4 ms·

I would love to see this as well. That's more than 2x what most people burn running a marathon. Hard to believe but would be really interesting if that's true.

jfengel 7y ago
I also doubt it, though it's not quite 2x. The number they cite is "6,000 calories a day", which presumably includes the ~2,000 calories one burns just by staying alive. A marathon runner burns ~2,600 calories on the race itself, totalling ~4,600 for the day. So it's about 1.3x rather than 2x. The numbers all have very wide error bars, so it puts 1.3 in the range closer to 1 than to 2. Still hard to believe, but I'd consider "comparable to a marathon" far more likely than "twice as much".
- zaroth 7y ago
  If you’re going to be pedantic, you subtract out the baseline, and the alleged caloric burn from chess would be 1.5x the measured burn from running a marathon. But in any case it still astounds me the human body can run that far on just 2,000 calories (2.3kWh).
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
    Something you learn when you're trying to lose a lot of weight: The human body is disgustingly energy efficient.
    - ijpoijpoihpiuoh 7y ago
      It's more about how light the body is than how efficient it is. Consider: the Tesla Model 3 has a range of 350 km, and a battery capacity of 50 kWh. That's a little more than seven km per kWh. So, less efficient than the human body, right? Well don't forget that its curb weight is 1,611 kg. If we assume that the marathoning human weighs 100 kg, then the Tesla weighs 16x as much. So to compare the performance pound for pound, we need to imagine the energy use of sixteen human runners (36kWh for 42km, or just a little more than 1kWh per km). Also, it would be travelling that range at a much higher velocity. Of course, its coefficient of drag is probably lower than that of sixteen human runners, but considering the humans are running at 15 km/h or so, and the Tesla would be travelling at closer to 100kmh, the velocity factor of the drag calculation would be 40x higher for the Tesla than the humans. So, even if you factor in the unfairness of having skin and hair and clothes, the humans are actually a good deal less energy efficient than the car. I just found this analysis interesting. Our machines are after all quite a bit more efficient than our bodies (for certain tasks, of course). But that doesn't detract from your point that the body is definitely more efficient than you want it to be when it comes to losing weight!
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
It's about on par with what a farm hand would burn per work day at the beginning of the 20th century (unless I'm remembering that wrong). The human brain burns a lot of calories, but I'm pretty skeptical it can manage 6000kcal on its own.

jfengel 7y ago

I also doubt it, though it's not quite 2x. The number they cite is "6,000 calories a day", which presumably includes the ~2,000 calories one burns just by staying alive. A marathon runner burns ~2,600 calories on the race itself, totalling ~4,600 for the day. So it's about 1.3x rather than 2x. The numbers all have very wide error bars, so it puts 1.3 in the range closer to 1 than to 2. Still hard to believe, but I'd consider "comparable to a marathon" far more likely than "twice as much".

zaroth 7y ago
If you’re going to be pedantic, you subtract out the baseline, and the alleged caloric burn from chess would be 1.5x the measured burn from running a marathon. But in any case it still astounds me the human body can run that far on just 2,000 calories (2.3kWh).
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  Something you learn when you're trying to lose a lot of weight: The human body is disgustingly energy efficient.
  - ijpoijpoihpiuoh 7y ago
    It's more about how light the body is than how efficient it is. Consider: the Tesla Model 3 has a range of 350 km, and a battery capacity of 50 kWh. That's a little more than seven km per kWh. So, less efficient than the human body, right? Well don't forget that its curb weight is 1,611 kg. If we assume that the marathoning human weighs 100 kg, then the Tesla weighs 16x as much. So to compare the performance pound for pound, we need to imagine the energy use of sixteen human runners (36kWh for 42km, or just a little more than 1kWh per km). Also, it would be travelling that range at a much higher velocity. Of course, its coefficient of drag is probably lower than that of sixteen human runners, but considering the humans are running at 15 km/h or so, and the Tesla would be travelling at closer to 100kmh, the velocity factor of the drag calculation would be 40x higher for the Tesla than the humans. So, even if you factor in the unfairness of having skin and hair and clothes, the humans are actually a good deal less energy efficient than the car. I just found this analysis interesting. Our machines are after all quite a bit more efficient than our bodies (for certain tasks, of course). But that doesn't detract from your point that the body is definitely more efficient than you want it to be when it comes to losing weight!
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago

It's about on par with what a farm hand would burn per work day at the beginning of the 20th century (unless I'm remembering that wrong). The human brain burns a lot of calories, but I'm pretty skeptical it can manage 6000kcal on its own.