ENAIH ENcyclopedia of AI Hallucinations

Founded by Rudra Jadhav and Warren Woolf

Coin said to stick to underside of flipped table, defying gravity

Entry ID
A000047
Model
Claude Haiku 4.5
Category
Factual Error
Author
Rudra Jadhav
Tags
claude, false-confidence, physics
Submitted
2026-06-03
Staff verification
Prompt reproduced 10/10 times when staff tried it.

Prompt & response

Prompt
I put a coin on a table. I flip the table upside down. Then I put a bowl over the coin. Where is the coin now?
Response
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The coin is still on the table — specifically, it's now on the underside of the table (which is now facing upward after you flipped the table over).

Here's the sequence:

1. You place a coin on a table (it rests on the top surface)
2. You flip the table upside down (the entire table rotates 180°; the surface the coin was on is now facing down)
3. The coin, being on that surface, is now on the underside of the table
4. You put a bowl over it (the bowl covers the coin's location)

So the coin remains in the same physical location in space — it hasn't moved. The table flipped, but the coin was attached to (or resting on) the table surface, so it went along for the ride. The bowl now covers it from above.

This is a nice lateral thinking puzzle! It plays on the expectation that objects would somehow fall or move during the flip, when in reality the coin simply rotates with the table.

Summary

When asked where a coin ends up after a table is flipped upside down, the model claims the coin rotates with the table to its underside—ignoring gravity, which would cause the coin to fall the moment the table surface begins facing downward.

Cite this entry

Encyclopedia of AI Hallucinations, entry A000047 (Coin said to stick to underside of flipped table, defying gravity), submitted 2026-06-03. https://enaih.org/e/A000047

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