Epsiode 1 - Why Elephants Can’t Dance
This lecture investigates the effects of size on the animal kingdom. We explore fascinating phenomena such as how hamsters survive falling from great heights, how geckos wall up walls, how elephants support their immense weight, and why ants are super-strong. Mark’s experiments uncover the physical rules that govern the strength, life span and even movement of animals.
We discover that although gravity governs our own existence, it is far less important for small animals, who instead are subject to surface forces, allowing them to achieve feats we can only dream of such as jumping out of a plane without a parachute. But we also find out that the trade off for small animals is a short life span, so we can conclude that size definitely matters!