Equestria's Science

Dozy Dreamer #1 · Jan 17th, 2012 · · · On the Fundamental Nature of Magic ·

This is impressive. I will return to analyse this properly when I have the time to give it the attention it deserves, but from skimming it , I can see no flaws in this theory. I will most definitely be watching this with great interest in the future.

Taranasauruso_o

Taranasauruso_o #2 · Jan 17th, 2012 · · · On the Fundamental Nature of Magic ·

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Topics that I feel need explaining:

1. How is a pegasus able to lift itself with it's wings. According to our physics, it should be impossible for a pegasus to lift itself from the ground because of the comparison between it's wingsize/span and body weight.

2. How was the young pony, this 'Pound', able to lift himself up from the ground using only his magic? Did he expand his magical field around himself, or is it a specific form of magic?

3. Is it possible to construct things from nothing? E.g: Can you summon a book from nothing, and fill it with information? (What I believe would be an explination is: The unicorn, although able to do this, takes a part of their magic from within themselves and uses it to sustain the spell, rendering their magical reserves less.)

4. Is it possible to splice DNA of a specific type of pony with another (Hypothetically speaking, of course. No testing is needed)? If so, what can we estimate the results to be? Are we able to construct alicorns artificially?

5. Why and how does a unicorn's magic reserves refill whilst they are sleeping? In fact, while on the topic of magic reserves, why do the size of a unicorn's magic reserves differ from pony to pony?

6. Do all objects and ponies in Equestria contain magic, even minisqule amounts?

Well, if you have any solutions/speculations about these questions, please elaborate. I look forward to more of your work, good day miss Twilight Sparkle.

Written and spoken by
Bright Spark
Head chief and scientest for princess Celestia.

#3 · Jan 17th, 2012 · · · On the Fundamental Nature of Magic ·

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/me Hasn't read this but:
You're surely brave for delving into this I hope that your imagination/knowledge and writing skill is up to the challenge

hahatimeforponies

hahatimeforponies #4 · Jan 17th, 2012 · · · On the Fundamental Nature of Magic ·

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As an obsessive world builder interested in mathematical treatments of magic and overthought of the pony world in general, I approve. Some topics I feel could use discussion, and some of my suggested rationales for them:

1. The heritability of unicorn, pegasus and earth pony traits in Mendelian genetics, and what this means for alicorns.
2. Pegasus flight (possibly some innate, subconscious magic to do with water vapour, also explaining why clouds are solid to them?)
3. The biological basis of Cutie Marks.
4. The evolutionary history of ponies (the involvement of magic in pegasus flight and cutie marks would indicate that all ponies have some kind of tissue specifically there for magical interaction, possibly a rudimentary horn (if unicorns are ancestral, the horn would have been secondarily lost in pegasi and earth ponies, or if earth ponies are ancestral, the horn is more advanced in unicorns)?
5. The physiology of a unicorn's horn (possibly a concentration of the hypothetical tissue in #4 into an outward bone process from the skull (presumably cartilaginous and "floppy" at birth to prevent injury to the mother), innervated so that it can be consciously activated, sort of like an arcane muscle?)

Apologies if these are more biological than physical questions (and if there's more answer than question in there!), I'm a zoologist by training, so these are the questions that spring to mind first. I'd also like to commend your balls in posting the closest this website has to non-fiction.

Diamond Sparkle

Diamond Sparkle #5 · Jan 17th, 2012 · · · On the Fundamental Nature of Magic ·

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I'm certainly enjoying this.

Guardian Talon

Guardian Talon #6 · Jan 17th, 2012 · · · On the Fundamental Nature of Magic ·

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after reading the science notes in your other story i was wondering if something like this was out there. i was actually hoping for Derpy science, but if it's magic makes sense that it's Twilight.

i might be saying the same thing in a more round about way, but what if instead of a force having it's own independent vector. upon contact and energizing the target (this would explain why both source and target glow, once that is explained at all) the target could have it's own vectors. the same as how an otherwise nonmagnetic piece of iron can temporarily gain a magnetic field of it's own, even if it's actually just an extension of the source.
with the target having a wide angle repulsion to the ground and possibly graviton negation if other forms of magic are involved, a heavy target could be lifted without damage to objects underneath or the initial source bearing all the weight. some reactionary force would still be applied to the initial source, unless done with enough power and precision to have the target and it's secondary targets absorb all reactions

NopeNopeNope

NopeNopeNope #7 · Jan 17th, 2012 · · · On the Fundamental Nature of Magic ·

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Brilliant, how about explaining Pegasus weather control and celestial sun?

Sapidus3

Sapidus3 #8 · Jan 18th, 2012 · · · On the Fundamental Nature of Magic ·

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137465

1 will eventually be addressed
2 and 5 will be the focus of the next chapters.
3 I had not thought about, but will.
4 I have seen treated very well elsewhere but may address.

137553
The cloud thing I have some ideas on, want to run some numbers first though.
3-4 are good.
5 will be touched on in the next chapter or two, and may be further explored later.

137655
I should have mentioned, but I am going with an occam's razor approach. Gravity negation would require pulling in either quantum gravity or some other mechanism that I feel would only complicate things. It may be simpler to understand on a conceptual level at first, but playing around with gravity brings a whole mess of issues with it, and ultimately I am hoping its not necessary.

138424
I actually have an explanation for Celestia's sun in the author notes to my other story (at the very least I worked out the math regarding how much energy it must consume and why the pegasi need to control the whether).

I will eventually try to rework it into something a bit more story generic and easily readable for this.

treos

treos #9 · Jan 18th, 2012 · · · On the Fundamental Nature of Magic ·

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138830 i was going to say this on your other story but it'd fit better here probably, i'm not entirely sure how as the details of really advanced science (like time/space physics sometimes) sometimes elude me but if anyone here has ever played Star Ocean: The Last Hope for xbox360 then they explain and show a lot of real advanced theoretical science in the game series. one of them happens to be faster than light travel, mind you it might apply more to spaceships but still, they have a good theory there.

might be able to find the stuff in a guide for the game or on a wiki somewhere (in the last 2 star ocean games they had a in-game dictionary with descriptions of technology, people, and various locations). i just hope noone ever does something incredibly stupid, like screwing around with a anti-matter generator >.> could destroy the planet easily.

after reading through all this, its definately got my attention (always liked research into various tech and, when possible, magic), tracking

Nazidash

Nazidash #10 · Jan 19th, 2012 · · · On the Fundamental Nature of Magic ·

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In the case of foals, twilight says that Unicorns have very strong and random magic. Twilight seems to be one of the few ponies who can use magic for most anything, so how are foals able to and how does it narrow down when they age? For pegasi, how are their wings so strong when they are very young, without any real use?

NeuPferdfurt

NeuPferdfurt #11 · Jan 19th, 2012 · · · On the Fundamental Nature of Magic ·

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Sorry, I can't really argue with the science: whatever my department is, it's definitely not physics.

I do however admire your efforts. In my stories, I simply assume a phlebotinum of ancient nano technology (with Equestria crawling with nanomachines left by a previous civilization) with probability generators. As such, unicorn magic would be the manipulation of nano machines (the "glow") who in return, among other things, manipulate the laws of nature, making a specific highly unlikely event likely to happen.

Pentad

Pentad #12 · Mar 20th, 2012 · 1 · · On the Fundamental Nature of Magic ·

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After reading this first chapter and your description of the force involved in levitation, I can't help but find that you didn't completely explain motion in three dimensions with it. The cross product between a constant radial vector and a vector free to vary in three dimensions will only produce vectors in a plane perpendicular to the radial vector connecting the active magical charge and the inactive one. This happens because of the fact that the cross product of two vectors is always perpendicular to both of those vectors. Since one of those vectors is in the same direction along which, by definition, radial motion must occur, it is impossible for a force relying solely on the cross product of a radial vector and any n-dimensional vector to produce radial motion. Thus, as described, your equation for the force involved in levitation does not account for motion of a levitated object toward or away from the source of active magical charge.

This should be easy to fix however, since you could easily re-purpose the electromagnetic force or any other attractive/repulsive force top produce this radial motion. Personally I like to think about this as the active magical charge creating a separation of the inactive magical charge (which I am assuming is similar to how electrical charges in atoms are balanced) and thus creating an induced dipole in the previously inactive magical charge which can then undergo interaction with the active magical charge. This might also explain the glow around the horn and the object as large amounts of charge gathering in one area should produce the magical equivalent to sparks. However, if this is the case, then such effects should only occur in situations where the magical field applied to the object is sufficiently high enough to overcome the energy required to magically ionize air.

I can't wait to see more on this and other topics!

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