Is it possible to create a shrink ray?

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**Note: Sorry if I may seem pretentious with my science-ey lingo, I have been reading a lot of creepypastas related to the SCP foundation which it itself has a ton of scientific lingo. I also think it was just the result of my intimate fascination science as a whole! (Especially chemistry!) **


From what I've seen from several YouTube videos, not very likely. However I am one to challenge these kinds videos and I believe that there are several inconsistencies with said videos. Before I get to that the videos in question are the following:





Now that you have (probably) seen these videos, I can explain the inconsistencies I see with them. Here goes...

Both videos seem to shrink their hosts down to the size of an ant (approx. 2mm or .07 inches) which suggests that they were both likely inspired by the then-upcoming movie Ant-Man. However they did not explore the subject matter with other sizes in mind such as action figure size (10cm or 3.93 inches) or Barbie doll size (20cm or 7.87 inches).

My point here is that, while it is indeed impossible to shrink yourself to the size of an ant and function as a normal human being, the tables might easily turn if you were instead shrunken down to the size of an action figure, which is a huge contrast to the size which these two videos were criticizing scientifically.

In other words, will the human body be still able to function if it were shrunken down to the size either a G.I. Joe action figure or a Barbie doll?

According to the first video, the process of shrinking down objects, as depicted in several cartoon and science fiction media, would break several laws of physics, as said fictional shrink rays would have to somehow compress the atoms to accommodate their newly assigned size. Doing so, without bonding, is, according to the first video, impossible because it would result in the electrons being "...found in the same quantum state".

I theorize that these shrink ray devices from pop-culture media would have to be forcing the object's or organism's atoms to bond with each other, which I can only predict would be very disastrous considering that we humans are made out of various different kinds of atoms. However due to my lack of knowledge and expertise in quantum mechanics and physics, I can only ask the people here in WP who may know more about this subject.

Number one: you cant shrink folks.

Number two: even if you could you couldn't do it with a beam of light.

Number three: if you could shrink someone to the size of a Barbie doll the human body could not function at even that larger than an ant size.

So there ya have it. Three kinds of impossible right from the get go.

Size doesn't matter in this. If you want to shrink people by shriking their atoms, the problem is that the size of atoms is determined by the size of electron orbitals, and they are determined by the laws of physics. To change these sizes at all, you would have to change the laws of physics in a restricted space. I have never read anything scientific which would suggest that this is even possible in theory.

Also, if you just shrink the atoms, the mass would remain the same. The pressure on each foot would be about the same as someon putting all their weight on stiletto heels. That limits where the shrunk person could walk, or what they could climb. I don't think the movies ever include that little detail.


If you make the atoms form into different molecules, you get different chemistry. Biochemistry is finicky, so the result might not even be alive. Also, even shrinking to 20cm height, say from 170cm, means shrinking to 0.16% of the original volume. You can do a very simple calculation to see whether that is remotely realistic. If you want to keep all the original atoms, you would have to increase the density of the body from near 1g/cm^3 (the density of water) to about 6141g/cm^3. There are no compounds of hydrogen, oxygen and carbon (the main constituents of Earth life) with that density. For comparison here are the highest densities that I know of at 1 bar pressure:
Lead: 11.34g/cm^3
Mercury: 13.53g/cm^3
Gold: 19.3g/cm^3

I don't know whether any pressure outside that generated by the gravity of a neutron star could give you density of 614g/cm^3. A neutron star would give you a lot more than that, but then you would also not have any chemistry, because you no longer have atoms.

If you tried to shrink a 170cm body to 20cm by removing random atoms or even molecules, you would still have to remove 99.84% of them. You can't shrink down cells by that much. They have a minimum size needed to pack in the necessary biochemistry. So you would have to remove whole cells, most of them from within the body without turning it into soup, then reconnect the cells you leave behind. If that were possible, you should end up with a functioning body. Of course, you also would have removed 99.84% of brain cells, and what's left over would only support much reduced intelligence. And that's assuming that you reconnected the remaining few neurons in such a way that they can do anything useful at all.

If you go to the size of an action figure, the problem is eight times worse.

So it's still a no.

A cold shower can create some shrinkage, but not of the entire person.