Stretched to the limit

Science World, Nov 22, 2004 by Jeanne Bryner

When Monte Pierce warms up before a competition, he doesn't stretch his leg or shoulder muscles. Instead, he yanks on his gummy earlobes. Nicknamed "Slingshot Ears," Pierce holds a Guinness World Record for using his lengthy ears to launch a coin a whopping distance of 3 meters (10 feet)!

How did Pierce complete his flinging feat?

Like a rubber band, your earlobe skin is elastic. It snaps back to its original shape after being stretched. When Pierce tugs on his long lobes, the skin builds up elastic potential energy (stored energy due to being stretched). Then, he places a coin on his ear and releases the stretched earlobe. The ear's stored energy turns into kinetic energy (energy due to an object's motion), says Igor Sokolov, a physicist at Clarkson University in New York. And like a slingshot, that kinetic energy transfers to the coin on his ear, shooting it skyward.

To fling it farther, he stretches his ear longer. That builds additional potential energy--which means more coin-tossing kinetic energy. For his record-breaking launch, Pierce had to stretch his earlobe to a length of nearly 12 centimeters (5 inches).

Luckily for him, he started tugging on his earlobes when he was just a child. "By constantly pulling on his earlobes, he made them longer, and also increased their elasticity [ability to snap back]," says Sokolov. Now, Pierce's putty lobes permanently hang down to a length of about 2.5 cm (1 in.). Only plastic surgery could get them back to their original length, says Sokolov.

Hear this: His ears can do more than toss coins. Pierce can yank his earlobes up over his eyes. He can even roll them up, stuffing them into his ears like earplugs.