When felling a tree, one first makes a wedge cut about 1/4 of the way into the tree. Then one makes a horizontal back cut above the wedge more than halfway through the tree to leave a small hinge of wood. The tree now falls over in the direction of the small wedge cut. (See the picture I found on the web.)
The puzzle is this: How is it that the tree falls toward the wedge cut when the center of mass of the tree is clearly over the other side of the hinge? It seems that loggers just follow the procedure to cut down trees and are not bothered by this apparent contradiction. I have never heard an explanation of why the tree falls the way it does. Any theories??