datanguay@watdaisy.UUCP (David Tanguay) (09/15/85)
Ted Holden claims, in his now famous article, that muscular strength is proportional to muscular cross-section. This is true only if all other factors are held equal. In this case, the length of the muscle is different (!). Ignoring structural differences (leverage, different kind of muscle, all those fudge factors) and using Ted's figures corrected for length (2 feet for a human thigh, 10 for the beastie) it turns out Dino needs a radius of sqrt(36/5), which is something less than 2.7 feet. (this is gotten by stretching a cylinder 12x2 feet to one of 10 foot length). Convert to an elliptical cross-section and this figure, while admittedly a little big, is in the right ball park. David Tanguay University of Waterloo