Heavy-Worlders and the square-cube scaling

"Andrew L." <boskone2k2 DeleteThis @gmail.com> wrote in message
news:op.tf1s00fz9oglv5@roderick.workgroup...
> On Sun, 17 Sep 2006 14:50:40 -0500, gS49 <gersmith00 DeleteThis @verizon.net> wrote:
>>
>> "Andrew L." <boskone2k2 DeleteThis @gmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:op.tf07inp59oglv5@roderick.workgroup...
>>
>>> More likely tinker Gnome, with a maybe a dash of Valenar for that "Full
>>> speed ahead, and damn the common sense!" methodology.
>>
>> Don't recognize 'Valenar.' What stories is that?
>
> Different campaign setting. They're Elves from Eberron, with a sort of
> martial twist; ancestor-worshipping cavalry.
>
> Andrew L.

Thanks, Andrew
 >> Stay informed about: Heavy-Worlders and the square-cube scaling 

"Gunfighter40" <waltbj01.RemoveThis@mindspring.com> wrote in
news:1158456715.954266.236110@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

> Gnome? Feet, ankles, knees and hip joints, spines; all would require
> some natural evolution to bear up under the stresses of every day
> living. For instance, our pro athletes who after retirement creak
> about, their bodies beat down by the abnormal stresses experienced
> during their playing career. Bodies will adapt and evolve to meet the
> environment. Viz: Inuit in the cold (stockiness) and Chileans (chest
> capacity, more hemoglobin) in the Andes, pygmies in the deep jungle
> (dearth of food) , and those wee people on Flores Island (probably
> food) so recently in the news. 1.3 G doesn't sound like much but that
> would load up a 150 pounder with 45 more pounds 100% of the time.
> Creak, snap crackle pop..
> Walt BJ
>
>

Indeed - I can't imagine 60 more lbs all the time. My right knee
is bad enough after 25 years of B-ball.
 >> Stay informed about: Heavy-Worlders and the square-cube scaling 

Gunfighter40 wrote:
> Gnome? Feet, ankles, knees and hip joints, spines; all would require
> some natural evolution to bear up under the stresses of every day
> living. For instance, our pro athletes who after retirement creak
> about, their bodies beat down by the abnormal stresses experienced
> during their playing career. Bodies will adapt and evolve to meet the
> environment. Viz: Inuit in the cold (stockiness) and Chileans (chest
> capacity, more hemoglobin) in the Andes, pygmies in the deep jungle
> (dearth of food) , and those wee people on Flores Island (probably
> food) so recently in the news. 1.3 G doesn't sound like much but that
> would load up a 150 pounder with 45 more pounds 100% of the time.
> Creak, snap crackle pop..

There's an important difference in that the body (muscles and bones)
will adapt a lot during childhood. I'd expect that growing up in 1.3G
would make for bigger and thus stronger bones and joints right there,
and musculature (the size of it, mainly) to match.

After all, amount of physical exercise as a child does have a noticeable
effect there too, and people who grow up high in the mountains seem to
have stronger (larger) lungs even if their parents just moved up there
from the lowlands...

That is not to say that such non-genetic adaptation would be
"sufficient", it's just that the difference might be a bit smaller than
that.


--
Mikko Nahkola <mnahkola DeleteThis @trein.ntc.nokia.com>
#include <disclaimer.h>
#Not speaking for my employer. No warranty. YMMV.
 >> Stay informed about: Heavy-Worlders and the square-cube scaling 

IMHO the human body was designed to be a light-weight cursorial hunter.
IE, one who runs the game down when it's time to eat. No body hair,
good lung capacity, carnivorous, hunter's eyes, springy feet. Neither
the spine, the hips nor the knees and feet were designed to carry heavy
loads for long periods of time. People doing just this for years on end
will rpt will have problems with loss of cartilage in joints as they
get older. Ask old runners how their knees are, for instance. Mine are
shot; my 220 pounds (back then!)beat them down. . . . but then we're
not evolved to live as long as we do now.
Walt BJ
 >> Stay informed about: Heavy-Worlders and the square-cube scaling 

"Paul F Austin" <pfaustin.TakeThisOut@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:_iJOg.2477$vX5.925@bignews8.bellsouth.net...
> Weber has people adapted for life on high-gravity worlds being
> substantially
> larger than us lesser mortals, the higher the G field, the larger the
> specimen. I'm not sure that makes sense. Muscle strength scales as the
> cross-sectional area of a particular muscle while mass scales a cube
> function of stature. It seems to me that heavy worlders should be _small_
> not large. A straight scaling downward of the human form would decrease
> mass
> loading faster than muscle strength drops and in the opposite direction, a
> scaled up human with standard muscle fibers would be crippled by added
> weight as the scaling increases. Of course, you can McGuffin-ize the
> muscle
> fibers to be Better Than Human but then, why scale them up in size?
>
> The hydraulics of circulation add to the problems of tall people in high G
> fields, with long columns of blood exacerbating water hammer effects at
> the
> extremities, including the brain.
>
>

I've noted this and have to agree. The people should be very musclar dwarfs
like the mythic beings. Short, blocky, and very strong and the higher the g
force the shorter and blockier. Making these people taller does not compute
even if you beef them up. Several other authors actually have noted the same
thing and used it in their universes.

There may be some reasons for keeping people moderately large but the
smallest (In body size) popualtion that we know off on Earth seemed to be a
meter or less. I'm way short of good reasons for making high g beings
taller.
 >> Stay informed about: Heavy-Worlders and the square-cube scaling 

"Paul F Austin" <pfaustin.DeleteThis@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:Y_POg.449$GY5.336@bignews6.bellsouth.net...
>
> "Gunfighter40" <waltbj01.DeleteThis@mindspring.com> wrote
>> Paul, I do believe you have something here. Short and squat seems
>> logical.
>> Walt BJ
>
> But somehow a 4 foot, 150 pound HH? Naah.
>
>

Now that's a thought. )) If you look at her changes she didn't get big and
beefy. They did something to make the skeleton stronger and used a different
muscle fiber. There is a potential here found in small mammals but turned
off in humans and other large mammmals. I suspect the reason is that you
could break your own bones if it was turned on.

The other issue is fuel. As long as food/fuel can be found poor milage can
be lived with but in the real world famine has been very common even if you
and I have never run into it. In the real world beings like Kaja tend to
strave to death.
 >> Stay informed about: Heavy-Worlders and the square-cube scaling 

"Tony Whitlow" <awhit175.DeleteThis@midsouth.rr.com> wrote in message
news:450C9041.48095CEE@midsouth.rr.com...
>I thought he answered all that when he described the increased musculature
>and
> heavier skeletal structure. These mods keep the gnome thing from
> happening.

You could beef someone up but if that is all you do then you have every
problem that causes some of use to think this would have had dubius success
as a mod and the high g people would have ended up looking like muscular
dwarves.

Different mod for HH. Seriously. You might note a description of her beside
the others. In this case they were trying to keep the weight down and the
appearence was a lot more normal. The members of her family are not
described as muscular giants that looked like high g people.


>
> TW
>
> Paul F Austin wrote:
>
>> Weber has people adapted for life on high-gravity worlds being
>> substantially
>> larger than us lesser mortals, the higher the G field, the larger the
>> specimen. I'm not sure that makes sense. Muscle strength scales as the
>> cross-sectional area of a particular muscle while mass scales a cube
>> function of stature. It seems to me that heavy worlders should be _small_
>> not large. A straight scaling downward of the human form would decrease
>> mass
>> loading faster than muscle strength drops and in the opposite direction,
>> a
>> scaled up human with standard muscle fibers would be crippled by added
>> weight as the scaling increases. Of course, you can McGuffin-ize the
>> muscle
>> fibers to be Better Than Human but then, why scale them up in size?
>>
>> The hydraulics of circulation add to the problems of tall people in high
>> G
>> fields, with long columns of blood exacerbating water hammer effects at
>> the
>> extremities, including the brain.
>
 >> Stay informed about: Heavy-Worlders and the square-cube scaling 

deowll wrote:

> Different mod for HH. Seriously. You might note a description of her beside
> the others. In this case they were trying to keep the weight down and the
> appearence was a lot more normal. The members of her family are not
> described as muscular giants that looked like high g people.

She was supposed to have gotten the mod through her father. A mod that
made the Myardhals her mother's size, would not have drawn much notice,
IMO.
 >> Stay informed about: Heavy-Worlders and the square-cube scaling 

"Gunfighter40" <waltbj01.DeleteThis@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:1158456715.954266.236110@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Gnome? Feet, ankles, knees and hip joints, spines; all would require
> some natural evolution to bear up under the stresses of every day
> living. For instance, our pro athletes who after retirement creak
> about, their bodies beat down by the abnormal stresses experienced
> during their playing career. Bodies will adapt and evolve to meet the
> environment. Viz: Inuit in the cold (stockiness) and Chileans (chest
> capacity, more hemoglobin) in the Andes, pygmies in the deep jungle
> (dearth of food) , and those wee people on Flores Island (probably
> food) so recently in the news. 1.3 G doesn't sound like much but that
> would load up a 150 pounder with 45 more pounds 100% of the time.
> Creak, snap crackle pop..
> Walt BJ
>

Oh the pain of de feet! The agony of the back. Hernias galore! Broken bones
when you fall a lot more often and the farther you fall the worse. A short
Hsn would have been about as good as real humans get for high g.
 >> Stay informed about: Heavy-Worlders and the square-cube scaling 

"Paul F Austin" <pfaustin.DeleteThis@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:wm2Pg.4171$GY5.725@bignews6.bellsouth.net...
>
> "Gunfighter40" <waltbj01.DeleteThis@mindspring.com> wrote
>> Gnome? Feet, ankles, knees and hip joints, spines; all would require
>> some natural evolution to bear up under the stresses of every day
>> living. For instance, our pro athletes who after retirement creak
>> about, their bodies beat down by the abnormal stresses experienced
>> during their playing career. Bodies will adapt and evolve to meet the
>> environment. Viz: Inuit in the cold (stockiness) and Chileans (chest
>> capacity, more hemoglobin) in the Andes, pygmies in the deep jungle
>> (dearth of food) , and those wee people on Flores Island (probably
>> food) so recently in the news. 1.3 G doesn't sound like much but that
>> would load up a 150 pounder with 45 more pounds 100% of the time.
>> Creak, snap crackle pop..
>> Walt BJ
>
> The pygmies are sized by thermal management requirements. The equatorial
> triple canopy jungle doesn't get real hot but the humidity is always 100%.
> The pygmies maximize surface to volume ratio by the same square-cube law.
>
>

So how does this explain big G who lives at the same location while wearing
a fur coat?

My understanding is pygmy size makes it much easier to move swiftly and
silently through the jungle. That was a thought from someone about six feet
who was having a hard time keeping up, made too much racket, and kept
hurting himself.
 >> Stay informed about: Heavy-Worlders and the square-cube scaling 

"Offbreed" <offbreed_106.RemoveThis@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:BKOdnXdGJ-gP-5DYnZ2dnUVZ_s6dnZ2d@scnresearch.com...
> gS49 wrote:
>> "Offbreed" <offbreed_106.RemoveThis@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:teqdnR-hs75qv5HYnZ2dnUVZ_oCdnZ2d@scnresearch.com...
>>> gS49 wrote:
>>>> "Paul F Austin" <pfaustin.RemoveThis@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
>>>> news:Y_POg.449$GY5.336@bignews6.bellsouth.net...
>>>>> "Gunfighter40" <waltbj01.RemoveThis@mindspring.com> wrote
>>>>>> Paul, I do believe you have something here. Short and squat seems
>>>>>> logical.
>>>>>> Walt BJ
>>>>> But somehow a 4 foot, 150 pound HH? Naah.
>>>>>
>>>> Now I can't help picturing her with an ax instead of a gun in the
>>>> replacement arm. And a beard.
>>>
>>> A switchblade ax in her forearm?
>>
>> That'd be more of a gnome thing.
>>
>
> Makes me wonder about Hemphill's ancestry.
>
> Who for Kendar and Gully Dwarves?

Kendar have itchy foot. Gully Dwarves never get anything right except by
accident. Gnomes come closer but then their stuff is overly complex and
never seems to get prefected. This version of dwarves doesn't go in for high
tech...

I some fiction either dwarves or gnomes are master craftsmen though the best
are gnomes in myth or ...It does depend on whose myth.
 >> Stay informed about: Heavy-Worlders and the square-cube scaling 

"Rich" <d455 RemoveThis @aol.com> wrote in message
news:Xns98417A7B9115Cd4554aolcom@24.93.43.119...
> "Gunfighter40" <waltbj01 RemoveThis @mindspring.com> wrote in
> news:1158456715.954266.236110@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
>
>> Gnome? Feet, ankles, knees and hip joints, spines; all would require
>> some natural evolution to bear up under the stresses of every day
>> living. For instance, our pro athletes who after retirement creak
>> about, their bodies beat down by the abnormal stresses experienced
>> during their playing career. Bodies will adapt and evolve to meet the
>> environment. Viz: Inuit in the cold (stockiness) and Chileans (chest
>> capacity, more hemoglobin) in the Andes, pygmies in the deep jungle
>> (dearth of food) , and those wee people on Flores Island (probably
>> food) so recently in the news. 1.3 G doesn't sound like much but that
>> would load up a 150 pounder with 45 more pounds 100% of the time.
>> Creak, snap crackle pop..
>> Walt BJ
>>
>
> Not neccessarily. The body adapts to the added stress very quickly. All
> you have to do is look at the US Army. You take a 160lb soldier. Once
> you
> add body armor, weapons, ammunition, and the other gear needed you easily
> increase his weight by over 30 percent. Yet these soldiers are able to
> run, jump and fight. It does take training to build them up for it. A
> person born and raised on a "heavy" world would be trained by the natural
> environment. Put that person in a "standard g" environment and he would
> seem to be a "superman". Examples of this adaptation are evident in the
> long distance runners from Kenya. They train in the thin air of the
> Kenyan
> Mountains. When they race in the denser air of lower altitudes their
> bodies adaptation to the thin air provides them with a marked advantage
> over "sea level" trained runners.

You did leave out that people who have been runners for thousands of years
in such an environment have a genetic edge.

Your soldier does not wear that garb 24-7 and stress injuries in older or
even young people doing this sort of thing are dirt common.
 >> Stay informed about: Heavy-Worlders and the square-cube scaling 

"Sean Kennedy" <therealorang.TakeThisOut@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:Xns9842B03B59707therealorangyahoocom@216.196.97.136...
> "Gunfighter40" <waltbj01.TakeThisOut@mindspring.com> wrote in
> news:1158456715.954266.236110@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
>
>> Gnome? Feet, ankles, knees and hip joints, spines; all would require
>> some natural evolution to bear up under the stresses of every day
>> living. For instance, our pro athletes who after retirement creak
>> about, their bodies beat down by the abnormal stresses experienced
>> during their playing career. Bodies will adapt and evolve to meet the
>> environment. Viz: Inuit in the cold (stockiness) and Chileans (chest
>> capacity, more hemoglobin) in the Andes, pygmies in the deep jungle
>> (dearth of food) , and those wee people on Flores Island (probably
>> food) so recently in the news. 1.3 G doesn't sound like much but that
>> would load up a 150 pounder with 45 more pounds 100% of the time.
>> Creak, snap crackle pop..
>> Walt BJ
>>
>>
>
> Indeed - I can't imagine 60 more lbs all the time. My right knee
> is bad enough after 25 years of B-ball.

Um. You can determine a person's "proper" weight by the size of their knee
and hip joints.

A lot of us are carrying around that much extra weight at all times in the
form of stored energy.

However joint failure is the norm along with various other failures when
joints are overloaded. Most humans start to seriously fail in their 50s
though I had a great uncle who said he never had a serious problem until he
was 76. Overload the system and failures would start to occur much younger.

Japanese men of a few generations back had short legs because they damaged
their growth plates in their knees by carrying heavy loads while still
growing.
 >> Stay informed about: Heavy-Worlders and the square-cube scaling