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"the [science fiction] writer should be able to convince the reader (and himself) that the wonders he is describing really can come true...and that gets tricky when you take a good, hard look at the world around you."
- Frederik Pohl

Miniaturization  
  Making a physical object smaller in size.  

This text excerpt is from the novelization of the Film by Richard Fleischer, story by Jerome Bixby and Otto Klement, screenplay by Harry Kleiner.

The phrase came clearly over the communication system, as Carter watched the Proteus shrink. It did so slowly at first, so that one could only tell it was happening by the change in the way it overlapped the hexagonal structures that made up the floor. Those that were partially revealed beyond the edge of the ship's structure crept outward, and eventually tiles that had earlier been completely hidden began to show. All around the Proteus, the hexagonals emerged, and the rate of miniaturization accelerated until the ship was shrinking like a patch of ice on a warm surface. Carter had watched miniaturization a hundred times, but never with quite the effect upon himself that he was experiencing now. It was as though the ship was hurling down a long, infinitely long hole; falling in absolute silence and growing smaller and smaller as the distance increased to miles, to tens of miles, to hundreds... The ship was a white beetle now, resting upon the central hexagon immediately under the miniaturizer; resting upon the one red hexagon in the world of white ones--the Zero Module. The Proteus was still falling, still shrinking, and Carter, with an effort, raised his hand. The glow of the miniaturizer faded to a dull red and miniaturization stopped.
From Fantastic Voyage (Novel), by Isaac Asimov.
Published by Bantam in 1966
Additional resources -

"Miniaturization" has been used in these novels: Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), H.G. Wells' The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth (1904), Richard Matheson's novelization of the film The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)and Richard Matheson's novelization of The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981)

Thanks to Connor Lawrence for contributing this item.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Fantastic Voyage (Novel)
  More Ideas and Technology by Isaac Asimov
  Tech news articles related to Fantastic Voyage (Novel)
  Tech news articles related to works by Isaac Asimov

Miniaturization-related news articles:
  - In Vivo Micromotors Powered By Stomach Acid

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