144
PHV51CS OF THE IMPOSSIBLE
has the smallest possible surface area per unit mass. And why insects
in a warmer environment can afford to be spindly in shape, with a relatively large surface area per unit mass.
In the Disney movie Honey, I Shrunk the Kids a family is shrunk
down to the size of ants. A rainstorm develops, and in the microworld
we see tiny raindrops falling onto puddles. In reality a raindrop as seen
by an ant would appear not as a tiny drop but as a huge mound or
hemisphere of water. In our world a hemispherical mound of water is
unstable and will collapse of its own weight under gravity. But in the
microworld, surface tension is relatively large, so a hemispherical
mound of water is perfectly stable.
Similarly, in outer space we can estimate the rough surface-tovolume ratio of animals on distant planets using the laws of physics.
Using these laws we can theorize that aliens in outer space would
likely not be the giants often portrayed in science fiction, but would
more closely resemble us in size. (Whales, however, can be much
larger in size because of the buoyancy of seawater. This also explains
why a beached whale dies-because it is crushed by its own weight.)
The scale law means that the laws of physics change as we go
deeper and deeper into the microworld. This explains why the quantum theory appears so bizarre to us, violating simple commonsense
notions about our universe. So the scale law rules out the familiar idea
of worlds-within-worlds found in science fiction, that is, the idea that
inside the atom there could be an entire universe, or that our galaxy
could be an atom in a much larger universe. This idea was explored in
the movie Men in Black. In the final scene of the movie the camera
pans away from the Earth, to the planets, the stars, the galaxies, until
our entire universe becomes just a single ball in a huge extraterrestrial
game played by gigantic aliens.
In reality a galaxy of stars bears no resemblance to an atom; inside
the atom the electrons inside their shells are totally different from
planets. We know that all the planets are quite different from each
other and can orbit at any distance from the mother star. In atoms,
however, all the subatomic particles are identical to one another. They
cannot orbit at any distance from the nucleus, but only in discrete or-
PHV51CS OF THE IMPOSSIBLE
has the smallest possible surface area per unit mass. And why insects
in a warmer environment can afford to be spindly in shape, with a relatively large surface area per unit mass.
In the Disney movie Honey, I Shrunk the Kids a family is shrunk
down to the size of ants. A rainstorm develops, and in the microworld
we see tiny raindrops falling onto puddles. In reality a raindrop as seen
by an ant would appear not as a tiny drop but as a huge mound or
hemisphere of water. In our world a hemispherical mound of water is
unstable and will collapse of its own weight under gravity. But in the
microworld, surface tension is relatively large, so a hemispherical
mound of water is perfectly stable.
Similarly, in outer space we can estimate the rough surface-tovolume ratio of animals on distant planets using the laws of physics.
Using these laws we can theorize that aliens in outer space would
likely not be the giants often portrayed in science fiction, but would
more closely resemble us in size. (Whales, however, can be much
larger in size because of the buoyancy of seawater. This also explains
why a beached whale dies-because it is crushed by its own weight.)
The scale law means that the laws of physics change as we go
deeper and deeper into the microworld. This explains why the quantum theory appears so bizarre to us, violating simple commonsense
notions about our universe. So the scale law rules out the familiar idea
of worlds-within-worlds found in science fiction, that is, the idea that
inside the atom there could be an entire universe, or that our galaxy
could be an atom in a much larger universe. This idea was explored in
the movie Men in Black. In the final scene of the movie the camera
pans away from the Earth, to the planets, the stars, the galaxies, until
our entire universe becomes just a single ball in a huge extraterrestrial
game played by gigantic aliens.
In reality a galaxy of stars bears no resemblance to an atom; inside
the atom the electrons inside their shells are totally different from
planets. We know that all the planets are quite different from each
other and can orbit at any distance from the mother star. In atoms,
however, all the subatomic particles are identical to one another. They
cannot orbit at any distance from the nucleus, but only in discrete or-