| | Surface area to Volume Ratio. |  |
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+4Tenebrarum eumesmo Noitulove Pezzalis 8 posters |
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Pezzalis
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 | Subject: Surface area to Volume Ratio.  Wed Oct 27, 2010 12:13 am | |
| ~Surface Area to Volume Ratio In the field of Biology~ A very important concept in biology, Im not sure if it has been covered yet as far as the OE goes. This 'rule' of biology seriously effects the structure of of organisms depending on its size. As the surface are of the organism increases, the internal volume will increase exponentially. Extract from here regarding giant ants and elephants. - Spoiler:
A typical ant we know and love is about 5mm long and has a mass of about 5 milligrams. The giant ants you might like to have around would be 1000 times longer. Not just longer, but 1000 times wider. Not just wider, but 1000 times taller. To calculate the new mass of the giant ant we have to multiply these all togher–a billion times the volume. At the same density, a giant ant would weigh about 5 tons. But its legs would only be wider in two dimensions. They are a million times stronger, but that is not enough–for a creature a billion times heavier. Before taking their first step they would break all their legs, leaving them immoblile and harmless. While mass increases as the cube of size, the function of its structure improves only as the square, hence the name “square-cube law”.
Elephants have no problem being 5 tons. But they don’t support themselves with just the flimsy exoskeleton that suffices for ants. We and other animals our size have internal bones to support us. This is just one example of how physics determines that animals must fundamentally change their form if they are to be much larger or smaller.
So there is no need to watch Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989). If our bodies shrunk to the size of an ant, we would be just as hopeless as the giant ant. As warm-blooded creatures, we humans lose body heat with our surface area, which goes as the square of our linear size. Meanwhile our total body mass decreases much faster, as the cube. Even at such a miniscule size, you would never be able to eat enough to stay warm. Whales, warm-blooded mammals of the sea, benefit from growing so large in keeping warm, especially since water conducts heat away faster than air. But they have no legs to stand on, being able to rely on their buoyancy in water. So physicists could have predicted the largest mammals would live in the sea.
Worse still for the giant ants, they bring oxygen into their system directly through their exoskeleton. It is as if you could breathe directly through your skin. That’s a lot less effort than growing lungs, but that won’t work at our size….the volume needing to be sustained by air diffusing through the surface is just too large. Animals had to develop lungs in order to grow to larger. For life, form follows not function, but rather systems serve size.
So I was thinking about this and the current OE Sizing Board Concept. Say if I was to make an ant at normal scale, and then size it up on the board to the size of an elephant, would it be able to walk? Also regarding this concept internal systems in creatures would also have to change with size (IE Spiracles would not be efficient in large animals. Are we going to go to this kind of length for realism or should we just allow mildly unrealistic sizing...? (When I say mildly unrealistic I more or less mean that its not as if your average Joe could point out that the square cube law states that giant ants are impossible) ~Things to discuss~~The OE Sizing Board ~Internal systems relative to size ~Whether this level of realism is necessary ~Any other limitations/opportunities regarding this concept | |
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Noitulove
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| | Subject: Re: Surface area to Volume Ratio. Wed Oct 27, 2010 3:31 am | |
| I.. I really have trouble following articles like these.
Are you saying that if we start out small and grow insanely big, or vice versa, we'll have problems living?
..Makes sense. | |
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Pezzalis
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| | Subject: Re: Surface area to Volume Ratio. Wed Oct 27, 2010 3:41 am | |
| - Noitulove wrote:
- I.. I really have trouble following long articles like these.
Are you saying that if we start out small and grow insanely big, or vice versa, we'll have problems living?
Makes sense. Hmm not quite... No its more or less: - Extract wrote:
- "one example of how physics determines that animals must fundamentally change their form if they are to be much larger or smaller"
So basically this 'rule' states that: ~Internal Transport (Circulation) ~Gas Exchange ~Digestion & Respiration ~Locomotion and External structure Are all heavily determined by the size of the organism. IE You won't get giant ants or shrews let alone tiny whales or elephants because their internal systems and external structure would be detrimental with their new size. It is something we need to think about with the OE, AutoEvo and determining the overall fitness of an organism. | |
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eumesmo
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| | Subject: Re: Surface area to Volume Ratio. Wed Oct 27, 2010 10:55 am | |
| it's quite a complicated problem, but we need to stay on scientific ground while giving diversity in the game | |
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Tenebrarum
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| | Subject: Re: Surface area to Volume Ratio. Wed Oct 27, 2010 5:25 pm | |
| This deserves discussion. It needs to be at least partially implemented, but I'm not sure how. | |
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eumesmo
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| | Subject: Re: Surface area to Volume Ratio. Wed Oct 27, 2010 7:39 pm | |
| there is a similar thing with crops and people.
agriculture grows symetrically, if the area doubles, the output doubles; but population grows exponentially
we should let the game adapt as well as it wants, but making him to choose a better option (the computer can try to make a car fly, but it'll end up considering using another shape- | |
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~sciocont
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| | Subject: Re: Surface area to Volume Ratio. Wed Oct 27, 2010 7:40 pm | |
| SA/Vol ratio only applies on the cellular level. | |
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Tenebrarum
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| | Subject: Re: Surface area to Volume Ratio. Wed Oct 27, 2010 7:56 pm | |
| - ~sciocont wrote:
- SA/Vol ratio only applies on the cellular level.
Did you even read the OP? | |
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Pezzalis
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| | Subject: Re: Surface area to Volume Ratio. Wed Oct 27, 2010 10:55 pm | |
| - ~sciocont wrote:
- SA/Vol ratio only applies on the cellular level.
Whilst it does play a very significant part of Cellular functions is does also have a significant (although not obvious) effect on the outcome of larger organisms. Basically many bodily functions and structures would only be efficient at a certain size unless drastically modified. IE for internal respiration A small organism IE a worm can diffuse oxygen through its skin directly into its blood stream. Humans can not do this as our Volume is much greater than that of a worm. If we were to diffuse oxygen through our skin it would not make it to most of our body. Instead we have to inhale oxygen via breathing the air into our lungs via Bronchi, bronchioles to alveoli which allow a large surface area with little internal volume for oxygen to diffuse to the blood stream. If a worm were the same size as us, it would not be able to diffuse air via its skin as the air would not reach its blood stream. This is why larger organisms have more complicated internal systems than smaller organisms. It is the same kind of principle for external structures such as legs, bones etc. So is this level of realism really needed? Aside from the relevance to science biology and the laws of physics, it could seriously limit creativity. (Perhaps freedom cheat could be used to negate this) | |
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US_of_Alaska
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| | Subject: Re: Surface area to Volume Ratio. Thu Oct 28, 2010 2:14 am | |
| I think there should be an option in the unlimited editor (the editor accessed outside of the game or through the God Tools) that would fix problems with scaling with the least amount of changes, or at least tell the player what to fix. | |
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Commander Keen
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| | Subject: Re: Surface area to Volume Ratio. Thu Oct 28, 2010 5:49 am | |
| - US_of_Alaska wrote:
- I think there should be an option in the unlimited editor (the editor accessed outside of the game or through the God Tools) that would fix problems with scaling with the least amount of changes, or at least tell the player what to fix.
Maybe it should ask: "Your creation has problems with blablabla. Do you want to fix it?" Then, three buttons would be shown, "Fix it", "Mark problems" and "Leave it be". | |
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US_of_Alaska
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| | Subject: Re: Surface area to Volume Ratio. Thu Oct 28, 2010 7:24 pm | |
| - Commander Keen wrote:
- US_of_Alaska wrote:
- I think there should be an option in the unlimited editor (the editor accessed outside of the game or through the God Tools) that would fix problems with scaling with the least amount of changes, or at least tell the player what to fix.
Maybe it should ask: "Your creation has problems with blablabla. Do you want to fix it?" Then, three buttons would be shown, "Fix it", "Mark problems" and "Leave it be". Deal. Now we just have to get the coders to work miracels and make that possible... | |
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Pezzalis
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| | Subject: Re: Surface area to Volume Ratio. Thu Oct 28, 2010 10:18 pm | |
| - US_of_Alaska wrote:
- Commander Keen wrote:
- US_of_Alaska wrote:
- I think there should be an option in the unlimited editor (the editor accessed outside of the game or through the God Tools) that would fix problems with scaling with the least amount of changes, or at least tell the player what to fix.
Maybe it should ask: "Your creation has problems with blablabla. Do you want to fix it?" Then, three buttons would be shown, "Fix it", "Mark problems" and "Leave it be". Deal. Now we just have to get the coders to work miracels and make that possible... Well this should be simple enough.... If the system is able to realize what is wrong with the organism IE. (Quite vague ) Total Volume = 1000L Leg Strength Capability (Determined by muscle, and size) = 500 Error= Leg Strength too small Fix by = Increasing Leg Strength to 1000 /Increase leg muscle 150% /Increase leg size by 150% Not very in depth but something LIKE that. Internal systems would be much harder. | |
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US_of_Alaska
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| | Subject: Re: Surface area to Volume Ratio. Fri Oct 29, 2010 12:39 am | |
| - Pezzalis wrote:
- US_of_Alaska wrote:
- Commander Keen wrote:
- US_of_Alaska wrote:
- I think there should be an option in the unlimited editor (the editor accessed outside of the game or through the God Tools) that would fix problems with scaling with the least amount of changes, or at least tell the player what to fix.
Maybe it should ask: "Your creation has problems with blablabla. Do you want to fix it?" Then, three buttons would be shown, "Fix it", "Mark problems" and "Leave it be". Deal. Now we just have to get the coders to work miracels and make that possible...
Well this should be simple enough....
If the system is able to realize what is wrong with the organism
IE. (Quite vague )
Total Volume = 1000L
Leg Strength Capability (Determined by muscle, and size) = 500
Error= Leg Strength too small
Fix by = Increasing Leg Strength to 1000
/Increase leg muscle 150%
/Increase leg size by 150%
Not very in depth but something LIKE that. Internal systems would be much harder.
Well it;s good that we have one problem sorted, but like you said the internals will be much trickier. | |
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Commander Keen
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| | Subject: Re: Surface area to Volume Ratio. Fri Oct 29, 2010 9:01 am | |
| - US_of_Alaska wrote:
- Well it;s good that we have one problem sorted, but like you said the internals will be much trickier.
It would be best not to include a complicated system, since players will need it simple. Maybe that the bigger the creature you have, the bigger internals it must have? | |
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2creator
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| | Subject: Re: Surface area to Volume Ratio. Fri Oct 29, 2010 12:37 pm | |
| - Commander Keen wrote:
- US_of_Alaska wrote:
- Well it;s good that we have one problem sorted, but like you said the internals will be much trickier.
It would be best not to include a complicated system, since players will need it simple. Maybe that the bigger the creature you have, the bigger internals it must have? I don't get what your saying. Do you mean automatically? I think that might work, I'm no programmer. | |
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Pezzalis
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| | Subject: Re: Surface area to Volume Ratio. Fri Oct 29, 2010 7:43 pm | |
| Well actually the bigger species you have, the more surface area the internals would need to have... Kinda something like a fractal.... Take a root for example. It is designed to absorb water. It has to be small in order to effectively absorb water via diffusion. At the stem it is thick, as it spreads underground is branches out into smaller stems, which branch out to even smaller roots, which branch out to smaller fine thread like structures which are made out of epidermic cells, attatched to a root cell, which in itself has an extended hair to allow for maximum surface area:  Same kind of thing goes for gas exchange: Windpipe, leads to Bronchi, leads to bronchioles, leads to alveoli (Which are very small with a large surface area.  So for programming (Excuse my n00bness with this) Perhaps we need something which will determine an optimum surface area:volume ratio for the said internal system, depending on its function. If volume is to large, it should create 'branches' of this system which lead to systems with a lower volume. However its not as if we need to observe this at a cellular level it should just be something that we can relate to the internal system itself. Some kind of fractal algorithm could be what we are looking for... | |
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Commander Keen
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| | Subject: Re: Surface area to Volume Ratio. Sat Oct 30, 2010 10:20 am | |
| The fractal might be useful for roots, but things like lungs will certainly not have their internals simulated. | |
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Pezzalis
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| | Subject: Re: Surface area to Volume Ratio. Sat Oct 30, 2010 7:09 pm | |
| - Commander Keen wrote:
- The fractal might be useful for roots, but things like lungs will certainly not have their internals simulated.
QFT So thats one clear way in which this principal effects external structure that is also possible to add to the game. Sweet | |
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