3 ms·

If it's heavy enough to counterbalance a person's weight, then it's heavy. How large is the niche of elderly people who are both unbalanced enough to need this

• Tagbert 7y ago
  Think of something more like a cat’s tail
  • Jeff_Brown 7y ago
    That does seem better -- but a cat walks on four legs, it's already pretty stable. A vertical animal is going to take more force to counterbalance. I realize weight can be traded off for length -- but the longer it is, the more they'll have to worry about the tail knocking into adjacent stuff, particularly the sensitive bits of nearby short people. Maybe it's actually lighter than it looks. Particularly if it were only designed to counter small imbalances, it could be pretty lightweight.
    • jolmg 7y ago
      > but a cat walks on four legs, it's already pretty stable. ... that makes me wonder why so many quadruped animals have tails. Maybe it's needed for balance when they're preparing for a jump and are on 2 legs.
      • Jeff_Brown 7y ago
        Horses' tails are (entirely?) for whipping flies. Some lizards' tails are for sacrificing when chased -- they separate from the body relatively easily. (I learned that the hard way as a child.) Some tails are surely evolutionary detritus. And I'm sure there are other uses. For animals in which the tail is heavy enough to actually affect their balance, I believe you're right -- they generally do more acrobatic stuff than we do.