Fun Science: How To Divide Forces

How do I divide forces?

Forces are very interesting. One of the things I'm always amazed at is that I've seen people go onto a stage and then lie down on a bed of nails, and another person comes out and puts a block on their chest, and they hit it with a sledgehammer and the guy gets up and everything is fine. It really sounds like an amazing trick but that guy is really not doing anything amazing. In fact, he's spreading out the force of his body over all hundreds, maybe even thousands of nails. If that guy really wanted to brave, here's what he should do: he should lie down on a bed of nail, because all of his force would be on that one nail.