It looks like they’re actually tier 1 (they seem to be standing on a white platform), but what, if any, weight is each layer above them? I can see narrow platforms, but are they all taking most of the weight?

I’m not sure whether this was meant as an athletic or purely aesthetic display – since they’re billed as ‘acrobats’, I assumed skill was involved, so what would be the best and worst case scenario those 8-10 in the narrowest tier would be supporting?

e: was there any kind of structural support in this? I’m not finding much about it.

Here’s a Snopes article about this event at the 1980s Olympics in Moscow.

  • zkfcfbzr@lemmy.worldEnglish
    80·
    6 days ago

    Others have covered that there were internal supports, so they were supporting nothing at all. But let’s assume they weren’t.

    I’m going for an intentional underestimate - so let’s say there are 10 people in your layer (I think 8 is more likely), then 24 above them, 18 above them, 18 above them, 25 above them, 14 above them, and 2 above them. I think most people would agree those are underestimates for each ring.

    That’s 101 people being supported by 10 people. If we take another underestimate that each of those people weighs 100 pounds (45.36 kg) then that’s 10,100 pounds (4581.28 kg) - or 1010 pounds (458.13 kg) supported by each of the 10 people in your ring, completely ignoring the weight of the metal rings visible in the picture. So I think it’s safe to say it was mostly the internal supports at work.

    • Hoimo@ani.social
      2·
      5 days ago

      If you do a rough estimation in one unit, you don’t have to do 4 significant figures for the converted units. Just round it to 50kg or whatever, and do your calculations (101*50) in the converted units instead of converting again, so the numbers line up nicely in either unit.