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From: mouse@mcgill-vision.UUCP (der Mouse)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Fantastic Voyage (miniaturization)
Message-ID: <134@mcgill-vision.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 3-Sep-85 03:13:57 EDT
Article-I.D.: mcgill-v.134
Posted: Tue Sep  3 03:13:57 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 8-Sep-85 04:39:52 EDT
Organization: McGill University, Montreal
Lines: 32


     What's all  this about fields and  loss of  mass and where does the
energy go?   One  failing  is that  it doesn't explain  the  enlargement
capability  of the technology (it  could  enlarge  as  well  as  shrink,
remember).    What's  wrong  with the explanation given (in  the book, I
haven't seen  the  movie)?  As  I recall  it,  this is that  matter is a
"shadow", a projection  of *something* onto space-time.  Miniaturization
is the manipulation of this something to change the projection.  Clearly
this is a rather  strange  sort of projection; but  I  feel  certain the
mathematics would  be no worse than some of the hair necessary for (say)
quantum mechanics.

     I  find this  at least as  plausible as  a "field" which can remove
99.9% of the  mass  and size of an electron  and  still leave  something
which behaves as an electron (on a smaller scale, to be sure).

     As  for  full-size photons knocking miniaturized  electrons away, I
have a  couple  of  points to  mention here.   One,  who  says full-size
photons interact with miniaturized particles?  Oh yes, that's right, our
heroes have to be  able to see unminiaturized  objects by unminiaturized
light.  Second, so we have a more energetic photon bashing an atom.  How
is  this situation different  from an X-ray (or gamma ray or ...) photon
bashing a  full-size  atom?  All this will  mean is the  spectrum of the
room lights gets shifted towards the blue end of the scale....
-- 
					der Mouse

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