Talk:Resizing (fiction)

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I'm not entirely sure of the title of this article, but if its aim is to talk about shrinking in science fiction, then material concerning other kinds of fiction, and fiction in which no shrinking occurs, have no place in it. Nor do I see how 'shapeshifting' is related, to be honest. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 14:25, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I see. Now I regret to create such article. I should create "resize" or "sizeshifting".

And new instances just keep puping up.AirBa 14:30, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Can I make a proposal? I think the article should discuss whether or not the idea of resizing is scientifically plausible. Resizing is actually possible. Take the fact that most of the atom is empty space, for example. If one were to reduce the amount of empty space in the atom, the object would grow considerably smaller. Also, there is a lot of empty space in between atoms. Squeeze the atoms together and the object will grow a lot smaller. For example, you could squeeze a person's atoms together and cause him to shrink to about 2" tall or less. Or, you could spread the atoms out further and cause the person or object or animal to grow considerably in size. There is no discussion of the kind in this article; it doesn't even talk about the fact that the laser in Honey, I Shrunk The Kids worked by squeezing the atoms together. Scorpionman 18:05, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Not really. The electrons are held at a certain distance from the nucleus by their electrical charge. You would have to sustain pressure on the atom, causing the elctrons to drop into lower orbitals. Since the innermost orbitals can only host decreasing numbers of electrons (as like poles repel, and the amount of space decreases the closer you get to the nucleus), the electrons would get knocked loose from the atom altogether, creating a free radical. As far as compressing multiple atoms together, the result would be a severe drop in temperature, killing any living organism. Comic book physics is not real life physics. Wandering Star 03:54, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

But what if it isn't a living organism? Lke, perhaps, a chair or couch? Scorpionman 04:07, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Why would you want to? It's be cheaper and easier just to make a miniature copy of an inanimate object. Also, it would depend on the object itself-the material it's made out of might react differently to the temperature drop or the massive increase in density. Think of compressed gas-if you've ever been to a science lab, you've probably seen cylinders of gasses, which, if you put your hand to the surface, feel cool or even cold to the touch-and that's with some heavy duty insulation. Even very light gasses, like helium or hydrogen, which at room temperature are considerably lighter than air, will feel very heavy when you try to lift one of those cylinders. The density increases, the surface area and temperature drops, and the properties of the gas, including it's fluid dynamics, all change. This continues as you approach absolute zero, the point at which all atomic motion ceases.

For an object that's solid at room temperature, I imagine similar effects would occur. Wandering Star (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 21:06, 28 March 2008 (UTC)