http://www.ftexploring.com/think/superbugs_p2.html
http://www.ftexploring.com/think/superbugs_p1.html Shown above: WEBL before growing!
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1) The ______people usually lift more with respect to their weight than the ______people.
2) What does WEBL stand for?______
3) When the WEBL weighs one pound--let's say it can lift exactly ten pounds over its head. Pretty strong - ______times its weight over its head.
4) Then in the next picture of the WEBL, It has grown proportionately twice as big. It is now ______as tall,
______as wide and ______as deep.
5) But now its inside spaces have grown much more. Now it could fit ______
cubes of its former self inside itself. So its volume is ______times bigger.
6) So at twice as tall, it weighs ______times more.
7) Its surface area at any cross section is now ______times more.
8) Muscle strength changes approximately with the change in muscle cross-sectional area. So now it is ______times stronger than it was before doubling its size in every direction.
9) Weight is simply increasing ______than his muscle strength is ______.
10) Before, when it was half as tall, it could lift ______times its own weight.
Now that it has doubled its height, it can lift only ______times its own weight.
11) So the cross-sectional areas and strength have increased by a factor of ______,
while the weight and volume increased by a factor of ______.
12) So even though a big guy can be much ______than a little guy, if he is growing ______,
his ______can't increase as fast as his ______is increasing.
13) NOW in the next (3rd) WEBL picture, he has grown proportionately 10 times bigger. But look closely at the cube shaped guy.
Now his surfaces are ______times bigger (so the cross sectional area of his muscles are ______times
bigger) and his inside volume is ______cubes (10 times 10 times 10). He is ______times heavier!
14) Our cube creature's (and any other
animal's) weight increases or decreases with the ______of the change in ______.
15) So here is the bottom line. Our strange guy is ______x taller, ______x stronger, and ______x heavier.
16) So now in the Size 10 WEBL cube creature: Weight lifted over its head = ______pounds. Now it can only lift ______its weight.
17) Let's say we have an ant that is 6 mm long and weighs about 3 mg. This is about the size of a ______ant. Pictures of these ants carrying giant leaf sections are common and they are often touted as being super strong.
18) The ant weight lifting claims ranged from 10 to 50 times their own weight.
Every one of the sources claimed this was the equivalent of a man lifting ______his weight. Let's use 50 which I suspect is on the high side for most ants. That means our ant can lift 150 mg, or 0.15 grams.
19) Now let's grow our ant to 6 feet (1829 millimeters) in length. An increase of 304.8 times the
original length of 6mm. If she (most ants are females) grows proportionally, she will weigh about ______pounds when she gets to 6 feet in length. Continuing to use the relationships described above, we can calculate that this frighteningly large ant will now be able to lift 13,935,456 milligrams.
That sounds like a lot more. But alas, it is really only 13,935 grams or just about ______pounds.
20) Now our giant ant cannot quite lift ______of her body weight! No one would brag about that. And I suspect, though won't try to prove it here, that she will
not even be able to lift that. She'll be lucky if she can lift her ______
21) According to the author of this site, does he think ants or people are stronger/tougher? What are some of his reasons?
22) “Bob” who “was obsessed with definition”
was “always grateful that he had not been born with an ______”.
23) Pretend you are 6 feet tall and weigh 200 pounds. You're a pretty strong guy or girl
and can push 100 pounds worth of barbell and weights over your head. That's ______your body weight.
24) But what happens if we shrink you all the way down to about 6 mm or 1/4 of an inch. You now weigh ______
milligrams. Based on the change in cross-sectional area of your muscles you can now lift ______milligrams.
25) That's almost ______times your weight! Now you are ______times stronger than the whimpy ant!
26) There are many factors, in addition to size, which affect an animal's strength. Would a large kangaroo that is the same weight as a small human be able to jump higher and farther? Explain why or why not?
27) Increasing size means weight is increasing ______times as fast as height. ______have to get a whole lot stronger.
28) Eventually they would have to get so fat there wouldn't be room for ______and ______.
29) More and more of a large animal's strength is used to just lift his ______and ______. If you grew taller and taller keeping all the same
proportions you have now, your bones would eventually ______.
30) Check out this site and look for others to help you answer: Do you think Godzilla could have walked at 50m tall? EXPLAIN!!! http://threesixty360.wordpress.com/2008/02/24/godzilla-math/
31) See http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/kong.html
which claims that King Kong was a normal male gorilla scaled up by a factor of ______. Using this site as a reference, do you think King Kong is a plausible animal? Be specific! Compare and contrast his to a dinosaur body. If that link does not work, try one of these: http://www.mail-archive.com//msg01196.html ; http://www.forbes.com/2005/12/12/king-kong-biology_cx_de_1213kongbiology.html ; http://vasingh.blogspot.com/2006/01/insultingly-stupid-movie-physics.html or find your own for evidence! (Include link if you use another.)
32) What was catapulted in medieval sieges that took advantage of physics and scaling? See http://fathom.lib.uchicago.edu/2/21701757/
33) Read about and describe at least one weird example of scaling from the website in the item above. If it does not work, find your own (of course ;-))!
34) Think about and explain what all this SCALING business might have to do with engineering—designing and building structures (bridges, buildings, paper towers, etc.). Be specific and detailed. This question’s worth more!
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