Honey, I Broke the Physics

I put Honey, I Shrunk the Kids up on the big screen at work today, then spent about 20 minutes re-researching thr fundamental forces of nature to try and work out how Szalinski's shrink ray operates.

By his own words—either in this film or the first sequel, I forget which—Szalinski states the machine works to reduce the great amount of empty space in what is typically considered "solid" matter.

To achieve this, the device would have to affective lot lessen the coefficient of the Weak Nuclear Force, which governs the behavior of fermions such as electrons. This would allow them to maintain stable orbits far closer to the nucleus of their atoms, thereby allowing molecular bonds to be formed from atoms functionally "smaller" in so far as each atom would now occupy less volumethan previously.

Now, Szalinski says nothing of changing any mass, however it is quite clear from the experimental results that weight has been scaled down proportionately with volume of the shrunken subjects, so it can only be that mass too has been affected. This requires that the machine also interact with the Higgs Field in such a way as to shift down the subject's mass as they shrink.


Notes:

1) Altering the coefficients of the fundamental forces is completely impossible and would likely break physics within the space provided, killing anything within, probably horribly.

2) There isn't actually any "empty space" in an atom to remove. I mean you can't remove a nothing, but the emptiness is really teaming with quantum foam if virtual particles infinitely coming into and out of existence, powering the dark energies and probabilities of the world.

The Effects of Inter-Species Reproduction on the Well-Being of Lois Lane

Hold tight, sweetie, or all Mommy's internal organs will fall out
after you ripped her open by poking her belly button.

I have, for years, heard the argument that Lois Lane and Superman could never reproduce due to … incompatibilities in their biologies. Mallrats had the most terse remark:

If Lois gets a tan the kid could kick right through her stomach! Only someone like Wonder Woman has a strong enough uterus to carry his kid. The only way he could bang regular chicks is with a kryptonite condom, but that would kill him."

As much as I love everything Kevin Smith touched prior to and including 2001, it's an argument I never bought, and have only been irked further after reading that it was included in a truly awful script to come to light of late, that may have been an actual working draft for the Tim Burton "Superman Lives" movie starring Nicholas Cage, after Smith himself was fired for refusing to include heinously idiotic shit in his draft (which I also have).

Now, thankfully, Superman Returns did us all a favor and just showed a living, mostly healthy if a little asthmatic sire of Supes by way of the Lane-gina,  even if it did little to reinvigorate the franchise. If nothing else, it showed three important things: Lex Luthor being truly evil, Lois being borderline incompetent when it comes to avoiding getting murdered, and the fact that Kal-El and L.L. went and did it Krypto-style in the Fortress of Solitude one lonely evening.

Here's the rub: that kid is accurate.

Superman's powers come from a highly evolved biology, but nearly every power can be brought back to two distinct features of Kryptonian physiology: manipulation of one's own magnetic field, and an incredibly dense cellular structure.

Now, the latter would seem to argue that even a half-breed Kryptonian baby could easily burst accidentally forth from the abdomen of a simple Earth woman, if not for two facts:

1. The instances where Superman gets his ass handed to him any time he becomes depowered. And

2. That Superman himself gives his weight at about 220lbs.

Were density the reason for Superman's great strength, he would be incredibly massive for his size, or otherwise hollow and made of diamond. Since we know his biology to be compatible with a human's enough to interbreed (arguably meaning they are not really different species, assuming the child itself is fertile), that is not the case. Also, this should be fairly obvious in general. Moreover, density cannot be affected temporarily by radiation.

Now manipulation of his own EM field, that explains most of Superman's powers, ranging from internal and external force fields (or 'structural integrity field' if you prefer), levitation, heat and X-ray visions, selective telescopic and microscopic–even subatomic–vision, super hearing, all of those are resultant from mastery over one's production and absorption of radiant energy. In theory, Superman could even, if perfectly controlled, convert his mass directly into pure energy, decreasing that mass and allowing himself to not only fly, but achieve the speed of light, though not surpass it.

And all of this powered by solar energy.

Any child with a similar biology, conceived internally at least, would maintain typical human-Kryptonian strength and abilities as a fetus, until exposed to sunlight, even then taking a while to absorb enough to "power up," assuming this is an immediate effect of our sun as in the Christopher Reeves movies and not a maturation thing as in "Smallville."

Short Answer: Lois, avoid in-vitro and give birth in a windowless room under fluorescent lights.


Now, I still maintain that unless they do it under red sunlamps, Superman's great care to not tear our tissue paper world asunder with his might would surely be broken at the moment of climax, and he is more likely to shoot a water saw jet of super-swimmers through Lois' pelvis or up through the ceiling à la The Pro.