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Comment by rabbits_2002 | Hacker News Reader

rabbits_2002·

I am surprised a 737 is only 100k lbs, I would have assumed like 250k. A blue whale weighs significantly more.

I assume that is a result of the need for the 737 to fly and for it to be as light as possible. The whale has no such constraint.

That's not correct. The need for buoyancy is a very similar constraint, just with a different threshold. If a blue whale is too heavy (or rather more accurately, too dense), then it will become very challenging for the whale to surface to breathe.

But I'm not sure why anyone would want to paint one?

You jest (and you jest well)., And yet there is at least one rather-famously documented case of a whale grappling with that very same constraint:

"Another thing that got forgotten was the fact that against all probability a sperm whale had suddenly been called into existence several miles above the surface of an alien planet.

And since this is not a naturally tenable position for a whale, this poor innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with its identity as a whale before it then had to come to terms with not being a whale any more." -DA

Can blue whales fly?

Can 737s swim?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transair_Flight_810

(Sorry, could not resist...)

Weight doesn't tend to be a limiting factor for swimmers. Hence blue whales.

It does tend to be a limiting factor for fliers (hence hollow bones, etc). The heaviest flying creature on Earth does not exceed about 40 pounds.

Including extinct animals, the heaviest flier was not more than 550 pounds. A blue whale can weigh almost 1,000 times that.

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