The Impossible Dinosaurs - Megafauna and Attenuated Gravity

Kronia.com ^ | Ted Holden

[Ditto]

No animal the same weight as one of these men could be presumed to be as strong.

Nonsense. An adult chimp smaller than these power lifters could rip their damn arms off and beat him over the head if they want too. The average chimp could bench press over 1000 pounds and not even strain.

[js1138]

And your evidence that your dinos are proportional is based on what? My sources indicate that most of the increased length is in the neck and tail. Which is why I ask you to show me your numbers. Let’s look at something factual, like the square cube law applied to the weight of complete fossil skeletons. I’ve been looking for a source of weights for complete skeletons, but haven’t found one.

By the way, I really like your teratorn. Good call on identification. I especially like the picture behind the fossil.

[Swordmaker]

Re: the skeleton picture

I think you may be right about that particular photograph now that I look at in more detail. It apparently is mislabeled where I found it. Sorry about that.

However, that does not negate the hundreds of Teratorn skeletons found complete in the La Brea Tar Pits or the dozens of the larger species that have been found in Argentina.

In addition I posted “actual” calculations using the Square Cube Law.

[Swordmaker]

re: idealized spheres

I asked you once before where you got that absurd idea. Now you repeat it. Obviously you don’t bother to read any sources material I posted. I challenged you to find mathematical backup for your assertion. You have not provided it. Do so or shut up.

[js1138]

Actual arithmetic perhaps, but not based on complete skeletons. We have many complete skeletons of dinosaurs. Let’s weigh them and see if body length from head to tail really works with the square cube law. Of course that doesn’t take into account that dino bones in real life might not all be the same density. They were, after all, related to birds.

Speaking of which, you haven’t responded to the information on wing loading for the real teratorn.

I merely point out the insanity of reconstructing an animal from a bone fragment and assuming its proportions are such that the laws of physics need to be tossed out the window. It’s much more likely that the assumptions about the reconstruction are wrong. Judging from your inability to notice your teratorn has the structure of a flightless bird, I wouldn’t bet money on your judgement of proportions.

And please don’t feed me the shit that Ted Holden’s physics is compatible with anything actual scientists do. You may thin the Electric Universe stuff is cool, but I rather doubt that either you or Ted are smarter than working physicists.

[RightWhale]

We have no need of changing gravitational constant. Michio Kaku says several papers, by actual physicists, taking a crack at the Voyager gravitational anomaly and the planetary slingshot anomaly, are on the way. Who knows what they will come up with, poor old Newton, but it is happening now not 100 million years ago.

[js1138]

I asked you once before where you got that absurd idea.

It doesn't require an actual sphere, just an object that can be approximated by a sphere. You worm around this by saying the objects to be compared have the have the same proportions and same average density.

That's the trick, isn't it? I did some calculations using real birds of the same type and found weights overpredicted by thirty percent. How can you defend screwing with the laws of physics based on reconstructions of animals from a bone fragment?

But the real argument killer is the wing loading of your giant teratorn -- the real one. If You think things weighed less at the surface of the earth millions of years ago, why is the wing loading of the teratorn exactly in the middle range of modern birds?

[js1138]

Call back when you have a gravitational anomaly of sufficient magnitude to affect wing and muscle performance on the surface of the earth.

[RightWhale]

The effect will not be observable in the planet. This is shown by the fact that it is not observed on the planet. The problem under discussion in this thread does not exist.

[js1138]

The problem under discussion in this thread does not exist.

That's putting it kindly.

[theFIRMbss]

>what does it have to do with weightlifters?

With less gravity,
everyone liked films about
gladiators then . . .

[Swordmaker]

Re: not smart enough to do arithmaric . . .

Obviously not.

[Swordmaker]

Re: yes, it works for sparrows if you scale a sparrow to a mega- sparrow and retain a sparrow”a proportions. After scaling your scaled sparrow will still look like a sparrow, only bigger and a lot heavier. It also works for humans if you keep the proportions the same. Take an actor and paint him green a triple his size in a expansion chamber and you get the Jolly Green Giant who can’t stand up.

[zot]

Thanks for the large critters vs. gravity ping.

I would like to see more investigation of the differences in oxygen and mitochondria (and thus ATP and muscle strength) before and after the big impact about 65 million years ago.

I have read that insects are limited in size because of their inefficient respiratory systems — but there were dragonflies six times larger than present dragonflies.

[js1138]

There are apparently posts beyond 200, but I can’t get to them.

[js1138]

But you don’t have sparrows. You have a few bone fragments form which you extrapolate things not accepted by experts.

Then you have a large bird that you assert can’t fly, but which has a wing loading quite consistent with modern birds. You show me a picture of a fossil skeleton that resembles a dodo and ask me if I think it can fly. You and your sycophantic friends don’t even notice the fossil can’t possibly be your bird.

[js1138]

I can’t tell if what I post actually gets posted. I’ll be back in a few days. In the meantime, you work on the wing loading problem.

Do you have any evidence that wing loading in flying critters was different back when earth orbited Uranus, or whatever it is that Ted preaches? If not, why not. Wing surface area is the best predictor of weight in a flyer.

[Swordmaker]

I am therefore 2.91 times taller than she is. Let's pretend I am 6 feet so we can avoid decimals. Now I am triple her height. Forgive me if I have misread your statements, but it appears that I would then be 27 times her body weight, or 486 pounds. This cannot be right, so I assume there is an error somewhere in here. Where have I made the error?

OK, I'm home now and not replying on my iPhone. I can give you a little more information.

The error is in the mis-application of the Square Cube Law. It's the same error JS1138 made with his Chestnut Sparrow -> California Condor attempt at scaling. The Chestnut Sparrow does not look like a California Condor except only in the fact they both are birds and have wings, beaks, and feathers.

In your case, infants and adults are not proportional to each other. Your daughter's arms and legs are not the same proportion to her torso as yours arms and legs are to your torso, nor is her head the same ~1/8th her body length that an adult man's head is normally... its more like 1/4. Also babies have baby fat... you no longer have your's (I hope).

Basic Proportions and Height

Adult Man - 8 heads height; 3 heads up to waistline; 4 heads up to the crotch
Adult Woman - 7-3/4 heads height; 3 heads up to waistline; 4 heads up to the crotch
Children - 6 heads height; 2-1/2 heads up to waistline; 3 heads up to the crotch
Infant - 4 heads = total body length

Picture that six feet tall...

Again, like JS's sparrow, if we were to scale your daughter, as she is, up by 3 times... she would look exactly like she does now... with proportionately the same short legs and arms, large head (now about 18" from chin to crown and about 15" from ear to ear), and baby fat... only she's 3 times larger and it's no wonder she would weigh somewhere around 486 pounds. The infant's shoulders are ~9" but the scaled up infant's shoulders are 27". My shoulders are 19" and I am not a small man. Her waist is probably about 16" - 18" now... after scaling her three times it would be 48" to 54" and her ~9" long torso would be a ~36" torso . . .

She would need a diaper 3² or 9 times larger in area than the one she uses now (cloth diaper size for infant up to 20 lbs = 14" x 17" = 238 square inches = 1.65 square feet. Multiply that times 3².

9 x 1.65 Square feet = a 14.85 Square Foot diaper... 42" X 52".

If, however, your daughter looked just like you with exactly the same proportions of legs and arms to torso, with a head ~1/8th her body length and lacked the baby fat, everything exactly 1/3 smaller, when scaled up three times, she would be six feet tall and look just like you and weigh what you do.

This is exactly the problem of the megafauna... we are looking at animals that ARE proportionate to the smaller versions without adaptation to handle the greater weight.

[Swordmaker]

I’ve made no attacks on you, SM.

I know that... I pinged you to my comment to JS1138 to show you exactly why I had decided not to post it to you... He responded as I expected.

I have posted answers your questions, I hope, in the last post. Sorry about any misunderstanding.

[Swordmaker]

My sources indicate that most of the increased length is in the neck and tail.

Right... but the femur is almost twice the size of the brachiosaurus' femur but "most of the increased length is in the neck and tail." Again you make a statement claiming sources but NEVER PROVIDE THEM. POST THEM. I've posted many sources, you've posted none.

And SO WHAT??? Even if the length is in the tails and necks and the proportions have been mis-interpreted, these animals are STILL too large for the ability of their muscles to carry them.

From left to right:
The diplodocid Seismosaurus hallorum (skeleton on display at the NMMNHS–33 m. (110 ft.) long),
The diplodocid Amphicoelias fragillimus (est 58 m. (190 ft.) long),
Homo sapiens (1.8 m. (6 ft.) tall),
African Elephant Loxodonta africana (4 m. (13 ft.) tall at the shoulder),
The titanosaur Argentinosaurus huinculensis (est 30 m. (98 ft.) long),
The titanosaur Puertasaurus reuili (shortest reported estimate 35 m. (115 ft.) long).
Note that, in this latest estimate, Seismosaurus completely fits under the tail of Amphicoelias fragillimus!


Reconstructed Seismosaurus Hallorum on
display at the New Mexico Museum
of Natural History & Science,
110 feet long, estimated
weight 160,000 - 200,000 Lbs.

Do you want to start calculating the amount of strength a muscle would have to have to keep those necks and tails off the ground, cantilevered out over 40 feet?

And as shown earlier, one sauropod, the Brachiosaurus, for which we have a complete skeleton, is estimated to weigh in at 70-90 thousand pounds... two to three times the theoretical maximum weight that muscular strength can lift against 1G.

Are you arguing that these animals never existed or that they somehow had Kryptonian super-powers?