Thread: Shrinking

I'm no good with this area of science so it would be great of someone could lay it out for me as simple as possible.


I am interested to know just how impossible is it for technology to reduce or increase the mass or density of a thing - To change the scale of physical properties? What exactly are the limitations?

I don't believe you can change the mass or density of an object without physically changing it in any way (cutting off parts of it, changing the material it's made of, burning it, etc).

Its mass is determined by the molecular weight (and how many moles of the molecule there are) of its molecules or the atomic mass of its atoms (and how many moles there are of these atoms). These are determined by the periodic table.

Oh, I forgot to mention density is determined the same way except that it adds in the volume. mass/volume ie g/mL kg/L g/cm^3 whatever units you want as long as it's mass/volume

if you compressed the orbits inside atoms, they'd move to a higher energy state, and the person shrinking would explode.

Originally Posted by Kolt

I'm no good with this area of science so it would be great of someone could lay it out for me as simple as possible.


I am interested to know just how impossible is it for technology to reduce or increase the mass or density of a thing - To change the scale of physical properties? What exactly are the limitations?

No. The physical properties of matter and energy in 'a thing' are not isolated from the influence of matter and energy in the Universe. One could substitute aluminium for lead, etc. but this has no influence on the properties of either element or the properities of 'forces' keeping the particular atom together.