Shrinking machines

[Minerva]

Remember the movie "Honey I shrunk the kids"?

Well if it were truly possible to shrink something like that you would have to change much more than just the physical size, right? Consider a 2800 pound car. If you were to shrink it to 1/20 as in a 1/20 scale model its weight would be 2800/20 or 140 pounds. Now that is really heavy for something that size that would be mostly hollow. So density would have to change as well. This seems like it would be a huge problem for living things like people! Of course a shrinking machine is about as fantastical as time travel, aliens and even Santa Claus.

 

[LostUte]

Originally posted by: Minerva
Remember the movie "Honey I shrunk the kids"?

Well if it were truly possible to shrink something like that you would have to change much more than just the physical size, right? Consider a 2800 pound car. If you were to shrink it to 1/20 as in a 1/20 scale model its weight would be 2800/20 or 140 pounds. Now that is really heavy for something that size that would be mostly hollow. So density would have to change as well. This seems like it would be a huge problem for living things like people! Of course a shrinking machine is about as fantastical as time travel, aliens and even Santa Claus.

1:20 scale does not mean the volume was decreased 20 times, it means the length, width, height were decreased 20 times. Therefore, for a rough estimation of a car (shaped like a box), the volume would decrease 8000 times (1/20*1/20*1/20). Therefore, the corresponding mass would be 2800/8000.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: LostUte

Originally posted by: Minerva
Remember the movie "Honey I shrunk the kids"?

Well if it were truly possible to shrink something like that you would have to change much more than just the physical size, right? Consider a 2800 pound car. If you were to shrink it to 1/20 as in a 1/20 scale model its weight would be 2800/20 or 140 pounds. Now that is really heavy for something that size that would be mostly hollow. So density would have to change as well. This seems like it would be a huge problem for living things like people! Of course a shrinking machine is about as fantastical as time travel, aliens and even Santa Claus.

1:20 scale does not mean the volume was decreased 20 times, it means the length, width, height were decreased 20 times. Therefore, for a rough estimation of a car (shaped like a box), the volume would decrease 8000 times (1/20*1/20*1/20). Therefore, the corresponding mass would be 2800/8000.

3 dimensions FTW!

 

[CycloWizard]

If said shrinking ray existed and didn't disobey currently accepted physical laws, it could be a huge source of energy. If the density of the material remained constant (i.e. the shrunken steel in the car had the same physical properties as the pre-shrunken car), the mass would change by the same factor as the volume. Since it would appear that the metal is not vaporized, I can only assume that it is converted to some form of energy. Thus, isodense shrinkage must be an exothermic process such that the gun could power itself and the surrounding area as long as we could feed it enough matter to shrink. /late night rambling

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard
If said shrinking ray existed and didn't disobey currently accepted physical laws, it could be a huge source of energy. If the density of the material remained constant (i.e. the shrunken steel in the car had the same physical properties as the pre-shrunken car), the mass would change by the same factor as the volume. Since it would appear that the metal is not vaporized, I can only assume that it is converted to some form of energy. Thus, isodense shrinkage must be an exothermic process such that the gun could power itself and the surrounding area as long as we could feed it enough matter to shrink. /late night rambling

But a re-biggifier would take more energy than you'd get from a de-biggifier.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: silverpig

Originally posted by: CycloWizard
If said shrinking ray existed and didn't disobey currently accepted physical laws, it could be a huge source of energy. If the density of the material remained constant (i.e. the shrunken steel in the car had the same physical properties as the pre-shrunken car), the mass would change by the same factor as the volume. Since it would appear that the metal is not vaporized, I can only assume that it is converted to some form of energy. Thus, isodense shrinkage must be an exothermic process such that the gun could power itself and the surrounding area as long as we could feed it enough matter to shrink. /late night rambling

But a re-biggifier would take more energy than you'd get from a de-biggifier.

Only if the de- and re-biggification were done irreversibly.

 

[Cogman]

So How about this. We put the shrink gun in space, send it to the asteroid belt and have it shrink random asteroids to nothing. Then beam back the energy gained via a microwave beam.

 

[Born2bwire]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: silverpig

Originally posted by: CycloWizard
If said shrinking ray existed and didn't disobey currently accepted physical laws, it could be a huge source of energy. If the density of the material remained constant (i.e. the shrunken steel in the car had the same physical properties as the pre-shrunken car), the mass would change by the same factor as the volume. Since it would appear that the metal is not vaporized, I can only assume that it is converted to some form of energy. Thus, isodense shrinkage must be an exothermic process such that the gun could power itself and the surrounding area as long as we could feed it enough matter to shrink. /late night rambling

But a re-biggifier would take more energy than you'd get from a de-biggifier.

Only if the de- and re-biggification were done irreversibly.

I believe the correct term is embiggener not re-biggifier.

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: Born2bwire

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: silverpig

Originally posted by: CycloWizard
If said shrinking ray existed and didn't disobey currently accepted physical laws, it could be a huge source of energy. If the density of the material remained constant (i.e. the shrunken steel in the car had the same physical properties as the pre-shrunken car), the mass would change by the same factor as the volume. Since it would appear that the metal is not vaporized, I can only assume that it is converted to some form of energy. Thus, isodense shrinkage must be an exothermic process such that the gun could power itself and the surrounding area as long as we could feed it enough matter to shrink. /late night rambling

But a re-biggifier would take more energy than you'd get from a de-biggifier.

Only if the de- and re-biggification were done irreversibly.

I believe the correct term is embiggener not re-biggifier.

Your statement is, I must admit, perfectly cromulent.

 

[Mark R]

If density is preserved, then it also messes with the self-supporting and propulsion functions of the object.

I seem to remember a job interview question about being isodensity shrunk to 2 inches high and put in a blender shortly before it started. The solution is to jump out. The reason is straightforward - mass is changed by a factor of 1/s^3, as is jump energy - as a result jump height remains constant. That's why a flea can jump as high as can a human, as can an elephant (near enough).

This also affects structural proportions. Tensile/compressive strength of supportive members only scales according to s^2, whereas the forces they must support scale according to s^3. This isn't a problem for shrinkage - but enlarging things will place excessive stress on the supports. Look at the different body proportions of a regular pussy cat and a lion. The lion has much bigger legs in proportion to its body.

 

[Nathelion]

Now if one were to shrink a person, that'd have to be done by either 1) removing atoms wholesale from the subject in some appropriately distributed manner or 2) shrink the atoms already present to some smaller size (one could presumably make them lighter as well, if isodensity is desired). Now if one utilizes the first method, all the cells in the subject would have little pieces removed, or a whole lot of cells would be missing. The former case would, I believe, be lethal. The latter is slightly more appealing, but if one were to remove say 7999 out of 8000 of all the neurons in the brain, I imagine that you'd simply be too dumb to jump out of the hypothetical blender. The memory loss would be a complete pain, too.
If using method no. 2 things would work better, you'd jump out of the blender and be home free - you thought! Alas, the molecules of the air surrounding you would suddenly be too large for the follicles in your lungs, and you would inevitably suffocate.

In conclusion, let's try it on mice first, shall we?

 

[Foxery]

I thought the movie claimed to be removing the "extra space" inbetween each atom's nucleus and its electrons? Thus you would keep your original mass and number of atoms/brain cells/whatever, but since your atoms could no longer bind to each other properly, you would immediately collapse into a useless pile of either:
A> a lovely puddle of water and carbon, or possibly
B> a lump of neutronium (edit: or Alpha particles covered in electrical charge? a huge mess, either way)

The blender would break, but you'd already be dead, and not care.

 

[Gibsons]

Originally posted by: Foxery
I thought the movie claimed to be removing the "extra space" inbetween each atom's nucleus and its electrons? Thus you would keep your original mass and number of atoms/brain cells/whatever, but since your atoms could no longer bind to each other properly, you would immediately collapse into a useless pile of either:
A> a lovely puddle of water and carbon, or possibly
B> a lump of neutronium (edit: or Alpha particles covered in electrical charge? a huge mess, either way)

The blender would break, but you'd already be dead, and not care.

If that's how it worked, then mass would stay the same while volume decreased, so density would increase.

Also, the de-embiggened subject wouldn't be able to breathe, because atmospheric/normal sized O2 wouldn't bind the de-embiggened heme in red blood cells.

Seeing might also be a problem as the photoreceptors would have smaller size relative to the wavelength of incoming light? Or are the electrons still interacting with photons in the same way...?

 

[Foxery]

Originally posted by: Gibsons
Also, the de-embiggened subject wouldn't be able to breathe, because atmospheric/normal sized O2 wouldn't bind the de-embiggened heme in red blood cells.

Seeing might also be a problem as the photoreceptors would have smaller size relative to the wavelength of incoming light? Or are the electrons still interacting with photons in the same way...?

Correct on the breathing. I hadn't considered light, but no, since it relies on your electrons having a specific level of energy, light would also be completely wrong. It's based on the energy absorption/re-emission of light hitting electrons, so if you changed all of their orbits, the energy formulas would be completely different.

If we assume that you don't fly apart, or otherwise die, and your electrons somehow keep orbiting at the new, shrunken distances, then both your own vision, and the color of your skin as reflected back to an outside observer, would be way off. Probably far outside of the visible spectrum, making you both invisible and blind! :Q

This reminds me of my high school astronomy teacher explaining what you'd see if you flew into the Sun. "Well, IF you didn't catch fire from the heat, and IF you didn't die of radiation poisoning, and IF you weren't crushed by its high gravity..."