Unified physics theory explains animals’ running, flying and swimming
A single unifying physics theory can essentially describe how animals of every ilk, from flying insects to fish, get around, researchers at Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering and Pennsylvania State University have found. The team reports that all animals bear the same stamp of physics in their design.
The researchers show that so-called “constructal theory” can explain basic characteristics of locomotion for every creature — how fast they get from one place to another and how rapidly and forcefully they step, flap or paddle in relation to their mass. Constructal theory is a powerful analytical approach to describing movement, or flows, in nature.
They said their findings have important implications for understanding factors that guide evolution by suggesting that many important functional characteristics of animal shape and locomotion are predictable from physics.
January 3rd, 2006 at 2:21 pm
after reading the article in full I noticed this
“Our finding that animal locomotion adheres to constructal theory tells us that — even though you couldn’t predict exactly what animals would look like if you started evolution over on earth, or it happened on another planet — with a given gravity and density of their tissues, the same basic patterns of their design would evolve again,” Marden said.
This implies that aliens (E.T.) would look similar to us or our animal companions.
But this dose not include beings that have evolved in the absence of gravity.