The first section is a really roundabout and overly technical way of thinking about the force exerted on each person, and as a result, even gets it completely w

The first section is a really roundabout and overly technical way of thinking about the force exerted on each person, and as a result, even gets it completely wrong: > The sixth person in the human chain (the top person in a chain of six) would have to hold up a force of 660 pounds. This assumes an average human-chain person weight of 130 pounds No. A chain of 5 would be a force of 650 pounds for the person on top (only the hand they're grasping with matters, the force of the chain against a link's ankle is pretty irrelevant, the human body has pretty good tensile strength and can probably lift quite a bit before getting dislocated joints, etc); a chain of 6 would be a force of 780 pounds. This isn't rocket science, and really is so intuitive that this explanation is just beating around the bush. Here's how you really calculate it: > The force exerted on the top person is the total weight of the chain. The end. A chain of two 130-pound people exerts the exact same force as a "chain" of one 260-pound person.