21 grams

Question: Would a doctor bring up Mary's past abortion? Even though Paul is her husband surely that's confidential?

Answer: The title refers to an experiment in 1907 which attempted to show scientific proof of the existence of the soul by recording a loss of body weight (said to represent the departure of the soul) immediately following death. Referred to as the 21 grams experiment as one subject lost "three-fourths of an ounce" (21.3 grams), the experiment is regarded by the scientific community as flawed and unreliable, though it has been credited with popularizing the concept that the soul weighs 21 grams. (Wikipedia).

Answer: It's called this because supposedly at the time of death everyone loses 21 grams of body weight. Sean Penn's character does a monologue near the end of the movie that goes into this theory.

Tobin OReilly

More mistakes in 21 grams
More quotes from 21 grams

Trivia: The experiment that showed that humans lose 21 grams at the moment of death were later shown to be highly flawed. The entire experiment was based on only four people. Only the first subject actually lost 21 grams. Another person lost a different weight, and the other two died before they could be properly weighed.

Phoenix

More trivia for 21 grams

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.