How the Square-cube law denies the physical possibility of Giants?

602 views

And what are the fundamental laws of nature that need to be changed for a creature like this to exist?

In: Biology

5 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

There’s a couple different ways that this could be taken, but this one is the easiest and is somewhat universal to everything.

If you’re talking about giant cells, imagine it like this. You have a pool that’s one mile by one mile long. You have a couple of balls, and you have to take them to the middle of the pool. That’s gonna take quite a while, right? And you’re going to spend alot of energy getting them to the center.

Now imagine you have a normal sized pool, and the same amount of balls. This one is easy to get the balls to the middle of the pool. And, you spend less energy.

The smaller pool allows you to move the same amount of resources faster and more efficiently than the large pool.

Now imagine that instead of the pool, were talking about a cell. And replace the balls with sugar, oxygen, and anything else a cell might need. Just like you, the cell needs to transport those basic ingredients to it’s various parts. And, just like you, it expends energy to do so.

The larger the cell, the more energy it has to expend. The more energy it has to expend, the more food it has to eat.

However, eventually, there’s a point where the energy that it has to spend is so much, that it actually doesn’t gain anything from breaking down the sugars that it gets.

Therefore, it’s generally a better strategy to go with small cells, and be a smaller organism. The only time that really changes is when animals have to specialize for certain things. (Such as elephants and blue whales. Most animals are in the optimal range)

As far as things that would need to change for them to exist? Well, they would need to not need to eat. Or have infinite energy. That’s about it.

You are viewing 1 out of 5 answers, click here to view all answers.