An elephant\'s legs have a reasonably uniform cross section from top to bottom,

Question

An elephant's legs have a reasonably uniform cross section from top to bottom, and they are quite long, pivoting high on the animal's body. When an elephant moves at a walk, it uses very little energy to bring its legs forward, simply allowing them to swing like pendulums. For fluid walking motion, this time should be half the time for a complete stride; as soon as the right leg finishes swinging forward, the elephant plants the right foot and begins swinging the left leg forward.

An elephant has legs that stretch 2.3 m from its shoulders to the ground. How much time is required for one leg to swing forward after completing a stride?

What would you predict for this elephant's stride frequency? That is, how many steps per minute will the elephant take?

Explanation / Answer

a)

T = 2(pie)sqrt(L/g)

=2*3.14*sqrt(2.3/9.8)

=3.10N
b)

The frequency is 1 / T, but the answer needs to be in minutes, so you need to multiply times 60

So just plug in the T you got from a to this equation

F = 60/T=60/3.1=19.31minutes

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