But as an object gets smaller, the ratio between its surface area and its volume rises.

ECONOMIST: Small wonders

Self-seeding may explain why large tumors tend to grow (in percentage terms) more slowly than small tumors: It could be that growth is a function of surface area rather than volume.

FORBES: Magazine Article

The result, they claim in a paper that will appear this month in the Journal of Physical Chemistry, is a nanofibre material with an extremely high ratio of surface-area to volume.

ECONOMIST: Space-age soot

This, in turn, means clever engineering can increase the surface area (and thus the storage capacity) without increasing the volume.

ECONOMIST: Electricity storage

Airships demonstrate a law of increasing returns: doubling the length increases the surface area (and hence weight) by a factor of four while the volume (and hence lifting capacity) goes up by a factor of eight.

ECONOMIST: Pushing the envelope