Search Results for: science

Court Dwarfs: Seneb & Bes

September 26, 2011 By arne hendriks 1

In ancient Egypt a remarkable number of dwarfs gained prestigious roles within the dynasty. This can be concluded from the remains of their lavish burials. Egypt’s best known dwarf was Seneb, which means healthy. His career is documented on the false door and the plinths of…

Pygmy People

March 20, 2011 By arne hendriks 0

Pygmy is a term used for various ethnic groups whose average height is less than 150 cm (4 feet 11 inches). The best known pygmies are the Mbuti of Central Africa. There are also pygmies in Asia, Australia and South America. Especially interesting are the Rampasasa of the island of Flores in…

Shrink Rays

March 17, 2011 By arne hendriks 0

According to sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov miniaturization doesn’t actually make sense unless you miniaturize the very atoms of which matter is composed, and that is impossible. For the Incredible Shrinking Man however, the primary importance is its prominent existence in our imagination. How do we connect…

Mapping Shrink Culture

February 27, 2011 By arne hendriks 0

Over the past 10 months The Incredible Shrinking Man research collected a wide array of shrink facts, figures and visions. The categories spanned everything from science to art, from history to genetics and entertainment, from technology to psychology and so on. We have deliberately not…

Penny Shrinkers

December 9, 2010 By arne hendriks 0

Even if shrinking the human body is the focus of The Incredible Shrinking Man we do have a keen interest in other theories and practices of shrinking. We came across electromagnetic forming through the curious tech subculture of penny shrinking. By running a very high…

Gravitational Time Dilation

September 25, 2010 By arne hendriks 0

Einstein’s theory, that short people grow old slower then tall people, has finally been proven scientifically. In an experiment using the most accurate atomic clocks ever invented, researchers of the National Institute of Standards and Technology showed that clocks run faster if they are raised…

Outsourcing Brain Capacity

May 22, 2010 By arne hendriks 0

“But what do we do with the brain?”, was the first question a neighbor asked when he heard of the ambitions of The Incredible Shrinking Man to shrink the human species to 50 centimeters. It’s a good question.  Although not proven beyond a doubt, there…

ShrinkLit

April 2, 2010 By arne hendriks 1

Literature, both high and low, offers important insights when it comes to our view on size differences. Here’s a list of books, periodically updated and expanded, in which size  plays a key role. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (published 1776-7). In this political satire Gulliver meets with…