By Staff Writer: Jerri Clewis
What’s heavier—a pound of lead or a pound of feathers? The old riddle might seem like a simple question, but it can be more complicated than at first glance. Enough that people continue to be stumped by it to this day.
The trick to the riddle is the answer hidden within the question. A pound for a pound, meaning the same weight. But feathers are light, and metal is heavy. People naturally get confused between the two, and answer incorrectly, which has made the question a bit of a funny joke to play on the unsuspecting.
A quick search on YouTube will yield dozens of results involving the riddle, but one of the most popular results involves a comedy sketch. The riddle took on a new form when the titular character asked the question “What’s heavier? A kilogramme of steel or a kilogramme of feathers?” on the Scottish comedy series Limmy’s Show. The character answered steel since “steel is heavier than feathers,” only for the other characters to correct him. His confused face afterward has since become a popular reaction image.
Although the answer might seem simple for a quick joke, density and other units of measurement can make the question difficult to answer. If the question becomes gold and feathers, then feathers weigh more because gold is measured in the troy system as only 12 ounces in a pound, according to the Union University Science Guys. So, feathers can actually weigh more than metal! It’s all about context.
Context provides an opportunity for interesting studies. Jeffrey B. Wagman, Corinne Zimmerman, and Christopher Sorric led an experiment in 2007 to discover if the naive answer to the riddle might have a basis in perception. To test their theory, they had blindfolded participants pick up boxes of identical size, shape, and mass containing a pound of lead or feathers before reporting which box felt heavier. Above chance, the participants reported the box holding the lead felt heavier, according to the National Library of Medicine. Muscular forces might have played a role in the participant’s perception of each box’s weight.
Maybe the seemingly naive answer is not that silly after all!