I have been reading an interesting book recently, which is called, “How to Survive History”. I chose it so that I could talk about the book with my eight year old son. The book imagines a human time traveller going back in time to experience different eras in human history, and explains what they should do to avoid the dangers of that time.
For example, if you travel back to the late dinosaur age, what should you do if you are targeted by a hungry tyrannosaurus rex? Should you try to run away? Should you climb a tree? Should you lie down and pretend to be dead?
According to the writer, Cody Cassidy, you should try to outrun the t-rex. Scientists have tried to estimate the top running speed of the creature by comparing its muscle mass to its weight. Those scientists reckon that a healthy adult human could probably just outrun an adult t-rex. And even if you were a bit slower, Cassidy cites the example of predator versus prey relationships in the modern world. Predators such as the cheetah are often much faster than their prey, but still fail to catch an animal two times out of every three that they try to. If the target animal dodges at the last minute, the faster running predator will run past the targeted animal and be unable to stop.
My son had an even better solution.
“It’s easy,” he said. “When I see the t-rex coming, I will just get
back in my time machine and go home.”
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