When Scaling Breaks Down

Double a recipe and you expect double the result, but physical systems often break this linearity. Doubling a roast doesn't double its cooking time, because heat enters through the surface while it has to warm the whole volume. A cube scaled up by 2× gains 8× the volume but only 4× the surface, so the interior lags and undercooking is the classic failure.

This is a surface-to-volume ratio problem, and it reaches far beyond kitchens. Engines, batteries, and reactors all obey the same rule: scaling up forces you to redesign how heat escapes.