Cooling and Cloud Calculations Part 2

[Tago238]

That applies to other cooling methods too.

Whar

That applies to other cooling methods too.

The temperature limit imposed by a coolant seems like it'd make those methods worse, as many feats would become ludicrous; are characters supposed to be reaching into space to move their coolant to millions of stray meteorites when they're freezing a whole planet? How are characters supposed to use coolant cooling when bringing an object of any noteworthy size to 0.01 Kelvi

Incredulity exists for all of these cases, I never disagreed with that. I do think however, that on the basis of how we powerscale currently the TK one is the worst, but that doesn’t matter all that much. The ultimate issue with cooling is we don’t know what energy is being exerted by the character and that matters when we aren’t calculating an increase in energy, only a loss in it. Therefore if no interpretation that actually determines the energy you would use can really be squared off against another, it should be left un-indexed.

And the alignment issue imposed by Doppler cooling also seems just kinda irrelevant. Why does it matter whether the cooling method only works in increments of 0.0005 degrees kelvin, or whether it can get asymptotically close to absolute zero?

I don’t know what you mean “alignment issue”. Electrons don’t have that many energy levels, and those energy levels aren’t there for our convenience. And the energy levels in general are at a very large magnitude compared to the momentum of a particle comprising a low kelvin temp gas.

Doppler cooling can get some particles to microkelvin, but that’s highly dependent on the particle.

 

[DontTalkDT]

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.

I'm afraid still don't really understand what the relation to what I said 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.

I think much of what I was about to say to that has been said in the discussion that followed, but I will post it anyway:

Spoiler: But short

No, in principle temperature can be different in different reference frames, but not a common experience.

It's basically what I said regarding the scenario being unlikely to happen to a significant agree, though not impossible. The only reason it doesn't occur is that particles don't usually go all in one direction.
And I think in principle one direction velocity can be heat, by definition it should be part of the particle KE. For practical purposes it often is separated, though, yeah.


Anyway, you can basically also see the situation for every particle independently. For each atom a one-direction deceleration process is happening and that process in isolation is equivalent to an acceleration in another reference frame.
If for each atom the process is equivalent to doing something AP applicable, then for the sum of all atoms it should be as well.

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

I didn't propose to assume any methods by which cooling needs less AP than the energy change or no work at all.

I didn't use that as an argument though.

You used it against your "telekinesis" option, which I basically view as your stand in for any option that addresses how cooling is just object stopping feats at a small scale (see next point).

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

That's a pretty bad way to put it, though I used that formulation as a metaphor in the past to show how large scale stopping and small scale stopping (cooling) feats can be envisioned the same.

I go with the option of "cooling magic is a magical power that manifests a specific phenomenon via an ability that is not more general purpose than that use case and, by default, should be assumed to function via work, i.e. force over distance application, as any other ability is assumed." If we want to make it really complicated.

You can define telekinesis as "the power to supernaturally apply force to something." In that case, it is telekinesis. But so is every other quantifiable magic feat then. Flame creation would also be telekinesis, because you magically apply a force to the atoms of the flame to heat it (by some means, that in case of magic is usually not clarified). Same for lightning, explosions, fracturing etc. It's all just force when you get to the bottom of it, so you can call it telekinesis.

Anyway, asking "how did magic make these things go from fast to slow" is just as meaningless as to ask "how did magic make these things go from slow to fast". It's a step too far backwards on the suspension of disbelieve. We don't need (or should have) a default assumption on the workings of magic power.
It's like having someone counter a planet level energy ball via a spell producing a black flame and saying that we shouldn't scale because we don't know by which exact laws of magic-physics magical black flame achieved balancing out and negating the planet level energy ball. If you counter x energy that scales up until it's proven to be hax, because it just displayed a quantifiable potency.
Like, by how we generally scale people a scenario where we say that Gray blocking Natsu's flame with his ice powers is no indication of scaling in magic power to Natsu would be pretty weird.

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.

In general no. It would first need to accelerate the atoms somehow. So how exactly does the force interaction of a magical energy that selectively accelerates some matter, but doesn't accelerate matter when contained in the human body work?
And how does the mage manage to not burn themselves? They must evidently somehow direct the kinetic energy of each atom away from their own body to not be impacted when surrounding themselves with flames.
Wow, suddenly this became a complicated science when we started to think about this magic fantasy power way too hard.

Seriously, it's magic, it's pretty ridiculous to expect it to have an explanation for how exactly it deals with the atomic-scale complexity when achieving a mundane phenomenon.

 

[Agnaa]

Well, most heat pumps typically use a mix of phase change (duh) and pressure change (think of spray cans turning cold when you use them) to achieve high cooling rates. But honestly, that's kind of irrelevant to the topic at hand here

I just feel like once you get to "telekinetically slowing down each individual particle by canceling out kinetic energy" you have long since passed the threshold of realism where I'd accept quantum mechanics as a counterpoint. Whether it's actually "grabbing" or "shoving" (which "imparting a force in the opposite direction of their velocity" would basically be) is a bit irrelevant at that point.

The heat pump idea also uses telekinetic shoving, but it also involves retrieving a refrigerant, and changing its pressure.

Every method of cooling something which matches up with the typical default feat in fiction would have a bunch of added assumptions/powers. I think precise telekinetic shoving is one of the better ones, I don't know why it should have realistic limits (like quantum mechanics) stripped away, while other methods wouldn't.

What would stop heat pumps from going to absolute zero if there were no quantum limits?

Whar

Telekinetic shoving isn't the only cooling method whose achievable temperature depends on the material being cooled.

The ultimate issue with cooling is we don’t know what energy is being exerted by the character and that matters when we aren’t calculating an increase in energy, only a loss in it. Therefore if no interpretation that actually determines the energy you would use can really be squared off against another, it should be left un-indexed.

Why doesn't the telekinetic shoving method let you determine the energy exerted by the character?

I don’t know what you mean “alignment issue”.

and with Doppler cooling the frequency has to be such that it will be absorbed but also doesn’t “overshoot” in momentum and push the particle the other way (which isn’t possible given the discreteness of energy levels)

 

[Tago238]

Telekinetic shoving isn't the only cooling method whose achievable temperature depends on the material being cooled.

My point was about a consistent limit. That’s what we were talking about. I feel like you retroactively change the goalposts quite a bit.

Why doesn't the telekinetic shoving method let you determine the energy exerted by the character?

I said “no interpretation that actually determines the energy you would use can really be squared off against another”, not “there is no interpretation that actually determines the energy you would use”.

As to the part I can’t reply to because it’s all quote, yeah you asked me why the ability to intervene perfectly on each particle was more capable of achieving AZ than doppler cooling. I gave you the reasons why at the most basic level doppler cooling cannot do that. Not sure what there’s left to talk about.

 

[Agnaa]

My point was about a consistent limit. That’s what we were talking about. I feel like you retroactively change the goalposts quite a bit.

• You: "Almost every interpretation, except for telekinesis, has temperature as a limiting factor."
• Me: "idk why you'd say there's less of a limit with telekinesis than other methods, most methods could be focused with more energy or smaller AoEs to cool more."
• You: "It's not just different AoEs that let lower temperatures be reached, but different materials too."
• Me: "That applies to other cooling methods too."
• You: "What."
• Me: "Methods other than telekinetic shoving can reach different temperatures based on the material being cooled."
• You: "My point was about a consistent limit, I feel like you're retroactively changing the goalposts."

I don't think I am.

You said other methods are limited by temperature.

I pointed out that they can achieve different temperatures, just like telekinesis can, with different AoEs and amounts of energy.

You mentioned that materials are another factor, I agreed, now you're saying that I'm moving the goalposts.

Where's the miscommunication here?

I said “no interpretation that actually determines the energy you would use can really be squared off against another”, not “there is no interpretation that actually determines the energy you would use”.

What do you mean by squaring them off against one another?

As to the part I can’t reply to because it’s all quote, yeah you asked me why the ability to intervene perfectly on each particle was more capable of achieving AZ than doppler cooling. I gave you the reasons why at the most basic level doppler cooling cannot do that. Not sure what there’s left to talk about.

I don't think telekinetic cooling can actually reach absolute zero because of quantum effects, so I don't think "can only cool in discrete increments" is a particularly good benefit. To me asking why that would matter, you simply asked what I meant by "alignment issue" and elaborated on how Doppler cooling works.

 

[Tago238]

• You: "Almost every interpretation, except for telekinesis, has temperature as a limiting factor."
• Me: "idk why you'd say there's less of a limit with telekinesis than other methods, most methods could be focused with more energy or smaller AoEs to cool more."
• You: "It's not just different AoEs that let lower temperatures be reached, but different materials too."
• Me: "That applies to other cooling methods too."
• You: "What."
• Me: "Methods other than telekinetic shoving can reach different temperatures based on the material being cooled."
• You: "My point was about a consistent limit, I feel like you're retroactively changing the goalposts."

I don't think I am.

You said other methods are limited by temperature.

I pointed out that they can achieve different temperatures, just like telekinesis can, with different AoEs and amounts of energy.

You mentioned that materials are another factor, I agreed, now you're saying that I'm moving the goalposts.

Where's the miscommunication here?

My reply of “materials too” to you bringing up AoE wasn’t me giving another limiting factor, I misread your comment since iirc I just woke up and said “well wait the issue isn’t just lower AoEs could do that it’s the materials too”. A better/ more precise response to you argument is the one I’m giving now, which is “when I say limiting factor I mean a hard limit”.

What do you mean by squaring them off against one another?

Choosing the interpretation which should be standardised.

I don't think telekinetic cooling can actually reach absolute zero because of quantum effects, so I don't think "can only cool in discrete increments" is a particularly good benefit. To me asking why that would matter, you simply asked what I meant by "alignment issue" and elaborated on how Doppler cooling works.

I’m not sure what you mean by quantum effects here (just started 2nd QM module and I don’t like learning things out of order so). Are you talking about how AZ would be against Heisenberg uncertainty? Because that’s the case for the TK anyway.

 

[Agnaa]

My reply of “materials too” to you bringing up AoE wasn’t me giving another limiting factor, I misread your comment since iirc I just woke up and said “well wait the issue isn’t just lower AoEs could do that it’s the materials too”. A better/ more precise response to you argument is the one I’m giving now, which is “when I say limiting factor I mean a hard limit”.

I think Heisenberg uncertainty places a hard limit, and I'm also not sure what other hard limit would exist for, say, the heat pump method.

Choosing the interpretation which should be standardised.

Why can't the telekinesis interpretation be standardised?

I’m not sure what you mean by quantum effects here (just started 2nd QM module and I don’t like learning things out of order so). Are you talking about how AZ would be against Heisenberg uncertainty? Because that’s the case for the TK anyway.

Yeah.