Cooling and Cloud Calculations Part 2

[RatherClueless]

Previous Thread

What is the difference between heating and cooling

• Heating: Fairly straightforward, as energy input is proportional to an increase in temperature (there are exceptions, but as they don’t involve direct heating I’ll ignore them, such as heat pumps). Direct heating can be calculated by using E=m*c*ΔT. The latent heat of vaporization is the requirement of an increase in energy for a phase change. Heating is an endothermic reaction that absorbs energy to increase its temperature. Endothermic reactions are “comparable” with one another as the only real variable is efficiency.
  • Pushing a rock up a mountain will always require at least its potential energy
• Cooling: There is no such thing as “direct cooling” (with one exception) where one increases the energy in the system to reduce its overall temperature. E=m*c*ΔT does not apply, as it is the energy removed from a system, not the energy required to do so. They are not equivalent. The latent heat of condensation is the energy a system releases when changing aggregate states. It does not require external energy. Cooling is an exothermic reaction. The energy released is unrelated to the amount required to start/sustain the reaction. As an example, dropping rubidium and lithium into water will have vastly different amounts of energy released.
  • Pushing a rock off a cliff does not require energy equivalent to its potential energy. It could be more but it’s more likely far less

What cooling is not and why not

In the last thread, there have been many attempts to reason why “cooling is perfectly fine because it’s just [insert things below]”. I’d like to avoid putting up with all of that again.

• Energy Manipulation: The assumption is that these characters can use EM to extract energy from a system and move it from point A to point B. This has several issues, like “Why can’t they use this energy for other attacks” or “Where did the energy go? Was it dispersed?”. UES was used as a counter to this, but this doesn't make much sense either, since if the energy moved is what the UES scales to, then the energy needed to move said energy would be 0, which is problematic. The other option would be to assume that the energy required is 1:1 and ignore the energy moved for the scaling to a UES. This is baseless and unlikely, as that would imply horrendous efficiency, especially if a phase change occurs. IRL heat pumps can work at up to 800% efficiency as well as doing so bidirectionally.
• Matter Manipulation: An assumption that is frankly speaking absurd. Even if we assume that a character's ability to manipulate matter is, for some reason, strictly limited to cooling and nothing else, this would still be nothing but hax.
• Telekinesis: Even worse than the previous one, as this assumes a character who can micromanage the movement of potentially up to nonillions of atoms can’t use it for anything else.
• Energy Erasing: The most straightforward “this is just hax” of them all.
• Energy Absorption:
  • Option 1: They can absorb it. Now they have infinite energy for as long as they cool things down and can potentially get stronger during the fight since efficiency should be greater than 100% whenever a phase change occurs. This is quite absurd.
  • Option 2: They can absorb it, but they also need additional energy to perform the feat. Well, in that case, it’d scale to the efficiency of performing the feat, which we aren't aware of.

These two weren’t used in arguments. I simply put them here to get them out of the way.

• Probability Manipulation: Based on Maxwell’s demon. This is hax and there is no reason why it would be limited to cooling feats.
• Light Manipulation: Lasers are used in cooling by hitting an atom and slowing it down. The energy goes into changing the energy level of the atom. It then radiates that energy in all directions, slowing it down in the process. Frankly, assuming that characters that use cooling/freezing abilities are shooting gazillions of lasers to cool their surroundings is crazy. Also, yet again, the energy used for the lasers is not equal to the energy “removed” from the system.

First of all, even if people want to reject the entirety of this thread, we should still absolutely settle on which one of these assumptions should be the default, rather than simply treating cooling feats as Schrödinger's cat.
Secondly, we shouldn’t try and come up with baseless headcon abilities in the first place, as they create more issues than they solve. The amount of hoops I’ve seen people jump through to justify these calculations is crazy. I think how I phrased it in the previous thread puts it best:

Sometimes magically freezing something is just that. Magic. When it comes to calculations we are far too quick to ask if we could, never stopping to ask whether we should. Breaking our backs by bending over backward to justify these calculations shouldn’t be a thing we do.

Why cloud feats are equally problematic

Simply put clouds don’t require any energy to form in the first place. The energy we use is the energy clouds naturally release when they form. Whether the character cooled anything down is irrelevant to the energy released during a phase change, as the character doesn’t even have to remove an equivalent amount of energy from the system to cause the release of this energy.

When it’s fine to use E=m*c*ΔT for cooling

Very straightforward: When it’s explicitly shown or stated to work on that principle. If a character can absorb heat energy and then use that to attack, it’d be perfectly acceptable. This, however, isn’t true for the vast majority of cooling feats.

Issues with scaling

Ice creation feats rarely ever coincide with what happens with the ice once created. Dropping an icicle on someone has no business scaling to its creation. Freezing someone in ice isn’t even a usage of AP in the first place. You don’t take damage equivalent to the AP we currently calculate nor does it take that amount of AP to get out. This is particularly bad with characters that exclusively use cooling/freezing abilities.

Propositions

1. Remove cooling and cooling-based cloud calculations for any case in which it isn’t explicitly shown/stated to scale to the energy removed.
if this gets rejected
2. Create a general assumption as to what cooling feats are. Change scaling to make sure characters scale to what they do with this ability, rather than the energy removed (except in cases of UES).

TL;DR

The energy we calculate for cooling/cloud feats is unrelated to the energy required to perform the feat. Trying to equate them is nonsensical.

Notes:

• Previous threads were far more focused on how energy can’t be created nor destroyed (not quite accurate, but not relevant to this thread), while the last thread suddenly completely shifted the argument to “oh, its fine. It’s fiction, so the energy can go missing. No real inconsistency here”. I have no intention of debating against several contradictory stances. Settle on one and run with it.
• The last thread was stalled for nearly 4 years now. I’ll take any extended absence with nothing to show for it as a concession. I won’t put up with that a second time. This obviously includes my own absence.
• Please look through the 1st thread for more details. This is really just a short version of what was discussed before and written from my arguably biased pov.

 

[Damage3245]

The OP seems to be good to me, and the propositions acceptable.

 

[Tago238]

I agree with this revision in general, just because if you look at a part of the system there’s a number you can easily find doesn’t mean it should be indexed as AP and it definitely shouldn’t be mistaken as having any relevance to scaling.



One note, if people did like the doppler cooling interpretation (they shouldn’t, because it doesn’t work for certain particles as they should have a minimum temp they can get to, as the energy needs to be high enough that the Doppler effect can bring the photon to the threshold frequency, but low enough that it won’t push the particle in the other direction further), it wouldn’t be particularly hard to find the energy of that laser. It’s just conservation of momentum, find the momentum of the particle in the higher temperature state and the lower temperature state through whatever method and then do a conservation of momentum equation, assuming a photon to be exactly opposite to the particle (since the entire point is that it should be). Find your answer by multiplying by the total number of particles (yeah it’s not like there’s one photon for each particle but that doesn’t matter overall) and c, and you have your answer.



If the quantum state of how the photon released through de-excitation is directed is biased for a particular eigenstate (which I don’t know but someone can find if they want), as long as the de excitation occurs very fast (which it should) all you have to do is account for the expectation value of its direction in your momentum equation.

 

[DemonGodMitchAubin]

Ah shit, here we go again

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

While, better than the previous OP/Thread. I still have contentions with some points. My stance has largely changed over the years and basically agree with some points about Heat/Cold; or the feats themselves, aren't linearly one to one anymore. But now have a different standard interpretation, that actually involves new calculation methods; particularly wind/air manipulation. And that also is how cloud formations work IRL extensively is that the wind is the big part. Not to mention, energy being produced is actually a lot higher than the energy amount being removed. And there are some half truths about how heat pumps, refrigerators, freezers, and air conditioners work; the issue actually comes that most arguments using those tend to tackle step 2 without tackling step 1 first. There are a couple different angles that would throw a wrench under the "There is no such thing as direct cooling" statement. OP mentioned lowering specific thermal energy by raising density/mass or specific heat capacity. But there's also lowering KE but raising PE or reducing KE back into PE. Both of which are interpretations who energy units are able to just compress a refrigerant chemical into a small internal container using highly concentrated electricity. And energy being used to form that before adjusting the larger area (The easier part ironically) is also something requiring a lot higher amounts of energy being used than what the current standard interpretation is.

I have personal stuff to take care of before today's workshift. And obviously actual work after that. Hopefully the thread doesn't quite blow up while I am at work; however, would be appreciated if someone reminds me after work. 12-13 hours after this current post is a good estimate. My far too long awaited triple post rejection shall arrive; one that was going to be done a month or 2 ago, but wanted to make sure both parties were active.

 

[Tago238]

While, better than the previous OP/Thread. I still have contentions with some points. My stance has largely changed over the years and basically agree with some points about Heat/Cold; or the feats themselves, aren't linearly one to one anymore. But now have a different standard interpretation, that actually involves new calculation methods; particularly wind/air manipulation. And that also is how cloud formations work IRL extensively is that the wind is the big part. Not to mention, energy being produced is actually a lot higher than the energy amount being removed. And there are some half truths about how heat pumps, refrigerators, freezers, and air conditioners work; the issue actually comes that most arguments using those tend to tackle step 2 without tackling step 1 first. There are a couple different angles that would throw a wrench under the "There is no such thing as direct cooling" statement. OP mentioned lowering specific thermal energy by raising density/mass or specific heat capacity. But there's also lowering KE but raising PE or reducing KE back into PE. Both of which are interpretations who energy units are able to just compress a refrigerant chemical into a small internal container using highly concentrated electricity. And energy being used to form that before adjusting the larger area (The easier part ironically) is also something requiring a lot higher amounts of energy being used than what the current standard interpretation is.

I have personal stuff to take care of before today's workshift. And obviously actual work after that. Hopefully the thread doesn't quite blow up while I am at work; however, would be appreciated if someone reminds me after work. 12-13 hours after this current post is a good estimate. My far too long awaited triple post rejection shall arrive; one that was going to be done a month or 2 ago, but wanted to make sure both parties were active.

A lot of this is vague pontificating and the little points that are being made are pretty odd (saying the work used to operate a refrigerator is more than the energy moved from the cold reservoir to the hot reservoir seems to violate the second law of thermodynamics). I think in general it’s a poor show to make a “hang on wait I have more” stonewalling post now after literally years of doing this, when the thread was recreated in the first place so it could be concluded outside of that.

 

[Tago238]

In fact, I think if it’s accepted by even the main opponent to the OP that the current method does not directly relate to what would actually be indexed, we can start to dismiss the ‘alternate’ ways of calculating it that we have to wait to get a response for.

Before, I brought up the implications of interpreting it as doppler cooling. In a sense, that would actually be the most useful generalised interpretation because the way you would calculate it would always be the same. If, say, we were talking about heat pumps, what you’re going to calculate is going to dramatically depend on what ways you do it, including the very basics of the kind of heat cycle you’re running in the first place (how it looks on a pressure volume graph). But even still, on a broader perspective doppler cooling is just one possible interpretation you could have- with no direct relation in how it would be calculated to other methods- that it’s ultimately impossible to actually delineate between unless directly stated (besides the fact that even though doppler cooling is the most useful interpretation it has unique problems with accepting it).

Regardless of what you interpretation you take, the current method is inflationary and has no direct relevance to the problem. Therefore, it is better if it is not something we try to index at all, as Rather suggests.

 

[Agnaa]

My position from the last thread was that most (maybe all?) methods of calculating these feats would involve the environment being warmed, so a lack of that shouldn't be used to discredit certain methods from being used.

As such, I thought that the default should be not using them, but that based on context we could see it as quantifiable energy manipulation.

20 months on from that, and after reading this thread....

Secondly, we shouldn’t try and come up with baseless headcon abilities in the first place, as they create more issues than they solve. The amount of hoops I’ve seen people jump through to justify these calculations is crazy. I think how I phrased it in the previous thread puts it best:

Sometimes magically freezing something is just that. Magic. When it comes to calculations we are far too quick to ask if we could, never stopping to ask whether we should. Breaking our backs by bending over backward to justify these calculations shouldn’t be a thing we do.

I disagree, I don't think your challenges are unique to this domain, and I think applying to them to all domains would make most superpower-based feats uncalculable.

"Why calculate Fire Manipulation that way? It could easily involve creating gasoline and igniting it with a small spark, requiring far less energy. Plus, if they are simply adding energy, why can't they use that for their other attacks?"

Energy Manipulation: The assumption is that these characters can use EM to extract energy from a system and move it from point A to point B. This has several issues, like “Why can’t they use this energy for other attacks” or “Where did the energy go? Was it dispersed?”. UES was used as a counter to this, but this doesn't make much sense either, since if the energy moved is what the UES scales to, then the energy needed to move said energy would be 0, which is problematic. The other option would be to assume that the energy required is 1:1 and ignore the energy moved for the scaling to a UES. This is baseless and unlikely, as that would imply horrendous efficiency, especially if a phase change occurs. IRL heat pumps can work at up to 800% efficiency as well as doing so bidirectionally.

I do find the efficiency issue to make this sort of option implausible for UES scaling.

Why cloud feats are equally problematic

Simply put clouds don’t require any energy to form in the first place. The energy we use is the energy clouds naturally release when they form. Whether the character cooled anything down is irrelevant to the energy released during a phase change, as the character doesn’t even have to remove an equivalent amount of energy from the system to cause the release of this energy.

Not all cloud feats would be hit by this, KE-based ones would be fine.

When it’s fine to use E=m*c*ΔT for cooling

Very straightforward: When it’s explicitly shown or stated to work on that principle. If a character can absorb heat energy and then use that to attack, it’d be perfectly acceptable. This, however, isn’t true for the vast majority of cooling feats.

That's fine, but I'd also like to use it in a very careful way that doesn't scale to UES's for general feats. I think we should still calculate generic cooling feats to be able to look at other situations and determine whether the character would also be able to cool that, too. We wouldn't be able to just use the number, we'd also need to be able to tell whether they can focus the cooling on a smaller space or not, but I do still think there's a minor point of relevance.

Issues with scaling

Ice creation feats rarely ever coincide with what happens with the ice once created. Dropping an icicle on someone has no business scaling to its creation. Freezing someone in ice isn’t even a usage of AP in the first place. You don’t take damage equivalent to the AP we currently calculate nor does it take that amount of AP to get out. This is particularly bad with characters that exclusively use cooling/freezing abilities.

True!

Propositions

1. Remove cooling and cooling-based cloud calculations for any case in which it isn’t explicitly shown/stated to scale to the energy removed.
if this gets rejected
2. Create a general assumption as to what cooling feats are. Change scaling to make sure characters scale to what they do with this ability, rather than the energy removed (except in cases of UES).

idk why you're giving the UES exception, I think that case is hit particularly hard by the efficiency issue.

 

[RatherClueless]

"Why calculate Fire Manipulation that way? It could easily involve creating gasoline and igniting it with a small spark, requiring far less energy. Plus, if they are simply adding energy, why can't they use that for their other attacks?"

I feel like you are hurting your own conclusion with that line of reasoning (unless I am misunderstanding something). That's the exact opposite of what I want to do. I wasn't the one who started throwing these ideas around. It was the opposition during the last thread. I am against these absurd leaps in logic and thought I made that pretty clear. The fewer assumptions the better!

Not all cloud feats would be hit by this, KE-based ones would be fine.

well, I do specify this is specifically about temperature-related feats

That's fine, but I'd also like to use it in a very careful way that doesn't scale to UES's for general feats. I think we should still calculate generic cooling feats to be able to look at other situations and determine whether the character would also be able to cool that, too. We wouldn't be able to just use the number, we'd also need to be able to tell whether they can focus the cooling on a smaller space or not, but I do still think there's a minor point of relevance.

Since I absolutely despise UES this is fine by me. This also isn't supposed to make it illegal to calc these feats. Just to not use them to scale to AP in most scenarios.

idk why you're giving the UES exception, I think that case is hit particularly hard by the efficiency issue.

Because if 1 is rejected it'd basically follow that it would fall under UES. (but like I said, the less UES the better. maybe I should make a thread about that next.)

 

[Agnaa]

I feel like you are hurting your own conclusion with that line of reasoning (unless I am misunderstanding something). That's the exact opposite of what I want to do. I wasn't the one who started throwing these ideas around. It was the opposition during the last thread. I am against these absurd leaps in logic and thought I made that pretty clear. The fewer assumptions the better!

It seemed like you were, given that whole section about why it can't be energy manipulation.

Since I absolutely despise UES this is fine by me. This also isn't supposed to make it illegal to calc these feats. Just to not use them to scale to AP in most scenarios.

Because if 1 is rejected it'd basically follow that it would fall under UES. (but like I said, the less UES the better. maybe I should make a thread about that next.)

I'm already working on that in this thread if you wanna pop in.

 

[Tago238]

My position from the last thread was that most (maybe all?) methods of calculating these feats would involve the environment being warmed, so a lack of that shouldn't be used to discredit certain methods from being used.

As such, I thought that the default should be not using them, but that based on context we could see it as quantifiable energy manipulation.

20 months on from that, and after reading this thread....

Not all methods involve that no, and I don’t think the main issue is that another thing isn’t getting visibly heated in this case, just that it only really matters if it’s something that can be effectively redistributed, or it’s a feat for a power that explicitly does that for other cases where it would be used.

I disagree, I don't think your challenges are unique to this domain, and I think applying to them to all domains would make most superpower-based feats uncalculable.

"Why calculate Fire Manipulation that way? It could easily involve creating gasoline and igniting it with a small spark, requiring far less energy. Plus, if they are simply adding energy, why can't they use that for their other attacks?"

Because if the energy being released by the gasoline is being applied to the opponent, ergo it is AP. Right now it’s more like we’re indexing the ability to create a fluid as it’s mass-energy on the AP section. Like, yeah, sure, it’s a value and it’s useful and easily obtained but it doesn’t really mean AP.

Not all cloud feats would be hit by this, KE-based ones would be fine.

Troo (cloud feats bad anyway)


I agree with being against the UES shit, I honestly think the main purpose of this thread should be that.

 

[Agnaa]

Not all methods involve that no, and I don’t think the main issue is that another thing isn’t getting visibly heated in this case, just that it only really matters if it’s something that can be effectively redistributed, or it’s a feat for a power that explicitly does that for other cases where it would be used.

Well, the methods that don't are incalculable (matter manipulation, energy erasing, teleportation).

Because if the energy being released by the gasoline is being applied to the opponent, ergo it is AP. Right now it’s more like we’re indexing the ability to create a fluid as it’s mass-energy on the AP section. Like, yeah, sure, it’s a value and it’s useful and easily obtained but it doesn’t really mean AP.

But that's not how we treat it, we treat it as the energy being exerted by the user. It scales through UES's.

Also, it isn't the energy being applied to the opponent. That would only be the energy applied to the opponent if their body alone cooled the fire back down to room-temperature in a second. Your hand does not tank 343 joules when you stick it in a flame.

I think we revised "surviving the sun" feats a while back to account for this sorta thing.

 

[DontTalkDT]

I still remain at my position that cooling feats are perfectly fine. Scaling needs a UES and it should not be addressed to dropping of the ice, but that was always the case.

None of the methods that would need less energy would plausibly apply and, by the same token, one can come up with theoretical methods to use up less energy for pretty much anything else once you default to hax as assumption (or ignore the reality of how the feat occurs).

Complexity is also no real argument when it comes to magic. It's looking way too deep into something and then discovering it's complex. Any magic spell breaking physics is super complex if you think about it too hard. Alchemy in Fullmetal Alchemist has to rearrange every single atom in objects in a precise manner to function. But that complexity is irrelevant as the power system handwaves it as just being something the magic does.


I said it before and I will say it again: It's just not plausible to treat cooling feats different than feats of stopping or slowing objects in general, because there literally is no difference. Just because it's small the laws of physics don't change (ignoring quantum effects) nor is there a reason our standards should change due to that factor.
If we had 1000 1 m^3 stone balls bouncing around with 300 m/s and a character said a spell to stop all of them at once, we wouldn't have a debate about how that isn't a quantifiable feat because "oh, he reduced the energy, not added it".
Reducing the energy of a system in physics will always require force acting on it over a distance, i.e. work. Something has to supply that force. Nothing except the magic can do that work (at least as fast as freezing feats happen), unless you default to hax or phenomena we see don't happen. A freezing circle of a freezer has the coolant do the work, but physics prevents it form doing that fast. Only direct interaction can do freezing at typical fictional freezing speeds.
We don't default to hax for explanation unless we have a good reason to.

I will also add that by the principle of relativity, slowing and accelerating something is interchangeable. What is slowing for one observer is accelerating for the other. In principle, a cooling feat can be a heating feat when viewed by someone else. Typically doesn't happen, due to entropy, but my point that it's not a plausible distinction stands.


In general, we don't need a general assumption of how freezing works anymore than we need a general assumption of which mechanism fire magic uses to create heat. Until the story shows it's hax (or pulling energy from the environment... which pretty much is hax) we assume that the magic, which usually consumed energy, consumed that energy to do the work on the system needed to heat it.

 

[Tago238]

Well, the methods that don't are incalculable (matter manipulation, energy erasing, teleportation).

I was speaking on doppler cooling here btw (I’ve talked about it too much at this point, rip).

But that's not how we treat it, we treat it as the energy being exerted by the user. It scales through UES's.

We’re talking about two separate things and I also think that’s bad yeah.

Also, it isn't the energy being applied to the opponent. That would only be the energy applied to the opponent if their body alone cooled the fire back down to room-temperature in a second. Your hand does not tank 343 joules when you stick it in a flame.

Sure but usually the fire manipulation stats we index are for crazy temperatures, so the heating would be faster and it’s fair enough to just give the full rating cause it’s going to be in that ballpark for a lot of opponents and what else are you going to do. I don’t think we actually index a character who has a tanker of gasoline as 9-C or whatever, that’s like saying Lalo is “9-C with sizzling olive oil” or some shit.


How did you change the surviving the sun feats out of curiosity?

 

[Agnaa]

I said it before and I will say it again: It's just not plausible to treat cooling feats different than feats of stopping or slowing objects in general, because there literally is no difference. Just because it's small the laws of physics don't change (ignoring quantum effects) nor is there a reason our standards should change due to that factor.
If we had 1000 1 m^3 stone balls bouncing around with 300 m/s and a character said a spell to stop all of them at once, we wouldn't have a debate about how that isn't a quantifiable feat because "oh, he reduced the energy, not added it".
Reducing the energy of a system in physics will always require force acting on it over a distance, i.e. work. Something has to supply that force. Nothing except the magic can do that work (at least as fast as freezing feats happen), unless you default to hax or phenomena we see don't happen. A freezing circle of a freezer has the coolant do the work, but physics prevents it form doing that fast. Only direct interaction can do freezing at typical fictional freezing speeds.
We don't default to hax for explanation unless we have a good reason to.

Those examples you talk about don't actually reduce the energy of the system; the energy goes into heat. That's not really relevant for stopping stone balls, but it is when you're trying to talk about cooling something.

I will also add that by the principle of relativity, slowing and accelerating something is interchangeable. What is slowing for one observer is accelerating for the other. In principle, a cooling feat can be a heating feat when viewed by someone else. Typically doesn't happen, due to entropy, but my point that it's not a plausible distinction stands.

Could you provide examples of this, in both cases? I don't see how space-time contraction would lead to acceleration becoming deceleration or vice versa, I'd expect it to just change the magnitude. I also don't think that different reference frames could disagree about an object's acceleration/deceleration under ordinary conditions.

I was speaking on doppler cooling here btw (I’ve talked about it too much at this point, rip).

Wouldn't that also cause the environment to warm?

Light Manipulation: Lasers are used in cooling by hitting an atom and slowing it down. The energy goes into changing the energy level of the atom. It then radiates that energy in all directions, slowing it down in the process. Frankly, assuming that characters that use cooling/freezing abilities are shooting gazillions of lasers to cool their surroundings is crazy. Also, yet again, the energy used for the lasers is not equal to the energy “removed” from the system.

Sure but usually the fire manipulation stats we index are for crazy temperatures, so the heating would be faster and it’s fair enough to just give the full rating cause it’s going to be in that ballpark for a lot of opponents and what else are you going to do. I don’t think we actually index a character who has a tanker of gasoline as 9-C or whatever, that’s like saying Lalo is “9-C with sizzling olive oil” or some shit.

I think this is very wrong, actually. If a 20 degree object is in a 1000 degree environment, on its way to transferring that heat, it would need to pass through 800 degrees, and once it degrees, it will take the same time to reach equilibrium as if the environment was originally 800 degrees. As temperature is increased, the time needed for that total temperature to be transferred increases, as the energy transfer doesn't "remember" the rate it had before.

How did you change the surviving the sun feats out of curiosity?

I didn't change it, but iirc it involved taking into account the rate energy would be transferred, as well as the small surface area of the human-sized objects typically involved in that.

EDIT: Apparently that was changed like six years ago, xd.

 

[DontTalkDT]

Those examples you talk about don't actually reduce the energy of the system; the energy goes into heat. That's not really relevant for stopping stone balls, but it is when you're trying to talk about cooling something.

Can you explain closer what you mean? I don't think I understand.

Could you provide examples of this, in both cases? I don't see how space-time contraction would lead to acceleration becoming deceleration or vice versa, I'd expect it to just change the magnitude. I also don't think that different reference frames could disagree about an object's acceleration/deceleration under ordinary conditions.

Not spacetime stuff. I'm not talking about the theory of relativity, but the principle of relativity.
E.g. say you have a device. For someone standing still relative to the device, the device seems to accelerate a ball from 0 m/s to 100 m/s straight North. For an observer that is moving North with 100 m/s, on the other hand, the process would look like the ball is initially going with 100 m/s straight South, but then the device decelerates it to going 0 m/s relative to the observer.
So we went from an acceleration feat in one perspective to a deacceleration feat in another perspective. The principle of relativity dictates that these two scenarios would have all the same implications for the capabilities of the device. E.g. if you used that device on a stone and tried to use the force it produces to shatter it, both observers would always agree on the outcome of the scenario.

Heat is just the average KE of the particles in a substance. In theory (if extremely unlikely in practice) a hot substance could be made up of 10^30 atoms all moving North with 100 m/s. By the same principle, cooling that from one perspective is just to heat it from another observer's perspective.


Like, ultimately, work is force over distance and you won't get around applying some force to the particles over some distance if you want to change their velocity / KE. Energy is the potential to do work, so if x units of magic could apply a certain amount of force over distance to these atoms to slow them, that pretty much is a showing of such.

 

[Tago238]

Could you provide examples of this, in both cases? I don't see how space-time contraction would lead to acceleration becoming deceleration or vice versa, I'd expect it to just change the magnitude. I also don't think that different reference frames could disagree about an object's acceleration/deceleration under ordinary conditions.

It’s nothing to do with relativity really, it’s just Galilean reference frames.

Of course they could disagree with the acceleration/deceleration, because they could be accelerating relative to another reference frame. Inertial (not accelerating) reference frames wouldn’t disagree. That said I don’t think the argument DT is making is coherent or relevant at all, the problem is more that reference frames don’t disagree about any object’s temperature, because if there’s a reference frame where a heated gas is stationary and a reference frame where it’s moving in one direction, one reference frame doesn’t see (if your pedantic bastard mouth starts talking about the use of the word “see” I’m going to crash out btw) the gas as a different temperature. That’s just not what temperature is. Furthermore, even if it was, because the orientation of the gas particles relative to the frame where they don’t have a net movement is random, cooling doesn’t do anything to any reference frame differently. The movement of a certain particle will either decrease or increase depending on the reference frame, but there will statistically be another particle where you have the same effect, the opposite way around.

Wouldn't that also cause the environment to warm?

Depends on what the photon released through de-excitation interacts with. Doesn’t have to.

I think this is very wrong, actually. If a 20 degree object is in a 1000 degree environment, on its way to transferring that heat, it would need to pass through 800 degrees, and once it degrees, it will take the same time to reach equilibrium as if the environment was originally 800 degrees. As temperature is increased, the time needed for that total temperature to be transferred increases, as the energy transfer doesn't "remember" the rate it had before.

Damn those were a lot of words to say “it converges” rip. Anyway, obviously it does yes, my point isn’t that it delivers all the energy faster, just that it delivers a sizeable percentage of its energy very fast. Hence I said “ballpark”.

didn't change it, but iirc it involved taking into account the rate energy would be transferred, as well as the small surface area of the human-sized objects typically involved in that.

EDIT: Apparently that was changed like six years ago, xd.

I assume you looked it up to find that out then? Could you link the thread?

 

[RatherClueless]

None of the methods that would need less energy would plausibly apply

care to tell me which ones you are talking about since most all of the ones I listed were methods you proposed.

Complexity is also no real argument

I didn't use that as an argument though.

I said it before and I will say it again: It's just not plausible to treat cooling feats different than feats of stopping or slowing objects in general, because there literally is no difference. Just because it's small the laws of physics don't change (ignoring quantum effects) nor is there a reason our standards should change due to that factor.
If we had 1000 1 m^3 stone balls bouncing around with 300 m/s and a character said a spell to stop all of them at once, we wouldn't have a debate about how that isn't a quantifiable feat because "oh, he reduced the energy, not added it".
Reducing the energy of a system in physics will always require force acting on it over a distance, i.e. work. Something has to supply that force. Nothing except the magic can do that work (at least as fast as freezing feats happen), unless you default to hax or phenomena we see don't happen. A freezing circle of a freezer has the coolant do the work, but physics prevents it form doing that fast. Only direct interaction can do freezing at typical fictional freezing speeds.
We don't default to hax for explanation unless we have a good reason to.

So you are for option 2 with the assumption of telekinesis? got it.

I will also add that by the principle of relativity, slowing and accelerating something is interchangeable. What is slowing for one observer is accelerating for the other. In principle, a cooling feat can be a heating feat when viewed by someone else. Typically doesn't happen, due to entropy, but my point that it's not a plausible distinction stands.

Are you talking about special/general relativity here? Nvm, I saw you already answered that.

In general, we don't need a general assumption of how freezing works anymore than we need a general assumption of which mechanism fire magic uses to create heat.

You don't really need to because shoving lots of energy into a stationary system without increasing its chemical potential energy will almost certainly increase its temperature.

 

[Tago238]

Can you explain closer what you mean? I don't think I understand.

Not spacetime stuff. I'm not talking about the theory of relativity, but the principle of relativity.
E.g. say you have a device. For someone standing still relative to the device, the device seems to accelerate a ball from 0 m/s to 100 m/s straight North. For an observer that is moving North with 100 m/s, on the other hand, the process would look like the ball is initially going with 100 m/s straight South, but then the device decelerates it to going 0 m/s relative to the observer.
So we went from an acceleration feat in one perspective to a deacceleration feat in another perspective. The principle of relativity dictates that these two scenarios would have all the same implications for the capabilities of the device. E.g. if you used that device on a stone and tried to use the force it produces to shatter it, both observers would always agree on the outcome of the scenario.

Heat is just the average KE of the particles in a substance. In theory (if extremely unlikely in practice) a hot substance could be made up of 10^30 atoms all moving North with 100 m/s. By the same principle, cooling that from one perspective is just to heat it from another observer's perspective.


Like, ultimately, work is force over distance and you won't get around applying some force to the particles over some distance if you want to change their velocity / KE. Energy is the potential to do work, so if x units of magic could apply a certain amount of force over distance to these atoms to slow them, that pretty much is a showing of such.

Oh the principle of relativity is that, yeah I remember that in learning special relativity. Bad use of the term (actually if temp was different depending on reference frame that would contradict the principle), just say Galilean reference frames.

I take issue with most of the things you’ve said, but for specifically your point about reference frames my response is in my reply to Agnaa.

 

[Agnaa]

Can you explain closer what you mean? I don't think I understand.

Force acts on object, some energy ends up going to waste heat.

But ig you could just take the "force" as not part of the system, and so treat its energy change as irrelevant, and maybe you could also decide to ignore waste heat.

Not spacetime stuff. I'm not talking about the theory of relativity, but the principle of relativity.
E.g. say you have a device. For someone standing still relative to the device, the device seems to accelerate a ball from 0 m/s to 100 m/s straight North. For an observer that is moving North with 100 m/s, on the other hand, the process would look like the ball is initially going with 100 m/s straight South, but then the device decelerates it to going 0 m/s relative to the observer.
So we went from an acceleration feat in one perspective to a deacceleration feat in another perspective. The principle of relativity dictates that these two scenarios would have all the same implications for the capabilities of the device. E.g. if you used that device on a stone and tried to use the force it produces to shatter it, both observers would always agree on the outcome of the scenario.

Oh right, doh.

Heat is just the average KE of the particles in a substance. In theory (if extremely unlikely in practice) a hot substance could be made up of 10^30 atoms all moving North with 100 m/s. By the same principle, cooling that from one perspective is just to heat it from another observer's perspective.

the problem is more that reference frames don’t disagree about any object’s temperature, because if there’s a reference frame where a heated gas is stationary and a reference frame where it’s moving in one direction, one reference frame doesn’t see (if your pedantic bastard mouth starts talking about the use of the word “see” I’m going to crash out btw) the gas as a different temperature. That’s just not what temperature is.

Tago seems more right here, but I'm not super confident either way. It doesn't seem right to talk about velocity in one direction as contributing to an object's temperature.

Depends on what the photon released through de-excitation interacts with. Doesn’t have to.

I'd expect it practically would, with the types of cooling feats we see in fiction.

Damn those were a lot of words to say “it converges” rip. Anyway, obviously it does yes, my point isn’t that it delivers all the energy faster, just that it delivers a sizeable percentage of its energy very fast. Hence I said “ballpark”.

Just from general life experience, I'd kinda doubt that it is actually a sizeable percentage (which I'd conceive of as, like, >13% in one second). If someone can pull some numbers out, I'd be convinced, ofc.

Looking at the calc for surviving in the sun, I don't think it properly takes into account how this changes as the temperature difference decreases.

Still, using that flawed benchmark, the surface of the sun doesn't do so quickly enough (transmitting 10.5% of the eventual amount per second), while the core of the sun does (transmitting the eventual amount in 1e-9 seconds).

However, on top of that temperature difference issue, this benchmark I'm talking about is comparing the rate to the eventual heat energy in the human body, not to the heat of the sun's plasma in the surrounding area. Which I'd expect would be far higher, as hydrogen gas already has a stupidly high heat capacity.

EDIT: I'd also note that this difference in percentage seems due to the temperature, while many high-end fire feats simply involve large AoEs.

I assume you looked it up to find that out then? Could you link the thread?

Couldn't find the thread, just the fact that the calc was in the References for Common Feats page in the same state since its creation in 2019.

 

[Tago238]

Tago seems more right here, but I'm not super confident either way. It doesn't seem right to talk about velocity in one direction as contributing to an object's temperature.

I think my second argument against what DT said is also important here.

I'd expect it practically would, with the types of cooling feats we see in fiction.

It honestly can depend genuinely. Iirc I think high frequency radiation tends to mostly heat things through rotating electric dipoles due to varying the electric field very quickly. So it’s mostly heating objects with dipole polarisation, which to be fair I think is how the air polarises but notably the air does polarise very, very, very little (hence the low refractive index).

Just from general life experience, I'd kinda doubt that it is actually a sizeable percentage (which I'd conceive of as, like, >13% in one second). If someone can pull some numbers out, I'd be convinced, ofc.

I don’t know how much you’ve handled high temperatures in a lab lol. But yeah I dunno the actual numbers myself tbh.

Looking at the calc for surviving in the sun, I don't think it properly takes into account how this changes as the temperature difference decreases..

Yeah I was asking for it because I 100000% do not trust VSBW users to handle the 3-D heat equation lol.

Still, using that flawed benchmark, the surface of the sun doesn't do so quickly enough (transmitting 10.5% of the eventual amount per second), while the core of the sun does (transmitting the eventual amount in 1e-9 seconds).

Note btw when we’re talking about the surface of the sun we’re presumably not getting heat transfer from anything other than radiation, so that affects the rate too.

However, on top of that temperature difference issue, this benchmark I'm talking about is comparing the rate to the eventual heat energy in the human body, not to the heat of the sun's plasma in the surrounding area. Which I'd expect would be far higher, as hydrogen gas already has a stupidly high heat capacity.

Well I mean it’s the sun, you don’t get much more of a heat reservoir than that. On the other hand I’d assume a super-hot fire bringing a human to thermal equilibrium with itself would cool the fire significantly because it’s not like the heated particles we’re really referring to add up to much mass presumably. That said in practice it’s not super easy to effectively transfer that energy just cause the opponent isn’t the only other thing in existence, but that puts it in the same boat as shockwaves or explosions. So it’s fair to put the AP as that since it very reasonably could transfer much of its energy to the opponent even if in practice that’s quite difficult (in the case of an explosion they’d need to be close to the epicentre, for instance) and is at least adding energy somewhere.

 

[Agnaa]

I think my second argument against what DT said is also important here.

Kinda, but I think determining whether the idea that DT's bring up even constitutes "temperature" is more important. At least, that seems easier to resolve than the question of whether that degenerate case generalizes to ordinary cases where such a reference frame cannot exist.

I don’t know how much you’ve handled high temperatures in a lab lol. But yeah I dunno the actual numbers myself tbh.

Nothing above HS lab level.

Note btw when we’re talking about the surface of the sun we’re presumably not getting heat transfer from anything other than radiation, so that affects the rate too.

It does separate that out, but combines it for an assumption of just being inside the surface. And radiation is the main contributor.

Well I mean it’s the sun, you don’t get much more of a heat reservoir than that. On the other hand I’d assume a super-hot fire bringing a human to thermal equilibrium with itself would cool the fire significantly because it’s not like the heated particles we’re really referring to add up to much mass presumably. That said in practice it’s not super easy to effectively transfer that energy just cause the opponent isn’t the only other thing in existence, but that puts it in the same boat as shockwaves or explosions. So it’s fair to put the AP as that since it very reasonably could transfer much of its energy to the opponent even if in practice that’s quite difficult (in the case of an explosion they’d need to be close to the epicentre, for instance) and is at least adding energy somewhere.

I don't think it is. In decent part, because our AP/Durability tries to refer to energy outputted in a second. You won't get 7-C for being able to destroy all the walls in a town over the course of 10,000 years.

Shockwaves and explosions require pinpoint precision to exert all of that energy on a target, but they can actually do so in less than a second, while creating heat can't.

Also, shockwaves require that energy to be created, so it's more sensical for them to scale. Remember how this chain of argument started with me saying "What if fire feats just involved creating gasoline and igniting it with a spark?" There is no argument for shockwaves which causes trouble with UES's like that. Admittedly there is one with explosions for, like, creating nitroglycerin or smth.

 

[Tago238]

Kinda, but I think determining whether the idea that DT's bring up even constitutes "temperature" is more important. At least, that seems easier to resolve than the question of whether that degenerate case generalizes to ordinary cases where such a reference frame cannot exist.

I think it’s relevant in so far as what we’re talking about as a “cooling method” here (introducing a lower temperature object, doppler cooling, refrigerating, removing that energy, etc) will always be cooling regardless of the reference frame you choose.

It does separate that out, but combines it for an assumption of just being inside the surface. And radiation is the main contributor.

Gotcha. I assumed they’d be using a source and it wouldn’t have.

I don't think it is. In decent part, because our AP/Durability tries to refer to energy outputted in a second. You won't get 7-C for being able to destroy all the walls in a town over the course of 10,000 years.

Shockwaves and explosions require pinpoint precision to exert all of that energy on a target, but they can actually do so in less than a second, while creating heat can't.

Super high temperature heat can transfer much of its energy very fast with high precision, as said I think the main problem is just directing it to the target. Probably by all accounts not less than a second, but I don’t think that should be the benchmark realistically.

Also, shockwaves require that energy to be created, so it's more sensical for them to scale. Remember how this chain of argument started with me saying "What if fire feats just involved creating gasoline and igniting it with a spark?" There is no argument for shockwaves which causes trouble with UES's like that. Admittedly there is one with explosions for, like, creating nitroglycerin or smth.

Yeah but I started arguing this point because I was adapting my standard to be wider than that. If you think there’s a genuinely sensible issue with scaling fires but not explosions then you more or less agree with the thread. Although to be fair, from what I can tell you kind of do in that you don’t really want it to scale to anything, but think it should still be listed.

 

[Agnaa]

I think it’s relevant in so far as what we’re talking about as a “cooling method” here (introducing a lower temperature object, doppler cooling, refrigerating, removing that energy, etc) will always be cooling regardless of the reference frame you choose.

Yes, but his idea opens the door to stuff like "Heating each particle from a different reference frame, such that every reference frame sees the total temperature go down".

Super high temperature heat can transfer much of its energy very fast with high precision, as said I think the main problem is just directing it to the target. Probably by all accounts not less than a second, but I don’t think that should be the benchmark realistically.

Ye but, as mentioned, that only works for feats with a stated ludicrously high temperature, which isn't the majority of relevant heat feats. Hell, I'd say that most involve the temperature of ordinary fire.

 

[Tago238]

Yes, but his idea opens the door to stuff like "Heating each particle from a different reference frame, such that every reference frame sees the total temperature go down"..

I’m not sure what you mean. Reducing the speed of the particles’ random movement (rather than net movement) in a frame where that gas has no net movement also statistically should cool it just as much in every possible reference frame you could choose. If “cooling” is slowing down the net movement from one reference frame then fine, that depends on reference frame, but I can simply say even if I accept that nomenclature it’s irrelevant to the thread since those aren’t the instances of the “cooling” being referred to by anyone.

Ye but, as mentioned, that only works for feats with a stated ludicrously high temperature, which isn't the majority of relevant heat feats. Hell, I'd say that most involve the temperature of ordinary fire.

Yeah maybe regular fire scaling is just cringe, I’m neutral on that honestly. I do personally dislike how things like burning hands are scaled with DND for instance.

 

[Agnaa]

I’m not sure what you mean. Reducing the speed of the particles’ random movement (rather than net movement) in a frame where that gas has no net movement also statistically should cool it just as much in every possible reference frame you could choose. If “cooling” is slowing down the net movement from one reference frame then fine, that depends on reference frame, but I can simply say even if I accept that nomenclature it’s irrelevant to the thread since those aren’t the instances of the “cooling” being referred to by anyone.

• P1: Instances of acceleration in one reference frame, can be seen as deceleration in another reference frame.
• P2: "Temperature" is a way of describing the average velocity of the particles in an object; it could be increased by on average accelerating them, and decreased by on average decelerating them.
• P3: There is no limit on the number of reference frames that could be considered when intervening in a bunch of different particles separately.
• C: Therefore, one could interact with each particle inside an object in a different reference frame, such that each individual intervention is seen as an acceleration, but in the typical reference frame, each of these particles is seen to be decelerating.

Your earlier argument about this being impossible only holds true if the intervention is confined to one reference frame.

DT's proposition was about there only being one other reference frame, for simplicity.

This reply to you intends to show how this could be generalised to ordinary cooling feats.

Yeah maybe regular fire scaling is just cringe, I’m neutral on that honestly. I do personally dislike how things like burning hands are scaled with DND for instance.

I think it's cring on the durability side, but I think it's fine on the AP side. I don't think we should assume that most superpowers involve chain reactions, when that idea isn't implied.

I don't think we should treat unexplained fireballs as actually involving creating and igniting gasoline, to refuse to give the creator AP for heating up that region.

 

[Tago238]

• P1: Instances of acceleration in one reference frame, can be seen as deceleration in another reference frame.
• P2: "Temperature" is a way of describing the average velocity of the particles in an object; it could be increased by on average accelerating them, and decreased by on average decelerating them.
• P3: There is no limit on the number of reference frames that could be considered when intervening in a bunch of different particles separately.
• C: Therefore, one could interact with each particle inside an object in a different reference frame, such that each individual intervention is seen as an acceleration, but in the typical reference frame, each of these particles is seen to be decelerating.

Your earlier argument about this being impossible only holds true if the intervention is confined to one reference frame.

DT's proposition was about there only being one other reference frame, for simplicity.

This reply to you intends to show how this could be generalised to ordinary cooling feats.

I contest the method C is describing as relevant. What we’re talking about with reference frames should be if a reference frames sees the total KE as decreasing or increasing when the random movement is decreased in one reference frame, we’re not talking about a reference frame intervening on each particle, I’m not really sure what that even means. One particle before and after cooling will be seen as a different speed depending on the reference frame chosen, however you cannot talk about one reference frame for one particle, because for a gas statistically there must be a particle which is moving- for ease of conceptualisation let’s just say in the reference frame where the gas has no net movement one way or another (which I’ll from now on call the stationary frame)- in the opposite direction and equal in speed to the particle just referred to. Try to imagine a reference frame where cooling in the stationary frame does actually increases the kinetic energy overall in this frame, considering just these two particles for now.

I think it's cring on the durability side, but I think it's fine on the AP side. I don't think we should assume that most superpowers involve chain reactions, when that idea isn't implied.

I don't think we should treat unexplained fireballs as actually involving creating and igniting gasoline, to refuse to give the creator AP for heating up that region.

As said it’s not something I’m super committed to, maybe it’s allowable on a similar basis to environmental destruction, I suppose. I do think the more fundamental difference is probably just mainly that in one case energy is actually being added, in another it’s just being moved.

Yeah I mean I guess the main issue with indexing cooling is by all accounts it seems to be a chain reaction (or well, it’s not releasing energy at all but). If it was just “I can magically sap the energy out of the environment” well then, I’d just like to see them do use said energy tbh. If it’s “I can output negative energy” well then be tier 12 I guess. If it’s just taken into limbo or something then I don’t really see where the AP comes in at all. To me those seem like all of the possible “take it for what it is” options that aren’t chain reactions, so yeah.

I do think it’s overall a fairly minor issue though, my problem is with scaling these feats to anyone including through a UES.

 

[Agnaa]

I contest the method C is describing as relevant. What we’re talking about with reference frames should be if a reference frames sees the total KE as decreasing or increasing when the random movement is decreased in one reference frame, we’re not talking about a reference frame intervening on each particle, I’m not really sure what that even means. One particle before and after cooling will be seen as a different speed depending on the reference frame chosen, however you cannot talk about one reference frame for one particle, because for a gas statistically there must be a particle which is moving- for ease of conceptualisation let’s just say in the reference frame where the gas has no net movement one way or another (which I’ll from now on call the stationary frame)- in the opposite direction and equal in speed to the particle just referred to. Try to imagine a reference frame where cooling in the stationary frame does not decrease the energy overall, considering just these two particles for now.

Cooling would decrease the energy overall, but that argument intends to show that this can be done by two different forces accelerating the particles in different directions (the opposite direction of which the particles were previously traveling).

So yeah, the telekinesis argument.

 

[Tago238]

So yeah, the telekinesis argument.

I mean yeah you would need to use two forces in different directions to slow the speed of particles moving in opposite directions in whatever dimension sure, though I’m not sure what use saying that has. That it must be the same force acting over the same distance to decelerate it?

 

[Agnaa]

I mean yeah you would need to use two forces in different directions to slow the speed of particles moving in opposite directions in whatever dimension sure, though I’m not sure what use saying that has. That it must be the same force acting over the same distance to decelerate it?

To show that one could, in principle, cool something by applying a force.

 

[Tago238]

To show that one could, in principle, cool something by applying a force.

If the argument is slowing things down can require force then I have no issue tbh. It was definitely phrased just kinda wrong though let’s be clear. But yeah, Rather did address this point in the OP, which is why I didn’t reply to the rest of what DT said but that.

 

[Agnaa]

If the argument is slowing things down can require force then I have no issue tbh. It was definitely phrased just kinda wrong though let’s be clear. But yeah, Rather did address this point in the OP, which is why I didn’t reply to the rest of what DT said but that.

Ye, and so I think that cooling feats should be indexed as requiring energy equal to the energy difference in cases where that cooling is presented as a demonstration of power. I don't think, as Rather does, that it explicitly has to lay out that equation for it to be used.

Cases where it's implied to use a method that is unquantifiable (either due to not having a physical correspondence, or relying on unknown information such as efficiency), should not be quantified.

I don't think there's an issue with this telekinesis-type-cooling requiring a lot of small-scale decisions (as that could be handled by the power system, rather than the invoker), or with it being treated as a different ability from telekinesis (as light manipulation and radiation manipulation are often treated as different, but that shouldn't cause us to render one of the two incalculable), or with this assuming a particular method out of the wide pool of all possible ones (as that often needs to be done when quantifying things).