Multiplying body-weight by the wheels of a tackle
Rule for the greatest load liftable by one's own weight, with a pulley diagram
Written upside-down, the note gives a rule of mechanical advantage: multiply the pounds of your body-weight by the number of wheels set in the tackle blocks, and the product is the greatest weight you can raise using your own weight alone. The numeric series 16-8-8-4 4 4 4-8 8 4-16 keys the sheaves of the drawn system. A pen diagram below shows the pulley train, with wheels marked 8, 8 and 4 above and an 8 on the hanging block.
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Body-weight times number of wheels gives the maximum load
Multiply the pounds your body weighs by the number of wheels set in the tackle blocks; the resulting sum is the greatest number of pounds you can lift using only your own weight. It states the force-multiplying effect of a compound pulley.
Compound pulley train
A system of tackle blocks is drawn with wheels labelled 8, 8 and 4 at the top and an 8 on the lower hanging block, the ropes running between the sheaves. The labels correspond to the numeric series in the text.