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 Abnormal Force

I always hated the Normal Force in physics.

The idea that there is a force, intrinsic to all things, the moment you set one object down upon the other, thus converting all of the top object's kinetic energy into potential energy. And this force is miraculously exactly equal to the weight of the object, effectively negating gravity's pull and supporting the object by pressing up against it from beneath.

Bullshit.

I call bullshit. Grab your mops and brooms, kids, I'm formalizing a declaration of shenanigans.

This "Normal" force is just the structural integrity of any object. It's saying something is "solid" and sturdy enough to support a weight on top of it without snapping in half like a .GIF of a fat person breaking a tiny chair. There is no "structural integrity field." Trust me, I've seen science fiction. It'd be great if there were, but there isn't. "Normal force" is just shoddily designed math to make physics professors happy. Oh, the math balances. Great for you! You know what doesn't balance? Physical structures. They sink. Because the ground doesn't have a magic number holding it up. It has amorfous dirt and bedrock.

Today I met a computer engineer, whose degree was initially in chemistry, though he worked with physics mostly. We got talking about calculus, then Riemann sums and spatial understandings of math and tesseracts, and then I just out and out called bullshit on the Normal Force to his face.

And he agreed with me. He openly admitted that Normal Force is just fudging numbers to make all the forces come out equal on paper. God forbid an object at rest is actually pulled upon by gravity forever and supported by only mostly stable matter beneath it. Fat guys are fat until they break the chair, they don't find a perfect balance and stay in place forever.

So there you have it, Mr. Lopez. You may have been fun in high school physics class, but I just got a scientist to agree with me. Normal Force is bullshit, and you could have just told me so, but you stuck to your guns and just played your smooth jazz.

But now I have an English degree and work in tech support, so who's laughing n–

Wait.

Real Conversations That Make You Feel Smart

Fun fact: leaving a refrigerator door open is actually a good way to heat a room, as increasing the amount of space the fridge is trying to cool requires more work and therefor more energy, releasing more heat from the coolant system in back as it does so.


"You know, most people wouldn't know that."

"It's basic physics!"

"Yeah. Most people don't know physics."

"Well, that would make everyone dumber than us."

"…Yeah."

"Oh."


Some days I have to fight with my friends over whether or not "The Big Bang Theory" is funny. However every day I just accept that they're wrong and it's a hilarious rip-off of the conversations my other friends have.

Of course, I'm an insensitive idiot who thinks way too much of both nerdiness and hilarious conversation, so I figure some people can call me an asshole now and we'll all break even.

FUCKING FLASHPOINT!