is it possible to weigh your own head ?

Question

while youre alive and its still attached to your body ?

Answer 1

First measure your weight 'W' with a normal weighing machine. Next take a cylindrical vertical drum much larger than your body and fill it up completely with water. Now, immerse your body carefully inside the drum only upto your neck, taking a friends help if necessary. Collect the water which spills out and measure its volume 'Vn'. Fill the drum again fully with water and this time immerse your body including the neck completely in the water for just a few seconds. Collect the water which spills out carefully and note its volume 'V'.
Then the weight of the head = W x [V -Vn ] / V]

Answer 2

this was asked by an engineering lecturer many years ago. I think it might actually have been Prof Stephen Salter, the wave energy pioneer. He didn't tell us the answer. Anyway, it's been bugging me ever since, and I think I know how it would be done.

Let's measure your head's mass rather than it's weight. That means we can use rotating inertia to figure it out.

(1) decide where the boundary is. You need to specify exactly what counts as "head". Draw that boundary on the appropriate part of your body (upper neck, say) in marker pen.

(2) Get a perfectly balanced roundabout with a lateral force sensor in the shaft. Rotating normally, the lateral force sensor picks up no force, cos it's balanced. Dynamic balance as well as static balance.

(3) Fix a video camera directly above the axis of the roundabout.

(4) Lie on the roundabout in various positions and spin it, measuring the lateral forces as you do so. One of those positions should probably be with the marker pen line intersecting with the axis. Another should probably have the very top of your head intersecting with the axis.

(5) Get your spreadsheet out and work out the mechanics of the forces measured using Newton's laws and the positions as captured on the video. That should tell you the weight of your head. Eventually.

Answer 3

get a weighing scales of some sort and just rest your head on it. Relax as you do it, wait a while till you feel relaxed, then either get a camera and take a photo of the answer, or get a friend to tell you what the scales say.

I must say, this sounds a fun thing to do.. But we have no weighing scales :( and food scales are no good.

Answer 4

Easy, just weigh your whole body, then weigh your body with out the head and take one away from the other.

Answer 5

as a results of fact that your head is of a similar density to water you may take a great bucket finished to the brim with water, weigh it, slowly immerse your head, eliminate your head permitting a good sort of the water on your hair to empty lower back into the bucket then weigh the water it fairly is left, the load distinction supply you an approximate weight on your head.

Answer 6

i know, chop your head off and put it on the scales, then get a really good friend (who happens to be a top class surgeon) to sew it back on. You might be a bit weird but then at least you know..... unless you lie down and put ure head on some scales but it wont be as accurate as cutting your head off. But if you want an answer either will be ok, if you are going to lie on scales at least you get an estimate, i'm going to try this now...

Answer 7

I've tried to weigh various parts of my body before but you can never get a good ready as you can't keep extremely still. you kitchen scales on a work top and get someone else to read it.

Answer 8

prob if u could hold the rest of your body in a certain position and just rest your head on the scales, but would u ever wanna weigh your head?

Answer 9

Each tissue in the body has a certain density to it. If you could get an image of the density of your head, you could sum up the volume.

A scan which tells you of the density indirectly is a CAT scan.

Answer 10

Sure. Just stand on a regular bathroom scale. Note the number that represents your total weight, and subtract everything from the neck down.