RE: Humorous mice and projectile rexes

["Stewart, Dwight" <Dwight.Stewart@VLSI.com>]

        -----Original Message-----
        From:   Larry Dunn [SMTP:majestic_cheese@yahoo.com]
        Sent:   Tuesday, September 29, 1998 10:44 AM
        To:     dinosaur@usc.edu
        Subject:        Humorous mice and projectile rexes

        ---Jeff Martz wrote:
        >
        >  Larry Dunn mentioned the scientist who claims that "naughty mice
        > could trip T.rex" if it ran.  If you've read Farlow's paper, I
think
        it is
        > pretty clear that the "tripping mouse" drawing was a joke.  

        Yes indeedy, as was my reference to it.  How in the name of Morgan
        Fairchild could anyone see otherwise?

        Personally, I'm inclined to believe that T. rex, a large animal, did
        not do hand-stands (has something to do with those arms too).  This
        does not increase the W Factor (wuss factor) in my eyes.  

        But they may very well have surprised us with their agility, were
they
        so inclined.  To use the old saw, "big dinosaurs were like no
animals
        we are familiar with, blah blah," and of course most of our physics
        laws start with something we know and work backwards to rationalize
        our biases about phenomena (I sense science groupies rushing to the
        defense; come on, admit it...).
        :-)!  Don't look at me - as a physicist (who would never dream of
attempting to trip a Tyrannosaurus rex) I'll come clean: about every 20
years or so, we stumble over something that pretty much proves all of our
previously cherished "certainties" were only a subset (sometimes a subset OF
a subset).  Look at it this way, we don't know THAT much about our
contemporary animals.  :-)  Nevertheless, within certain very broad
constraints, Newton's Laws hold their own pretty well.  But they don't say
much about specific biomechanical capabilities.  When I was a
        young sprout, the world bench press record was 500 pounds.  Many
experts said that ~ 550 pounds was the absolute limit; that the human
skeletal structure couldn't BARE more weight in that position.  Ahmmm...
        the current record is 722 pounds.  Assumptions CAN lead one down the
primrose path. :-)

        Dwight 

        There.  The Crown has spoken.  Let me take a moment for some
        autographs here....

        Cheers,

        ==
        Larry

        "I've been ionized, but I'm okay now." 

        http://members.tripod.com/~megalania/index.html

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