Scientific Details
In the novel, miniaturization is achieved by reducing the value of Planck's constant within a finite field, which it claims is the only conceivable way to do it. However, in reducing Planck's constant, the Soviet miniaturization process leaves the speed of light unchanged, and this is supposedly the reason for the extreme energy requirements.
The novel suggests two ways to solve the problem. One is to capture the energy that's released during deminiaturization and convert it into an electromagnetic field. That harnessed energy, then, could presumably be used to partially power the next miniaturization. But this is only an off-the-cuff idea, and although helpful, it would not be enough to make miniaturization truly affordable.
The other idea, which is the idea that's locked away in Shapirov's brain, is to couple Planck's constant with the speed of light, so that when one is decreased, the other is increased. Shapirov claimed that that would lead to a very low cost miniaturization, but nobody else has any idea of how to accomplish it.
During the mission inside Shapirov's body, Morrison discovers that his programmed computer, instead of reading Shapirov's thoughts, has actually been reading the thoughts of Morrison's shipmates. This causes Morrison to theorize that if a number of people were united telepathically using his machine, those people might form a super-human think tank that could rediscover Shapirov's theories in short order.
As for practical applications for miniaturization, in addition to all of the obvious possibilities, the novel suggests that if a ship were reduced to the proper size, it could travel at many times the ordinary speed of light. Controlling the direction of that flight would be a significant problem, because at a small enough size, the ship would simply radiate in a random direction.
Read more about this topic: Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain
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