ASH/HCC: Coherent Super Stories #22 - In Vivo, Veritas

[Andrew Perron]

On Fri, 13 Aug 2010 19:42:02 +0000 (UTC), Dave Van Domelen wrote:

> In article <i44054$sog$1 at usenet-its.stanford.edu>,
> Andrew Perron  <pwerdna at gmail.com> wrote:
>>On Thu, 12 Aug 2010 23:44:25 +0000 (UTC), Dave Van Domelen wrote:
>>
>>>      "My trade name is Bacteriomage," the voice behind him replied.
>>
>>Actual on-panel appearance of Bacteriomage!  Woo!
> 
>      You will note he never actually appears on-screen, though.  Always a
> voice from out of view.  Not an intentional thing, but amusing nonetheless. 

Heh heh heh, very true.

>>>      "Pretty damned good," his opponent sneered, gesturing and sending a wave
>>> of magnetic force into Balder's body.  The water in his body tried to get
>>> away from the field, and the effect was like being hit by a baseball bat
>>> wrapped in a blanket...dull, more pushing than hitting, but still something
>>> that would've been hard to ignore even if he'd been in tip-top condition.
>>
>>Wait, what?  Does this work? @-@
> 
>      Yep.  Google for "levitating frog" to see videos.  

Ahhhhhh, I've seen that one.

> Water is weakly
> diamagnetic, which means it tries to exclude magnetic fields, and this will
> result in a force on the water.  Iron in blood is not ferromagnetic, but
> water in blood can be affected by a strong enough field.  

I see.  I thought this required truly immense levels of--

> The power
> requirements to levitate a person would probably be enough to run a small
> city, so it's not really practical in a "real world" setting, but compact
> power supplies are a standard part of superhero technohandwave.

Ahhhhhh.  Fair enough, and I guess you'd want to have something on hand
that can affect invulnerable types.

>      Oh, and the "bat wrapped in a blanket" effect is not an inevitable
> consequence of using diamagnetism for this, it just shows that the Dark
> Brigade armor doesn't really focus the field tightly.  So a lot of water is
> pushed on at once.

A more focused field would be like a bullet, it seems.

>      Dave Van Domelen, notes that superconductors are to diamagnetic
> materials what iron is to paramagnetic materials.

Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, repels fairies?