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My mad (as in crazy, certainly not angry) scientist has a project to help the Earth by shrinking all of the humans. He figured out a way - not important - to shrink himself and a vessel about car-sized. He is now about 1 cm tall, and everything in his vehicle shrank (atoms, cells, bacteria, himself, etc).

There are a whole slew of issues about bugs attacking, etc., but I am interested only in the biological limitations when he opens the door of his vessel, and breathes in fresh air, or tries to drink a drop of water, etc. You may even imagine it's a mostly sterile environment.

What are the biological limitations to living in our environment if we shrank to 1cm in height, proportionally.

Note 1: This isn't as small as the movies Honey I Shrunk the Kids, or Innerspace; simply 1cm in height.

Note 2: The simple past tense form of “shrink” is “shrank” and the past participle is “shrunk”; it should be “Honey, I Shrank the Kids,” not ”Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.” “Honey, I've shrunk the kids” would be standard, and also grammatically acceptable is “Honey, I've shrunken the kids”.

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    $\begingroup$ If he shrank all his atoms, are he and his vehicle the same mass as when they were larger? $\endgroup$
    – Samuel
    May 6, 2015 at 23:02
  • $\begingroup$ @Samuel Relatively speaking, everything (including the vehicle), shrank proportionally, so I anticipate that would make them a smaller mass, else they'd crush themselves. $\endgroup$
    – Mikey
    May 6, 2015 at 23:05
  • $\begingroup$ Based off of ckerch's answer, looks like he'll have to bring an air tank $\endgroup$
    – Mary ML
    May 6, 2015 at 23:21

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He won't be able to drink, breathe, or eat.

If his molecules have shrunk in size, they won't be able to interact with normal sized molecules. Oxygen won't bind to his blood, and cellular respiration wouldn't work anyways, since the oxygen wouldn't be able to interact with the shrunken ATP. The same will be true for all biological processes. Humans are, in essence, giant chemical reactions, and none of those reactions would work with shrunken molecules.

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  • $\begingroup$ Well, that was quick. $\endgroup$
    – Mikey
    May 6, 2015 at 22:39
  • $\begingroup$ It's the same answer as the duplicate question got. $\endgroup$
    – Samuel
    May 6, 2015 at 23:29
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    $\begingroup$ Well, actually, he can drink (with difficulty due to increased apparent surface tension and viscosity issues). He just can't metabolize what he drinks. $\endgroup$
    – WhatRoughBeast
    May 6, 2015 at 23:33
  • $\begingroup$ Not a duplicate: that asked specifally about square-cube law effects, which woukd be applicable to anything including a mechanical miniature robot. This question is qbout shrinking atoms and still being hard SF. $\endgroup$
    – JDługosz
    May 6, 2015 at 23:36
  • $\begingroup$ Lets be real. This is about Inner Space. $\endgroup$
    – user8827
    May 7, 2015 at 3:36
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See Asimov's sequel of sorts, Destination Brain. He has a field surrounding the shrunken object that serves as an interface, as air and light cross over it.

I seem to remember speculating on it before. Did you search for similar questions?

Shrinking atoms means making a change to the nature of space or the physics in it, so the (apparently) shrunken person is in a different kind of space and needs a way to carry that pocket around and mediate interaction with the outside. Shrinking air that crosses etc. Has complicating issues as the cross section area is too small on the outside and he won't get enough air.

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