Is there a specific size range for intelligent life under biological constraints, or could smart aliens be as much smaller than bugs or much larger than whales?

Question

I read a long time ago an essay by Asimov that described what elements could support life as a building block and why most elements cannot. I didn’t fully understand that at the time but it was interesting to see why carbon based makes sense and some other random element does not work.

Similarly, I wonder if under different planetary conditions, smart alien life (so not single cell life) can be very tiny or very large, or if there are biological constraints that would restrict that size range regardless of basic setup.

In: 324

Answer 1

Probably a dumb question deserving of it’s own thread, but the body of this post had me thinking.

How would anyone *know* what elements or building blocks could support life? We know what those are here. But any alien life could have had completely different evolution. They could breathe chlorine and eat sulfuric acid soups for all we know. Or am I completely wrong?