This makes so much sense.. I always wondered about that, ever since I saw Jurassic Park, with the T-Rex tearing along at like 100 km/hour chasing the jeep through the woods. Assuming the Rex is, say, oh 70 tons,
M = 70,000 KG V = 27.7 M/S
Kinetic Energy = 1/2(m)(v^2) = 1/2(70,000)(27.7)^2 = 26,855,150 J of energy
Karl Kruszelnicki's book "Bizarre Moments in Science" has got an interesting (and more accurate) article about the running speed of a Tyrannosaurus Even the biggest T Rex never got much bigger than 7 tonnes (still huge )and you can calculate its top speed using McNeil's equation which is
S/L = k log (v squared/g L)
Where 'S' is the stride, 'L' is the leg length, 'v' is the top speed and 'g' is the accel. due to gravity
This gives us a top speed of about 25-30km/h. A reasonable human runner could outrun one. Even the fastest dinosaur could have only reached about 40km/h
Plugging these numbers into the KE equation
Kinetic Energy = 1/2(m)(v^2) = 1/2(7,000)(8.3)^2 =241,115 J of energy.
Slashdot Mirror
Assuming the Rex is, say, oh 70 tons,
Kinetic Energy = 1/2(m)(v^2) = 1/2(70,000)(27.7)^2 = 26,855,150 J of energy
Karl Kruszelnicki's book "Bizarre Moments in Science" has got an interesting (and more accurate) article about the running speed of a Tyrannosaurus
Even the biggest T Rex never got much bigger than 7 tonnes (still huge )and you can calculate its top speed using McNeil's equation which is
Where 'S' is the stride, 'L' is the leg length, 'v' is the top speed and 'g' is the accel. due to gravity
This gives us a top speed of about 25-30km/h. A reasonable human runner could outrun one. Even the fastest dinosaur could have only reached about 40km/h
Plugging these numbers into the KE equation