this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2023
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Science Memes

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Seriously??? (mander.xyz)
submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago (2 children)

You also can't just scale things up and have them work the same way. I forget if there's a proper name for this but weight is related to volume which is the cube of the dimension, but pressure is related to area which is the square of the dimension. So giant king kongs ankles aren't looking so great right now as the pressure will increase with scale.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Fittingly enough, this is called the Square-Cube law

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

Why can’t we just petition to amend the law?

Come on scientists.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Thank you! I was sure it had a name.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

Ideally you aren't slamming all of your weight on your ankles with every step though. If you do that at human scale with normal human weight, there won't be much of your ankles left either. Your muscles work as a spring to catch most of the force and they also grow cubicly. So i think the law cannot be applied this directly to biological systems. Of course you are right, that King Kong would probably not just be a scaled up Gorilla, but also altered in his shape.