I think he was thinking of the quantum tunneling effect of dropped objects, a corollary of the subject line.
By the way, I had a similar incident on Saturday. Finished cleaning the boat, flushed the motor with the flush kit and custom adapter I machined (posted in the dropbox) plus handle, unscrewed hose and tossed assembly on dock. It promptly acted like it was on ice skates and shot into the drink on the opposite side. The water ain't cold, but it's salt, full of barnacles and god knows what else, and murky as hell. The boat is coming out of the marina now that I'm back in Texas, so I won't need said rig again. Flush kits are cheap. There it stays.
Pete Keillor