throopw@rtp47.UUCP (Wayne Throop) (09/06/85)
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 is *is* possible, another thing altogether. > 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. > [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. > 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. > 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. -- Wayne Throop at Data General, RTP, NC <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti-sel!rtp47!throopw