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Alan E. Rubin

Surface/Volume: How Geometry Explains Why Grain Elevators Explode, Hummingbirds Hover, and Asteroids are Colder than Ice

Surface/Volume: How Geometry Explains Why Grain Elevators Explode, Hummingbirds Hover, and Asteroids are Colder than Ice

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  • More about Surface/Volume: How Geometry Explains Why Grain Elevators Explode, Hummingbirds Hover, and Asteroids are Colder than Ice

Due to their high surface-to-volume ratios, small bodies are more susceptible to diffusion, osmosis, dissolution, evaporation, and heat loss than large objects. This effect, known as the surface-area-to-volume ratio, explains a wide range of physical phenomena, including volcanoes, brain folds, leaf loss, and gold melting.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 182 pages
Publication date: 01 March 2023
Publisher: Springer International Publishing AG


Due to their high surface-to-volume ratios, diffusion, osmosis, dissolution, evaporation, and heat loss all significantly impact small bodies. Large objects have low surface-to-volume ratios because surface area grows as the square of length, but volume (and mass) increase as the cube. Small objects, on the other hand, have high surface-to-volume ratios. This fundamental physical constraint controls a large portion of the physical world. It explains why the Earth has active volcanoes but the Moon does not, why the human brain has numerous folds, why deciduous trees lose their leaves every Fall, and why nanoparticles of gold melt at surprisingly low temperatures. Every scientist is familiar with this phenomenon, but this book is the first comprehensive treatment of it.

Weight: 376g
Dimension: 235 x 155 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9783031237485
Edition number: 1st ed. 2023

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