In the past, this has often been considered just a pessimistic belief. A 1991 study by the BBC 's television series Q.E.D. found that when toast is tossed into the air, it lands butter-side down just one-half of the time (as would be predicted by chance). However, several scientific studies have found that when toast is dropped from a table (as opposed to being thrown in the air), it more often falls butter-side down. A study on this subject by Robert Matthews won the Ig Nobel Prize for physics in 1996.