Protoplanet Demo, three metal balls on a rack
screws

 

Code Number: 1A60.22

Demo Title: Scaling - Zoological Domain

Condition: Excellent

Area of Study: Mechanics

Equipment: 

Protoplanet Demo from 8A70.82, Boiling Water, Hot Plate, and Infrared Camera, Variety of Allen Screws.

Procedure: Bring all three different size balls to the same temperature with the boiling water.  Place them in the rack side by side and observe them over a period of 20 minutes with the infrared camera.  You will observe that the smaller ball looses heat much faster than the medium size ball, that that the small and medium size balls looses heat much faster than the large ball.  This is one way to show that small animals need much more energy to be able to maintain the same constant temperature of a large animal.

A sequence of Allen screws are available to show scaling.

References:

  • Scott A. Lee, Justyna Slowiak, "Sauntering Sauropods: The Preferred Walking Speeds of the Largest Land Animals That Ever Lived", TPT, Vol. 63, #1, Jan. 2025, p. 20.
  • Scott Lee, Justyna Slowiak-Morkovina, "The Resting Breathing Rate of the Dinosaur Plateosaurus Trossingenisis via Conservation of Energy", TPT, Vol. 61, #3, March 2023, p. 166.
  • Scott Lee, Joshua Thomas, Max Cooley, Richard Irving, "Conservation of Energy Yields the Incubation Time and Embryonic Metabolism in Birds and Tyrannosaur Dinosaurs from the Geometry of the Egg", TPT, Vol. 59, #7, Oct. 2021, p. 548.  
  • Kurt Vandervoort, "Animal Size and Heat Transfer", TPT, Vol. 58, #2, Feb. 2020, p. 104.
  • Michael J. O’Shea, "Backpack Weight and the Scaling of the Human Frame - II", TPT, Vol. 56, #2, Feb. 2018, p. 79.
  • Scott Lee, "Scaling in Theropod Dinosaurs: Femoral Bone Strength and Locomotion II", TPT, Vol. 53, #3, Mar. 2015, p. 158.
  • Scott Lee, "Scaling in Theropod Dinosaurs: Femoral Bone Strength and Locomotion", TPT, Vol. 53, #2, Feb. 2015, p. 84.
  • Michael J. O’Shea, "Backpack Weight and the Scaling of the Human Frame", TPT, Vol. 52, #8, Nov. 2014, p. 479
  • Thomas R. Tretter, "Godzilla Versus Scaling Laws of Physics", TPT, Vol. 43, #8, Nov. 2005, p. 530.
  • Boye K. Ahlborn and Robert W. Blake, "Lower Size Limit of Aquatic Mammals", AJP, Vol. 67, #10, Oct. 1999, p. 920.
  • Robert H. Stinson, "Simple Scaling Model for Biological Systems", AJP, Vol. 45, #5, May 1977, p. 498.