
Adventure In Science: The Size Of Things (1959)
The film explores the concepts of size, weight, and strength using the example of Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels.” It explains that when an object’s height is doubled while maintaining proportions, its weight increases eightfold, but its strength only increases fourfold due to the cross-sectional area of its bones and muscles. This principle is illustrated through comparisons of a boy, an elephant, a mouse, and a beetle, demonstrating that larger creatures would be proportionately weaker and smaller creatures would be relatively stronger. Ultimately, it questions the accuracy of Gulliver’s claims about giants being twelve times stronger than him.
Keywords
Gulliver’s Travels, size, weight, strength, proportions, physics, measurement, cross-sectional area, animals, comparative analysis
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