Re: square-cube law

Peter Nyikos (nyikos@math.scarolina.edu)
8 Jan 1997 17:49:02 GMT

morphis@niuhep.physics.niu.edu writes:

A CC goes to him since I know what it's like to have an on-again,
off-again newsreader.

> The tallest human was around 9 foot? 7'X" seems fairly common
>in the NBA, I don't recall anybody at 8 ft. Is that pure genetics, or
>are there 8ft folks out there who don't have the leg bone strength to
>play basketball?

I know of no human being at 8' or above
that didn't get there by having a pituitary hormone overabundance,
which carries several drawbacks along with it.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who is somewhere around 7'6", is just about at the
present upper limit actually achieved for `normally tall' people AFAIK.
If anything, the person who said he was "one in a billion"
was understating the case.

[Trivia: I read an article long ago where it said that Kareem's true height
is a closely guarded secret, that he was officially listed at 7'2" but
that is very much of an underestimate. It related how a basketball
coach, curious to know what Kareem's true height was, told one of
his 7'0" players to stand right next to Kareem and saw how Kareem
"towered over" his player.]

Peter Nyikos -- standard disclaimer --
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics
University of South Carolina
Columbia, SC 29208