DINOSAURS and the Gravity Problem

The Anomolist ^ | Summer 1994 | by Ted Holden

[Swordmaker]

Just think about it...

[Swordmaker]

The Problem of mega-fauna and gravity... relates to the Electric Universe... PING!

If you want on or off the Electric Universe Ping List, Freepmail me.

[Lusis]

Another explanation I've read for the size of the creatures back then was that the atmospere may have contained much more oxygen (or some other gas), allowing bigger animals to exist.

[Mr. Jeeves]

It is now believed that sauropods didn’t and couldn’t raise their heads way up like the illustration shows - they kept their necks more parallel to the ground.

[NCC-1701]

We had a FReeper named sauropod. You think this article would interest him/her?

[atlaw]

Well, Ted, I suppose reiterating your nonsense as an article instead of a post is one way to get around being banned.

[ejonesie22]

Intersting...

But Jupiter and Saturn never attained enough mass to start a reaction and even if Earth was sitting on top of them it couldn’t it get enough heat for life.

The universe was created as observed and it works out just fine. God is a great engineer, and since he wanted big dinosaurs he made them.

[chaosagent]

"It is now believed that sauropods didn’t and couldn’t raise their heads way up like the illustration shows - they kept their necks more parallel to the ground." ___________________________________________________________________

Can we assume then that you didn't read the entire article where this was covered?

The only way to keep the required blood pressure "reasonable," Dodson goes on to add, is "if sauropods fed with the neck extended just a little above heart level, say from ground level up to fifteen feet..." One problem with this solution is that the good leaves were, in all likelihood, above the 20-foot mark; an ultrasaur that could not raise its head above 20 feet would probably starve. Dodson, it should also be noted, entirely neglects the dilemma of the brachiosaur. And there is another problem, which is worse. Try holding your arm out horizontally for even a few minutes, and then imagine your arm being 40 feet long.

Given a scale model and a weight figure for the entire dinosaur, it is possible to use volume-based techniques to estimate weight for a sauropod's neck. An ultrasaur is generally thought to be a near cousin -- if not simply a very large specimen -- of the brachiosaur. The technique, then, is to measure the volume of water which the sauropod's neck (severed at the shoulders and filled with bondo or autobody putty) displaces, versus the volume which the entire brachiosaur displaces, and simply extrapolate to the 360,000-pound figure for the ultrasaur. I did this using a Larami Corporation model of a brachiosaur, which is to scale. To make a long story short, the neck weighs 28,656 pounds, and the center of gravity of that neck is 15 feet from the shoulders, the neck itself being 38 feet long. This equates to 429,850 foot-pounds of torque.

If we assume the sauropod could lift its head at least as easily as a human with an 18-inch neck can move his head against a neck- exercise machine set to 130 pounds, then the sauropod would require the muscular strength of a neck 17.4 feet in diameter. With a more reasonable assumption of effort, equivalent to the human using a 50-pound setting, the sauropod would require a neck of over 20 feet in 10 diameter. But the sauropod's neck, at its widest, apparently measured about ten feet by seven feet where it joined the shoulders, then narrowed rapidly to about six or seven feet in diameter over the remainder of its length. McGowan and others claim that the head and neck were supported by a dorsal ligament and not muscles, but we know of no living creature using ligaments to support a body structure which its available musculature cannot sustain. In all likelihood, sauropods, in our gravity at least, could neither hold their heads up nor out.

[Swordmaker]

It is now believed that sauropods didn’t and couldn’t raise their heads way up like the illustration shows - they kept their necks more parallel to the ground.

You still have the problem of how a 180 ton (360,000 lbs) animal can even stand up... much less walk, eat, make little sauropods... that would be something to see.

Then, what is the evolutionary advantage to having a 40 foot, horizontal neck? How does our beasty swallow his forage? Conveyer belt throat? Peristalsis can only do so much... A shorter neck would make more sense unless it was evolved to reach high food.

[Swordmaker]

Well, Ted, I suppose reiterating your nonsense as an article instead of a post is one way to get around being banned.

Please provide another answer to the question of how megafauna existed in the gravity well we live in today.

Unless you can do that, these speculations are not nonsense.

[Swordmaker]

Another explanation I've read for the size of the creatures back then was that the atmospere may have contained much more oxygen (or some other gas), allowing bigger animals to exist.

Possible... but I doubt it. We know the power available in the chemical engines we call muscles. Hyperbaric experimentation has not shown any significant increase in muscle efficiency due to higher oxygen content of the atmosphere... endurance is increased but not strength.

[editor-surveyor]

"It is now believed that sauropods didn’t and couldn’t raise their heads way up like the illustration shows - they kept their necks more parallel to the ground."

Resolve the forces; that would exacerbate their problem greatly.

[mo]

A smaller diameter earth solves the problem.....

[Kevmo]

Interesting article, will need to finish later.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Bumblebees can’t fly, either. ;)

[Swordmaker]

A smaller diameter earth solves the problem.....

True, an Earth about the size of Mars would have a gravity that is a little more than 1/3 that of Earth's...

[SunkenCiv]

http://www.bearfabrique.org/computers_main.html

[gfellow]

I see some years have gone by since this posting was placed, but I hadn’t made the video until two years later, and not discovered the post until now :-)

Although the below link specifically addresses the Sun, the induced gravity aspect may relate to the topic at hand:
“An Empty Sun - Can Gravity be Induced?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fdhyhPu6PY

[techworker]

bump for later

[mo]

the ante-deluvian earth may have had a smaller diameter....