More specifically, I was watching a video of an RC helicopter doing amazing stunts and thought to myself imagine being in a full sized helicopter doing that. I’d be dead! But then began pondering, would I experience the same stress on my body if I were smaller?
Perhaps an even easier way to distill this question down is, whatever amount of gforce we perish at, would that number be different if we were a tenth of our size? And what would be the main contributing factor? Our weight crushing ourselves? Blood not being able to flow? Fluids being pressed through our cells?
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Generally size effects follow the square cube principle.
Mass and therefore things like weight, inertia etc are the cube of the linear dimension and areas (therefore things like strength, muscle strength, bone strength) is roughly the square of the linear dimension.
So if something were made 1/2 size, the weight/mass/inertia goes down by a factor of 8, while strength goes down by a factor of 4. This is why smaller animals can carry more weight relative to their body weight etc. And also why small RC craft can do things a full size craft couldn’t do – they are much “stronger” per unit of mass.
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