Micro

by Michael Crichton

Their bodies had been shrunken by a factor of a hundred. Presumably this meant that the atoms in their bodies were a hundred times smaller, as well. If so, how could the tiny atoms in their bodies interact with the giant atoms of the environment? They shouldn’t be able to smell anything. In fact, they shouldn’t be able to taste anything. In fact, how could they breathe? How could the tiny hemoglobin molecules in their red blood cells capture the giant oxygen molecules that existed in the air they breathed? “There’s a paradox,” Amar said to the others. “How can the tiny atoms in our bodies interact with the normal-size atoms of the world around us? How can we smell anything? How can we taste anything? In fact, how does our blood manage to hold oxygen? We should be dead.”