Theoretical Magic
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The past week has been harsh. 12 hour 3 midterm spree. 3 more midterms interspersed elsewhere throughout the week. Means I’m a zombie ready to do nothing but consume manga for the next few days/sleep. But there’s no time for that. The next week’s worth of sets are here. Woot.
On the plus side, I stumbled on a really interesting manhwa(korean comic). It describes magic/mana as a discovery by the Russian Science Nature Team, substance “SDE01”. Usage for which is described by the following.
Naturally, integrating magic with technology means having it in convenient forms for daily usage.
A few years later…
Apple products…Though no futuristic magic/science integration can be without problems.
And More! Title “City of Dead Sorcerer”Makes me wonder though, if we aren’t so quick to dismiss magic as something fantasy-like, is there any hope of its realization someday? Surely to people a century ago, technology today is like magic. But perhaps I should distinguish between magic and scifi. And perhaps magic is by definition something unachievable, meaning, when it’s achieved, the form of magic changes. Regardless, there’s enough fantasy out there to form a pretty solid description of magic today.
Properties of Magic-invisible to non-practitioners-intangible in its natural form-provides energy-can be stored in items-malleable into forms that inflict damage-can be converted to different forms of energy-can be fired as balls/beams of bright substance-can be called on through scolls, symbols, forms of worship-Other things I haven’t thought much about (Healing magic? Wind magic? Archive Magic(Fairy Tail)? Curses.)
The first 3 properties can be fulfilled by certain wavelengths of light. Wavelengths that pass through the atmosphere include , radio waves, and visible wavelength. Long enough wavelengths go through the human body. It qualifies as intangible? At least, I’ve never seen someone manipulating light before. Light is a form of energy that like any other form can be converted and used for our own purposes. It can be recieved by antenna and read as signals, hence cell-phones, wifi, etc. Interesting link below.https://www.smartplanet.com/blog/pure-genius/capturing-energy-in-the-air-to-power-electronics/6717
If flashlights count,… then light can be “stored” in them. Err… not quite like the way gemstones can store mana(fate stay night), or large pools of mana can be harvested and stored for later usage (Magi), but well, close enough, :/. Maybe flashbombs are a better analog?
Light can certainly inflict damage all on it’s own. Lasers and sunburns exemplify such situations.Light can be converted to heat, and other forms of energy like electricity, but trying to convert light into water magic, or earth magic doesn’t work quite as well. Perhaps if all the energy light has were suddenly converted into water and anti-water, … the analogy isn’t perfect.
Here’s where the light=magic analogy gets really shifty.Any fighting, magic filled, fantasy will describe beams or balls of magic that can be cast towards the enemy. Whatever substance these beams or balls are made of, I can’t think of a single good real-life analog. These beams collide in mid-air and vanish leaving puffs of smoke or mist. Large enough beams can swallow entire buildings and disappear without a trace when the caster stops inputting energy. Upon collision with an enemy, the enemy doesn’t appear to take burn damage, rather just blunt damage from force of collision(Nanoha). Though blunt damage from such a massive flood of that mystery substance would normally kill, it never seems to do nearly as much effective damage.
How do these beams/balls collide and vanish so quickly. What kind of substance are they really made of? It can’t be light judging by frame rate, and estimated distance travelled.
Anyway, not so much magic but still the same kind of energy beam. Also kinda funny:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FU0uqjIfD4
As for scrolls, symbols, forms of worship, magic circles, pure ritual can be analogous to safety procedures required before using a laser in lab setting. Though more and more, the analogy breaks down. Just what part does a scroll contribute… I’m not sure. It’s magic.Wind magic kind of falls into the same category as earth magic, or water magic. I’m not quite sure how the analogy works anymore. Perhaps an electric powered fan? with an extra large battery, unobtanium fan blades, and supermagnets? Healing magic in the form of light is even more difficult. Well… they do say sunlight is good for health. And there may be a psychological aspect. Blue light is said to get rid of drowsiness. Archive magic is perhaps the easiest thing to make analog to light. Light already contains information in its amplitude/wavelength. It’s recieved by antenna and processed into visual display on devices. But to take the analogy further, to make light transmit data directly into a person’s head, … maybe many more decades from now.Curses are in their own category of difficult to conform. All previous comparisons can be bent a little, exagerated a little, or a lot, to produce the same effects as magic from light energy. Just give the fan more energy and it becomes a tornado. Just focus enough light and you get a storm of fire. Just fire the precise photons required in the right place with the right wavelength/amplitude to stimulate cell growth for regeneration. Though difficult, it’s not impossible to imagine that with a few more years(decades) of advancement, such things can be achieved. But how hammering a nail into a voodoo doll will kill a person from miles away relates to light energy… I just can’t fathom. Similarly, how casting a curse to perpetuate bad luck on a person and his family for generations, is beyond the scope of light.
There are certainly people who will say the usages of light to replicate magic above aren’t valid. In fact converting light into eletricity to power a fan to generate “wind magic” is cheating and too convoluted to be considered magic. Well, maybe. In the end the difference between magic and science may just be their definitions. Science is what we can do and Magic is what we can’t.
-Pa”I’ma firin mah laser”ul Zh”AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”ang
