scale & growth : giants & dwarfs: alice, gulliver, & goliath (part 1)

....................

Scale & Growth
	•	Introduction

Height vs. Area & Volume
	•	Introduction to Section
	•	Balancing Playdough
	•	On Magnitude & Proportion
	•	The Shape of Volcanoes
	•	The Shape of the Earth
	•	The Shapes of Planets & Moons

Giants & Dwarfs
	•	Introduction to Section
	•	Tall Playdough
	•	Giant Brobdingnags
	•	Tiny Lilliputians
	•	Walking Speed
	•	Body Mass Index
	•	Babies vs. Adults
	•	Alice, Gulliver, & Goliath • part 1 • part 2 • part 3 • attachments

Size, Form, & Function
	•	Introduction to Section
	•	Ion Size & Solubility
	•	Bones, Teeth, & Digestion
	•	Brain Sizes: Fact, Fallacy, & Fiction

....................

Attachments:
• picture of alice
• graph of Alice's changing height
• Article

Background: We are going to begin this project by looking at the changes in size that were experienced by Alice, at the outset of her adventure in "Wonderland". Plot Alice's size against time, in terms of the numbered events listed on the handout. What general patterns of change are represented here? What options and constraints would Alice have had, at each stage in the story?

Goliath, giant champion of the Philistines, is described in the Bible as having been about 10 feet tall. Recently, an Israeli neurologist has suggested that Goliath suffered from acromegaly, a disease that affects the operation of the pituitary gland, leading to enormous height (New York Times, January 18, 2000). The argument is that a tumor arising at an advanced stage of the disease pressed against the optic nerve, damaging the giant's vision. Hence, Goliath did not see David, who was consequently able to get the better of him.

What is your critical assessment of this report?

In her article, "Gulliver Was a Bad Biologist", Florence Moog [Mo] concludes that the diminutive Lilliputians are just as improbable on account of their size as the under-engineered Brobdingnagians. We will make our own assessment of some of her arguments.

Observing the world around us, we note that the largest living vertebrates and all really large living invertebrates are not only aquatic, but also marine. In contrast, the largest plants indeed all relatively substantial plants except for a few giant seaweeds are terrestrial.

Why should this be so?