ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) (09/07/85)
There are two articles on the net now having to do with the capacity of the really heavy sauropod dinosaurs to bear weight, one by myself and another by Stanley Friesen. Some comments: Mike Huybenzs writes: >Ted, your calculations and observations include a number of fundamental >errors. >First, extrapolation of human strength to heavy-bodied quadruped dinosaurs >does not take into account the fact that the mechanical advantages of the >differently proportioned limbs are quite different. Differing muscle >attachment points would give the dinosaurs' muscles much greater leverage, >perhaps several times more. >Your observations from imaginative drawings in books are also wildly >inaccurate: your "ten foot diameter" legs should be measured in the upper >thigh, which in most modern quadrupeds is well above the belly. I'm >sure you would also disprove horses and elephants by their small leg >cross-section below the belly. In addition, quadrupods seldom have a >circular thigh cross section, else they would bulge in the way you claim >the ultrasaur should. >As others have mentioned, please check original research literature, rather >than popular books. That's where the science is: popular books are usually >pale reflections, drained of details and facts that won't sell to >scientific illiterates. The objection that any animals thigh is wider than its calf or ankle is irrelevant; a ten foot wide animal with ten foot wide THIGHS is impossible. The objection that no animal's thighs are perfectly round is also irrelevant. The starting point for the entire calculation was weight and CIRCUMFERENCE of thigh; If you insist that the ultrasaur's thigh was only 8 feet from side to side, I will just as logically insist that it was then necessarily 12 or 13 feet from back to front, still impossible on an animal whose body was 25 or 30 feet long and 10 feet wide. The notion that the dinosaurs thighs were more efficient than Kazmier's is simply wrong by a very wide margin. The thigh muscles in the human would be pulling fairly straight, while the outer layers of muscle in the disproportionately much wider thigh of the sauropod would not only be pulling at a vector angle, they would be pulling THROUGH the inner layers of muscle i.e. the different layers of muscle in such a wide limb would get in eachother's way. Try thinking these things through logically, Mike, instead of making up or looking up "facts". Your mind, if properly used, is a better reference than many textbooks. I mean, the Lord designed your mind; the guy who wrote that textbook you're quoting from, like as not, was someone as ill informed as you. As to the notion that revealed truth and TRUE KNOWLEDGE can only be found in Academia, don't go away, Mike; that's coming up in a few paragraphs. The comparison between human weightlifters and the ultrasaur is admittedly crude, but it is hard to get any kind of a real handle on something like that. I believe that if you make the ballpark figures good ones, and then set the whole thing up so that EVERYTHING favors the sauropod, even to the point of being ridiculous, and then show that he still couldn't make it, then the whole thing is basically valid. I further believe that I DID that. There are several points I didn't even bother to mention because I thought they would occur to anyone who thought about it. These are: 1. The HUMAN leg being the more efficient, as demonstrated. 2. The fact that I was comparing what the human could lift when fully warmed up to the load the sauropod must face when getting up after a nap, totally cold. 3. The fact that I was comparing what the human could SQUAT to the load the sauropod must lift OFF THE GROUND. 4. The fact that the constant K itself would not be as high for the sauropod as for the maximally trained human athlete. If we were to be brutally honest and assume that each of these factors were in something like a 1.5 to one ratio, then each would add a factor of (1.5)**.5 to the width of the dinosaur's thigh, which would then be 22 feet wide. Like I say, rather than throw all of this at the good readers on the net, I went with the case in which ALL assumptions favored the sauropod, and he still never made it. I am not going to quote Mr. Friesen's article here; it is on the net. Basically, he claims that a Mr. R.M. Alexander has computed "load factors", based on the stress that BONES can take, and determined thereby that dinosaurs could function normally in our world. Is there a problem with that? Anyone who has watched houses being built knows how much weight an ordinary 2x4 can bear when stood end on end. Bones are like that in a way. Take my own humble middle-aged body as an example. I am about 6' 4", 207 lbs, somewhat stronger than the general run of my fellow middle-aged businessmen, but I am no powerlifter. I have friends who are; they are a whole lot stronger than I. Nonetheless, if I kept my back and legs straight, and two of these friends were kind enough to put a bar with five or six hundred pounds on it on my shoulders, I could stand with it; the bones would not break. Mr. Alexander would no doubt then conclude that I could function quite well at 700 or 800 lbs (my 200 plus the bar). I've been out of academia for a number of years now. It could very well be that this kind of thing is now called "SCHOLARLY RESEARCH" at UCLA these days; I don't know. Out here in the real world where I live, however, this is called "LYING WITH FIGURES".
throopw@rtp47.UUCP (Wayne Throop) (09/10/85)
> There are several points I didn't even bother to mention because I > thought they would occur to anyone who thought about it. These are: > > 1. The HUMAN leg being the more efficient, as demonstrated. No such thing was demonstrated. The argument from above was totally bogus. Your "demonstration" is separable into several points, several of which are incorrect. I'll include this "demonstration" here. First: > The notion that the dinosaurs thighs were more efficient than > Kazmier's is simply wrong by a very wide margin. I see. You have measured Sauropod muscle efficency often then? > The thigh muscles in the human would be pulling fairly straight, while > the outer layers of muscle in the disproportionately much wider thigh > of the sauropod would not only be pulling at a vector angle, they > would be pulling THROUGH the inner layers of muscle i.e. the different > layers of muscle in such a wide limb would get in eachother's way. Rubbish. You are totally ignoring leverage advantage. Also, muscle fibers are always aligned along the direction of tension, thus they *never* "pull at an angle", in *any* animal, man and Sauropod alike. You *have* seen anatomical diagrams and dissections of reptillian and mamallian muscle tissue? > Try thinking these things through logically, Mike, instead of making > up or looking up "facts". Your mind, if properly used, is a better > reference than many textbooks. I mean, the Lord designed your mind; > the guy who wrote that textbook you're quoting from, like as not, was > someone as ill informed as you. Try thinking these things through logically, Ted, instead of making up "facts". Your mind, if properly used, is a better reference than many textbooks, but Nature evolved your mind, and thus your mind is just as fallable as any professor's (if not more so). I might also point out that the Aristotalian notion that True Knowlege is only obtainable through reason, with no recourse to measurement or observation of the real world is somewhat out of date today, for good reason. > 2. The fact that I was comparing what the human could lift when fully > warmed up to the load the sauropod must face when getting up after a > nap, totally cold. And a comparison of human muscular efficency with Sauropod muscular efficency is totally bogus in any event. > 3. The fact that I was comparing what the human could SQUAT to the load > the sauropod must lift OFF THE GROUND. Yep. And you were assuming that the human and Sauropod skeleton gave the same leverage in each case, which is clearly incorrect. > 4. The fact that the constant K itself would not be as high for the > sauropod as for the maximally trained human athlete. This isn't a supporting point. This simply follows from other points, all of which are incorrect. Thus, it itself is quite suspect. > Like I say, rather than throw all of this at the good readers on the > net, I went with the case in which ALL assumptions favored the sauropod, > and he still never made it. As pointed out above, not *all* your assumptions favored the Sauropod. Leverage of the limb is the major one where you are incorrect, along with the mis-application of the square-cube scaling factor, and the assumption that human muscles are as strong as any that exist. > Nonetheless, if I kept my back and legs straight, and two of these > friends were kind enough to put a bar with five or six hundred pounds on > it on my shoulders, I could stand with it; the bones would not break. > Mr. Alexander would no doubt then conclude that I could function quite > well at 700 or 800 lbs (my 200 plus the bar). Are you actually asserting that a (for example) 1000lb man couldn't "function quite well"? If so, and you are right, I suppose you had better let the Guiness Book of World Records know right away. Thay have a fraud... a man who survived and "prospered" while weighing somewhat more than that. Of course, he was supposed to have crashed through the floor of his house, but he was walking around in it until then. > I've been out of academia for a number of years now. It could very well > be that this kind of thing is now called "SCHOLARLY RESEARCH" at UCLA > these days; I don't know. Out here in the real world where I live, > however, this is called "LYING WITH FIGURES". I see. You mean something like ignoring leverage, and assuming that human muscle tissue is as strong as muscle tissue can be, and things like that? -- Wayne Throop at Data General, RTP, NC <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti-sel!rtp47!throopw
beth@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Beth Christy) (09/10/85)
[If God had wanted us to run around naked, we'd have be Born that way!] From: ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden), Message-ID: <391@imsvax.UUCP>: >Try thinking these things through logically, Mike, instead of making up or >looking up "facts". Your mind, if properly used, is a better reference >than many textbooks. I mean, the Lord designed your mind; the guy who >wrote that textbook you're quoting from, like as not, was someone as ill >informed as you. Or you. Or Velikovsky, for that matter. If "ill-informed" is an undesi- rable property, how does one become "informed" without reading? Should everyone start from scratch and rebuild all of mathematics and physics and geology and biology and chemistry and archeology and ..... for herself? .... I keep writing a bunch of reply, but it's too easy. Why argue with anyone who admits to having total disdain for the work and experience and opinions of others (eg, textbook authors)? -- --JB (Beth Christy, U. of Chicago, ..!ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!beth) "Oh yeah, P.S., I...I feel...feel like...I am in a burning building And I gotta go." (Laurie Anderson)
clewis@mnetor.UUCP (Chris Lewis) (09/10/85)
In article <391@imsvax.UUCP> ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) writes: > There are two articles on the net now having to do with the capacity of >the really heavy sauropod dinosaurs to bear weight, one by myself and another >by Stanley Friesen. Some comments: > The notion that the dinosaurs thighs were more efficient than Kazmier's is >simply wrong by a very wide margin. The thigh muscles in the human would be >pulling fairly straight, while the outer layers of muscle in the >disproportionately much wider thigh of the sauropod would not only be pulling >at a vector angle, they would be pulling THROUGH the inner layers of muscle >i.e. the different layers of muscle in such a wide limb would get in >eachother's way. I think you've missed part of what he was saying. It is perfectly possible to have the bones and muscles to be arranged in such a way as to provide a LOT MORE leverage. Consider, when a human is standing with leg thus: O <- hip \ A \ O <- knee / B / ==== <- foot For all intents and purposes, the leg muscles for the knee are connected between A and B around the knee. The leverage for the purpose of straightening the leg is pretty poor because most of the muscle contraction force is wasted trying to shorten the bones because most of the force is parellel with the bones. Engineers never build mechanical systems with that sort of inefficiency built-in. Consider a better system: O <- hip \ A \ O <- knee /---B / / ==== <- foot If the muscle was connected between A and B (on the tip of a bone spike), you'd get lots more leverage. Lots of dinosaur bones show such adaptation to get more leverage. If you were to measure the straight-line pull strength of a thigh muscle, it would be far higher than the force exertable when installed in a human being. Also, consider things like the primates, when you consider that a chimp or orangutan weighing less than a hundred pounds can rip the door off of a car without any trouble with its scrawny arms, you find the mistake in trying to scale up humans to explain limits in animals. >Basically, he claims that a Mr. R.M. Alexander has computed "load factors", >based on the stress that BONES can take, and determined thereby that dinosaurs >could function normally in our world. >Nonetheless, if I kept my back and legs straight, and two of these friends were >kind enough to put a bar with five or six hundred pounds on it on my shoulders, >I could stand with it; the bones would not break. Mr. Alexander would no >doubt then conclude that I could function quite well at 700 or 800 lbs (my 200 >plus the bar). And he'd be right. There are lots of people well over 500 or 600 pounds. Ever hear of "Haystacks Calhoun"? I don't imagine that his bones are any bigger than yours, nor is he any taller, and he gets around pretty well. Last I heard he was 750 pounds or so. I used to watch a lot of wrestling back in my younger days (his high smashes were awesome - I think he broke through the wrestling ring once).... -- Chris Lewis, UUCP: {allegra, linus, ihnp4}!utzoo!mnetor!clewis BELL: (416)-475-8980 ext. 321
padraig@utastro.UUCP (Padraig Houlahan) (09/12/85)
> > Try thinking these things through logically, Mike, instead of making > > up or looking up "facts". Your mind, if properly used, is a better > > reference than many textbooks. I mean, the Lord designed your mind; > > the guy who wrote that textbook you're quoting from, like as not, was > > someone as ill informed as you. Does this statement also apply to Velikovsky and authors in Kronos? Padraig Houlahan.
friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) (09/14/85)
In article <391@imsvax.UUCP> ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) writes: > > The objection that any animals thigh is wider than its calf or ankle is >irrelevant; a ten foot wide animal with ten foot wide THIGHS is impossible. Why is it impossible? I see nothing *intrinsically* difficult about it. See below for a fuller explanation. >If you insist that the ultrasaur's thigh was only 8 feet from side to >side, I will just as logically insist that it was then necessarily 12 or 13 >feet from back to front, still impossible on an animal whose body was 25 or 30 >feet long and 10 feet wide. > Well, here is part of your problem. You have the beasties measurements wrong. A Sauropod only 25 to 30 *feet* long would be the *smallest* one I have ever heard tell of. The correct size is more likely to be 25 to 30 *yards*, in which case a width of 10 feet would be ridiculously thin! A width of 25 feet would be perfectly reasonable, pehaps even a bit wider. At that width two 8 ft wide thighs would only add up to 16 feet, or about half the total width, which is again quite reasonable. Of course all this assumes your estimates of required muscle mass are actually correct. > The notion that the dinosaurs thighs were more efficient than Kazmier's is >simply wrong by a very wide margin... > (A list of speculative factors supporting this claim) Well, as has been pointed out, there are other factors which point the other direction, so we have now reached the limit of Aristotelian a priori reasoning. It is time for an experiment. The best one I can think of is to measure a number of species of animals of various sizes and plot the weight supported by a leg versus the average diameter of that leg. This will produce an allometric equation which estimates the size of leg expected for animals of various sizes. It will be "conservative", that is it will *over*estimate the required diameter. It then becomes a matter of extrapolating the curve to the size proposed for the Ultrasaur, and hope that the extrapolation is valid.(This is because *any* extrapolation beyond your data is somewhat suspect, since the curve may change just beyond the end of available data). > >.... I further believe that I DID that. There are >several points I didn't even bother to mention because I thought they would >occur to anyone who thought about it. These are: > > 1. The HUMAN leg being the more efficient, as demonstrated. Well, your "demonstration" was more an argument from reasonability than a real scientific demonstration. In fact since you ignored leverage, it is quite doubtful that it is correct > > 2. The fact that I was comparing what the human could lift when fully > warmed up to the load the sauropod must face when getting up after a > nap, totally cold. Who says a Sauropod would *get up* from a nap, like many large animals today it would probably sleep on its feet. Also, they may well have been warm-blooded, so they wouldn't cool off sinificantly anyway! > > 3. The fact that I was comparing what the human could SQUAT to the load > the sauropod must lift OFF THE GROUND. > See above, why lift? > 4. The fact that the constant K itself would not be as high for the > sauropod as for the maximally trained human athlete. > Why not? They would be constantly "training", since survival in the wild depends on good health and adequate strength. > I am not going to quote Mr. Friesen's article here; it is on the net. >Basically, he claims that a Mr. R.M. Alexander has computed "load factors", >based on the stress that BONES can take, and determined thereby that dinosaurs >could function normally in our world. Is there a problem with that? Anyone >who has watched houses being built knows how much weight an ordinary 2x4 can >bear when stood end on end. Bones are like that in a way. Take my own humble >middle-aged body as an example. I am about 6' 4", 207 lbs, somewhat stronger >than the general run of my fellow middle-aged businessmen, but I am no >powerlifter. I have friends who are; they are a whole lot stronger than I. >Nonetheless, if I kept my back and legs straight, and two of these friends were >kind enough to put a bar with five or six hundred pounds on it on my shoulders, >I could stand with it; the bones would not break. Mr. Alexander would no >doubt then conclude that I could function quite well at 700 or 800 lbs (my 200 >plus the bar). > No, his conclusion would be that you have sufficient structural leeway that you could run fairly fast without breaking your legs. Remember, he was mainly concerned with *gait*, but an animal that has the capability of a slow run certainly can *stand* on land. Try running sometime, see how hard you pound your feet(and legs) against the ground, you will realize just how much *extra* tension is placed on your legs every stride. In fact if your support ratio is only ~4.0 you could not even run! That is a worse ratio than an Elephant! As a matter of fact 800/200 is almost as bad as the *worst* of the Sauropods! I rather expect that your *bones* could stand a whole lot more. The basic point is that the limiting factor here is not standing on land, it is the extra impact sustained during locomotion, and this requires structural support, not muscles. Muscles can always be adjusted as necessary. -- Sarima (Stanley Friesen) UUCP: {ttidca|ihnp4|sdcrdcf|quad1|nrcvax|bellcore|logico}!psivax!friesen ARPA: ttidca!psivax!friesen@rand-unix.arpa
padraig@utastro.UUCP (Padraig Houlahan) (09/15/85)
Ted Holden wrote: > > > Try thinking these things through logically, Mike, instead of making > > > up or looking up "facts". Your mind, if properly used, is a better > > > reference than many textbooks. I mean, the Lord designed your mind; > > > the guy who wrote that textbook you're quoting from, like as not, was > > > someone as ill informed as you. > > Does this statement also apply to Velikovsky and authors in Kronos? > > Padraig Houlahan. Hey Ted, I'm still waiting for a reply. Padraig Houlahan.