Height in the Honorverse

TheMonster wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:And, third, I disagree with the differentiation you are making between "um" and "hmm," which is why I don't feel bound to follow it.

Here's the differentiation I make:

"um"="You may not be aware of _____, which could render your reasoning faulty. You should rethink that."

"hmm"="I was not aware of _____, which could render my reasoning faulty. I should rethink that."

As in "Um, that's not what 'dominant' means."

I like your description Monster. Cool! And I can remember often saying ... "Um, about that..."

DarkEnigma wrote:Also, Weber's characters seem to use today's standards of height when describing whether someone is "tall", "short" or "average". The average height of humans has been slowly increasing over time. In fact average height has increased 4 inches in the last 150 years alone (although that is historically unusual). It seems to me that 6'2" would not be nearly as remarkable as Weber keeps saying it is (over and over and over...) 2000+ years from now.

What do you guys think?

A lot of the historically increasing average height is just a return to levels before the neolithic revolution, it definitely won't go on forever. Where the end point is with good nourishment over several generations? Not a clue but I guess not much more than now, IIRC above 2 m you start to get serious health problems. Of course with genetic manipulations and different gravities all bets are off.

The San Martinos live in the mountain mesas because the high grav on SM concentrates all the CO2 at sea level, making the (sea level) atmosphere dangerous (CO2 is heavier than oxygen).

MaxxQ wrote:The San Martinos live in the mountain mesas because the high grav on SM concentrates all the CO2 at sea level, making the (sea level) atmosphere dangerous (CO2 is heavier than oxygen).

The high gravity also means a steeper pressure gradient and higher pressure at sea level, increasing partial pressure even with constant concentration. At partial pressures above 1.6 bar, Oxygen becomes toxic.

aairfccha wrote:

MaxxQ wrote:The San Martinos live in the mountain mesas because the high grav on SM concentrates all the CO2 at sea level, making the (sea level) atmosphere dangerous (CO2 is heavier than oxygen).

The high gravity also means a steeper pressure gradient and higher pressure at sea level, increasing partial pressure even with constant concentration. At partial pressures above 1.6 bar, Oxygen becomes toxic.

Thanks for the reminder. Yeah, I forgot about that.

Thanks for all the great info. The consensus seems to be that Honor's genetic mod is what accounts for her height. Of course the obvious follow up question is will little Raoul (and any future children of Honor's) HAVE to grow up on a heavy world then or risk being a giant?

DarkEnigma wrote:Thanks for all the great info. The consensus seems to be that Honor's genetic mod is what accounts for her height. Of course the obvious follow up question is will little Raoul (and any future children of Honor's) HAVE to grow up on a heavy world then or risk being a giant?

Honor as a short mother. Shenanigans.

DarkEnigma wrote:Thanks for all the great info. The consensus seems to be that Honor's genetic mod is what accounts for her height. Of course the obvious follow up question is will little Raoul (and any future children of Honor's) HAVE to grow up on a heavy world then or risk being a giant?

And the plot thickens. Just like the Mars Trilogy, I always wondered what effect being born and spending most your life on the lowest grav planet then visiting the highest grav planet? I wouldn't expect it to be as severe as in the Mars Trilogy, where the Martians augmented themselves with special exoskeletons and medicinal additives to assist in breathing, but at the very least there would be hardships?

Mount Lookatthat in Niven's Known Space series was the only survivable location on its planet for the same reason of excess sea level pressure.

DarkEnigma wrote:Thanks for all the great info. The consensus seems to be that Honor's genetic mod is what accounts for her height. Of course the obvious follow up question is will little Raoul (and any future children of Honor's) HAVE to grow up on a heavy world then or risk being a giant?

No, I don't think so. The Meyerdahl mods increased strength and bone structure so that the recipients higher gravity would not tend to shrink. It did not give them a greater natural stature.

In any case, the entire idea of people on light-gravity worlds growing taller is speculative, mostly an invention of science fiction. There is some natural disadvantages to being tall on heavy-grav worlds which could plausibly lead to a higher death rate and an evolutionary pressure toward shorter people over very long periods of time. But there is no similar pressure the opposite direction on light-gravity worlds.