这就是为什么科学来说巨型人类从来没有，也永远不会存在

这就是为什么科学来说巨型人类从来没有，也永远不会存在

It seems every time you look away from the Internet for more than a few minutes these days there are about five new conspiracy theories to catch up on by the time you come back.

最近，每当你把目光从网上挪开几分钟，回来的时候，你就会发现大约有五种新的阴谋论需要了解。

Go for a jog, look at the computer, and suddenly the Internet believes that Hillary Clinton and Tom Hanks flay children alive in order to harvest their blood (no, really, this is an actual conspiracy theory). But even given the strangeness and speed of conspiracy theories these days you might be shocked to learn that the Vatican – in conjunction with the Smithsonian, no less – is suppressing the truth about the existence of gigantic human skeletons, confirming the existence of giants and somewhat messing up our evolutionary tree.

慢跑一下，看看电脑，突然之间，互联网相信希拉里·克林顿(Hillary Clinton)和汤姆·汉克斯(Tom Hanks)活着剥孩子们的皮，以便采集他们的血液(不，真的，这是一个真正的阴谋论)。但是，即使考虑到这些天阴谋论的奇异性和速度，你可能会震惊地发现梵蒂冈——与史密森尼博物馆合作——掩盖了巨大的人类骨骼存在的真相，证实了巨人的存在，在某种程度上扰乱了我们的进化树。

There's even evidence, in the form of the worst photoshop jobs you are ever likely to see.

甚至有证据表明，这是你可能见过的最糟糕的photoshop工作。

James Felton

Giant skeletons found by the thousands. The Vatican and The Smithsonian destroyed most and threw some into the bottom of the ocean. Because having to explain how they existed contradicted the evolution of mankind from apes. What we've been led to believe. What do you believe?

数千具巨大的骨骼被发现。梵蒂冈和史密森学会销毁了大部分，并把一些扔进了海底。因为要解释它们是如何存在的与人类从猿进化而来的过程相矛盾。我们是被引导去相信的。你相信什么?

The post, unfortunately, is not isolated. There is a whole genre of posts where people claim that a giant skeleton has been found, as evidenced by a picture of a tiny person photoshopped in or next to a massive pile of bones.

不幸的是，《华盛顿邮报》并不是孤立的。有很多帖子声称发现了一具巨大的骨骼，在一大堆骨头旁边或里面ps了一个小人的照片就证明了这一点。

Posts dating back several years are often accompanied by claims that a recent excavation in India has uncovered a giant 80-foot skeleton.

几年前的帖子中经常有这样的说法:最近在印度的一次挖掘发现了一具80英尺高的巨大骨骼。

The believers have further evidence to back them up.

信徒们有更多的证据来支持他们。

While a depressing amount of people have accepted the proof, others have obviously been mocking the conspiracy theory in its latest incarnation.

尽管有相当一部分人接受了这个证据，但其他人显然在嘲笑这个阴谋论的最新版本。

The skeleton photos are not only ridiculous, but a quick reverse Google search will also tell you that many of them were created in 2002 for – wait for it – a competition that asked contestants to create a fake archaeological discovery using photoshop. Seriously, have a look. They may seem kind of obvious fakes now, but they'd have made you soil yourself in 2002.

这些骨架照片不仅荒谬可笑，而且快速反向谷歌搜索还会告诉你，其中许多照片是2002年制作的——等等——一个比赛，要求参赛者使用photoshop创建一个假的考古发现。说真的，看看吧。它们现在看起来可能是明显的赝品，但在2002年它们会让你迷失自己。

Nevertheless, let's entertain this (albeit briefly). Giant 24-meter (80-foot) tall humans are not possible. I did warn you the entertaining would be brief.

尽管如此，让我们来娱乐一下(尽管只是简单地)。24米(80英尺)高的巨人是不可能出现的。我警告过你，娱乐活动会很简短。

It's all because of the square-cube law, which states that as the size of any object grows (be it a cube or an accountant) its volume grows faster than its surface area. The area grows in proportion to the square of your size, whereas your volume scales up in proportion to the cube of your size.

这都是因为平方与立方定律，即任何物体的大小随着增长(无论是立方体还是会计)，其体积的增长要快于表面积的增长。面积是按你大小的平方比例增长的，而体积则是按你大小的立方比例增长的。

So as you scale up humans, our volume dramatically increases in proportion to our size, while the cross-section of our muscles and bones are squared. Say you are 18 meters (60 feet) tall – 10 times the height of a 6-foot tall person – your body would have to support 100 times the volume.

所以当你按比例放大人类时，我们的体积会随着我们的体型比例急剧增加，而我们的肌肉和骨骼的横截面是平方的。假设你有18米(60英尺)高——是6英尺高的人的10倍——你的身体必须支撑100倍的体积。

A cubic inch of bone can support 8,600 kilograms (19,000 pounds), which is a lot, but at 180 meters (60 feet) tall it would need to support well over 250,047 kilograms (assuming we're scaling up a 63 kilogram or 10 stone person, the average weight for a human).

一立方英寸的骨头可以支撑8600公斤(19000磅)，这是一个很大的重量，但在180米(60英尺)高的地方，它需要支撑超过2500047公斤(假设我们把一个63公斤或10英石的人按比例放大，这是一个人的平均体重)。

Essentially, if you got big enough to make the Vatican want to cover up your bones, your bones would have crumbled into dust because of your own weight long before that point.

基本上，如果你长到足以让梵蒂冈想要掩盖你的骨头，你的骨头早在那之前就会因为你的体重而碎成尘土。

A version of this article was originally published on 09 July 2020.

本文的一个版本最初发表于2020年7月9日。