Why do people lose 21 grams of weight after death?
by 
Mrs.Dufresne rediscovers Alana Davis
ANSWERS: 30
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Maybe they were a little too overweight during their life, so it is a good start. And after 100 years, they have lost a lot more. ----- (ADDED) ------ "21 Grams is a 2003 film drama directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu and written by Guillermo Arriaga. It stars Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Caroline Belina, and Benicio del Toro." "The title refers to the cultural meme propagated by the 1907 research of physician Dr. Duncan MacDougall which purported to show scientific proof of the existence of the immortal human soul by recording a small loss of body weight (representing the departure of the soul) immediately following death. The research did not follow the scientific method, showed wide variance in results (21 grams is an arbitrary figure; MacDougall's actual results showed no reliable mean), and were widely dismissed by the scientific community, even at the time. No attempts to duplicate MacDougall's findings have been successful. The movie presents McDougall's findings as accepted scientific fact as a form of dramatic license." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21_grams
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NO THEY DONT,IT IS 1.8 GRAMS,THE BREATHE OF LIFE ,BREATHING IN LIFE ,AND THE LIGHT IS GONE ONTO A GREAT LIGHT IF YOU ARE HOLY IN A ORB ABOVE ALL ON THIS DAY
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grams are definitely mass
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Because they don't need it anymore.
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some say that is the weight of the soul.
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probably because when you die your whole body "relax's" and lets out bodily fluids (kinda gross)
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Yes, I do. But I also would not discredit those who disagree.
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I think it's weightless. Good movie.
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It's likely the weight of the bodily waste that you lose control of.
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Yes i think it is.
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I think it is the soul. It just makes sense!!!
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I don't understand how anyone can know this. If I weigh myself right now and then die. How can anyone know I've shed 21 grams if I didn't tell anyone my weight?
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It was Dr. Duncan MacDougall of Haverhill, Massachusetts who attempted to weigh the human soul. In 1907, he placed 6 dying patients on a homemade scale, which also acted as a bed for the patients. He then recorded their weights before and after death. According to Dr. MacDougall, there was a difference of 21 grams between the heavier, living patients and their dead bodies. He also experimented on 15 dogs and found no loss of weight between the living dogs and their dead bodies. He believed this was because animals do not have souls. His experiments were criticized since of the six patients, two tests had to be discarded and the level of error was very high. Obviously, it was not a very scientific study. In addition, no one has ever been able to repeat the result of these experiments. Basically, there is still no physiological evidence of the soul. It's an urban legend propagated by a guy who did bad science - looking for an answer he already believed was true. Real science doesn't have attachments to pre-existing beliefs and values. It just observes and hypothesizes.
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Mmmmmm very interesting but what I wanna know is who said you could put a set of scales anywhere near this body???? ;)
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i don't know, mine seems heavier at times.
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Well I have been a Firefighter/Paramedic for 8 years and I have seen alot of dead people. Barring they did not die by any trauma or massive internal bleeding I would say that it could be from body waste. 90% of the time (not always) the first thing you do when you die is in fact piss and crap yourself. Now if they did not lose their waste I agree. Very good question I rated you up.
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how do u "know" that it is 1.8grams when it was scientifically experimented and shown the proximity to be roughly 21grams? .. it is said that during death u lose slight weight loss due to evaporation but nuthing close to the 21 grams supposedly lost at the exact moment of death ..u could percieve it to be the weight of a soul
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It has never been proved that you lose that amount of weight after death, it was just a suggestion made by Dr. Duncan MacDougall. With keeping that in mind if humans lose any weight after death it can be because of dehydration.
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Ok I found this because I wondered if it was true that 21 grams was actually lost...it would appear that there is no conclusive scientific evidence that supports the statement that people do actually loose 21 grams at the time of death...but there's also no conclusive evidence to show that it doesn't! I have to wonder, why with today's technology and sophisticated weighing apparatus this hasn't been confirmed or proven to be false. It surely wouldn't cost that much to have weight measurements added to several hospital beds where the patients are terminal and waiting to die. This could then record the weight every few seconds and thus provide accurate data and thus show whether or not this hypothesis is correct or not. For arguments sake, lets say 20 bodies were weighed (and the experiments were carried out under strict scientific rules) and it showed that there is actually no evidence that people lose 21 grams, or any noticable weight loss at all. Would that mean that we don't have a soul, or would it just mean that the soul doesn't weigh anything?
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It is an interesting thought. http://www.snopes.com/religion/soulweight.asp
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So everyone on his/her deathbed is put on a scale to be ready to weigh at the moment of death? Somehow I can't quite get my mind around that. I would think weighing would be the last consideration at such a time.
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"Dehydration"? Really? "Bodily fluids"... please. Read the book "Spook"... it describes a set of well documented experiments done on TB patients who were placed on a very sensitive scale just before they died. Each one of them lost this amount of weight right when they died. They INSTANTLY dehydrated? Good lord... that's your explanation? If it was bodily fluids, wouldn't that stay on the scale? Yes. Think!
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some say its the soul... i heard that its ur shit (u poo wen u die) the shit makes sense but i must say i believe its ur soul
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It does and it doesn't. It does SEEM like your body looses 21 grams, if you were to weight a person before and after death. But, really it's an illusion cause by space and time. Your heart has a cavity between the two ventricles. That cavity has the highest electro-magnetic field of the entire body. Some say that it can be measured up to eight feet away from a person. Some believe that this is the "battery of life" - that which causes the heart to pump. There's a theory that this "battery" is powered by a Micro Black Hole at the center of this electro-magnetism - the singularity of which creates the power to run your heart. When your heart stops this Micro Black Hole has died out. Which means the singularity of the Micro Black Hole can no longer curve space/time, thus your body "seems" to lose weight. Though it has not really lost weight - it's lost the ability to curve space/time and your true weight is revealed.
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there are many interpretations for this ... if this really is your soul .. then this challenges all the athiests out there ... of course this would be criticised ... first of all how can u call this bad science ????? how do you want physiological evidence my frnd if you'r speaking about souls ? souls are in a different dimension which we cannot see or feel IF it was true...and if this wasn't something to think of .. why every patient lost 21 grams? as Einstein says "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong." dont judge but give an opinion.
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...ah b/c they are dead.
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Do you really think that a soul--believed to be the very core of a person's personality, character, and being--weighs only 21 grams? That is assuming that the soul weighs anything in the first place. If it does...I hope mine weighs more than 21 grams--it would show how complex and dynamic I am (or was) as a person. Think about it! God Bless...
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Because the soul rises to heaven.
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When one dies, they stop producing an electromagnetic/ gravitational field. At the end of this video, Nassim Haramein describes an electromagnetic field that is detectable from 8 ft away. His theory describes a gravitational field along with this electromagnetic field. The description is in this video. He mentions the human electromagnetic/gravitational field at about 9:00 minutes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkre592PNiw&NR=1
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I've heard that fast moving objects are heavier than non-moving objects of the same mass... maybe it's possible that the halting of the blood running through the veins of a dead person makes him lighter than when they were still alive... I dunno, just a thought, I guess :P
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