If you were shrunk down to the size of an ant, would you perceive a human to be walking incredibly slow, is that just a movie thing?

Question

If you were shrunk down to the size of an ant, would you perceive a human to be walking incredibly slow, is that just a movie thing?

In: Physics

Answer 1

Probably not, at least not immediately. But you would potentially become much faster yourself, due to the square-cube law.

When a 3-dimensional object, like a human, are shrunk evenly in all dimensions, areas shrink by the square of the scale factor, while volume (and therefore mass) is reduced by the cube of the scale factor.

And since the strength of a muscle or bone is proportionate to its cross-sectional area, essentially, your body weight decreases faster than your strength does. So your proportionate strength would increase as your size decreased, and stronger legs translates to faster running speeds.

So while normal humans wouldn’t get slower, you would get faster for your size. And if you get accustomed your new speed, you might start to see the normal humans differently over time.