Re: if 'honey I shrunk the kids' was possible would the kids wieght remain.

Given that the premise of the movie is not possible we can discuss two possibilities, and it is possible for either you or your wife to be correct, depending on the assumptions made as to how the shrinking occurred!

Scenario #1: Only the space between atoms is removed. In this case the mass of the object remains the same because the numbers of protons and neutrons remains the same, and so the weight is also the same, because weight is the gravitational force on a given mass.

Scenario #2: The shrinking involves the object having less matter (or mass, or numbers of atoms). In this case the weight will change because the mass is changing.

There are reasons why neither scenario is plausible!

• For scenario #1 the pressure that the object exerts on any supporting structure (floor, chair, etc) would be very high because pressure is force per area, and the contact area of the object on the supporting structure is smaller. The increased pressure would probably break things!
• For scenario #2 it is hard to imagine how an animal's body could continue to function properly if some of the atoms (and thus molecules) were removed.

John Link, MadSci Physicist