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  • What if you could shrink yourself

  • down to 1 mm (0.04 in) tall,

  • about the size of a frog's egg?

  • Actually no,

  • too many creepy crawly predators,

  • let's go smaller.

  • What if you shrunk to 10 micrometers (0.0004 in),

  • the size of an animal cell.

  • That's pretty cool,

  • but I think we can go even smaller.

  • How about 100 nanometers (0.000004 in),

  • the size of a virus?

  • That's better, but we're not in the mood

  • to be swallowed by white blood cells.

  • So let's keep going.

  • What if you shrunk to 1 angström,

  • the size of the atom?

  • Oh yeah,

  • I think we have a winner.

  • If you shrunk to the size of an atom,

  • would it be a fantastic voyage?

  • Or a death sentence?

  • From "Gulliver's Travels"

  • to "Alice in Wonderland"

  • to "Ant-man,"

  • the idea of shrinking

  • has fascinated us for a long time.

  • The atom, in all its splendor, is tiny.

  • I mean really, really tiny.

  • Measuring in at 1 angström.

  • To put that in perspective,

  • if you were to blow up an atom 1 billion times,

  • it would only get as big as a tennis ball.

  • While shrinking seems like

  • it would be an amazing superpower,

  • it would actually be a deadly fight for survival.

  • The first hurdle you're going to have to deal with

  • is your mass.

  • If you shrunk without changing your mass,

  • there would be so much compression

  • that for an ant-sized person,

  • the pressure underneath your tiny feet

  • would be ten thousand times greater

  • than at your normal size.

  • It would be like a single, ant-sized leg

  • pushing down 70 kg (155 lbs) on each step.

  • Next, you would have to deal with your body

  • turning against you.

  • Your new, smaller size

  • will affect almost every aspect of your biology.

  • For example,

  • if you shrunk be approximately 2.5 cm (1 in) tall,

  • the surface area of your body,

  • through which you lose heat,

  • would decrease about 5,000 times.

  • Your lung area would be 5,000 times smaller,

  • but you could still get

  • the supply of oxygen you need.

  • The way you extract oxygen from the air

  • is dependent on the surface area of your lungs.

  • As you get smaller

  • the area of your lungs is larger

  • than the volume of your lungs,

  • which means there's more than enough

  • air to go around.

  • But you're not out of the woods yet.

  • You would need to provide your body

  • with more fuel,

  • a lot more fuel.

  • This is because

  • the rate at which you produce heat

  • is proportional to the mass of your body.

  • The only way to generate more heat

  • is to increase your metabolic rate dramatically!

  • This means you have to eat nonstop

  • as the food needs to be digested

  • in order to produce heat.

  • You would have to eat as much food

  • as your body weighs,

  • every day, just to stay alive.

  • And this is just for a 2.5 cm (1 in)

  • version of you.

  • You'll have even more dangers to face

  • when you're atom-sized.

  • During your shrinking process,

  • you'll notice the world getting bigger

  • and then darker.

  • It's estimated that if you decreased in size

  • to approximately one 10,000th of your size,

  • the lenses in your eyes would stop working

  • in just-visible light.

  • Or, that may just be you passing out.

  • When you take the big step

  • of squeezing your feet into microscopic shoes,

  • one single oxygen molecule

  • will look like Mount Everest to you.

  • You're literally smaller than an oxygen molecule.

  • How long can you hold your breath?

  • So, if you feel up to the challenge,

  • could you even pull this off?

  • The big problem with shrinking down

  • to the size of an atom

  • is that the atoms in your body

  • can't be made any smaller.

  • And your body contains more atoms

  • than the number of stars

  • we can see in the Universe.

  • You'd have to remove some excess baggage.

  • Is it possible to remove

  • the atoms in your body?

  • Imagine a mosaic image,

  • a picture made entirely out of smaller pictures.

  • Much like these images,

  • our body consists of DNA,

  • built up by molecules consisting of atoms.

  • If you started removing pictures

  • from your mosaic image,

  • you might be able to remove a few

  • and still see a resemblance to the original.

  • But there is a limit.

  • After a while,

  • the image would no longer make sense.

  • This is also true of DNA.

  • We might be able to remove atoms

  • from the molecules building up the DNA,

  • but eventually ,we would reach a limit

  • and make a mess of your human body.

  • So until you solve that problem,

  • no shrinking for you.

  • But if you manage to conquer all the challenges,

  • you would be able to experience

  • the insane world of quantum mechanics.

  • If you could learn to live in this environment,

  • you could have a blast tunneling

  • and jumping through impenetrable barriers

  • on your path to chart the microverse.

  • Truth be told though,

  • it's probably easier living at the size we are.

  • Mostly because we don't have to deal

  • with things like giant spiders.

  • But what if that wasn't the case?

  • What if spiders were the size of humans?

  • Well, that's a story for another WHAT IF.

What if you could shrink yourself

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