Disclaimer: I did see a previous question touching on something like this but what I’m confused about was NOT addressed so hopefully this is allowed.
They say that the surface area volume ratio limits how big things can grow because surface area scales as a square while volume scales as a cube, so the ratio of volume to surface area goes up as you get bigger. Fair enough. BUT: how is this not just a matter of what units you’re using?
For example, a 1x1x1 ft cube has a surface area to volume ratio of 6sq. Ft to 1 cubic foot, so 6:1. A 1x1x1 meter cube has a ratio of 6:1 too but the units are meters. Couldn’t you always define your units so that you have a 6:1 ratio with any size of cube?
To bring it back to the actual question, wouldn’t your ratio be essentially the same no matter how big your object is? Imagine you expanded everything in the universe by the same amount but kept your unit of measurement the same, you wouldn’t suddenly hit some limit where it stops working right? Does it have something to do with the size of molecules and proteins etc? Please help I am so confused
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You seem to have a few misconceptions.
Make cubes with dice.
It has a volume of one and width height and length of one with a surface area of six. (6:1)
Make a 2x2x2 dice and it is two wide, two tall and two deep, it has a volume of eight and surface area of 24 (3:1)
3x3x3 is 3 w/d/t and volume of 27 and a surface area of 54. (2:1)
4x4x4 is 4 w/d/t, volume 64, surface 96 (1.5:1)
Kurzgesagt have a great set of videos on the size of life. I think number 2 covers this pretty well.
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