Find out how much Mark's head and feet weigh

Task stats

Points

15

Disquals

0

• Sebastian calls a doctor who has performed an autopsy, for some insight. She tells him that a brain weighs approximately 1kg, a skull weighs about 1kg, and the muscles in the head may also weigh about 1kg. However, Sebastian decides that Mark's head is clearly bigger than average, and so guesses that his head and feet together must weigh 7.5kg. He earns second place in the task.
• Julie alternates between holding Mark's head and a watermelon, and decides that they are a similar weight. She appears to estimate that his head weighs 3.8kg and that his feet weigh 4kg during her attempt, giving her a total estimate of 7.8kg. This corresponds with what Mark says, in the studio, about her estimate only being about 300g different to Sebastian's, who guessed 7.5kg. She wins the task, since her estimate is closest to the estimate of 9.78kg against which the contestants are being judged.
• Simon starts out by stating that the best way to measure the weight of Mark's feet would be to submerge them in water, and measure the displaced fluid. He then seems to get caught up in how to correctly calculate the volume of an object, before giving up on the scientific method and instead taking a guess based on intuition alone. He estimates that Mark's feet weigh 0.75kg each, and that his head weighs 4.5kg, giving him a total estimate of 6kg. He earns third place in the task.
• Martin leaves the lab and returns with a plastic storage container full of water, on top of a wheeled sled. He has Mark submerge his head in the water, and collects the displaced water with a towel. He is then able to weigh the towel to determine the increase in its weight, to estimate the weight of Mark's head (which he puts at about 3kg). He repeats this process with one of Mark's feet in a bowl of water, determining that it weighs about 1.1kg. His total estimate is therefore 5.2kg, and he earns fourth place.
• Eva decides to create moulds of Mark's foot and head, using clay and pastry, respectively. While moving a kitchen knife to cut a block of clay, she stabs him in the foot with it. After removing the clay mould from his foot, she tries to fill it with cooking oil, apparently intending to then weigh that oil, but it quickly begins to leak out of the mould and create a slick puddle on the floor. Her plan B is to fill the mould with dried yellow peas instead, based on which she determines that his foot weighs the same as a bag of those peas (0.5kg). She then removes the soft dough from his head, and realising that she can't really fill it with anything, decides to assume that his head weighs the same as the dough itself (1kg). Her total estimate for his head and feet is therefore 2kg, and she earns last place.