
Who’ll Freeze First? A Puzzle About Size and Staying Warm - nej
http://noticing.co/on-size-and-warmth/
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todd8
Forty two years ago, I read an essay from 1928 by J. B. S. Haldane titled "On
Being the Right Size" [1], it appeared in the wonderful four volume set _The
World of Mathematics_.

I've always remembered the main point: volume and properties related to volume
increase as the cube of the scale factor for similar objects while area
(surface or cross-section) increase as the square. See for example the Google
interview question that appears in the movie "The Internship".

[1] [http://irl.cs.ucla.edu/papers/right-
size.html](http://irl.cs.ucla.edu/papers/right-size.html)

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wruza
I thought it was always a "common knowledge" that small animals tend to eat
constantly and suffer sooner from food shortage because of higher relative
heat dissipation. Some mice eat up to 50-80% of their weight per day, opposed
to just few percents for biggies like elephants. Mice also have much faster
metabolism in the same conditions.

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ucaetano
The same concept applies to animal (and plant, building, structure, etc.)
size: weight varies with the cube of the "size", while the cross-section of
the supporting structures (trunk, legs, etc.) varies with the square.

So the relationship "weight/supported weight" increases with size, to the
point where it won't support itself.

~~~
ThrustVectoring
More directly, the heat generation/dissipation relation applies to buildings.
Larger buildings need heating systems less and cooling systems more -
famously, the Mall of America does not have an explicit heating system, since
internal business activity is more than enough.

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shultays

        In Professor Haskell’s book, The Forest Unseen, he says he wanted to “experience the cold as the forest’s animals do, without the protection of clothes,”
    

When was next Darwin awards?

~~~
eru
Why? Compare the even crazier
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=!i+new+years+ice+swimming](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=!i+new+years+ice+swimming)

~~~
scoot
That's not crazy, _this_ is crazy:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wim_Hof](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wim_Hof)

