No. The height of human beings is directly related to the gravity on this planet. Taller animals tend to have to be much bulkier (elephants, dinosaurs, whales, etc.) to counteract gravity.
A fifty foot human with the same anatomy as us (but bigger) would die pretty much instantly.
YES. The smaller the planet, the larger things on it can be. It's the same basic reason that Olympus Mons, the largest mountain on Mars, is almost three times as tall as Mt Everest. Anyway, humans aren't the most stable animals to begin with (the whole walking on two legs thing leads to a lot of falling), and I don't think our skeletal system would hold up at a much larger scale.
Also, you can't just scale up our circulatory system and have it work the same way. In fact, I've read that people with gigantism, which can cause people to be up to about 9 ft tall, often have circulatory problems.
Circulatory is where I was going, yeah. The heart already works hard. If you increase our average height by nine times in one dimension, the increase in blood is cubic because we'd increase proportionally in all three dimensions. Nine times in one dimension is 81 times in two, and 729 times in three.
Volume is one problem but suddenly you're pumping the blood to fifty feet above the floor, not five feet something. It would be harder even if the volume of blood was the same but it's not. The volume is massively larger and the distance is another multiplier.
I feel like I'm ruining some fairy stories, though!
Wouldn't the heart also be much larger and thus capable of pumping an increased quantity of blood around the body? Hence why the animals you mentioned (Elephants, whales) all have huuuumungous hearts :/ If you're scaling a person up, you scale their heart up too.
It would indeed, but if you look at elephants and whales they counteract gravity by being longer and bulkier rather than taller and slimmer like humans. Gravity mainly works vertically so tall and thin is exactly the wrong shape.
If you look at the upper limit of tall and thin on this planet (probably a giraffe), they have all kinds of enhancements just to survive (in particular to stop massive blood flow when they lower their heads). They are about as far as evolution can go in the tall/thin category. Going even five feet taller would be incredibly difficult. Scaling up to fifty feet tall is a near impossibility.
Also with a giraffe, half its height is neck or above, but half its mass (which gravity acts on) very much isn't. It's not the same with humans; most of the weight of our bodies is in the top half. We're just not equipped to be fifty feet tall in our present form.
T Rex's were about 20 ft tall and on two legs, but definitely longer than they were tall. We'd just have to evolve to be bulkier and have a lower centre of gravity - maybe get back on all 4s? :D
Nooo. He's real. Someone who is both green and seemingly vegetarian is absolutely my poster boy. If we can get him a giant green dog as well, so much the better. :P
Do you believe that there were once giants?
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No. The height of human beings is directly related to the gravity on this planet. Taller animals tend to have to be much bulkier (elephants, dinosaurs, whales, etc.) to counteract gravity.
A fifty foot human with the same anatomy as us (but bigger) would die pretty much instantly.
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shuggy-chan
11 years ago
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VioletTrees
11 years ago
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my first thought was "they might be giants" the band hahaha
YES. The smaller the planet, the larger things on it can be. It's the same basic reason that Olympus Mons, the largest mountain on Mars, is almost three times as tall as Mt Everest. Anyway, humans aren't the most stable animals to begin with (the whole walking on two legs thing leads to a lot of falling), and I don't think our skeletal system would hold up at a much larger scale.
Also, you can't just scale up our circulatory system and have it work the same way. In fact, I've read that people with gigantism, which can cause people to be up to about 9 ft tall, often have circulatory problems.
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dappled
11 years ago
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Circulatory is where I was going, yeah. The heart already works hard. If you increase our average height by nine times in one dimension, the increase in blood is cubic because we'd increase proportionally in all three dimensions. Nine times in one dimension is 81 times in two, and 729 times in three.
Volume is one problem but suddenly you're pumping the blood to fifty feet above the floor, not five feet something. It would be harder even if the volume of blood was the same but it's not. The volume is massively larger and the distance is another multiplier.
I feel like I'm ruining some fairy stories, though!
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disthing
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KeddersPrincess
11 years ago
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Wouldn't the heart also be much larger and thus capable of pumping an increased quantity of blood around the body? Hence why the animals you mentioned (Elephants, whales) all have huuuumungous hearts :/ If you're scaling a person up, you scale their heart up too.
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dappled
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It would indeed, but if you look at elephants and whales they counteract gravity by being longer and bulkier rather than taller and slimmer like humans. Gravity mainly works vertically so tall and thin is exactly the wrong shape.
If you look at the upper limit of tall and thin on this planet (probably a giraffe), they have all kinds of enhancements just to survive (in particular to stop massive blood flow when they lower their heads). They are about as far as evolution can go in the tall/thin category. Going even five feet taller would be incredibly difficult. Scaling up to fifty feet tall is a near impossibility.
Also with a giraffe, half its height is neck or above, but half its mass (which gravity acts on) very much isn't. It's not the same with humans; most of the weight of our bodies is in the top half. We're just not equipped to be fifty feet tall in our present form.
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disthing
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Ah OK, I see what you mean.
T Rex's were about 20 ft tall and on two legs, but definitely longer than they were tall. We'd just have to evolve to be bulkier and have a lower centre of gravity - maybe get back on all 4s? :D
You mean The Jolly Green Giant's not real? :(
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Nooo. He's real. Someone who is both green and seemingly vegetarian is absolutely my poster boy. If we can get him a giant green dog as well, so much the better. :P
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KeddersPrincess
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Yeah! :D:D