Them!

AV1611VET · Aug 11, 2018

When I was growing up, I saw the movie Them! which scared the Y2K right out of me.

I've heard that ants can't really grow that large because of some law about the square of the size means the less liklihood of survival.

Or something like that.

Would someone enlighten me please on this law?

Thanks!

A_Thinker · Aug 11, 2018

AV1611VET said:
When I was growing up, I saw the movie Them! which scared the Y2K right out of me.

I've heard that ants can't really grow that large because of some law about the square of the size means the less liklihood of survival.

Or something like that.

Would someone enlighten me please on this law?

Thanks!

Don't know anything about the law, but ...

Everything in nature is pretty much designed to be the size that it is. Large scale changes in the size of living organisms come with rather overwhelming detriments, as well.

AV1611VET · Aug 11, 2018

A_Thinker said:
Don't know anything about the law, but ...

Everything in nature is pretty much designed to be the size that it is. Large scale changes in the size of living organisms come with rather overwhelming detriments, as well.

Ya ... I just found it.

It's called the square-cube law.

Interesting.

Aryeh Jay · Aug 11, 2018

AV1611VET said:
When I was growing up, I saw the movie Them! which scared the Y2K right out of me.

I've heard that ants can't really grow that large because of some law about the square of the size means the less liklihood of survival.

Or something like that.

Would someone enlighten me please on this law?

Thanks!

I saw that movie too. One night I was walking and some sprinklers automatically went off at a park and sounded just like “Them”.

AV1611VET · Aug 11, 2018

Aryeh Jay said:
I saw that movie too. One night I was walking and some sprinklers automatically went off at a park and sounded just like “Them”.

Now THAT would have creeped me out!

bhillyard · Aug 12, 2018

You should try reading "On Growth and Form" by Darcy Thompson (pdf available on Project Gutenburg).
A good exposition on this, simple mathematics and not very long.

Warden_of_the_Storm · Aug 12, 2018

Yeah, square cube law. It's the same reason why King Kong, Godzilla, giant spiders, giants, giant rabbits, etc all belong in fiction; outside of the buoyancy afforded by water, those body shapes would just collapse under their own weight.

Now, in a more oxygen rich environment, while a body of the size of the ants in Them!, which is (I'm guessing) about three-times the size of a fully grown draft horse, would be impossible, something half that size would be something logical.

AV1611VET · Aug 12, 2018

Warden_of_the_Storm said:
It's the same reason why King Kong, Godzilla, giant spiders, giants, giant rabbits, etc all belong in fiction; outside of the buoyancy afforded by water, those body shapes would just collapse under their own weight.

What about T. Rex and Brontosaurus?

bhillyard · Aug 12, 2018

Brontosaurus etc would have had leg bones commensurate with their size.
The point is you cannot just scale up an animal regardless - their bones would have to resize disproportionately to support the weight.
E.g. scaling a human by a factor of 10 would increase their weight a thousandfold but their leg bone bearing capacity only a hundredfold, so they would likely break their leg with their first step.

Warden_of_the_Storm · Aug 12, 2018

AV1611VET said:
What about T. Rex and Brontosaurus?

If you look at the bones for both, you can see that both of their bodies are well adapted for their large size. Although the oxygen content back in the Jurassic and Cretaceous Period was higher than todays, and oxygen is one of the keys for larger animals.

Justatruthseeker · Aug 12, 2018

AV1611VET said:
When I was growing up, I saw the movie Them! which scared the Y2K right out of me.

I've heard that ants can't really grow that large because of some law about the square of the size means the less liklihood of survival.

Or something like that.

Would someone enlighten me please on this law?

Thanks!

Why yes, it means under today's gravity, dinosaurs can't exist......

Notice I said today's gravity. If gravity was less in the past, people would live longer too, just as astronauts in orbit (less gravity) age less.....

That's what that acceleration has done, added relativistic mass and changed the decay rate since the beginning when God "stretched out the heavens".....

Tanj · Aug 12, 2018

AV1611VET said:
When I was growing up, I saw the movie Them! which scared the Y2K right out of me.

I've heard that ants can't really grow that large because of some law about the square of the size means the less liklihood of survival.

Or something like that.

Would someone enlighten me please on this law?

Thanks!

Insect oxygen delivery is via a network of dead end tracheal tubes which get increasingly inefficient with large body size, mostly due to supply to the legs. As detailed in this easy to read piece:

https://www.livescience.com/1776-bugs-huge.html

DogmaHunter · Aug 13, 2018

A_Thinker said:
Don't know anything about the law, but ...

Everything in nature is pretty much designed to be the size that it is. Large scale changes in the size of living organisms come with rather overwhelming detriments, as well.

You aren't aware that insects used to be HUGE?
I'm talking flies the size of a human head and centipedes measuring 3 meters in length.

Then there's also dino's and stuff.
Kind of naive to think it's "impossible", while we have the evidence that demonstrates the exact opposite.

DogmaHunter · Aug 13, 2018

Justatruthseeker said:
Why yes, it means under today's gravity, dinosaurs can't exist......

/facepalm

Notice I said today's gravity. If gravity was less in the past, people would live longer too, just as astronauts in orbit (less gravity) age less.....

/bigger facepalm

That's what that acceleration has done, added relativistic mass and changed the decay rate since the beginning when God "stretched out the heavens".....

/ultimate facepalm

Kylie · Aug 13, 2018

AV1611VET said:
When I was growing up, I saw the movie Them! which scared the Y2K right out of me.

I've heard that ants can't really grow that large because of some law about the square of the size means the less liklihood of survival.

Or something like that.

Would someone enlighten me please on this law?

Thanks!

It's easier to understand if you think of cubes.

Imagine you have a cube that is one inch on each side. This cube measures one inch and have a volume of one cubic inch. And since a cube has six faces, it has a surface area of six square inches.

Now imagine you make it twice as large - instead of each side measuring one inch, it now measures two inches. And it has a surface area of twenty four square inches, since it has six faces each of four square inches. But because it is two inches high, two inches wide and two inches from front to back, it now has a volume of EIGHT cubic inches. So it's length only increase twice, but it's volume increases eight times. And the surface area has increased four times.

So the volume (and thus the mass) increases faster than length (or width or depth), or surface area.

So, as the size increases, the volume will increase faster than the cross section, which means that if you just scale something like an ant up, the legs will have to support proportionally more weight. So something small like an ant can get by with spindly legs, but those legs would snap if it was the size of an elephant. That's why elephants have thick stumpy legs.

Kylie · Aug 13, 2018

Justatruthseeker said:
Why yes, it means under today's gravity, dinosaurs can't exist......

Notice I said today's gravity. If gravity was less in the past, people would live longer too, just as astronauts in orbit (less gravity) age less.....

That's what that acceleration has done, added relativistic mass and changed the decay rate since the beginning when God "stretched out the heavens".....

Please support your claim that gravity has changed significantly over time, and that people age less in microgravity.

Justatruthseeker · Aug 13, 2018

DogmaHunter said:
/facepalm

/bigger facepalm

/ultimate facepalm

"When people have actual reasons for disagreeing with you, they offer those reasons without hesitation. Strangers on social media will cheerfully check your facts, your logic, and your assumptions. But when you start seeing ad hominem attacks that offer no reasons at all, that might be a sign that people in the mass hysteria bubble don’t understand what is wrong with your point of view except that it sounds more sensible than their own." Scott Adams

I am glad to see you agree it is more sensible than your own....

DogmaHunter · Aug 13, 2018

Justatruthseeker said:
"When people have actual reasons for disagreeing with you, they offer those reasons without hesitation. Strangers on social media will cheerfully check your facts, your logic, and your assumptions. But when you start seeing ad hominem attacks that offer no reasons at all, that might be a sign that people in the mass hysteria bubble don’t understand what is wrong with your point of view except that it sounds more sensible than their own." Scott Adams

I am glad to see you agree it is more sensible than your own....

Support your nonsense claims about gravity.

And while you are at it, learn what an ad hominim actually is.

A_Thinker · Aug 13, 2018

DogmaHunter said:
You aren't aware that insects used to be HUGE?

I'm talking flies the size of a human head and centipedes measuring 3 meters in length.

The largest of the prehistoric insects (with wing-spans up to 3 feet across) ... are still much smaller than what we see in SF features like "Them" ...

A_Thinker · Aug 13, 2018

DogmaHunter said:
Then there's also dino's and stuff.

Kind of naive to think it's "impossible", while we have the evidence that demonstrates the exact opposite.

Dino's were made differently than insects ...

Them!

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