ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) (09/10/85)
In a sense, the whole discipline of mathematics is based on an invalid
assumption; that there is such a thing in the universe as proving ANYTHING.
In reality, there is only such a thing as proving something to SOMEBODY's
satisfaction. My little proof vis a vis the ultrasaur will seem like an
off-the-wall, apples-and-oranges kind of a thing to many people at first, but
in truth, I rigged it so that the only thing really ridiculous about it was the
extent to which EVERYTHING in the equation favored the ultrasaur, AND HE STILL
DIDN'T MAKE IT. Consider that:
1 I compared the maximum one shot lift of one of the five or ten
strongest humans on earth, fully warmed up, with a bar weighing three
times their own weight on their shoulders to what the dinosaur must
do just to lift its own weight; that is ridiculous.
2. I gave the dinosaur credit for having the same ratio of muscle size
to lifting power as Kazmaier and his friends; that is ridiculous.
3. I gave the ultrasaurs disproportionately thicker limbs credit
for being as efficient as the humans; that is ridiculous.
But you can't please everybody. Wayne Throop writes:
>Strange how someone who accuses others of making elementary mistakes can
>make so many, and all in a single posting. Some of the more obvious
>ones:
>
>> Stanley Friesen and several other commentators on the net have replied
>> in numerous articles that they don't really understand the reason why a
>> hundred foot long, three hundred thousand pound ultrasaur would have any
>> insurmountable problems functioning in our gravity.
>
>They have done no such thing. Rather, they have stated that they *do*
>understand why it *is* possible, another thing altogether.
>
Stating a falsehood more or less IMPLIES not understanding the truth.
>> Generally, whenever an animal doubles it's size, all other factors being
>> equal, it's power to weight ratio gets cut in half.
>
>Wrong. The problem introduced by the square-cube disparity is not
>"power", as in muscular power, but structural strength. Thus, most of
>the rest of this article is so many wasted bits, since it is a
>calculation of the muscular power available to some Sauropods. An
>incorrect one at that.
>
Don't take my word for this one, Wayne. Consider "On Size and Life", a
Scientific American Library book, 1983 by Thomas A. McMahan and John Bonner.
On pages 55 and 56 it states:
"..The figure shows that the weight lifted in each of the body-weight
classes up to 198 lbs is quite precisely proportional to the .67 power of
body weight as would be predicted by an argument that muscle stress is
invariant to body size, so that muscle force, and therefore total
weight-lifting ability is proportional to the cross-sectional area of the
body (that is, the 2/3 power of body weight in animals scaled by
isometry)."
It sometimes happens that reading about such things on paper doesn't give
one a very good FEEL for what is actually being discussed. If this is the
case, you might try watching ants carrying leaves 20 times their own weight for
awhile (several kinds of ants make a practice of this), and then carry
something 20 times YOUR weight (such as a Corvette-Stingray or one of the newer
Porsches) around for awhile, until you become convinced.
>> [Omitted calculation of a quantity purported to give the
>> muscle-to-weight-supported ratio]
>> First, the ratio would, in reality, be higher for a maximally trained
>> human athlete than for any herbivore,
>
>Wrong. Human muscle tissue, even in trained athletes, is quite a bit
>weaker than "equivalent" muscle tissue from most animals. The reason
>for this is not clear, but I have seen factors of between 2 and 10 for
>ratios of animal-to-human muscle tissue strength. This is one reason
>that even juvenile (100 pound or so) primates can be physically very
>dangerous to their human handlers.
If you believe this, Wayne, you should move to Roanoke and join Falwell's
flock tommorrow; you've just told me that man was created separately from the
lower animals and could not possibly be descended from any of them. Seriously,
however, I suspect you know a great deal about primates but not much about
powerlifters and have just told me that most humans don't get much exercise by
chimp standards. Bill Kazmaier does. I have seen him do five reps of
deadlifting a bar with a thousand pounds on it. Forget juvenile chimps; are
there any adult gorillas who could do this? This isn't a rhetorical question;
I'd like to know, and you seem to know something about primates. My first
guess would be that there aren't.
>
>> Of course, the ultrasaur didn't have access to dianabol.
>
>Fantastic! *Of course* the ultrasaur *did* have access to "dianabol"
>(or equivalent anabolic steroids)! Just where were these compounds
>discovered? In animal tissue! A given level of anabolic steroid
>observed in (untreated) humans says *next to nothing* about the level
>that might be observed in some Sauropod or other.
>
I've got to hand it to you, Wayne; I don't get caught totally napping
very often, and you've done it to me with this one. Unfortunately for the
ultrasaur, however, it hardly matters. If you refigure the whole thing WITH
dianabol, using Kazmaier himself as the example, 1300 lbs (950 on the bar +
Kazmaier) instead of 1000, 36 inches in circumference for Kaz's thighs (and
hence, a radius of 5.73 inches) instead of 31.4 and 5 (which I took for
ballpark), the difference works out to be miniscule and the ultrasaur still
needs 10 ft. diameter thighs +- a fraction of an inch.
>> It would thus seem that, given our gravity, there is a threshold for
>> size and weight beyond which no animal could be wide enough to provide a
>> base for the legs it would take to bear it's own weight. An animal
>> beyond that threshold should properly be regarded as a mathematical
>> impossibility in our world, given our gravity. The ultrasaur is beyond
>> that point by a considerable margin.
>
>First, it would be a physical impossibility, not a mathematical
>impossibility. Second, Ted's calculations by no means show that the
>ultrasaur is beyond the point of physical impossibility, because the
>*wrong quantity* was calculated, power instead of structural strength.
>And last, the calculation of power available was based on faulty
>premises in any event.
>
>All in all, I think Stanley Friesen's "Large animals and gravity"
>posting is the clear winner in the Battle of the Network Sauropods.
>--
Sometimes I get the feeling that people are only reading the first half of
my articles. The second half of the article on ultrasaurs contained an
analysis of Adrian Desmond's treatment (in "The Hot-Blooded Dinosaurs") of
pterosaurs, in which he presented about 10 insoluble obstacles to the very
existence of these creatures, including references to calculations entirely
similar to mine (although made by establishment scientists with PHD's) which
showed that the outer limit of weight for ANY flying creature in our world was
50 lbs, despite the known fact that pteratorns and the big Texas pterasaurs
were a lot heavier than that. Desmond gives no answers to any of these
problems. Doesn't any of this BOTHER any of you readers out there? Do you
have that easy a time sweeping facts which contradict uniformitarianism under
the rug? What is your opinion of the part of the ultrasaur article dealing
with pterosaurs, Wayne?csdf@mit-vax.UUCP (Charles Forsythe) (09/14/85)
You can't swing a 2-bit word on this net without hitting bullshit in Ted's articles. Example: > In a sense, the whole discipline of mathematics is based on an >invalid assumption; I'm still laughing. In this light, I only have time to attack ONE of Ted's amazing assertions. >>Wrong. Human muscle tissue, even in trained athletes, is quite a bit >>weaker than "equivalent" muscle tissue from most animals. The reason >>for this is not clear, but I have seen factors of between 2 and 10 for >>ratios of animal-to-human muscle tissue strength. This is one reason >>that even juvenile (100 pound or so) primates can be physically very >>dangerous to their human handlers. > > > If you believe this, Wayne, you should move to Roanoke and join >Falwell's Flock tommorrow; you've just told me that man was created >separately from the lower animals and could not possibly be descended >from any of them. No, he's saying they have stonger muscle tissue. Is your muscle tissue as strong as mine? I hope so... for your own safety.... -- Charles Forsythe CSDF@MIT-VAX "What? With her?" -Adam from _The_Book_of_Genesis_
gordon@uw-june (Gordon Davisson) (09/14/85)
[Ted Holden] > My little proof vis a vis the ultrasaur will seem like an >off-the-wall, apples-and-oranges kind of a thing to many people at first, but >in truth, I rigged it so that the only thing really ridiculous about it was the >extent to which EVERYTHING in the equation favored the ultrasaur, Not everything, just the things you thought of (and not even all of those). There's a big difference. > AND HE STILL >DIDN'T MAKE IT. Consider that: > >[...] > > 2. I gave the dinosaur credit for having the same ratio of muscle size > to lifting power as Kazmaier and his friends; that is ridiculous. Right. The dinosaurs should be much better. > 3. I gave the ultrasaurs disproportionately thicker limbs credit > for being as efficient as the humans; that is ridiculous. Pay attention now: thicker limbs give the muscles a longer lever arm, and thus more lifting capacity. >>>[Ted Holden] >>> Stanley Friesen and several other commentators on the net have replied >>> in numerous articles that they don't really understand the reason why a >>> hundred foot long, three hundred thousand pound ultrasaur would have any >>> insurmountable problems functioning in our gravity. >>[Wayne Throop] >>They have done no such thing. Rather, they have stated that they *do* >>understand why it *is* possible, another thing altogether. > Stating a falsehood more or less IMPLIES not understanding the truth. It implies it, but it's not the same as stating it. Especially when the falsity of the falsehood is in question. >>> Generally, whenever an animal doubles it's size, all other factors being >>> equal, it's power to weight ratio gets cut in half. >>Wrong. The problem introduced by the square-cube disparity is not >>"power", as in muscular power, but structural strength. > Don't take my word for this one, Wayne. Consider "On Size and Life", a >Scientific American Library book, 1983 by Thomas A. McMahan and John Bonner. >On pages 55 and 56 it states: > > "..The figure shows that the weight lifted in each of the body-weight > classes up to 198 lbs is quite precisely proportional to the .67 power of > body weight as would be predicted by an argument that muscle stress is > invariant to body size, so that muscle force, and therefore total > weight-lifting ability is proportional to the cross-sectional area of the > body (that is, the 2/3 power of body weight in animals scaled by > isometry)." Note that the term 'power' is never used; this may or may not be because the authors are aware that power is a technical term referring to ratios of energy (or work) to time. By the way, the maximum power of a muscle *is* proportional to volume, not cross-section. The authors are right that muscle force is proportional to cross-section, but it is also dependent on muscle type, which becomes important when one wants to compare reptiles to humans. And then of course, there's leverage... Ted: as long as we're on the subject, in another of your postings you mention that lung area (which is proportional to breathing ability) goes up with the square of the lung's size, and then quote someone who doesn't say that. I would expect the lung's complexity would also go up with size, so that the surface area would go up with the cube of the size. Anyone know for sure? And we still haven't heard how anything breathed in the thin air resulting from the lower gravity... >[...discussion of steroids...] Unfortunately for the >ultrasaur, however, it hardly matters. If you refigure the whole thing WITH >dianabol, using Kazmaier himself as the example, 1300 lbs (950 on the bar + >Kazmaier) instead of 1000, 36 inches in circumference for Kaz's thighs (and >hence, a radius of 5.73 inches) instead of 31.4 and 5 (which I took for >ballpark), the difference works out to be miniscule and the ultrasaur still >needs 10 ft. diameter thighs +- a fraction of an inch. As long as we're comparing apples and oranges, let's throw in grapes as well. I can lift about 11 pounds with my right index finger (hold hand palm up, extend index finger horizontally, hang weight from fingertip, lift with the finger keeping the rest of the hand still). According to your calculations (assuming that I'm in tip-top shape, on steroids, etc, none of which is correct), my finger must have a circumference of 4.6 inches, right? Wrong, it's 2.6 inches around. And I suspect my finger has a larger fraction of bone than Kaz's thighs do. Comparing apples, oranges, and grapes is ok, as long as you don't put too much faith in your results. > Sometimes I get the feeling that people are only reading the first half of >my articles. The second half of the article on ultrasaurs contained an >analysis of Adrian Desmond's treatment (in "The Hot-Blooded Dinosaurs") of >pterosaurs, in which he presented about 10 insoluble obstacles to the very >existence of these creatures, Calm down. What's wrong with addressing one issue at a time? > including references to calculations entirely >similar to mine Um... You mean they're highly approxamate too? :-) -- Human: Gordon Davisson ARPA: gordon@uw-june.ARPA UUCP: {ihnp4,decvax,tektronix}!uw-beaver!uw-june!gordon Bitnet: gordon@uwaphast or gordon@phastvax or something like that.
friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) (09/16/85)
In article <392@imsvax.UUCP> ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) writes: > > > Don't take my word for this one, Wayne. Consider "On Size and Life", a >Scientific American Library book, 1983 by Thomas A. McMahan and John Bonner. >On pages 55 and 56 it states: > > "..The figure shows that the weight lifted in each of the body-weight > classes up to 198 lbs is quite precisely proportional to the .67 power of > body weight as would be predicted by an argument that muscle stress is > invariant to body size, so that muscle force, and therefore total > weight-lifting ability is proportional to the cross-sectional area of the > body (that is, the 2/3 power of body weight in animals scaled by > isometry)." > > It sometimes happens that reading about such things on paper doesn't give >one a very good FEEL for what is actually being discussed. If this is the >case, you might try watching ants carrying leaves 20 times their own weight for >awhile (several kinds of ants make a practice of this), and then carry >something 20 times YOUR weight (such as a Corvette-Stingray or one of the newer >Porsches) around for awhile, until you become convinced. > Well, you still didn't pick up the whole of what they were saying. You missed "...body-weight classes *up* *to* *198* *lbs* is..." This means that the authors found that for *larger* weights the relationship broke down! In short a human is about the largest animal to which the .67 power ratio applies! Boy is extending it to Sauropods completely out of line! -- Sarima (Stanley Friesen) UUCP: {ttidca|ihnp4|sdcrdcf|quad1|nrcvax|bellcore|logico}!psivax!friesen ARPA: ttidca!psivax!friesen@rand-unix.arpa