So if you combine light, with molecular particle, it could be magic... that sound ok to me !

Really? You know what light is? Explain it to me then.

We know what it does (mostly); we know how to use it, certainly; but we have no idea what it is. Put some in a jar for me and paint it red.

It's a particle!

It's a wave!

It's a particulate wave!

It's a wavulate particle!

It's a wave–particle duality!

they're corpuscles!

Light is NERPS. There, I said it.

Electromagnetic radiation somewhere between 380 and 780 nm wavelength, why do you ask?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light

This is light !

Thank you! Yeah I agree. You can measure light in several way, dare I say there is a whole spectrum of ways? It is energy, and even if we accept that magic is energy it doesn't follow that light is magic. There are differnet forms of energy and magic and it's manipulations can be just another way-the way solar energy and kenetic energy are both energy that responds to different rules.

After all light has been a constant reletively speaking for centuries, if anything polituion means sun light is more disfused in 2012 than in 1012.

For some reason, I keep thinking "The Light Fantastic" or "Colour of Magic" when I read the light = magic stuff.

Put light in a jar? and have it stay there? would have to be a very well made reflective jar but this is what you get: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavity_ring-down_spectroscopy . going any further than saying its an electromagnetic wave would take years to do in any really good way. Perhaps instead of asking such a question on an internet forum dedicated to a game instead of physics, electricity and magnetism or optics you should buy/borrow some physics books that investigate electromagnetism. It is a difficult but very interesting topic far beyond the level of this forum.

oh the color of magic is ultraviolet.

and it smells like lemons

I thought it was orange and smelled of bacon.

I thought it tasted like almonds.

I thought that was cyanide, not magic.

Other way around.
(Bitter) almonds tasted like cyanide (because, gasp, there was cyanide in them!)

Cyanide is in all kind of things. Apple seeds also contain some, and it got pectines that make a jam so yummy ! So life is the catalyst to make mana viable. Mana is vehiculed by light, but is not light itself it is a particule that travel with light.

You mean like how disease is carried by rats, but the rats themselves are not the disease? Ok that is acceptable, at least the light/magic/carrier stuff, I'm not too keen on having the whole diseased rat thing around.

Again, that explains some of its phenomena, but now what light is.

I do however find it humorous that you all have semi-bought my "light = magic" bit.


I know this. I've studied physics and many other subjects extensively, and as of yet I have seen no explanation of light, just descriptions of what it does. In fact, I've read many quotes of physicists who admit they don't know what light is.

Oh, you mean vitamin B-17 (IIRC)? It's actually very good for you. It's attached to another toxin, but the combined vitamin itself is inert, kind of like how sodium is bad, and chlorine is bad, but sodium chloride is salt (good). There's only one cell in the human body that can break the bond between the cyanide and _____ (whatever it is), and that is the cellular membrane on cancer cells. So that vitamin (I believe it is B-17, I may be wrong) is actually like a targetted poison capsule for cancer.

It's also found in apricots. There's a tribe of people in Afganistan (...IIRC?) who supposedly lived to be ~+160 (before they were "rediscovered" and new diseases were introduced), and their main staple were apricots. Cancer is completely unknown in these people, and they still have an average lifespan of >90. I believe the place is known as "the Valley of Immortality" or something.

Isn't light just energy? Like heat..?

Electromagnetic radiation and thermal-kenetic radiation are not really that similar.

Still, I don't see magic as a source or type of unique energy, but as a means to manipulate common, mundane energy.

It's B-17 that you're thinking of yes.

I was however referring to actual cyanide found in actual almonds (a variety of which is now nearly extinct).

Is there any pseudoscientific stuff you don't believe in?

Are there any scientific things you do? This has been proven through testing, observing, and repeating, placing it solidly in the realm of observable science (unlike a certain metaphyiscal research program that's been toted as science for a long time).

In any event, there is no good explanation I have heard of that solves the "particle/wavelength" phenomena of light, so I think light would be a good tie-in to magic. 'Specially since light is always in motion. Parallels can be made in the theories of both.

You know what I've seen?* I've seen an object exist in two places at once, because its particulate mass was a stable waveform that indicated a physical existence in two locations.

*Ok, heard about, I think it was a radio story, so there weren't pictures and NPR's search isn't the best, so I might not be able to find it again. They were able to make single particles exist in up to 300 different locations or a large group exist in as many as 3 simultaneously. Attempting to do anything more than observe it in the test chamber causes the wave form to collapse.

I think next time, I'll keep my questions to myself......

Come on, this is dumpshock, any thread that passes the 20 posts threshold is DOOMED to derail at some point.
You can't whine about that

The train is just get bigger as it goes.

Now is the train a wave train or a particle train??( Ow. my head is hurting...please make it stop!)

@ Brazilian_Shinobi: True, but I had this slim, tiny fragment of hope that it wouldn't go this far....

@ Delarn: That's why I'm taking the jetpack outta here.....

@ kanislatrans: *presses the intercom button* We've got another burnout in Ward G....

@Bookwyrm: Why it's a great subject and I'm sure people in university in the UCAS and around the world doing the same !

Errm...no.
Every controlled study on the subject has shown that Amygdalin has no beneficial effect at all, and even if the purported mechanism worked worked the cyanide would not be magically contained in the tumor but spread though the bloodstream (well, you certainly won't die from cancer then...). It's not a vitamin either, that was just a fancy name for advertisement purposes and to dodge regulations by selling it as a nutritional supplement. The latter didn't work, either.



That phenomena needs as much "solving" as the fact that I'm wearing jeans right now - it's a simple observation that energy exhibits both properties.


Did I mention that I learned a lot about quackery and other pseudoscience for a character of mine?

Soul Train
Choo choo train
Wagon train
Mule train

It stoped there but was a so much university philosophist like thread.

Ok: Why are mana reactive retrovirus afraid of sunlight, is it from the UV spectrum or the mana that the light carries ?

Is Tachyon part of the equation ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon