A successful system won’t necessarily work at a different scale.
An imaginary team of engineers sought to build a “super-horse” that would be twice the size of a normal horse. When they created it, they discovered it to be a troubled, inefficient beast. In addition to being 2 times the height of a normal horse, it was twice as wide and twice as long, resulting in an overall mass 8 times greater than normal. But the cross-sectional area of its veins and arteries was only 4 times that of a normal horse, calling for its heart to work twice as hard. The surface area of its feet was 4 times that of a normal horse, but each foot had to support twice the weight per unit of surface area compared to a normal horse. Ultimately, the sickly animal had to be put down.
Derived from “The Possibility of Life in Other Worlds” by Sir Robert Ball
