OK I’ve seen, (and participated in) this too many times:
Get 5 guys together. Have 4 of them try to lift the other one using only the little finger. Unsurprisingly this doesn’t work.
They then do a wierd joining hands motion above his head, (varies), and do the same. This time he is as light as a feather and can be lifted easily.
What the hell is going on? How does this work?
Just a thought:
If they all join hands, each is lifting only 1/4 of what he was lifting before. So a 160-lb weight becomes 40 lbs. Seems to me that’s what’s happening.
The last time this came up on the MB, the general consensus was that on the first attempt, the four lifters simply stopped too quickly when the liftee’s arms and legs began to come up separately. After the “mystic passes” or “laying on of hands,” the liftee unconsciously stiffens their body so that, instead of the arms and legs raising while the body remained “dead weight” in the chair, the stiffened arms and legs acted as levers to lift the body.
I agree with the general idea behind that, (certainly, on the first attempt the arms and legs are loose and the body is dead weight while on the second attempt, the limbs are stiff). However, I am not yet persuaded of the cause of the stiffening action.
Does the lifted subject simply react to the first attempt and stiffen his/her limbs because s/he knows s/he is about to be lifted? Or is there some unconscious trigger in the “magic passes” that causes the stiffening? There is nothing supernatural about this trick (Bob Larson and similar fools notwithstanding), but I have not yet seen a good reason given why the subject stiffens their body only after the first attempt.
I assume a man with four fingers is easier to lift than one with ten…
I agree.
Just to clarify the description of the trick:
One person sits.
Two people stand at each side of the sitting person.
Each standing person places one finger (or hand or two hands clasped–there are variations) below the sitting person’s elbows and knees; then all four lift together.
The arms and legs of the sitting person are raised by the “lifters” but the person’s torso remains on the chair and everyone says “WTF is this supposed to prove?”
The conductor of the trick then asks each of the four persons to put their hands over the sitting person in some “magical” way (often just “carefully” placing one hand above the other while “not touching anything else,” sometimes doing other “mystic passes.”)
The four people standing then repeat their attempt to lift the seated person. On the second attempt, the seated person keeps their arms and legs rigid and they are lifted off the chair.
The trick is not in the fact that the rigid arms ands legs allow the seated person to be lifted: anyone who has picked up another person and tried to lift the same person asleep or unconscious knows that “dead weight” is harder to lift.
The trick is based on the fact that the person goes from being limp to rigid between the first and second attempts without being given any instructions to do so.
I disagree. If first four fingers lift 160 lbs., and then four fingers 40 lbs., what happened to the other 120?
jb
Nothing. Each finger is separately lifting 40 lbs. 4*40=160.
re: the actual problem . . . maybe it has something to do with the CG having changed. Just a guess.
but each finger was separately lifting 40 lbs. the first time.
I think it’s the stiff factor. I wonder, maybe it has something to do with fight or flight. People poking your armpits or elbows, not too bad. But when you have four dudes clasping hands above your head, crowding in on you, perhaps you unconsciously stiffen?