Texan to "warsh his car" and "invest in erl wells."

Grand Prize Winner
Subject: Perpetual motion

When a cat is dropped, it always lands on its feet. When buttered toast is dropped, it always lands buttered side down. It makes sense, then, to strap a suitable number of slabs of buttered toast to the backs of a suitable number of tethered cats, one slab to each cat. The opposing forces will cause the combination of buttered toast and cats to hover above the ground. Using the line of such buttered toast/cats as a rail bed, a high-speed monorail could link New York with Chicago.