Light as a feather stiff as a board and levitation

[groman]

@Sapo

The differences are quite marked.

It’s not magic, however. Just like it’s easier to pick up a 100lbs piece of metal with a handle as opposed to a 100lbs bag filled with oil. Rigid structures can be moves to act as a lever and distribute the force in a way that is more convenient for you. A limp object will tend to redistribute itself against your efforts.

[BMax]

My mom says it’s the devil that does the lifting.

She also says the devil follows me & that’s why her chihuhua barks at me. Of course, there is no devil, but if there was a devil it would be her chihuahua, so she’s not too far off the mark.

Seriously, human minds love ritual and finding patterns in random placements. We perceive the first lift as being heavier than it is because we believe it will be difficult before we try.

Then we do a ritual that someone suggests will make it easier to lift someone and perceive the second lift as being easier than it really is because of the suggestion.

[Eleusis]

@Bryan Ekers

At the very least, one should try the experiment while chanting “light as an anvil, stiff as a noodle” and again while chanting nothing, and determine if the chanting really is a relevant part of the process.

I’ve casually lifted 45lb barbell weights with two fingers. Even dropped one on my toes once and suffered no damage. I mention this only for the heck of it.

OMFG!!!11!!!\
The smae thing hanpped to me and it felled on my foots@!

I sware its the DEVIL!

edit: and/or maybe not… (not you Byran)

[wwxd85]

@ianzin

In most forms of this trick, it goes like this:

• First attempt to lift. Nothing happens, and it seems impossible. The person is too heavy to lift.

• The ‘ritual’ is performed, which may involve putting the hands or fingers somewhere else (eg on the person’s head) and chanting something or counting down. On a given cue, this is followed by…

• Second attempt. This time the lift is successful and the person rises into the air.

It seems as if the ‘ritual’ had some effect or made a difference. So what’s going on?

Well, there’s nothing much to explain about the actual lifting. With the hands or the fingers placed in suitable ‘lifting’ positions around the body, four people can lift just about anyone (except the very heaviest or most obese). You can do the math (as several Dopers have shown) and when you divide the weight among the lifters, there’s really nothing exceptional or unusual about it. Of course, most of us most of the time don’t really know much about what we can and cannot lift, until we try. So it’s easy to just imagine that something weird and wonderful must be happening.

The interesting part is why, in most cases, the first attempt fails. There are lots of possible reasons that might have something to do with it. When the first attempt is made, people are either conditioned to expect that it will fail, or they just assume it won’t. Also, they tend not to try that hard. The first effort is usually un-coordinated and a little clumsy. And remember, it only takes one person to ‘fail’ and the whole lift will fail.

For the second attempt, people are conditioned to expect that it will work (because of the ‘ritual’). They make a more co-ordinated attempt (because the ritual involves a precise cue as to when to start lifting). They are more motivated and they try harder (because otherwise there’s no pay off or climax, and no fun). Also, it is usually the case that the transition from the ‘ritual’ position to the second lift involves some momentum, which helps the lift to work.

Some or all of these factors may be in play, and they explain the difference between the first attempt (no lift, no success, no fun) and the second one (lift and success and fun).

You or someone you know may wants to embrace the hypothesis that the ritual has something to do with it, or somehow affects the heaviness of the person. Well, a good way to examine a hypothesis is to try and break it. See if using different words or a different procedure will still work, provided everyone believes it is the RIGHT procedure, and providing it still confers the benefits of improving focus, co-ordination and motivation. Try devising a version where the person is standing on a set of scales all the time, so that you can see if his weight actually changes. See if you can get the first attempt to succeed, provided you take care to get favourable conditions of focus, belief, expectation, motivation and co-ordination, even without the ritual.

Thanks for taking the question seriously. You are correct that the interesting part is in the difference between the two attempts. I should have made that clearer in my original post.

As for your explanation, it is essentially what i had figured myself.

However, something tells me there might be something to it. Only for the reason, that I have tried the game with a group of skeptics, non of which believed it would work the second time… still the subject was lifted easily. Unless the belief occurs completely on a subconscious level, and deep down everyone did want to believe.

I think you are right about it being a combination of many factors. I think what i was hoping for was some simple single explanation, that i could just throw back at my non-science minded friends that try to feed me explanations about magnetism and auros and personal power being what attibutes to the lift.

Thanks again

Damo

[wwxd85]

@Sapo

There is something to this. Depending on what life stage you are , you can try:

Romantically carrying your girlfriend through the door frame vs carrying her drunk back to the car.

Picking up a baby who wants to be picked up and a sleeping baby

Picking up a ballet dancer in the proper pickup position and just relaxed

The police vs protesters thing

The differences are quite marked.

While i do agree that this is factor, i dont think it is the only factor. I had this theory myself, and so when i was the subject during a lift, i concentrated all my entergy on going limp and becoming a dead weight (like a drunk or collapsed toddler). It seemed to make little effect on the lift…

[wwxd85]

@groman

I just tried it and I can easily lift a 40lbs object (a chair) with one arm using only two fingers… I don’t see what you find so unbelievable about it.

I was talking in kg… 30 kg per person, so 60 pounds. While its possible to do with just a couple of fingers, it requires effort. This lift did not.

[pool]

But that is still only around 30 pounds per arm, not that much weight really.

[Mangetout]

Part of the reason has got to be that perceptually, it tends to feel more than twice as difficult to lift something less than twice as heavy - the way we perceive weight is not necessarily strictly linear - so if there are eight people lifting, it may feel to them that they are lifting less than one eighth of the total weight.

[FRDE]

I would say that it is down to synchronization, when soldiers march over a bridge they are told to march out of time as the pounding can break the bridge.

In London we had the ‘swaying foot bridge’, because it swayed, people stepped in rhythm which made the problem worse.

I also suspect that ‘impact’ comes into it - thumping someone generates more force than pushing them. I was told that the trick with those fairground punchball machines is to convince yourself that you are hitting a target behind the bulb.

[Sage_Rat]

Many paranormal things do come down to your subconscious playing tricks on you.

It should also be pointed out that ianzin is a stage magician, so don’t be fooled by the sensible tone, he probably also actually knows a bit whence he says. (I, on the other hand, have mere speculation which aligns.)

[si_blakely]

There is another similar trick - stand in a doorway, and press your hands (pushing out) hard against the sides, for about 30 seconds. Then step out from the doorway - your hands will mysteriously float up from your sides.

Why?

Because you have reset your bodies baseline state, and it is confused about what is the normal load.

In most of these fingertip lifting games, there is an element of this sort of reprogramming - usually fingertips pushing down on the head of the lifted, or on the chair for a period of time.

These games just use the body reprogramming trick to mask the true effort involved in the lift, and the confusion about how much effort is required to do something as a group.

Si

[glee]

@FRDE

I would say that it is down to synchronization, when soldiers march over a bridge they are told to march out of time as the pounding can break the bridge.

In London we had the ‘swaying foot bridge’, because it swayed, people stepped in rhythm which made the problem worse.

This marching vibration has nothing to do with lifting people.

‘When troopers march in cadence across a bridge, the marching may match a natural resonance frequency of the bridge. Although only a small amount of energy is added with each step, because of the resonance effect this energy will be stored. As a result, the bridge will cumulatively absorb energy from the marching men, increasing the oscillation amplitude in the bridge (just as pushing someone on a swing, in cadence, increase the amplitude of the swing). Enough energy may be added this way to damage or destroy the bridge. In fact, a concrete suspension bridge, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, was destroyed by resonance vibrations set up by winds acting on the bridge. Today’s bridges are constructed to prevent or minimize this type of wind resonance effects.’

http://physics.uwstout.edu/deptpages/physqz/resonanc.htm

All you need for a lift is that people do it at the same time.

@FRDE

I also suspect that ‘impact’ comes into it - thumping someone generates more force than pushing them. I was told that the trick with those fairground punchball machines is to convince yourself that you are hitting a target behind the bulb.

Again, this is irrelevant.
Of course a punch using the full force of your muscles and a swing generates more force than pushing.
But the lift just requires a steady effort.

[glee]

@wwxd85

However, something tells me there might be something to it. Only for the reason, that I have tried the game with a group of skeptics, non of which believed it would work the second time… still the subject was lifted easily. Unless the belief occurs completely on a subconscious level, and deep down everyone did want to believe.

The group of sceptics were wrong. That doesn’t make your ‘belief’ right!

@wwxd85

I think you are right about it being a combination of many factors. I think what i was hoping for was some simple single explanation, that i could just throw back at my non-science minded friends that try to feed me explanations about magnetism and auros and personal power being what attibutes to the lift.

Use scientific testing to show your friends what works and what doesn’t.

[FRDE]

@Glee, what about the ‘impact’ effect ?

• I have raddled memories that it is the square of the force

Doing some highly scientific tests with two fingers of each hand pushing up under the desk, I get different results if I apply upwards pressure gradually, from what happens when I apply it rapidly.

[glee]

@FRDE

@Glee, what about the ‘impact’ effect ?

• I have raddled memories that it is the square of the force

Doing some highly scientific tests with two fingers of each hand pushing up under the desk, I get different results if I apply upwards pressure gradually, from what happens when I apply it rapidly.

Well I’m not a physicist!

I vaguely remember force = mass x veloctity squared, but I think there’s a difference in the two methods here.

If you’re trying to get something to start moving, then maximum force seems best.
But for a successful lift, you want something that applies for several seconds, while you raise and lower the person. Therefore a punch is not as good as a steady grip.

[FRDE]

@glee

Well I’m not a physicist!

I vaguely remember force = mass x veloctity squared, but I think there’s a difference in the two methods here.

If you’re trying to get something to start moving, then maximum force seems best.
But for a successful lift, you want something that applies for several seconds, while you raise and lower the person. Therefore a punch is not as good as a steady grip.

I am pretty sure that ‘impact’ comes into it

• it is probably an alias for decelleration

Perhaps someone will put us out of our misery.

[Musicat]

@ianzin

In most forms of this trick, it goes like this:

• First attempt to lift. Nothing happens, and it seems impossible. The person is too heavy to lift.

I’m familiar with this trick, and I think there is one detail you didn’t mention that will accentuate the effect. For the first try, don’t coordinate efforts by counting or saying, “lift!” all at once. For the second try, as you said, make sure all the lifters are doing it together.

[CookingWithGas]

There have been a couple of other threads on this topic. You can see a summary at the Unofficial FAQ.

[TYOV]

Anyone interview any particpants of such experiment? If you lift a 30# dumbell with 2 fingers, it feels like your lifting 30#s. If someone applies 30# of force with 2 fingers to your body, it feels like 30#s of force. I think the mystique is, does it feel like bunch of people are applying that force to you in different places on your body and does it feel like your lifting 30#s with each arm?

[Chronos]

I vaguely remember force = mass x veloctity squared

It’s a good thing that memory is vague, because it’s wrong. Force is mass times acceleration. Kinetic energy is one half mass times velocity squared.

In order to lift a person, you need a force at least equal to the person’s weight. In order to lift a person a certain height, you need a total energy at least equal to the person’s weight times the height you want to lift them. And while that energy could in principle be delivered in a single brief impact, it’s likely to hurt.