From: Adrian Tymes (wingcat@pacbell.net)
Date: Mon May 12 2003 - 18:55:03 MDT
--- Party of Citizens <citizens@vcn.bc.ca> wrote:
> We are told so often about how strong ants are.
*Relative* strength. Problem is, all those
comparisons
assume that weight and strength, or volume and
strength,
go up at the same rate. They don't. Weight and
volume go up cubed, while strength (which relies on
cross-sectional area) goes up squared.
> Here
> is a problem for
> nanotechnologists:
>
> How many ants, harnessed by carbon nanofibres would
> it take to make the
> equivalent of one horse power?
Well, let's see...
Start with a 3 milligram ant - about typical for a
leafcutter, which is commonly shown lifting much
larger leaves. Ants can lift 10 to 50 times their
weight; being generous, let's say these ants were
selected from the high side of that, and can thus
lift .15 grams each. And let's also say the ant would
need exactly 1 second to lift this weight.
So, an ant could generate .15 g * 1 G - or about .0015
newtons - per second, which is .0015 watts - or about
.000002 horsepower. Inverting that, you'd need about
500,000 ants to generate one horsepower, assuming
perfect conversion of lifting power to whatever output
form (electricity, rotary motion) you desire. In
reality, conversion losses would multiply that.
When you consider the volume needed to store, harness,
feed, motivate, et al that many ants, it might be more
efficient - to say nothing of far cheaper - to get
that 1 horsepower from a horse.
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