The Ab Master

Ah, so that's what they teach you in those Buddhist monasteries. Meditation? A clear mind and heart? Whatever. To achieve oneness with the universe, you need to learn how to stick a rice bowl to your stomach.

The miniature monk in this clip has two things working in his favor: his munchkin-like stature and basic physics. By sucking in his midsection, then pressing the bowl to his stomach, he creates a partial vacuum in the space between the bowl's inner surface and his skin. Since the seal is tight and there are fewer molecules of air per cubic inch inside the bowl/stomach space than there are outside, the bowl sticks.

Now, as for how it stays there while he's being lifted clear off the ground, that's where the apparent lack of McDonald's hamburgers and soda in his diet factors in. Let's assume he weighs about 50 pounds, and the bowl covers about 30 square inches of his belly. In this case, University of Virginia physicist Louis Bloomfield explains that for the seal to hold, the boy only has to reduce the air pressure inside the bowl by a little more than 1.6 pounds per square inch of bowl-bound skin. (Which shouldn't be too hard.) That way, the pressure force pushing him upward against the bowl will reach 50 pounds, balancing the downward pull of his own weight.

Add a video and presto, millions of people across the world get to watch him hanging inverted and upside down, while staring at their monitors thinking . . . huh?—Gregory Mone