science

Rhedosaurus

Rhedosaurus is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Rhedosaurus rather than just read about it. In short: The Rhedosaurus is a giant movie monster resembling a giant dinosaur lizard that debuted in the 1953 monster film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, directed and co-written by Eugène Lourié. The Rhedosaurus is depicted as a giant, destructive, prehistoric reptile that is immune to most modern artillery in its major on-screen appearance.

Key takeaways

Rhedosaurus belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Rhedosaurus to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Rhedosaurus from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Rhedosaurus is a giant movie monster resembling a giant dinosaur lizard that debuted in the 1953 monster film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, directed and co-written by Eugène Lourié. The Rhedosaurus is depicted as a giant, destructive, prehistoric reptile that is immune to most modern artillery in its major on-screen appearance. It would later appear in the 1977 science fiction film Planet of Dinosaurs. The prehistoric sea monster that became the Rhedosaurus was initially conceived by the writer Ray Bradbury for his short story "The Fog Horn", which appeared in the June 23, 1951 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Prior to deciding to adapt Bradbury's creature from the story and the artwork by James R. Bingham, Ray Harryhausen, and Eugène Lourié went through many draft designs for producers Hal E. Chester and Jack Dietz, who desired to make a monster film due to the successful 1952 re-release of King Kong (1933). After considering using existing dinosaurs such as an Allosaurus, Harryhausen and Lourié eventually decided to invent a new fictional creature; its appearance later infuriated scientists and students alike upon its release. Harryhausen ultimately made two models based on his concept art before concluding on a fearsome-looking design with the producers' approval and portraying the creature in the film via stop motion animation. The Rhedosaurus is one of the most influential and iconic fictional monsters in the history of cinema. It inspired film monsters such as Godzilla and Gamera and set the template for giant monster and kaiju in films, including: Them! (1954), Godzilla (1954), The Deadly Mantis (1957), 20 Million Miles to Earth, The Giant Claw (both 1957), The Giant Behemoth (1959), Gorgo (1961), and Gamera, the Giant Monster (1965). Homages to the creature appear in media such as a 1956 issue of the comic book series Batman, the 1970 film When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, and the comic book miniseries Dinosaurs Attack!.

Appearances Since its debut in 1953, the Rhedosaurus has been featured in various entertainment media, including films, comic books, novels, and television programs. With each appearance, artists would slightly change the character's design.

Film The Rhedosaurus made its first on-screen appearance in Eugène Lourié's 1953 film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. In the film, the dinosaur is awakened from its over-100-million-year slumber in suspended animation under the Arctic by an atomic bomb detonation and travels south towards the location of its original home, now New York City, on a devastating rampage. After it creates $300 million in damage while wandering around the city, it is ultimately killed on Coney Island by a radionuclide that is directly shot into the wound on its neck created by a bazooka earlier in the film. The Rhedosaurus' next official appearance would be in the low-budget 1977 film Planet of Dinosaurs. In that film, it inhabited a Mesozoic era Earth analog which a human crew becomes stranded; this time, however, it is a smaller, brown dinosaur that is easily defeated by a larger Tyrannosaurus that chomped into his head, seemingly killing him. Stock footage of the Rhedosaurus eating a policeman in the 1953 film would appear in the 1990 horror film Gremlins 2: The New Batch, and an image of the creature from the 1953 film was also shown momentarily as an easter egg in the 2008 film Cloverfield, after the scene where the main characters are in the New York Subway.

Other media The fictional prehistoric sea monster that the Rhedosaurus is based on first appeared in the short story "The Fog Horn", featured in the June 23, 1951 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. It later reappeared in a slightly modified version of the story in the third issue of Ray Bradbury Comics (1993), where it has a design akin to a Plesiosaur. The beast also appears in the second and fourth issues of the 2013 comic book series Dinosaurs Attack! by IDW Publishing. In the latter issue it is shown together with several monsters, including: Gertie the Dinosaur, Godzilla, Anguirus, the Paleosaurus from The Giant Behemoth (1959), Gorgo from its 1961 self-titled film, and Reptilicus from its 1961 self-titled film. Poster art of the Rhedosaurus is briefly shown in the Godzilla Singular Point (2021) episode "Gamesome".

Concept and creation

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Rhedosaurus

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Rhedosaurus claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Rhedosaurus before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Rhedosaurus ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Rhedosaurus

In research: Rhedosaurus appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Rhedosaurus in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Rhedosaurus is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Fictional aquatic animals, Fictional cryonically preserved characters, Fictional dinosaurs, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Rhedosaurus outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Rhedosaurus in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Rhedosaurus means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Rhedosaurus out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Rhedosaurus in simple terms?

Why does Rhedosaurus matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Rhedosaurus?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Rhedosaurus.