Question

An leafcutter ant can lift 50 times its weight in its jaws. Leafcutter ants weigh at most about 5 miligrams. Wishing to create an unstoppable army, a mad scientist develops an expanding machine to make human sized leafcutter ants over which he has complete mind control and sets them out to do his bidding. Barring all other considerations except for the fact that muscle strength is proportional to the cross sectional area of the muscle, how much weight should these giant ants be able to lift in their jaws compared to their weight? How strong would these giant ants be compared to you?

Answer 1

The giant ants should be able to lift 3750 kilograms in their jaws compared to their own weight. The strength of the giant ants would be much stronger than a human.

Step-by-step explanation:

The strength of an animal is proportional to the cross-sectional area of its muscles. Since muscle strength is proportional to muscle mass, and muscle mass is proportional to body weight, we can use this information to determine how much weight the giant ants should be able to lift in their jaws compared to their weight.

The leafcutter ants can lift 50 times their weight, so if we make an assumption that the strength of the giant ants is directly proportional to their weight, each human-sized leafcutter ant should be able to lift 50 times its own weight. Let's assume a human-sized leafcutter ant weighs 75 kilograms (which is 150 times the weight of a regular ant). Using the proportional relationship, a human-sized leafcutter ant would be able to lift 50 times its weight, which is 50 x 75 kilograms = 3750 kilograms.

Therefore, these giant ants would be much stronger than a human, as the average human is not able to lift anywhere close to their own body weight.

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