From: news@fedfil.UUCP (news)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Holden Numbering
Date: 17 Aug 92 03:38:58 GMT
Organization: HTE

In article <714019201@sheol.UUCP>, throopw@sheol.UUCP (Wayne Throop) writes:
> 
>                      lbs        HN
>                 +---------------------
>         cat     |     10        2.15
>        human    |    200        5.85
>       elephant  |  10000       21.5
>     brachiosaur | 150000       53.1
> 
> What does this calculation mean?  It is a measure of force (the lbs
> weight) per available cross section (the lbs mass ^(2/3)).  The
> lbs mass cube-rooted and then squared because the mass is a rough
> indicator of volume, and hence the ^2/3 power of mass is a rough
> indicator of cross section.
> 
> Whence then the Holden Limit of 27?  Well, if an animal is lifing
> more than its own weight, we can simply add the additional force
> to the top of the ratio, yielding a Holden Number which characterizes
> that lift.  

Totally accurate so far...


> Holden claims that Kazmaier's 1000 lb deadlift is the
> largest lift that any creature can perform, 


Whoa!  Not quite. I've claimed that the squat is the closest thing in any
sort of weight lifting event to the ordinary act of standing up, number one,
and that the 27 Holden number for Kaz doing the 1000 lb squat is an upper limit,
more or less, for the world for creatures AS LARGE OR LARGER THAN Kaz.  

Not for ANY creature.  Ants probably derive Holden numbers far above the 27
I mention.  But you have to understand the manner in which every muscle in
a power lifters body gets used in such a total effort.  There just isn't
any more.  Kaz worked out many hours a day and used food to flavor his
dianabol with.  There just isn't any way in which any creature his size or
larger is going to be stronger on a pound for pound basis.

There may be some way in which some slight difference in leverage might give
some other sort of creature a value of 28 or 29 for standing, assuming that
creature also worked out day and night and used steroids, but in real life, 
we know it doesn't happen.  

And then there's the case for the ultrasaur.  Accepted weight figures are
all around 360,000 lbs, Holden number of 71 or thereabouts.

Kaz would derive a Holden number of 71 only by doing a squat with around
3200 lbs on his shoulders.

He'd be flattened out like one of aunt Jemima's pancakes.

Kaz can benchpress around 500 lbs, which means that a max combined total
for every kind of lift imaginable using all muscles totally would be no more
than 1500 lbs, less than half what the ultrasaur needs just to stand in our
world.  It cannot happen.

Only a heavily attenuated percieved gravity allowed the ultrasaur to exist at 
all.

Again, the reality is that the squat uses virtually all muscles in the
human athletes body nearly to the max.  You don't need to add the benchpress
number to the squat number to figure an upper limit, but even if you do, 
you're not even halfway to what the ultrasaur needed just to stand in our world

Throop can quibble all he wants;  I've got a LOT of margin for error in the
basic point I'm trying to make.


Throop's continuation is considerably less than well-reasoned:

> What I want to pursue instead is what I consider the three primary
> reasons that the Holden Limit is incorrect.  (This is a slightly
> different list of three than I have pointed out before: I've slightly
> rearranged the "tiling" of the three points, but they still cover much
> the same area.)
 
>      1)  biped/quadruped differences

As noted, 2/3 power of weight is a rough general average of cross section,
and roughly compensates for biped/quadruped differences.  Real world observationshows us that the biggest elephant of modern times derived a Holden number of
around 25 just to stand, and logic tells us there is a reason for this near
equality of the two max effort numbers, Kaz and the 1000 lb squat and the
big bush elephant just standing.

The real world says I'm right about the 2/3 power of weight compensating for
biped/quadruped differences.


>      2)  proportional scaling differences

Huh?

>      3)  leverage differences

This one is idiotic.  Throop is claiming here that differences in leverage
due to size always favor the larger creature.  If so, then larger creatures
should always be stronger on a lb. per lb. basic than smaller, while we
know the opposite to be the case.  Would that it were so...  at 235 lbs, I
should have an easier time doing an iron cross on the rings than the 160 lb
athletes who we actually observe doing such things.  Maybe in the next world.



> We can correct the Holden Limit to apply to quadrupeds by simply adding
> the weight Kazmaier can lift with his arms to that he can lift with his
> legs to get a rough idea.  That modifies the formula to
> 
>                 (1660 + 350) / 350^(2/3)  ~=  40
> 
> Still short of the HN for a brachiosaur.

See the discussion above.  You're so far off, it ain't even worth talking 
about.



> But we can account for
> proportional scaling differences between species by dividing by a
> more appropriate factor. 

I.e. a mysterioso non-real-world factor which compensates for the difference
between the real world in which larger creatures are always less efficient
than smaller and Throop's world in which they are MORE efficient.

I see..

> We can't really determine what that
> factor is easily, 

for obvious reasons...

> but we can get a ballpark idea by using the
> bone thickness factor reported by Alexander and others of (1/2.73).

Sorry, Throop.  Bones don't lift weight;  muscles do.

2/3 power of body weight is the accepted scaling factor for every kind of
competitive lift.    There are a number of reasons why these scaled lifts
go down somewhat from your normal sized athletes to your super heavyweights
like Kaz, even in cases like Kaz in which there appears to be no excess weight
or fat in the picture.

If nothing else, as creatures get bulkier and more squatly built, as is the
case with Kaz, the big elephant, the brachiasaur etc., layers of thick muscles
will begin to bind somewhat against eachother.  This is clear not the case
for a gazelle, say.  The 180 lb human weight lifters, bulky as they might be,
are nonetheless gazelle-like in comparison with Kaz.

Again, going from Kaz to a brachiosaur, you won't gain efficiency;  you'll
lose it.  The overwhelming likelihood is that the max Holden number for an
ultrasaur standing is going to be less than what the big elephant derives,
not more.


[Rest of Throop's article ommitted due to lack of content]



-- 
Ted Holden
HTE