The trick
There are many versions of ‘light as a feather’, which is the name of this lifting trick. From my own experience I can recommend the following set-up, for which you need five people and one chair. One person sits in the chair, and the remaining four clasp their two hands together with their index fingers pointing out, to make the shape of a pistol. Two people each put their ‘pistolhand’ in an armpit of the seated person, the other two people each go for a kneefold. Now, try to lift the person together.
Any lift? Probably not. Now try it this way: everyone places their hands in an alternating order on the head of the seated person and focuses. When all hands are resting on the head, count down from 3 to 0. At 0, everybody puts their pistolhand in either the armpit or kneefold and tries to lift the person again. It might take some practice, but most likely you will now succeed at the task. How come?
The power of timing
An important difference between the two attempts is the count-down in the second time around. This synchronizes your group, ensuring you will act simultaneously as a group. This makes you one unit of movement, which gives you a great advantage. Imagine the person on the chair weighs 80 kilograms. If the timing is perfect, every lifter lifts exactly 20 kilograms. However, if you are not moving simultaneously, it can happen that one person has to lift 74 kilograms while the others share the remaining 6 kilograms. In this case, a successful lift is impossible.
Do not underestimate the strength of a finger
You may be truly amazed by how strong your fingers are. The Guinness World Record for the highest number of push-ups on one finger is 124. Another world record for finger strength is for lifting weight with just one finger: an amazing 121.7 kilograms. Lifting 20 kilograms with two fingers should thus be easy-peasy
‘Memory’
Lastly, the phenomenon of ‘false memory’ makes its entrance. Did the trick work? If so, how much were you able to lift the seated person? People who have participated in this experiment often experience it as if the seated person is being catapulted towards the ceiling. There are even warnings on the internet for a potential hard fall and people are advised to put pillows on the floor. But how high was the lift for real?
The actual height can be disappointingly low. Why this discrepancy? Often a false memory is formed. When parts of an event are missing in memory, the brain fills in the gaps. Especially when something has occurred quite some time ago and you experienced it positively, the memory tends to be better than reality. Given that this trick is often done at parties, you can imagine that memories of the actual lift would be skewed positively.
During the summer we republish some of our best blogs that have only been published in Dutch. This is a translation of the formerly published Donders Wonders blog post: Zo licht als een veertje” ontmaskerd door de wetenschap
Credits
Original author: Romy Bakker
Translator: Floortje
Editor translation: Rebecca
About The Author
This is a common and wrong explanation. There has been numerous investigations done in 200 years with no satisfactional exploration. The interesting thing is that it can also be done with heavy object. Even by one person after counting..the effect lasts only a few seconds. I know this from experience. You can really feel , when executed rightly that there is someting going on that is not normal.
hm, I am curious for that heavy object lifting, to see how it can work.
Can you give more details?
Synergy is not the reason. It’s about playing with the pressure. The more and longer you press your hands on top of the head of the sitting person, the higher and easier he’ll be lifted.
Im sorry, but is your debunking really based on “world record for lifting weight with finger is 120 so 20 should be easy-peasy”? Did you ever hold weights in your hand? Like, dumbell? Is book of exeptional human feats your only point of reference? I really hoped for some actual explanation here.
This was one experiment claiming to solve something that has been tested over many years with no definitive conclusion.
We just did it with a 320lbs man and it worked i don’t know how or why but its crazy and I just don’t think its the evenly weight theory that makes no sense its really unexplainable ???
How come then when you try to lift someone without putting your hands above there head you can’t lift them hardly
We just did it with a 320lbs man and it worked i don’t know how or why but its crazy and I just don’t think its the evenly weight theory that makes no sense its really unexplainable ???
Maybe something dark going on
I feel extreme heat leaving my hand and my partner as well. When we move hands in an alternating action from low to high ensuring the HEAT IS FOLLOWING AND INTENSIFYING we then the 2 of us put 1 index finge from each side under the arm pi and on the other hand the other index finger under each knee cap and lift immediately and raise a 190 pound person 2 feet and safely lower them back down. I am a 120# 59 year old and my partner is 130 and 5’2
Omg, and which science explained it? This explanation is so underestimating and simplified.
-Timing cannot help when 4 girls in average 50 kg a re lifting a guy of 120kg.
-Index fingers can be strong 😀 Come oon, again 4 girls 50kg are lifting 120 kg guy.
-Memory, yes of course but there are like bunch of different videos of this happening, I have also one, lifting with 3 females my dad who is 100kg.
I don’t know to explain it how it works, probably some combined energy thing, but this explanation is sooo baaad.
Also another point , when I first was shown this and this is the only method I’ve ever been involved in 2 of us were teenages 15 years old , my friends mother was a light thin woman and his father was a stronger fit man , with that said 20 kg for three of us was quite a bit of weight , we did not use pistol hands with 2 index fingers just 1 hand as pistol shape so 1 finger each and used a stable wooden chair and picked the seated person up with finger under the seat at each corner,so weight of chair as well ,also this is more stable
Yes. This actually does work! I have done is several times, except the person wasn’t sitting in a chair, they were laying on the floor, and we alternated putting hands above face a couple inches apart without touching the face or each other’s hands until all hands were used. Then we counted to 30 secs, and at the end of the countdown each person (4 people) put one finger each under body 2 each side and lifted the person over 7 ft in the air. With an 8 ft ceiling their face was maybe a ft from ceiling. No joke! It was strange, and yes it did feel like something unnatural was occuring. I’m not a believer in that kind of stuff, but it was strange.
Years ago I saw 4 students do this trick to a teacher that weighed over 300 pounds. So if it’s all about sharing the weight that’s still over 75 pounds being lifted by each 12 year old girl. I don’t feel any the wiser after reading this article.
omg this was fr sick. we lifted the fattest person in school. and it worked on first try!
done this in the pub ..the person hit the ceiling …amazed ..so I said lets the 4 of us lift him two girls to boys could not lift him off the chair with our fingers
I myself took part in this one night. It was amazing. We lifted a man who had to be pushing 270Lbs or more. The firs attempt, I let go because I could not believe it was working. I started laughing and saying wtf. Second try, we lifted that guy to the sky.
We gave done this with great successes. However!
We place hands over head until the top hand can feel heat! You all stay very quiet and place your hands. Soon you can feel warmth and it gets hotter. When the top hand can feel great warmth you GO!
The person lifts very easily.
We did it as children, but two people only and one sitting. The two people one after the other stack their hands above the seated persons head. As close as possible but if you touch you have to start over. Saying the phrase light as a feather stiff as a board. then in reverse order you remove the hands use your index fingers, one under the knee the other under the arm and lift. I can remember the person seated was always so light feeling.
This was a common party trick back in the late 60’s and early 70’s. The method was much different. This is my recollection though keep in mind it was over 50 years ago. But I will never ever forget it – it was very eerie. At a party that I attended with my classmates, we had a girl lay supine on the floor. There were 3 of us on each side supporting her shoulders, butt and just below her knees and one above her head. The lifters were kneeling on one knee and had their palms up, with the index fingers and bird fingers of each hand under the girl . The person by her head told the story of the girl’s death., She set the scene then spoke about how the girl died. I can’t remember the details, maybe it was a car accident or murder. At the moment she died in the story, we easily lifted the girl as high as our necks, as we slowly stood up ourselves. I think that she was extremely tense from the story .and that made it easier. She felt light as a feather. After realizing she was high in the air she panicked. Once she started moving her arms and legs she felt like dead weight and fell out of our fingers. Her legs must have fallen first because she ended up in a standing position. We were in the 7th or 8th grade so the girl probably weighed about 110 pounds, which is only 18 pounds per person, but that’s still a lot to lift with young fingers. I think it’s a trick of synergy., Everyone gets on the same team when stacking their hands over the guys head in your case above. In our case, we had the synchrony of lifting at the point of death Either way, you are tapping into synergy where the total is greater than the sum of the parts. You see this in succesful corporations too, where individual efforts are combined so everyone can make more money than each person can make working alone.
We used to do this at school in the 80s and it was good fun. I wonder if it’s the “strain” of holding your
out-stretched arms and hands causing some build up in muscle memory.
I say this because we also did an individual trick where with arms vertical down by you sides you’d grip your trousers (the sides of them) with your hands and pull outwards (to the sides outwards) really hard for about 20 seconds. Then let go of your grip and immediately RELAX your arms and hands. Try it, see what happens. *Spoiler* your arms seem to magically raise without any input from you.
Our family did this many times back in the 70’s and I’ve always had the feeling it had something to do with you arms being raised. So through the years when I have had to lift something very heavy I always hold my arms up for awhile first and I do believe it helps me lift. It could just be because I think it will – it does – lol – I don’t know