Question: Why do some objects like doors and windows, get bigger and smaller?

  1. I am not quite sure what you mean by the question – do you mean they look smaller when they are further away? That is called perspective, and is to do with the angle it makes with your eye – further away means smaller angle and so it looks smaller.

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  2. Oh! I wasn’t sure but now I think I just worked out what you mean by seeing your keywords – you mean like wooden window frames and door frames?

    Shrinking and expanding due to moisture content? Because wood absorbs water (from moisture in the air) which swells its volume – making it bigger – when the moisture dries out of the wood, it shrinks – and sometimes it can warp as well.

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  3. Heat has an effect too if you’re talking expansion and contraction.

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  4. Both moisture and temperature can affect the size of things. In the winter you may have noticed that your doors shrink a little, and so you get a draft. A good construction engineer can figure out ways around this (like putting rubber seals or stops in the gaps), but not all doors or windows have that.
    This change in size with temperature is also exactly how your thermostat in your hone works. If you have heating or air conditioning, there is a little bit of metal inside that is precisely measured, and when it changes the thermostat knows by how much, so it knows the temperature (and therefore it knows whether you want it to be hotter or colder, and it runs the heat or A/C accordingly).

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