A smaller box feels heavier than a bigger one, even when they weigh exactly the same

In 1891, physician Augustin Charpentier found that when two objects have identical weight but different sizes, people reliably judge the smaller one as heavier. Your brain predicts how heavy something should feel based on its size, and the surprise when that prediction is wrong gets misread as extra weight.

— Augustin Charpentier, Analyse expérimentale de quelques éléments de la sensation de poids — Archives de Physiologie Normale et Pathologique, 1891

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