How did the larger dinosaurs run? How and why did they fight? The author applies laws of physics, mechanical engineering and aerodynamics to answer these and other questions.
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A wonderful little book... irresistible for its simple and compelling demonstration of the unity of the natural sciences. Scientific American
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First Sentence
THIS CHAPTER tells what dinosaur fossils are like and how they are formed and introduces some of the best-known dinosaurs. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
THIS CHAPTER tells what dinosaur fossils are like and how they are formed and introduces some of the best-known dinosaurs. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
By praxis
Amazon Verified Purchase
I love this book. It takes reatively simple physical laws and applies them to thinking about how dinosaurs might have moved, mated and sounded! Some might argue that the book weaves too tall a tale from limited evidence but i don't think that is the point. The book makes you think about these extinct animals as lumbering, slobbering, breathing animals. If you have a curious mind and are excited by ideas then this book is for you.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.3 out of 5 stars
3 reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Dinosaurs seen as engineering problems
7 Nov 2001
By Jarno Peschier
- Published on Amazon.com
A lot of things about dinosaurs (and other extinct large animals) we will never know. And a lot of questions are out there. Questions like "Could Tyrannosaurus rex run?", "What was their top speed?", "Did sauropods hold their neck horizontally or vertically?" or "Could large quadrupedal dinosaurs rear up on their hind legs?"
This book treats the animals that these questions are about as "nothing more" than engineering projects, similar to large buildings, bridges or mechanical machines.
Using realistic values for things like compressability and tensile stress properties of substances like bones, cartilage, tendons, etc. and using laws of physics and formulas from structural engineering Alexander tries to answer some of these questions.
The results are very interesting. If you're interesting in dinosaurs and how they really could have been in real life, this is a book you should not miss.
4.0 out of 5 stars
A basic introduction to the problem
9 May 2005
By Christopher E. Naujok
- Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase
This book provides an excellent overview of the topic of how biomechanics can be applied to the behavior of extinct animals. It provides verbal examples of how to take the pieces that we have - skeletons, trackways, and other evidence, and from them be able to derive additional information about how the animal functioned. The book does not go into any detail on how this is actually carried out, there are no 'example problems' showing how to apply the physics, engineering, and mathematical methods to the problem. As such, it introduces the subject, but falls short of providing the information needed to apply what it describes. Use this book as an introduction to the study of extinct animals, but use another book to learn about how to actually apply the techniques.
2.0 out of 5 stars
One of my first introductions to biomechanics as a kid...
2 Dec 2004
By Brian L. Beattty
- Published on Amazon.com
Though some of the aspects of biomechanics and scaling that are addressed in this are somewhat simplified, I still find this to be an illuminating book. My father (an engineer) got this for me when it came out (I was 12) and it took me some years to get through it and understand what it was all about. I would certainly suggest it as an introduction to many of the issues modern functional morphology in vertebrate paleontology deals with. It is full of clever but simple ways tofigure things out, who can resist that?
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3.3 out of 5 stars
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