I had this thought while bathing: Assume a perfectly developed physical human bo

Question

I had this thought while bathing:

Assume a perfectly developed physical human body and anatomy in terms of size, dimensions and proportions. In theory, if I cut the body vertically into two exact halves from the center of the head downwards, would the two halves weigh the same?

I tend to think that the 2 halves would weigh differently, and if so, I find this quite interesting because it is strange to me that our body would - perhaps unecessarily - evolve in such a manner that requires it to balance itself on a symmetrical skeleton.

Are there any topics that touches on this... phenomenon?

Explanation / Answer

The two halves likely do weigh approximately the same. Since the density of most tissues that are not filled with air is basically equal, it doesn't matter that, e.g., heart, spleen, and stomach are on the left and liver is (mostly) on the right. In the left/right axis, it evens out.

As for the location of the center of mass of a human: it's located about 10 cm below the navel, at the level of the S2 vertebra approximately midway between dorsal and ventral surfaces of the body (assuming that the person in question is neither pregnant nor obese).

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