How was Ant-man able to breathe when he goes sub-atomic?

How was Ant-man able to breathe when he goes sub-atomic? - Man Wearing Black Cap With Eyes Closed Under Cloudy Sky

As I googled and found out that the O2 molecule size is 120 pm. At one point Ant-man goes subatomic, that is, smaller in size than the original O2 molecule size. And my question arises. How was Ant-man able to breath when he goes sub-atomic? It wouldn't fit in his lungs. Hope some one will put some light on the mystery.



Best Answer

SCUBA. Or in this case, Self Contained Microcosm Breathing Aparatus.

From an interview with the costume designers:

In an interview featured in the [July 2015] issue of Empire, costume designers Sammy Sheldon and Ivo Coveney discuss the loosely-based logistics behind the Ant-Man suit worn by Rudd’s Scott Lang. Adhering to realism in one sense, the suit is designed to be self-contained, since oxygen molecules would be too large to breathe for a shrunken superhero. ... The team of Sheldon and Coveney, who openly made this supposed style-over-substance design choice, have been on board the Peyton Reed-directed Ant-Man project since the days it still called Edgar Wright its skipper.

Same interview, different source:

One such area that Marvel have addressed is the notion of oxygen absorption. In a recent interview with Empire, Ant-Man's costume designers, Sammy Sheldon and Ivo Coveney, revealed one of the scientific limitations that they had placed upon Paul Rudd's characters. "When you shrink, the molecules in the air are too big for your lungs," explained Sheldon. "He has to be fully contained or he'd die."

In essence, the suit shrinks everything Ant-Man needs to be able to survive. Regardless of the quantum effects they state happen at the subatomic levels, we know Scott was only subatomic for minutes real time. And we don't know how small the O2 particles are made in the suit's oxygen tank, but considering the power of pym-particles, they can be incredibly compact. He could have a near unlimited amount of air.

Note: Scott Always has his helmet on when shrunken. Always. Not one scene has Scott, Hank, Janet, or even Cross shrink without the helmet on and in place.

In the end though, the technical accuracy, like in most comics and movies, takes a back seat to the rule of cool:

We had a long discussion about the two cables going into his helmet. They're a massive weakness - Yellowjacket could just rip them off and he's dead. But, in the end, it just looks cooler with them on.




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How can Ant-Man go subatomic?

Ant-Man uses the red Pym particles to shrink to a subatomic size and enter the quantum realm. The only way he can stay alive is if the oxygen he breathes and the DNA that makes him a living being also \u201cgo quantum\u201d with him, which is physically impossible (you can read about why here).

Can Ant-Man become smaller than an atom?

Near the end of Ant-Man, we watch Scott go subatomic- he becomes smaller than an atom. He can't become as small or smaller than an atom unless his atoms are also shrinking in size.

Why did Scott go subatomic in Ant-Man?

He warned Scott against messing around with his regulator for this reason. But Scott did go subatomic to save his daughter Cassie, and as he shrunk he passed through smaller and smaller worlds, each beautiful and haunting in its own way. One featured a mirror world, similar to a dimension we saw in Doctor Strange.

What does subatomic mean in Ant-Man?

In the context of Ant-Man, if someone in the Marvel Cinematic Universe were to go subatomic, chances are that that someone would be trapped for a very, very long time, because the probability of escaping would be negligible. That's exactly how Hank Pym lost his wife.



Ant-Man Subatomic Scene - Quantum Realm - Ant-Man (2015) Movie CLIP HD




Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Images: Kelvin Valerio, Artem Beliaikin, Artem Beliaikin, Andrea Piacquadio