2 Finger Elevation

[PUZZLDY5]

Before anybody fusses at me for not googling this, I already did and didn't find a suitable answer.

Ok last night me kids and I got on this subject and they swore up and down this worked. Me, being the logical thinker told them it was ridiculous. So I became their subject for this trick. They made me sit ona a milk crate tried to lift me with 2 fingers and they couldn't. They put their hands over my head in some order or another and then took them off and tried again. It worked. I know there has to be a scientific explanation for why this worked but I can't find the answer. Any suggestions?

 

[Toad_Passenger]

Is this the same thing as "light as a feather, stiff as a board?" Always worked when we were kids, but we never knew why.

 

[hulagirl87]

Is this the same thing as "light as a feather, stiff as a board?" Always worked when we were kids, but we never knew why.

That's exactly what I thought of when I read the title of the thread!

 

[PUZZLDY5]

I guess it's basicly the same thing.

 

[Monte Cristo]

Hold on everyone, let's all ask the Ouija board if it's real...

 

[locolala]

I wonder if you might mean levitation, dunno though.

 

[PUZZLDY5]

levitation or elevation, whatever it's called, I'm still kind of wondering what the scientific explanation is.

 

[SAHDad]

Here's an article with an explanation.

 

[EveDallas]

levitation or elevation, whatever it's called, I'm still kind of wondering what the scientific explanation is.

Ok, I googled this and everything I found had long, drawn-out explanations, but it basically boils down to gravity. The stacking of the hands above a persons head in a specific manner seems to temporarily lessen the gravitational pull on the liftee, allowing the lifters to accomplish a seemingly impossible lift. Take it for what it's worth, but it sounds plausible to me.

 

[crashbb]

Ok, I googled this and everything I found had long, drawn-out explanations, but it basically boils down to gravity. The stacking of the hands above a persons head in a specific manner seems to temporarily lessen the gravitational pull on the liftee, allowing the lifters to accomplish a seemingly impossible lift. Take it for what it's worth, but it sounds plausible to me.

SAHdad's explanation is MUCH, MUCH more likely.

That and the whole "mind over matter" or "power of suggestion" thing.

 

[TheBigBadWolf]

We used to do this all the time at slumber parties when I was a kid. We would have a "pretend seance", and one girl would lay on the floor with five or six girls sitting on the floor around her. The "story teller" would sit at the girl's head, massaging her temples, and make up a scary story about how the laying down girl would die in the future. At the end of the story, the 4-6 girls sitting along the girl's sides would attempt to "lift" her with one or two fingers on each hand. It always worked and we could lift the girl as high as we could reach from a sitting position. Silly game young girls played, but we thought it was great fun at the time.

 

[EveDallas]

SAHdad's explanation is MUCH, MUCH more likely.

That and the whole "mind over matter" or "power of suggestion" thing.

Like I said, take it for what it's worth. I never claimed it to be a fact.

 

[crashbb]

Like I said, take it for what it's worth. I never claimed it to be a fact.

But you did claim it "sounds plausible". Which, in my opinion, it doesn't. At all. Not even a little.

 

[rie'smom]

We used to do it and we'd raise the person to waist height. I think it has something to do with the finger people being at symmetrical locations around the liftee.

 

[EveDallas]

But you did claim it "sounds plausible". Which, in my opinion, it doesn't. At all. Not even a little.

That's your opinion. Mine is obviously different. That's the great thing about opinions - we all think our own way.

 

[smkiya]

We used to do this all the time at slumber parties when I was a kid. We would have a "pretend seance", and one girl would lay on the floor with five or six girls sitting on the floor around her. The "story teller" would sit at the girl's head, massaging her temples, and make up a scary story about how the laying down girl would die in the future. At the end of the story, the 4-6 girls sitting along the girl's sides would attempt to "lift" her with one or two fingers on each hand. It always worked and we could lift the girl as high as we could reach from a sitting position. Silly game young girls played, but we thought it was great fun at the time.

Oh, the memories just came rushing back. We did this exact thing at our slumber parties! In exactly the same way.

 

[SAHDad]

But you did claim it "sounds plausible". Which, in my opinion, it doesn't. At all. Not even a little.

F = G (MM)/d^2

(Or, the force of gravity is directly proportional to the product of the masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.)

I can't imagine any way in which hand waving, chanting, etc can overcome it. It's a parlor trick, stage magic - with a fairly simple explanation.

 

[crashbb]

F = G (MM)/d^2

(Or, the force of gravity is directly proportional to the product of the masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.)

I can't imagine any way in which hand waving, chanting, etc can overcome it. It's a parlor trick, stage magic - with a fairly simple explanation.

Yup.

Not actually an "opinion" kind of thing, to be honest. There is a right/wrong (as opposed to questions for which all opinions are valid). And hand waving will NOT change the force of gravity, since it doesn't change any of the variables in the equation you provided.