On Mon, 10 Mar 2003, John Klein wrote: > @> > MWs are magical - they aren't a priori subject to the 2nd law of > @> > thermodynamics or conservation laws for that matter. I would > @> > guess that putting one in your closet for 200k years wouldn't > @> > affect it. > @> > > Just out of curiousity, why shouldn't they be subject to all those > laws? Mr. Brust's magic has always seemed to play by most of the physical > rules (if you accept as a given the underlying assumption that there's > some massive power source out there that can be tapped into via mental > effort and nothing else). Obviously it doesn't /have/ to, though, because > he's making up the rules as he goes along and can do whatever he pleases. I don't want to speculate more about stuff I know nothing about, but I think a determined physicist could find incompatibilites between natural laws and magic as described in the Dragaera books (what's going on when the Orb sends energy from the Sea to point x, for example, why it doesn't heat up, how MWs can permanently radiate spherical fields of whatever, Spellbreaker's ability to do work without a power supply or heating up, magical healing and weather control [which is either antientropic or hard to explain], what an energy "bolt" is, why the Seas are seas and not spheres, what happens when one teleports upwards in a gravity well, how teleportation can be squared with quantum mechanics anyway ...) Fun question - it is reportedly impossible to teleport someone against his (conscious) will - does that include MWs or GWs?