Re: Dinosaur weights

[Maia <dalmiro@mesopy.obspm.fr>]

Helen Anderson wrote:
> 
> This one interested me quite a lot a couple of years ago because it was
> pretty common to see palaeontologists (like Alexander McNeill) dunking
> dinosaur models from the British Museum of Natural History in vats of
> water to see how much was displaced.  These models were used as it was
> thought that they were the most realistic and were made to a definite
> scale.  Therefore, the experiment allowed the model to be scaled up by
> 40 times, I think.  It was also assumed that (and this is where my
> ?physics is not so good) the mass of the dinosaur was equal to water, I
> think.  Does water have mass? 

What you're trying to measure is the volume of your model, which is
proportional to the water displaced. Then you multiply that volume
by the adequate density for the beast in question (using a mammal, crocodile
or bird density , whatever). 

Eventually you can compensate for the "dead space" from gut, air-sacs
and similar stuf.

Dalmiro Maia                    dalmiro@mesioq.obspm.fr