That hypothetical marble critter was so gosh darn cute. :happy:
And the first 30 seconds are just absolutely brilliant.
I love Kurtzgesagt so much. They're so good at breaking down complex concepts into relatable and easy to grasp explanations and visual representation. They should really get their own Tv show, or short series. I'd watch the shit out of that
Also, missed opportunity to sneak in a Hitchhiker's guide reference when showing the whale falling from the sky
[QUOTE=xeo xeo;52559346]I love Kurtzgesagt so much. They're so good at breaking down complex concepts into relatable and easy to grasp explanations and visual representation. They should really get their own Tv show, or short series. I'd watch the shit out of that
Also, missed opportunity to sneak in a Hitchhiker's guide reference when showing the whale falling from the sky[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I was disappointed with the lack of petunias.
I was thinking about something similar the other day, if humans were half the size they are now, would space travel be easier? would we use smaller rockets? Or would we just cram more astronauts into the same capsule? (this is assuming the only difference is humans are half sized and everything else would be "normal sized")
[QUOTE=Whomobile;52560459]I was thinking about something similar the other day, if humans were half the size they are now, would space travel be easier? would we use smaller rockets? Or would we just cram more astronauts into the same capsule? (this is assuming the only difference is humans are half sized and everything else would be "normal sized")[/QUOTE]
Yes and no. If we were half the size as we were, then we could reduce cockpit size as well as resources consumed, but the main bulk of rockets isn't the people riding on it, it's the cargo they bring, including themselves and their fuel. It would still require a huge amount of material to make all that stuff work.
[QUOTE=aznz888;52560745]Yes and no. If we were half the size as we were, then we could reduce cockpit size as well as resources consumed, but the main bulk of rockets isn't the people riding on it, it's the cargo they bring, including themselves and their fuel. It would still require a huge amount of material to make all that stuff work.[/QUOTE]
We could however survive harder accelerations, making things like space cannons and launch loops more viable.
Do midgets make the best astronauts then, physiologically speaking? :thinking:
now I won't feel guilty when I brush ants off my arm onto the floor, I know now that the little fuckers will be just fine
[QUOTE=BANNED USER;52561152]Do midgets make the best astronauts then, physiologically speaking? :thinking:[/QUOTE]
No, kids do. Midgets are adults and they require normal salary whereas kids will do it just for the fun.
[QUOTE=Bordellimies;52561468]No, kids do. Midgets are adults and they require normal salary whereas kids will do it just for the fun.[/QUOTE]
This is why we keep seeing little green men in space ships, the big ones are back on their home planet, and they're sending their little people and children to do all the space adventuring.
Manlets, there's hope for you yet, and you might be the tallest for once!
That was a great episode, looking forward to more in this new subseries.
Already know the answer to the part 2 of this video, Galileo's Square-Cube Law. Also if you just think about scaling up a small ant to the size of a human its intuitive that it would collapse under its own weight before it could even take the first step. Think about the bonds between cells in the ant, as you scale it up you attach more cells together, but the strength of the bonds between the individual cells stays the same. So after a certain size the bonds wouldn't be strong enough to hold the cells together. Same reason why we will never have real life gundam robots.
Gravity has an even bigger role in this too. Imagine I'm on a skyscraper and I want to build a really long chain to hang off it. Link by link I build this chain to get longer and longer vertically. At some point a link in the chain will break because its experiencing all the weight of the links under it. The strength between links doesn't get stronger as I add more links to the chain, and its orientation isn't at all optimal for a very long chain. I can make a chain ""infinitely"" long if I just made it horizontal on the ground. You can extend this reasoning to living things. The structure of an ant is optimal for its size. An elephant's shape is also optimal for its size.
Sea animals like whales can get so large because they don't experience the full force of gravity like we do, the buoyant forces on them kinda cancel gravity so they can get bigger. If we evolved on the moon, we probably could be a lot taller, but as soon as one of us travels to Earth, he/she would run into serious problems.
[QUOTE=noh_mercy;52565066]Already know the answer to the part 2 of this video, Galileo's Square-Cube Law. Also if you just think about scaling up a small ant to the size of a human its intuitive that it would collapse under its own weight before it could even take the first step. Think about the bonds between cells in the ant, as you scale it up you attach more cells together, but the strength of the bonds between the individual cells stays the same. So after a certain size the bonds wouldn't be strong enough to hold the cells together. Same reason why we will never have real life gundam robots.
Gravity has an even bigger role in this too. Imagine I'm on a skyscraper and I want to build a really long chain to hang off it. Link by link I build this chain to get longer and longer vertically. At some point a link in the chain will break because its experiencing all the weight of the links under it. The strength between links doesn't get stronger as I add more links to the chain, and its orientation isn't at all optimal for a very long chain. I can make a chain ""infinitely"" long if I just made it horizontal on the ground. You can extend this reasoning to living things. The structure of an ant is optimal for its size. An elephant's shape is also optimal for its size.
Sea animals like whales can get so large because they don't experience the full force of gravity like we do, the buoyant forces on them kinda cancel gravity so they can get bigger. If we evolved on the moon, we probably could be a lot taller, but as soon as one of us travels to Earth, he/she would run into serious problems.[/QUOTE]
Great reply, adding onto this. The bigger a structure, the more of a balancing game it becomes. Not only must you now distribute the weight more evenly and onto stronger load-bearing materials, but also you have to take into the equation any forces that the structure could create/experience. A giant robot, for instance, would most likely crush its own limbs just trying to step around, as would a giant human. The reason elephants dont just destroy themselves is because their legs are built like pillars and are placed in vertical, since that supports their weight the most optimally. That's also why elephants cannot gallop, run, or jump.
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