General Question

Ltryptophan's avatar

When very tiny microscopic fragile things fall from microscopic heights, do they break?

Asked by Ltryptophan (12091points) March 2nd, 2010

Does gravity scale down? Does it scale up?

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12 Answers

ShiningToast's avatar

Not usually. They don’t fall far enough to build sufficient momentum.

It is also because they are so light, their terminal velocity is relatively low; an ant could fall off of the Empire State Building and walk away.

FireMadeFlesh's avatar

Not as often as macroscopic objects do. Gravity takes time to build the velocity of an object, and if there isn’t sufficient distance it will still be travelling quite slowly when it hits the ground. The electromagnetic force which holds everything together on every scale between the atomic and galactic scales is also much stronger in a relative sense for small objects, so the object wouldn’t be as fragile.

hiphiphopflipflapflop's avatar

No. See: square-cube law.

Volume and mass for a typical object scales with the cube of a length while surface scales with the square. This means that as that length becomes smaller, the ratio of the surface area to the mass increases, making forces that arise from surface effects stronger relative to gravity. This is why ants fall rather slowly and dust particles can be suspended in air for long periods of time.

fireinthepriory's avatar

What @hiphiphopflipflapflop said, in simpler terms, is that gravity acts less strongly as things get smaller. That’s why when you drop a bug out a one-story window, it’ll be totally fine. If you drop a cat from the same distance, it’ll be really upset but probably ok. You drop an elephant those same ~ten feet? It’ll probably break some bones, maybe die.

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pikipupiba's avatar

oh, and ur lurve score is 777, let me fix that for you!

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Allie's avatar

[mod says:] Ok, jokes end now. Future off topic quips will be removed and posters will receive a warning PM. Thanks.

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Ltryptophan's avatar

I’m pretty sure some microscopic things just fell and broke.

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