How many degrees of freedom does a swan's neck have

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mani m
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how many degrees of freedom swan's neck have
 
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how many degrees of freedom does a wire have? infinitely many
 
I think it is far fewer than that.
mani m said:
how many degrees of freedom swan's neck have
Are you interested in the maximum theoretical degrees of freedom, or the minimum degrees of freedom to realistically model it?
 
Dale said:
I think it is far fewer than that.
depends on model you choose. The model should be determined explicitly in the statement of the problem. I model the neck as infinitely many degrees of freedom system.
 
zwierz said:
depends on model you choose. The model should be determined explicitly in the statement of the problem. I model the neck as infinitely many degrees of freedom system.
Seems like a bad choice to me. It doesn't have infinite degrees of freedom, and I cannot think of a practical reason to model it with more degrees of freedom than it has.

I have a fundamental dislike of models with too many degrees of freedom
 
Dale said:
Seems like a bad choice to me.
ok let's invite zoologist to explain us how swan's spine is organized
 
Dale said:
I cannot think of a practical reason to model it with more degrees of freedom than it has.

I have a fundamental dislike of models with too many degrees of freedom
What do you prefer: to consider the ideal gas by means of Euler equation which implies infinitely many degrees of freedom or to consider it as a Hamiltonian system of particles with billions degrees of freedom?
 
A swan's neck is composed of a number of vertebrae that can move about, so the number of degrees of freedom will be based almost completely off of the possible motions of the bones. How many neck bones a swan has and how exactly they move I don't know. I leave that to the OP to find out.