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On 2002-05-23 15:37, Silas wrote:
Quote:
On 2002-05-23 13:30, Firefox wrote:
Does this equation work with land animals only, or animals in general? Blue whales weigh, on average, around 220,000 pounds.
Adam
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Land animals only... Sea critters are suspended by the water... Since animal flesh is very close to the same density as water, you can (roughly) envision a great whale as "a bag of water in the water."
(But don't tell him that to his face...)
Silas
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I don't even think that this works for land animals. The equation quoted is from Ted Holden's web page (I can't find the link anymore). What Holden did was work out how large you could make a champion weightlifter so that his weight was equal to his maximum demonstrated lift. So the equation really shows how big a human can get. Holden ignores the differences in physiology, especially in skeletal structure, that would allow animals like elephants and sauropods to be better adapted for large size than H. sapiens.