quote:

Originally posted by SeaFireLIV:
The problem with some of you guys is that you use far too much logical scientific analysis to everything. It may look clever, but if life shows one thing, it NEVER goes exactly to the numbers. Only sometimes.

This is why when something happens that `shouldn`t` by Human standards of science, you all get so ultra shocked.

So so wrong, it's not shock when something happens that 'shouldn't', it's facination and interesting.
Resorting to fantasy explinations as opposed to rational ones just seems so dark ages.

i dont see why cubic rule should limit huma size

double size 4 times more weight but 4 times more muscle as well

a guy with 4 times more muscle than me can lift 4 times more weight

quote:

Originally posted by Carpetbagger1:
Partly true, but the size limit is far higher than you might think.
Think Barosaurus or Brachiosaurus.

Hi CB,

my post was in reply to Aaron's. He had mention dinos. I was thinking in terms of twice their sizes. But there are so many other factors to consider ranging from circulation to food availability.

I recently read that insects are limited in size by their 'breathing tubes'. Much bigger and the resulting friction of the air passing over the surface area of large tubes would render the insect useless.

quote:

Originally posted by SeaFire:
The problem with some of you guys is that you use far too much logical scientific analysis to everything.

My first line of logical reasoning started with the flying spaghetti monster but that quickly failed when the blasphemous "Why?" was asked.

quote:

Originally posted by Whirlin_merlin:

quote:

Originally posted by SeaFireLIV:
The problem with some of you guys is that you use far too much logical scientific analysis to everything. It may look clever, but if life shows one thing, it NEVER goes exactly to the numbers. Only sometimes.

This is why when something happens that `shouldn`t` by Human standards of science, you all get so ultra shocked.

So so wrong, it's not shock when something happens that 'shouldn't', it's facination and interesting.
Resorting to fantasy explinations as opposed to rational ones just seems so dark ages.

Agreed.

Not 'shocked' but rather excited. I love it when new information adds to the idea that life and reality are so incredibly amazing.

Science fiction pales in comparison to science.

So I guess if you two saw a 30 feet tall giant striding towards you all, you`d be out with your magnifers saying, "Absoluuutely faaascinating!"

Rather than "Guess we were wrong. RUUUUNNNN!"

quote:

Originally posted by Pirschjaeger:
I recently read that insects are limited in size by their 'breathing tubes'. Much bigger and the resulting friction of the air passing over the surface area of large tubes would render the insect useless.

Not that it undermines the previous discussion on large animals with internal skeletons, but, there were ancient insects many times larger than those around today. Think dragon flies with 3' wingspans.

--Outlaw.

quote:

Originally posted by Badsight-:

As one who screams like a little girl and runs insanely from practically any flying & stinging insect, if I ever came face to face with one of those Japanese Hornets I would soil myself heavily and then simply drop dead. If the above is not a Japanese Hornet, add it to that list.

IIRC, they kill several people a year.

Interestingly, native honey bees kill them by latching onto them en masse until the hornet overheats and dies. Many defenders die in this way but it saves the hive. Imported honey bees (higher production I assume) don't have this instinctive behavior and 10 or 12 hornets can kill an entire hive (hundreds if not thousands) easily.

--Outlaw.

quote:

Originally posted by SeaFireLIV:
So I guess if you two saw a 30 feet tall giant striding towards you all, you`d be out with your magnifers saying, "Absoluuutely faaascinating!"

Rather than "Guess we were wrong. RUUUUNNNN!"

Nope, I think I'd knock up a quick temple of some kind, don some fancy robes and oh I don't know, stone an adulterer to death or something.

quote:

Originally posted by Outlaw---:

quote:

Originally posted by Pirschjaeger:
I recently read that insects are limited in size by their 'breathing tubes'. Much bigger and the resulting friction of the air passing over the surface area of large tubes would render the insect useless.

Not that it undermines the previous discussion on large animals with internal skeletons, but, there were ancient insects many times larger than those around today. Think dragon flies with 3' wingspans.

--Outlaw.

No undermining. You are assuming I'm referring to insects only of today. The largest insect known to have existed was bigger than a man.

It appears that the large insects of the past were around when the O2 partial pressure was higher. With 'more' O2 you can get away with a proportionally smaller exchange/transport system for your mass.

quote:

Originally posted by raaaid:
i dont see why cubic rule should limit huma size

double size 4 times more weight but 4 times more muscle as well

a guy with 4 times more muscle than me can lift 4 times more weight

No, that's not quite how it works. The strength of a muscle is proportional to the area of a cross section of the muscle. If you take four muscles, mould them into a clump and make a cross section, it would ha have something like 1,3 to 3 times the cross section of the single muscle, depending on shape. Thus the gains in weight would rise faster than the raise in strength as you add mass to the muscle. The result is that a guy having four times your muscle mass would be stronger than you, but not four times stronger. There are limits to growth.

The other side effect of size is that the ratio of surface area to internal volume changes as 1/r for a sphere (although only theoretical animals for order of magnitude physics calculations tend to be spherical).

The upshot is that small animals are more subject to fluctuations in external temperatures. Large animals can keep warm more easily but have more problems keeping cool. Hence at the poles there tend to be fewer small land animals and polar penguins are larger and why elephants have large ears.

If Raaaid believes in giants after this thread, then there is no help for him.

quote:

Originally posted by SeaFireLIV:
So I guess if you two saw a 30 feet tall giant striding towards you all, you`d be out with your magnifers saying, "Absoluuutely faaascinating!"

Rather than "Guess we were wrong. RUUUUNNNN!"

Fortunately, they are not wrong, and they won't ever see any 30 feet tall giant striding towards them. Having an open mind does not mean you have to be gullible.

quote:

Originally posted by Whirlin_merlin:
It appears that the large insects of the past were around when the O2 partial pressure was higher. With 'more' O2 you can get away with a proportionally smaller exchange/transport system for your mass.

Completely right. Most of those insects lived during the Carboniferous period, when air contained far more oxygen than today, allowing beings with limited respiratory systems to grow much bigger than today's species.