Yeah but it’s too realistic, I want something convenient! Let me read one book and gain the power to create floating ice! Not read like 5 giant books and stufy for years so that I can create a microwave 😔
No shade to microwaves, one of my favorite magic items
Hello every wizard protagonist in every fantasy YA novel ever.
looks at schematic
FULL BRIDGE RECTIFIAH!!
eyebrow dance
it gender transitions the AC to DC
so, from bi to either gay or straight, unless it passes an inverter, then becomes bi again
And generates heat!
Dirty deeds done dirt cheap

I heard the “OUTCH!” In this image.
I like to think of circuits as aquaducts for electricity. Electroducts if you will.
RF engineer here, living the life of magic in the air and space!
Let’s go back to rocks and sigils…
Silicon chips
When we figure out how to manipulate elctro-weak at scale, it will be magic.
Electro-mag is pretty crazy already, I agree. The ICP can’t even figure out how they work.
Explain, please
When the environment is energetic enough, the electromagnetic force and the weak force unify into the electroweak force. The weak interaction controls radioactive decay.
We can control electromagnetic force “at scale”, IMO. It’s not freely, but we have networks of electromagnetic systems that span continents.
If we could control the weak force at the same scale… I’m not sure what wonders we might unlock. At the very least, I imagine we could “clean” instead of just “contain” radioactive waste, at least low-level stuff.
If we had control over the weak force:
- We can likely turn elements into other elements at will
- We can manufacture safe decay sources for a new class of nuclear energy
- We can probably create safe “decay batteries” tuned to their specific use cases. Batteries that last for tens of thousands the lifespan of current chemical ones.
- Potentially engineer with neutrinos. Imagine communication via neutrinos, you could transmit straight through the earth.
I mean, with control over matter like that, at the scale of electricity, Star Trek matter replicators would be a thing.
Didn’t CERN just momentarily turn lead into gold?
That’s really cool. I figured it could obviously be done with fission, but I didn’t think we could just strip protons out of a nucleus. Cool share
For me, the weirdest thing is that when a charged particle moves through a magnetic field, it experiences a force perpendicular to the direction of motion; this results in the particle tracing out a curved path through the field. Like … what the actual fuck? Why in hell would the universe be this way?
That’s… huh…
Hey!!! Physicists!!! Can we get your input???
(Unless you’re a physicist, in which case… fuck)
I mean, imagine if friction worked like this. You’d push a heavy object … and it would move to the left (or maybe the right?) like it was on ice.
FWIW I do have a Physics undergraduate degree. It doesn’t help in this case.
Well, shit hahaha but yeah, that would be weird as hell. I bet it has something to do with how electrons get aligned, but… I don’t know much beyond electrons moving between their shells
Yea I only have a bachelor’s in physics, can’t explain the black magic fuckery that is electromagnetism. Go find someone with a PhD, I bailed to be an engineer
Why in hell would the universe be this way?
Bcz it’s a simulation, or god is fucking with us. Who knows which one it is 🤷♀️
Um akshually, that’s a rectification circle.
While I fully agree, I thought the distinction was unbreakable rules.
The laws of physics can’t be broken, even, under any circumstances, everywhere, at any time.
Whereas magic is more like there is an exception to every rule kind of deal. It’s far more like software, as in it’s mostly fully logically consistent except for random spots where devs took some shortcuts to make life easier.
I don’t think magic is objective; I think it is in the eye of the beholder.
If the audience don’t understand it, or can be distracted from seeing the truth of it, it’s magic or a miracle or whatever to them. And the magician - if they know what they’re doing - can wield power over the rubes.
So before you understand - say, magnetism - better, lodestones can be seen as magical or heaven-sent.
There’ll be physical phenomena today like ‘spooky action at a distance’ or something where even quite learned observers might not 100% know the laws of physics. Some exploit of that can appear as magical until the laws are figured out and well communicated.
If it turns out that the underlying laws are stochastic rather than deterministic, then there’s always going to be some grey areas i think.
I think the “exception to every rule” part is really dependent on which type of magic the writer is using. Many writers do establish hard rules for their magic. In those cases, it’s less “magic is the exception” and more “magic is engrained into the laws of physics.”
Hard magic systems are my favourites, usually. The limitations are more interesting than the possibilities.
Have you read Ra?
spent years reading/drawing schematics. simplified bridge rectifier circuit used everywhere. like your phone charger. <sarcasm> magically keeps face glued to phone</sarcasm>
The mages of Electrical Engineering reseach the tools and formulars to control the magic. The mages of Hardware Engineering develop under great effort the sigils and rituals of how the rocks must be processed. The Warlocks of the CPU use the near infinit possibilities of algorithms and the power of the evolved rocks to create worlds nobody could ever have imagined (in exchange for the ability to go outside).
(in exchange for the ability to go outside)
Real
Only thing dumber than a mechanical engineer is an electrical engineer trying to design a housing.
You want to understand the deep magic, talk to electricians and technicians.
There’s a lot of machinists who think they are hot shit, so fitting username.
Yup. Thing is, it’s known that ‘machinists’ coming out of trade school aren’t worth a damn for years. The same is true of enginneers, yet they turn them loose on CAD and they create designs that make everyone miserable.
This is one of the big problems with SpaceX/Blue Origin/Firefly. The designs are piss poor because the majority of their engineers are green.
Engineers shouldn’t have design authority until they’ve spent a few years manufacturing.
They are required to have a minimum of three years of design experience and have to pass a PE exam before they are allowed to verify their own designs.
Up until that point, all of their designs are required to be sealed by another PE.
My bad, not design authority as that’s a specific thing. They are allowed to design and the guy rubber-stamping often doesn’t catch much.
Ultimately, this is a religious issue. Engineers are heathens that should be burned at the stake. Occasionally, you meet a good one who’s been housetrained by the people that actually do the things.
I can say the opposite. I have had craft, in the field, make design choices without engaging the engineer, and now the client is angry because shit isn’t working right, because someone made a command decision in a silo.
Drawings are never perfect. Most of the time, engineers are working off client provided drawings that aren’t very accurate, so the assumptions are bad when the shovel hits the ground.
That is neither the craft, nor the engineer’s fault.
I am an EE and I can’t magically know that the last guy to hang an antenna put it 10’ higher than he was supposed to and the client doesn’t want to pay for a site visit.
So now my tower climber is pissed because he has to make multiple climbs, take photos and then wait with his thumb up his butt, while I am trying to get the client to agree to a plan, and he is going to blame me.
Now I am a Construction Manager, and I get pissed at the engineer when he provides drawings that don’t give even half the info I need.
I’ll buy the material, no problem, but you need to give me a fucking BoM because I don’t know what your design criteria is and I am not going to guess.
I’m sure as hell not going to let my craft buy whatever coax connection is available, and fits, to connect a feedline.
They don’t know what actually goes into that.
Likewise, an engineer can’t tell if an existing conduit has enough room to snake a new cable because the cable schedule isn’t always accurate. But then my craft doesn’t know how to calculate conduit fill b because they don’t know the types/level of voltages in the existing lines.
I have also NEVER known an electrician who, when first laying eyes on a job, not complain about the terrible work performed by the previous electrician.
Working brownfields is always going to be a pain and everyone loves to bitch when the job ends up being harder than it should have been.
I will say this. I love being a construction manager 100 times more than being an engineer, but having that background is fucking invaluable because I can spot problems from further away and can usually resolve them quickly.
I appreciate the in-depth response. I was really just having some fun trolling engineers. You’ve been around the block so you understand the arrogance inherent in pretty much anything technical. It’s totally immature but it also makes me grin.
Man, this false air of superiority you’re exuding is pretty weird. There are bad engineers, and bad skilled trades people, and bad managers, and bad business people. Every walk of life have people that are bad at their jobs, it’s by no means unique to any one class of worker.
I was amusing myself. Trolling engineers can be pretty fun and this is a target rich environment. I’ve seen a lot of bad engineering over the years and sometimes it’s just plain cathartic to make fun of them.
What an incredibly selfish and self-centered approach to this platform
Careful saying Mathmagic, it may summon
demonsDisney lawyers.It’s chemicals that make signals jump between neurons in your head. Electricity acts entirely withing single neurons.
Also, that’s a control spell, not a summoning one.
I was really hoping someone would catch this. I’m glad someone else was also paying attention in biology
Listen here witch!!
that’s crazy to think about. which NT is responsible for sending a signal along my vagus nerve to my brain? what NTs regulate the functions of the sympathetic nervous system? how can transport as quickly as my body reacts? I need to know more!
how quickly do NTs even travel? it feels like electricity because it’s nearly instantaneous! how do they do that so fast???
it feels like electricity because it’s nearly instantaneous!
It takes hundreds of ms for a signal to go from your brain to your foot. Electricity on wires travels several times around the world in that time.
But for most of the distance the signals do travel as electricity. (At least the ones that get to be electricity, our brain has several kinds of signals.) It’s just a particularly slow form of electricity.

It’s the motive force! Not some heretical warp magic.

















