In defense of MatSE, you only took the course for non-majors (I assume). I assure you that it gets a lot more legit after that, much in the same way MechE gets

In defense of MatSE, you only took the course for non-majors (I assume). I assure you that it gets a lot more legit after that, much in the same way MechE gets more interesting once you move past statics. To answer your question though, the model doesn't scale, but that's because the problem doesn't scale. We're talking about a bulk sample of metal made up of crystals that are, according to the old theory, too small to be stable. Once the crystals become larger, the old theory adequately describes their stability.