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Lay a flashlight on the floor.

In the horizontal beam of the flashlight, every mote of dust will cast a long shadow. Something as large as a tiny screw becomes easily visible.

I saw somewhere a great name for those tiny screws and springs: pingfucks. Named after the sound they make immediately followed by the sound you make

As Louis Rossmann says, listen for it as it falls. Don't look for it. You'll always hear where it lands.

Now try it with a dropped 0201 resistor. Might as well be a speck of dust.

I was able to solder the 0201 LED on this (confirmed connectivity with a multimeter), but I had a little too much pressure on the tweezers with the resistor, and it flicked away into the void.

Depends on the size of the screw.

My bet is Tunnel Effect from Quantum Mechanics since it also shares the properties of the likelihood of it happenning being inverselly correlated with size and just making things cross some kind of high energy barrier without the need for the energy to actually go into it.

magnets can save you

What's up with this title?? Dropping something small and not finding it again is probably as close to a universal experience as possible

if it drops anywhere within 20ft of a low platform with as little as an inch gap beneath it, thats where it went. and you have to use a broom stick or similar to reach it

skill issue

Never seen again... Until you step on it barefoot.

then its like 'eh....3 screws is good enough'

Pro tip: When you drop a small thing quickly look down. Takes practice because you have to do it so fast, has to be a reflex.

You'll often catch it on the bounce, and in any case, your ears are also pointed the right way.

This is why I always kept my cat around when I was working on stuff. He'd track the dropped screws for me. Of course he'd also occasionally jump onto the table and fuck up whatever I was working on but there's pros and cons to anything.

Newton's fourth law of motion states: "A small screw in an observed state will never dissappear." So, just keep your eye on it when you drop it and you'll be fine.

lay a flashlight on the ground aimed to where the thing fell, look for a shadow

I got one of those powerful rare earth magnets, so my lost screw percentage is way down, from 99% lost to only about 95% lost now!

I made the mistake of having those color chips on my epoxy garage floor. Looks nice. Can't see anything. Perfect camouflage for small dropped parts.

i don't even bother looking for those anymore. If i drop something tiny i just assume it slipped through the cracks in reality and will re-emerge at a random point in time, past or future

Drop another in the same spot and watch where it goes.

1. If you have a magnet, use that to find the screw
2. If you don't have a magnet, buy one immediately for the future, and then proceed to step 3
3. Look for it with your peripheral vision, which is better at spotting deviations to terrain and shapes than your primary vision. I don't remember the exact reason, but it has something to do with being able to spot predators out of the corner of our eyes.

Our feet evolved to provide the perfect angle for dropped objects to bounce in a quasi 90° angle and go hide themselves under whatever table/desk we were working in front of.

one of my buddies dropped his sauren vape (is that how its spelled?) and it quite literally got grabbed by the nicotine elves and was never seen again. even after moving therefore nothing that could be blocking its sight he still didnt find it

*until it returns at ð exact moment your shoe is about to land on ð spot it vanished from specifically to attempt to assassinate you þrough ð soul of your foot.

I dropped a fry 2 months ago and I still can't find the damn thing. People joke about alternate dimensions but I'm starting to think it's real.