# Hawk: Ants falling unharmed **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [July 26, 2003, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hawk-ants-falling-unharmed/191014 "2003-07-26T02:48:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![illoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a3d4f5/32.png) [@illoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/illoe)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2003, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hawk-ants-falling-unharmed/191014/1 "2003-07-26T02:48:16Z")
From “Why can bugs fall great distances and survive, but humans won’t?” ([http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mbugfall.html](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mbugfall.html)): “Our human test subject is 2 meters tall, 0.6 meters wide, and 0.4 meters deep and weighs 90.7 kilograms. He therefore has a surface area of 4.48 square meters.” How do you figure that? ---
**Author:** ![rsa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/839c29/32.png) [@rsa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rsa)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2003, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hawk-ants-falling-unharmed/191014/2 "2003-07-27T15:45:51Z")
Cecil is modeling the human as a simple box shape. He gets the surface area (which he admits is a crude figure) like this: Surface area of the front is 2m x 0.6m = 1.2 sq/m Surface area of the back side is the same as the front. (1.2 sq/m) Do the same for the two sides and you get 2m x 0.4m = 0.8 sq/m (x2) The top and bottom are 0.6m x 0.4m = 0.24 sq/m (x2) Add all the area of all six sides. 1.2 + 1.2 + 0.8 + 0.8 + 0.24 + 0.24 = 4.48 square meters. ---
**Author:** ![rsa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/839c29/32.png) [@rsa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rsa)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2003, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hawk-ants-falling-unharmed/191014/3 "2003-07-27T17:05:24Z")
Opps, that should say staff member **Hawk** , not Cecil.