Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 UW 5/3/83; site uw-june Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!uw-june!gordon From: gordon@uw-june (Gordon Davisson) Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: Re: Sauropods Got Dianabol??? Message-ID: <243@uw-june> Date: Sat, 14-Sep-85 07:33:34 EDT Article-I.D.: uw-june.243 Posted: Sat Sep 14 07:33:34 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 15-Sep-85 00:24:48 EDT References: <392@imsvax.UUCP> Organization: U of Washington Computer Science Lines: 114 [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.