I’d heard this before, but it’s a fun reminder of how, in a sense, the laws of physics depend on what size you are. (Or rather, which laws have the most impact depends on the size of objects in question)
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tofuziggy•20m ago
I'm not sure about this... for pure shear or tension load the strength scales by the square of the diameter, so increasing beam "linear size" by 10 gives only 100x strength, but our beam-bones would usually fail in bending, not in shear, where the strength scales by a factor of 10,000x (stress = (bending Moment x beam radius) / (Area Moment of Inertia of beam cross section), where the Area moment of inertia is a function of cross section diameter^4)
And don't we already know that giant dinosaurs existed?
vivekd•18m ago
I don't know how convinced I am. First there were dinosaurs in the past, the brachiosaurus was 4 x as big as an elephant and there are probably yet undiscovered dinosaurs that were even bigger given discovery of partial fossils like the Sauroposeidon.
Also we know in the past there were dargonflys with wingspans greater than 2 feet and centipedes that grew as long as a car.
burlesona•21m ago
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