Monkeys and leverage! AND A PENGUIN

So I promised, right?

Theres one very fascinating thing about monkeys. Apart from their being so acutely humanoid, of course. Smart, they can be graceful, they can be evil and they can be nice. So much like humans... Or humans being so like them, rather than the other way around. 

Anyhow, more thrilling to such a meathead as myself is the fact that monkeys are strong. Unbelievably so. A typical monkey of random species outmatches a human with similar musclemass, to a score of maybe 4 to 1. The muscle itself is the same, all muscle tissue is. Human muscle has its limitations, as does monkey muscle. One kilo of said monkeys muscle does not contract harder than the human muscle. Well then, how can they be so much stronger, then?

Because leverage. Monkeys use leverage, and in a very effective manner, much moreso than humans do. Not leverage as in levers, per se, but as a physical phenomenon, right down to how their muscles are built, and more importantly, situated.

So a monkey has a bicep, right? Just like us. What makes the monkeys bicep different, is that it connects higher on the elbow than the human muscle does. Its brilliant, if you need strength. Absolutely brilliant, I think. What does it mean? Well, let me give you a more traditional example of physical leverage.

Doors swing around hinges, and door handles are placed as far away from the axis of rotation (The hinges) as possible. The reason is obvious, right? Have you ever tried to open a door by pushing it with your hand, close to the hinge? Its simply not effective. With our great analyzing skills, we deduct that forces exerted farther away from an axis of rotation are more effective than forces exerted close to the axis of rotation (for free floating bodies, the axis would be the centre of gravity.). 

You can even try using leverage right now. Push your screen, with your finger. Go on, push it. Push at the lower part of the screen, and it wont fall over very easily, and youll have to push very hard, or it might simply start sliding, without rotating whatsoever. Now push at the topmost part of the screen, and it tilts right away, with barely a sweat. Leverage, fuck yeah. 

What does that mean for monkeys? It means, that their biceps have larger leverage, and a longer distance between the axis of rotation, the elbow, and the point unto which the force is exerted, than humans do. Its brilliant, and it makes their muscle so much more than ours. You know, we dont view them that way, but an agitated enough monkey could rip your head off, or tear your ribcage in half with great ease! Theyre that strong!

Why dont humans have similarly built muscles? Well, its simple. A muscle can only contract so-so fast, invariably of how strong it is. Theres a limit to how fast a muscle cell can do its thing. If the leverage is larger, the muscles have to contract faster in order to keep up with a muscle with lower leverage, like humans. So basically, it comes down to what were adapted for. Humans use actual levers, we dont need this strength anymore. We had it, once. But modern humans need to throw spears and such, favoring speed over raw brawn, so natural selection made us weaker.

Ill say, though. I am no biologist, I know not which monkey species is the strongest, and I make no differentiation between the different species. They do use leverage though, which is PHYSICS. Leverage is also known as Torque, for those of you who are confused.

AND ART

Clearly not amused penguin-man. And a marxist-octopus! From my physics and english notebooks respectively. These were the only drawings in my schoolwork! I havent even been doodling alot lately, what is it with me?!

And yeah, all my tech-stuff is still broken, and I havent been drawing alot lately, either. I know the material has been kinda weak lately.

And thats my actual drawing notebook. XD It never gets as much attention as my physics notebook. And those tiny lizards are tiny lizards just as my gym-class teacher from sixth grade used to draw them! God, those were some nice lizards.

Lol. After writing all this to compensate for a week of not blogging, I come the stark realization that no one is going to read it all. I write too much, god damn.