Watching a cheetah sprint through an open field in pursuit of its prey is one of the most majestic sights in all of nature.
However, have you ever wondered what allows the world's fastest land animal to reach blazing speeds of up to 61 miles per hour?
Well, two French physicists have presented a new study, concluding that cheetahs' body length — not mass — allow them to reach top speeds. According to reports, they determined that by using the metric, calculating that most animals should be able to cover about 10 times their body length — not mass — per second at top speeds. This metric holds true to a wide range of animals — even those that are substantially bigger.
The physicists, Nicole Meyer-Vernet and Jean-Pierre Rospars, came to this conclusion by considering three different features they believe all organisms have in common. Those features are that they all move by contracting muscles, have about same the density of water and take on a metabolic rate of two kilowatts for each kilogram of muscle — thus accounting for their calculation of 10 times the body per second.
Physicist Alex Klotz took their calculation a step further via the PhysicsForum.
"Even if you take the fastest bacteria and compare it to the slowest whale to try and shoot down their argument, you will have to explain a -0.06 power law instead of a 0.0 power law," he wrote. "So their message stands: to zeroth-order, body traversal speed is independent of mass."
