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The physics of Godzilla


VagueIncentive

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Everyone knows what Godzilla is, and the creature's exploits in destroying cities, but not many question the possibility of such a creature's existence. Godzilla is 355 ft. tall, and weighs 90,000 Tons, meaning that he is massive in both size and mass. This is equivalent to the size and weight of a cruise ship, but it's capable of walking around. With all this weight to tote around, is it even possible that Godzilla would be able to walk around, let alone simply stand? Well, seeing as his weight is equivalent to $3 trillion in gold, it would take a lot of effort to move him around. He would need an exceptionally large amount of energy to walk around, meaning he would have a huge appetite. This is assuming however that his bones would maintain the weight of his body, because at that size, bones aren't as strong per unit volume as they are on the scale of a human or elephant. As a result of the "square-cube" law, the mass and volume of the bone grows faster than the strength of the bone does, eventually reaching a point where just the skeleton itself would collapse. Assuming that Godzilla has bones that could support his weight, the next largest issue is his blood. Because of his size, he would have to have an extremely powerful heart, and the blood pressure in his lower body would be so much greater than that in his upper body, unless his blood was able to flow at an extremely fast rate. Also, due to the rate at which neural signals travel, his reactions to any sort of stimulus would be greatly delayed. Taking all of this into account, while Godzilla is a classic movie monster, his reality would be a stumbling broken mess that would flounder the moment it left the water.

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The square cube law only partially applies here. While it's true that within a SPECIES, larger organisms are less energy efficient, AS a species, larger species are actually more efficient and more likely to survive. While its entirely possible that Godzilla would collapse in on itself, it's also possible that, if it were to evolve naturally, it would actually have a fighting chance.

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