Physics and the MCU's Ant-Man

 I've enjoyed the two Ant-Man movies (and his appearances in "Captain America: Civil War" and "Avengers: Endgame"), but I just do not understand the physics of his size transformations -- or those of his partner, the Wasp.

Through the use of Pym particles, Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) can shrink to insect-size or expand to as tall as 60 feet. When he shrinks, he can ride on flying insects, but somehow he retains enough mass that when he rams into a person, he delivers quite a punch. I don't understand how both of these can be true. Either his shrinking is in dimensions (height, width, girth) only, meaning basically the atoms in his body move closer together; or his mass somehow changes, perhaps because 99 out of 100 atoms disappear.

The dimensional shrinking is the explanation given in the 1966 sci-fi thriller Fantastic Voyage (one of the recently passed Raquel Welch's first big roles), where a submarine and specialized crew are shrunk to the size of a bacteria so that they can navigate the blood vessels of a defecting scientist to repair a dangerous blood clot near the brain that can't be reached by other means. (Yeah, the dimensional shrinking didn't make sense there either, since the mass of a submarine being injected into a person should collapse through the body to the ground.)

Ant-Man's tiny form seems consistent with this dimensional shrinking, though -- even though he's insect-sized, he packs a punch like a human still. But then, how can the flying insect carry him?

And worse yet, when he expands to Giant-Man, if he retained human mass, then he should have an approximate density of 1/1000 -- at 60 feet tall, he's approximately 10 times taller, so he's gaining 10 times in each of the three dimensions, leading to 1/1000. With such light density, he should blow over in the wind, and certainly not be able to deliver giant punches with authority.

I know, they are comic book movies, literally. I do enjoy them. I just don't get the physics.

Another argument for why I think "Deep Space Nine" is the best Star Trek series

One of my controversial pop culture opinions is that "Deep Space Nine" is the best Star Trek series. Usually, it's the original series or "Next Generation" that tends to sit atop rankings of the various shows. I get that: the original kicked off 50+ years of the franchise, and there are iconic episodes and some of the even-numbered movies. Meanwhile, "Next Gen" added much better visual effects, the beginning of some continuing story threads and character arcs, and more subtle acting.

But consider this -- the funniest episode of the original series is generally thought to be "The Trouble with Tribbles," or maybe "A Piece of the Action" (the gangster episode). The "Deep Space Nine" sequel to "Tribbles" is "Trials and Tribble-ations," and ingeniously sends the DS9 crew back in time to keep a Klingon agent from changing the events in the original episode. It's even funnier than the original episode -- the attempt to explain the retconning of the way Klingons look is enough by itself:

However, as great as "Trials and Tribble-ations" is, it's not at all clear that it's the funniest "DS9" episode. It gets strong competition from the following episodes:

"The Magnificent Ferengi," remaking "The Magnificent Seven" with a ragtag group of Ferengi to rescue Quark's mom!:

"House of Quark," where Quark tries to explain financial shenanigans to the Klingons:

"Our Man Bashir," where Dr. Bashir's James Bond fantasy goes very wrong:

and "Take Me Out to the Holosuite," pitching the DS9 crew versus Vulcans in baseball:

 These episodes are funnier than anything in any of the other live-action series.*

* I haven't watched any of the animated series "Lower Decks," which I gather is a comedy, so I can't compare "DS9" to it.

 "DS9" isn't generally thought of as a funny show; it has the reputation for being the darkest of the Star Trek shows, and it excels in that regard. Yet, for a dark show, it also has the best comic episodes. It's like the Shohei Otani of Star Trek series.