THE BODY BEAUTIFUL



How can I weigh my head? FILL a water butt until water flows out of the overflow. Let the water settle and then immerse the head completely, keeping it submerged until the water level has settled, having first arranged some method of collecting the displaced water that will flow out of the overflow. The volume of water displaced should then be measured and the experiment repeated, this time immersing the whole body. Again the volume of displaced water should be recorded. The ratio of the first volume to the second, multiplied by total body weight gives the proportion of body weight that is due to the head. This method assumes the human body has a uniform density and does not take into account the contribution of any pegs on the nose needed to prevent drowning. (Dr) N J Mason, University of Oxford. DR MASON'S method does not allow for the dense nature of the head, which contains much bone. A more accurate method is to float in the barrel, adjusting your lung volume to leave the head completely out of the water. While holding your breath, top up the barrel to the overflow and then submerge completely, collecting the displaced water, and measuring its volume. Climb out of the barrel, without further spillage, and then refill the barrel, measuring the volume needed. The floating volume of the body (the volume to keep the head up) can be calculated from the difference of the two volumes measured above. The weight of the head is the floating volume (in litres) less the body weight (in kilos). J B Diamond, Hertford. J B DIAMOND'S formula yields a head weight of zero, which cannot be right, even in J B Diamond's case. M J Lloyd, London EC1. FIND a long board with pivotal centre mounting (e.g. a see-saw): weigh yourself unclothed, then lie on the board with the pivotal point coinciding with the base of the skull. Have someone place weights on the head end of the board up to a distance not exceeding the length from the pivot to the heels in the opposite direction. When the see-saw is balanced, deduct the sum of the added weights from your total body weight to obtain the weight of your head. Jane Pepper, Canterbury. ENTERTAINING but wrong. If it worked, so would perpetual motion. An approximate answer would be got with the aid of muscle relaxant, a gravity meter, and a blow from Michael Watson. But for a less dramatic method, take a seesaw, a ruler, and a large inanimate object. Balance flat on your back on the seesaw, then bend your head forward on to your chest. The seesaw will tilt: shuffle along to restore the balance. Measure the distance you have to shuffle and divide this by the amount by which you moved (the centre of) your head. This gives the weight of your head as a fraction of your whole body weight. Peter Green, Department of Mathematics, University of Bristol. PETER GREEN gives a neat answer but I am left wondering what to do with the 'large inanimate object'. Here is an alternative solution that, again, assumes you can estimate the position of the centre of gravity of the head. Take a plank longer than your body and place it across two weighing scales that act as pivotal points. Lie along the plank with head to the left of the left pivot, and move the right pivot until it reads the same as the left one. (Each reading will equal half the combined weight of body and plank.) Saw off and weigh a length of plank to the right so that the shortened plank overhangs each pivot equally. The weight of the head is equal to the weight of this off-cut multiplied by the distance of the centre of gravity of the head from the left pivot and divided by the distance from the centre of the off-cut to the right pivot. Rob Johnsey, Redditch, Worcs. ASK A POINTED question of a friend. Weigh the response. If you feel insulted, slighted, dismissed, spurned, etc., mark your calendar the number of days until such feelings subside. That gives you your ego quotient. Then fast for 48 hours. Next, divide the residual distate at the offended reaction you still may harbour from your (putative) friend's slight, riposte, etc. Assign a number between 1 and 10 that best conveys that residual feeling, with 10 being the most grating. Add the year of your birth, and plus one if you are circumcised. At the end of the day, you'll have a rough approximation of your cranium's weight. Adjust accordingly with the help of your barber or hairdresser. C. Sykes, San Jose, California (csykes@worldnet.att.net) FIRST remove your head. Get a friend to place it on some (accurate) scales for you - you will be busy at this point. Be sure to leave instructions as to whether to "let it drain" or not; mustn't let pedantic confusion creep in at this vital stage. Tim Dempsey, (timd@quidnunc.com) I pity you all except the last guy above. Maths teachers are a very sad bunch. Dax Byrne-Turner, Blackburn, UK I'd take a statistical approach: collect 30 or so very fresh corpses (the more the merrier), separate heads from bodies after collecting the usual biometric information (height, weight, cap-size, etc.), and develop a nice regression model.



Validate and improve the model with new heads as they become available to you. Andy Long, Ft. Thomas, KY USA By far the best solution i have seen yet is where you hang off the end of a plank and weigh the head using a sling method. This would only work though, if the muscles were truly relaxed and even then would be approximate. Displacement theories are futile and unless you know the exact weight of every other part of your body, (which would give you the answer anyway), you cannot use the theory of the plank and weights, as the opposing weights would have to be placed accurately to balance out the variable weight of the body. Jodec, Solihull England Place your body upon a spinning table with a mounted rolling surface. A scale should be secured at the end of the rolling table upon the spinning table. Lay upon the table with your head divided roughly in half by the axial center of hte table. Spin the table until the scale reads your body weight. Record the RPM. Move your body until the top of your head is even with the axial center of the table. Rotate at the same RPM and record the weight. Subtract the first weight from the second weight, multiply by -1 and you will have your spinning head weight. This weight can be used to determine your gullibilty quotient. Mike Darcey, Punta Gorda, FL usa Why not just lie on the bathroom floor and put just your head on the scales? you would need someone to read the weight though. Ali, Derby UK Stand on a scale and weigh your entire body. Then remove your head and stand on the scale again. The first number minus the second is the weight of your head. Will, Charleston, USA Ali, Derby UK - simple solution to that is to lie face down - easy! John Langley, New York, USA Write your will, nominating who will receive the information of the weight of your head. Get hold of a guillotine, which you can work yourself, and arrange a large bowl placed on a weighing machine. Take the weight of the bowl. Now the difficult bit, given with the traditional warning - don't try this at home - or anywhere else. Now having placed your neck in the proper position, operate the guillotine, and leave it to your executor to announce to a fascinated world the answer. Make sure you've arranged for the disposal of your body. Notice that this procedure exactly fulfils the requirement of the challenge, "how do I weigh my head", which did not ask for that knowledge to be shared with "me". I think it's the answer the question-setter wanted but has not got! Charles Norrie, Islington, England, UK Take your head off and pop it in a strong carrier bag (ensure bag is ventilated to avoid suffocation)Walk down to your local greengrocers with your bagged head and ask if he would weigh it for you. They have very accurate scales that can even weigh very small peas. Remember; so as to ensure accuracy remember to remove any hats, glasses and/or chewing gum/foodstuffs before placing your head on the scales. Paul, Yeovil UK If you Google..How heavy is a head...you get http://askville.amazon.com/heavy-average-human-head/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=1390824 Obviously it does depend on how big it is. Richard Abbott, Didcot Oxfordshire Let your body completely flop. Then get some unlucky person (does not have to be an unlucky person but there are more unlucky people than lucky so they are easier to find) to try and lift your head. Then they can try to guess what weight your head is. The End. PS you can unflop now :) Anon, potadown north Ireland Simple. If you watch Saturday night TV in the UK your head weighs nothing. If you do not, try one of the solutions above. Ian, LONDON UK Empty you head of any of the above thoughts. . Then almost thoughtlessly (instinctively ?) weigh things up. . Please note : do not forget to include your head in this process. J B Blackett, Malden, England MRI scan the head, this will give all densities of various materials contained within, and the physical size of the specimen. This can be used to calculate volumes of different masses i.e. teeth, bone, brain etc... and taking into account airways and voids. Once the mass of each material is known an average weight per material is used to calculate total weight and all material weights added gives total head weight. Note: this is at a set heart rate, temperature and altitude. If you go to another planet results differ, alcohol levels also change results. In conclusion don't get drunk and drive to another planet for your MRI! There are also multicomponent modelling tests to give further accuracy down to a couple of micrograms either way. Or get your head on your bathroom scales as this tends to be much more fun. Paul, Kettering, UK Chop it off. Put it on a scale. (you may need some assistance with this method). Andy, London UK A sealed box that seals around the base of the neck. The box is hooked up too a water line and a drain line. Water line will pump hypertonic water into the box until the body is buoyant. One buoyant place head on scale. James McClung, Austin USA This may not be straightforward but can help. Look for a goat head that is exactly like yours and use it. However, make sure you obtain necessary permit before you slaughter any goat. I wonder why you want to measure your head alone. Anyway, good luck. Olu , Pretoria, South Africa



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