Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Voldar_Mecorthio 01-10-07, 05:31 PM	Through a combination of boredom, geekyness, and the internet, I have figured out a way to deal 848,205,764,126,183,207,388,000 points of bludgening damage with a single spell. Cast Major Creation. The object in question? A block of solid iridium (a type of mundane metal if you didn't know, number 77 on the periodic table) to the maximum capability of the spell. Do that twice (make one quickened). The second iridium block is made of antimatter. When equal parts matter and antimatter come into contact, both are destroyed utterly. This is the only way to truly destroy matter, everything else just changes it's form. Through antimatter, it is totally gone. Here's the fun part: All that matter is converted into pure destructive energy. Albert Einstein's famous formula states that e=mc2, where energy created equals the mass of the destroyed matter times the speed of light squared. At 60th level, Major Creation creates 60 cubic feat of matter. To continue on our chemestry lesson, we need to convert feet to meters. To convert from feet to meters, multiply the number of feet by 0.3048, so 60ft3=18.288m3. For the sake of simplicity, we'll round down. Major Creation creates 18 cubic meters of iridium. From there we find out the mass of our block of iridium. Iridium is unbelievably dense, having a density of 22650 kg/m3. Therefore, we take our 18 cubic meters of iridium and multiply by iridium's density, resulting in 407,700 kilograms of iridium created by Major Creation. Back to Einstein, we take our 407,700 kilograms of iridium and plug that into our e=mc2 formula. Recall that c is the speed of light. C is actually an important number, as it is used in situations like this. C is exactly 299,792,458 metres per second in the international system of units, so we take our 407,700 kilograms and multiply by c squared, which is exactly 89,875,517,873,681,764. This results in exactly36,642,248,637,100,055,182,800. We have found how much force is put forth when our block of iridium is destroyed: 36,642,248,637,100,055,182,800 kilograms of force. Wow. To get this back to D&D usable units, we need to take this back to english units, and for this situation we need pounds. To convert kilograms to pounds, kilograms are multiplied by 2.2046. 36,642,248,637,100,055,182,800x2.2046=80 ,781,501,345,350,781,656,000.88. Destroying our block of iridium releases 80,781,501,345,350,781,656,000.88 pounds of force. The Dungeon Master's Guide stats dynamite as 3d6 bludgening damage for 1 pound of TNT. We can use that. If 1 pound of force deals 3d6 points of damage, 80,781,501,345,350,781,656,000 pounds of force would therefore deal 242,344,504,036,052,344,968,000d6 points of damage. There you have it. With a single standard action and swift action you can deal 242,344,504,036,052,344,968,000d6 points of bludgning damage. Using the average damage table from the ELH, 242,344,504,036,052,344,968,000d6 would deal 848,205,764,126,183,207,388,000 points of damage. That's right 848,205,764,126,183,207,388,000 points of bludgening damage. There you have it. You'll destroy pretty much the entire plane you're on, including yourself, but it would be VERY cool. EDIT: I made a mistake. TNT doesn't put forth 1 pound of force, so the explosion is less than I calculated. It's still ungodly high. Thanks to eRaz0r for the info: A single pound of force is the equivalent of the force a one pound weight exerts on the table it rests on. Hardly the same as a pound of TNT. If you'd used the correct measurements you'd realize that a single gram of matter completely converted to energy is the equivalent of 21 thousand tons of TNT. So 407,700 kilograms is the energy equivalent of 8,561,700,000,000 tons of TNT which is 17,123,400,000,000,000 pounds of TNT, which is 34,246,800,000,000,000 dice of damage or an average of 119,863,800,000,000,000 damage
jameswilliamogle 01-10-07, 05:33 PM	Math is hard!I don't like combining dnd w/ star trek, personally... Just sell the Iridium and bribe the gods to destroy the world. Aldrich prices it at $246 for 7.6 g (academic rate). Gold at $376 for 3.2 g (aldrich, not world stock exchange). So thats 112,311,534 g of gold. That should do it...
Novabomb 01-10-07, 05:34 PM	Except that Major creation can not make anti-matter. Nor does iridium exist in the dnd universe.
GaffeR 01-10-07, 05:36 PM	What Star Trek? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter Very cool annihilation :D Edit: Nor does iridium exist in the dnd universe. Other than your DM, says who?
Lord_Panda 01-10-07, 05:41 PM	Except that Major creation can not make anti-matter. QFT Observe that for Major Creation: Material Component A tiny piece of matter of the same sort of item you plan to create with minor creation. Even if your DM rules that you can find iridium, good luck finding anti-iridium and keeping it intact long enough to cast the spell.
Voldar_Mecorthio 01-10-07, 05:47 PM	That's why they created Eschew Materials.
Enamel_32 01-10-07, 05:47 PM	does major creation really take 1 round, or is that just the explosion? edit: it's funny either way
Novabomb 01-10-07, 05:49 PM	Checked the wiki, i guess its perfectly reasonable to have iridium, though the anti-matter, not so much.
Voldar_Mecorthio 01-10-07, 05:56 PM	Actually it takes one minute, I forgot that part. To the edit button!
Hyfigh 01-10-07, 06:05 PM	I'm pretty sure Eschew Materials wouldn't cover that one. It allows you to bypass components that aren't outrageously costly. I can't imagine anti-iridium could ever be counted as anything but a costly component... Edit: You could, however, use tricks such as the Heir of Siberious get past the materials altogether.
jameswilliamogle 01-10-07, 06:07 PM	What if you could make shadow anti-iridium somehow? Wish would do it, of course (probably making around 10-20 atoms, of course, at 25000 gp).
Hyfigh 01-10-07, 06:13 PM	The Heir can get True Creation up to twice per day as a spell-like ability. That would not only allow for it's creation, but it wouldn't even cost XP AND would be cast as a standard action.
Fwib 01-10-07, 06:13 PM	Hmmm... a bit more than 1 mol of hp.
Hyfigh 01-10-07, 06:15 PM	How much area would something like this cover?
FlimFlam 01-10-07, 06:16 PM	I'm pretty sure Eschew Materials wouldn't cover that one. It allows you to bypass components that aren't outrageously costly. I can't imagine anti-iridium could ever be counted as anything but a costly component... Edit: You could, however, use tricks such as the Heir of Siberious get past the materials altogether. Depends on your definition of costly. If iridium is a man-made creation that takes time and money to make, then yes I would say it is costly. If it is something that can be found (in the earth for instance), then it isn't very costly at all.
eRaz0r 01-10-07, 06:16 PM	There are a couple of misconceptions here. Firstly, the unit of measurement you need is the joule - a unit of work, not pounds force. A single pound of force is the equivalent of the force a one pound weight exerts on the table it rests on. Hardly the same as a pound of TNT. If you'd used the correct measurements you'd realize that a single gram of matter completely converted to energy is the equivalent of 21 thousand tons of TNT. So 407,700 kilograms is the energy equivalent of 8,561,700,000,000 tons of TNT which is 17,123,400,000,000,000 pounds of TNT, which is 34,246,800,000,000,000 dice of damage or an average of 119,863,800,000,000,000 damage Eschew Materials only works with Material components with negligible value. Iridium and anti Iridium would be extremely valuable. Any antimatter in a fantasy setting is the equivalent of a magic item. If you even knew what antimatter was (which is impossible in standard fantasy settings) you'd need a wish to get hold of some.
eRaz0r 01-10-07, 06:17 PM	Depends on your definition of costly. If iridium is a man-made creation that takes time and money to make, then yes I would say it is costly. If it is something that can be found (in the earth for instance), then it isn't very costly at all. What, like Gold, silver, uranium, all gems etc etc etc? Yeah, right.
Caelic 01-10-07, 06:21 PM	The Siberys Mark of Making was errataed some time ago. I should know; that's what put the kibosh on my Artificer/Heir of Siberys. :)
jameswilliamogle 01-10-07, 06:22 PM	What, like Gold, silver, uranium, all gems etc etc etc? Yeah, right.I understand lead is pretty dense, and was used in the middle ages...
Hyfigh 01-10-07, 06:23 PM	Depends on your definition of costly. If iridium is a man-made creation that takes time and money to make, then yes I would say it is costly. If it is something that can be found (in the earth for instance), then it isn't very costly at all. When you're right, you're right. I do come across ANTI-IRIDIUM daily... Besides that, the "costly material component" is more or less based on the gold value of the component. If I recall correctly, eschewing only allows for things that are less than 1gp in value.
PhoenixInferno 01-10-07, 06:23 PM	Your calculations break down after you compute the released energy from the matter-antimatter interaction. You have 36,642,248,637,100,055,182,800 J of ENERGY, not "force". That's 8.75771x10^15 kilograms of TNT or roughly 1.9267x10^17 lbs of TNT or 9.63348x10^6 megatons of TNT. Still a lot.
Hyfigh 01-10-07, 06:23 PM	The Siberys Mark of Making was errataed some time ago. I should know; that's what put the kibosh on my Artificer/Heir of Siberys. :) WHAH! Where is it?
Lokiyn 01-10-07, 06:25 PM	You do realize that the inherent flaw here even beyond the materials in question is the nature of a matter antimater explosion. As soon as you create the spheres and slamm them together only the layers that actualy come into contact with each other convert to energy, the energy of this explosion acutally would push the spheres apart without allowing the remainder of the spheres to interact with each other.
Serrin 01-10-07, 06:26 PM	1 pound of dynamite != one pound of force. One pound of material creates many pounds of force. E=mc^2, after all. If a pound of TNT made only one pound of force, you'd have the lamest explosive ever. So you can't multiply the full thing by 3d6, but rather you have to calculate how many pounds of force come from 1 pound of TNT, and then divide 3d6 by that amount or else divide the pounds of force by that amount, and then you can multiply by 3d6. Also, my science-y friend points out that the reaction wouldn't be both instantaneous and complete, as you assume. Edit: We got ninja'd while arguing. Darn.
Behaigo 01-10-07, 06:42 PM	The OP said it was being cast by a lvl 60 mage, which should be able to qualify for the epic feat "ignore material components" which would allow him to cas the spell without the anti-irridium.
Caelic 01-10-07, 06:43 PM	The errata can be found here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/er/20040125a The applicable ruling is in the Eberron Campaign Sourcebook errata concerning the Heir of Siberys; to wit: "The Heir of Siberys must pay the normal XP cost of the True Creation spell (see page 117) each time he uses this ability."
NoldorForce 01-10-07, 06:45 PM	If you shape the two "blocks" suitably (very thin, flat sheets), you can have the reaction as close to completeness as needed for all practical purposes.
Behaigo 01-10-07, 06:50 PM	No matter the shape the antimatter is going to react with SOMTHING, it might not have as much of a bang, but it will still be extrordinarily large.
Hyfigh 01-10-07, 06:51 PM	The errata can be found here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/er/20040125a The applicable ruling is in the Eberron Campaign Sourcebook errata concerning the Heir of Siberys; to wit: "The Heir of Siberys must pay the normal XP cost of the True Creation spell (see page 117) each time he uses this ability." Serves me right for downloading the errata and not reading it all... Thanks Caelic.
Behaigo 01-10-07, 07:17 PM	The only problem I can see with this idea is this. How would the mage know of antimatter? I would think that someone that has no knowledge of a material can't create it. Just my 2cp
Enamel_32 01-10-07, 07:22 PM	Maybe having a lot of ranks in one of the knowledges?
Lokiyn 01-10-07, 07:41 PM	"The Heir of Siberys must pay the normal XP cost of the True Creation spell (see page 117) each time he uses this ability." Which of course means that you need to take item familiar and convert that extra 10% into gold... for the... party.... Any on another note, antimatter would have the problem of the very air around it reacting to produce unholy amounts of gamma radiation the very instant it is created.
Voldar_Mecorthio 01-10-07, 07:48 PM	Any on another note, antimatter would have the problem of the very air around it reacting to produce unholy amounts of gamma radiation the very instant it is created. That's not really an issue as the antimatter's purpose is to obliterate everything upon its creation, so whatever it reacts with isn't really an issue, just as long as it reacts with something.
Voldar_Mecorthio 01-10-07, 07:49 PM	Should I recalculate everything or just put a footnote that the explosion won't be in the sextillions, but will still be ungodly high because of my mixup with the TNT?
Think0028 01-10-07, 08:14 PM	Should I recalculate everything or just put a footnote that the explosion won't be in the sextillions, but will still be ungodly high because of my mixup with the TNT? Do not fear math! Master it, and you shall know ULTIMATE POWER! I.E., redo the math.
Kresalak 01-10-07, 08:20 PM	This is an old version of a trick I invented. The best way to do it is to create atomic nuclei using Polymorph Any Object, turning 100 cubic feet/level into protons and anti-protons*. Now, you can get a CL of 40 from a Red Wizard. After that cast Consumptive Field, for a CL of 60. I don't care anymore, but you now have 6000 cubic feet. *You do this in a vacuum, so that you have examples of this constantly coming into being and annihilating around you. If you don't accept atomic nuclei, 6000 cubic feet of iridium/anti-iridium is 1.3592*10^19 points of damage on average.
JaronK 01-10-07, 08:29 PM	A Shadowcraft Mage can simply dodge the "finding the Iridium" issue entirely by shadow-faking it... they can even make it extra real. That said, you do have the problem a few posters have mentioned, namely that your mage doesn't know about the existance of anti-matter. JaronK
Aegeu 01-10-07, 08:35 PM	A mage of this level can easily pull off the omniscifier trick.
Kresalak 01-10-07, 08:39 PM	Or, you could be a Wizard 6/Dweomerkeeper 4/Red Wizard 10, and cast it as a Su ability.
GraveDigger 01-10-07, 08:47 PM	Being a 60th level wizard if the Alchemy skill and Knowledge Chemistry/Science was high enough I'd not have a problem with the wizard having discovered such a material or having created it magicly. Mostly because well a) I'll most likely never play in a lvl60 campaign. b) Most wizards want to live forever to become uber powerfull. c) That would just be funny and the wizard that knew how to doit would die unless they were able to cast rope trick.... hmm.
skydragonknight 01-10-07, 08:51 PM	A Shadowcraft Mage can simply dodge the "finding the Iridium" issue entirely by shadow-faking it... they can even make it extra real. That said, you do have the problem a few posters have mentioned, namely that your mage doesn't know about the existance of anti-matter. JaronK So how much damage would I take if I disbelieved the matter/antimatter explosion, assuming the matter and anti-matter are two monofilament planes(if the crystaline structure is planar; add more layers as necesary) that are less than 10 angstroms(or 1 nanometer) from each other(for maximum collision-ness)?
Fallenangel359 01-10-07, 09:04 PM	an incorpereal caster wouldn't die from it... a ghost maybe? Cast true creation to make an iridium fishbowl with a 2 inch gap in the top, and then cast true creation to make an anti-iridium ball, sitting inside the bowl once the 2nd spell completes, it instantly destroys everything, leaving the ghost, in space... and as the damage is non magical damage, doesn't harm the ghost... planeshift somewhere else :P
JaronK 01-10-07, 09:22 PM	So how much damage would I take if I disbelieved the matter/antimatter explosion, assuming the matter and anti-matter are two monofilament planes(if the crystaline structure is planar; add more layers as necesary) that are less than 10 angstroms(or 1 nanometer) from each other(for maximum collision-ness)? Well, if this mage is optomized just for that, we'll assume he's heightened the spell to level 9, + 1 from Earth Spell, with the feat that boosts shadow reality by 20%. That brings him to 140% reality, so it does 40% more damage if you don't believe it. Also, he can cast Major Creation in 6 seconds, which is a nice improvement, and with Residual Metamagic, he can cast the matter one followed by the antimatter one as a 9th level and then a 1st level spell, which ain't bad. JaronK
Tleilaxu_Ghola 01-10-07, 09:30 PM	You do realize that the inherent flaw here even beyond the materials in question is the nature of a matter antimater explosion. As soon as you create the spheres and slamm them together only the layers that actualy come into contact with each other convert to energy, the energy of this explosion acutally would push the spheres apart without allowing the remainder of the spheres to interact with each other. Who said spheres? Why not perfectly flat sheets of an atom's thickness. Now carefully drop one on to the other...
Knarfy 01-10-07, 09:32 PM	You know, for a less super science math heavy rules bendy way to do something similar... You can always put 16,000 bottles of alchemists fire in a telekinetic sphere and use telekinesis to throw it at someone :)
skydragonknight 01-10-07, 09:34 PM	Well, if this mage is optomized just for that, we'll assume he's heightened the spell to level 9, + 1 from Earth Spell, with the feat that boosts shadow reality by 20%. That brings him to 140% reality, so it does 40% more damage if you don't believe it. JaronK Hmm...that's not good. I have good Will saves. ...so what's the DC to disbelieve the planet exploding?
Maat_Mons 01-10-07, 09:49 PM	Who said spheres? Why not perfectly flat sheets of an atom's thickness. Now carefully drop one on to the other... But then you’d have to succeed on the craft check for a one atom thick sheet. That seems like the sort of thing that would have a high DC.
Lokiyn 01-10-07, 10:09 PM	Furthermore the air itself would interact with the sheat causing the thing to go off right then and there, although probably not all at once but in a staggered effect as air is blown away then returns to the vaccum created to strike the remains again.
Kresalak 01-10-07, 10:18 PM	Who said spheres? Why not perfectly flat sheets of an atom's thickness. Now carefully drop one on to the other... You know, I just remembered something. All my figures are precisely half as much as they should be. First, you PaO a sheet of regular iridium. PaO the air above it into a sheet of anti-iridium one atom in thickness and touching the first sheet. Boom, 2.7184*10^19 damage.
skydragonknight 01-10-07, 10:52 PM	You know, I just remembered something. All my figures are precisely half as much as they should be. First, you PaO a sheet of regular iridium. PaO the air above it into a sheet of anti-iridium one atom in thickness and touching the first sheet. Boom, 2.7184*10^19 damage. ...Relex for half?
fnord 01-10-07, 11:26 PM	Anything that relies on real world physics in D&D is suspect, unless you have a major grasp of how the theories would change under the conditions of D&D. The RAW, if closely examined, reveals that many real world physical laws don't hold true in D&D. For example, the speed of light is effectively infinite, or at least not a velocity barrier. After all, by raw, a character can simply take the epic feat Epic Speed again and again and again, linearly increasing their speed without limit. After taking the feat about 40 million times (at level 120 million or so), the characters speed while running (with the Run feat), will exceed what c is in RL. Any hypothetical value of c can be exceeded by a character at a high enough level. And no magic is involved, in any way, shape, or form.
Novabomb 01-10-07, 11:38 PM	Nah, reflex for no damage (evasion)
Valanthe 01-10-07, 11:49 PM	Another minor problem. You're using the conversion of feet to meters(.3048), when you should be using the conversion of cubic feet to cubic meters (.0283).
rakhir 01-11-07, 12:58 AM	Of course, the reference to E=mc^2 begs the question that if magic has the energy to produce all that mass then why bother with antimatter? Just release the energy directly into the world and dispense with the Iridium anti-iridium nonsense. On the other hand, in the real world we can barely make anti-hydrogen, and anything heavier is pretty much out of the question. So far as I know we have not even observed anti-helium or anti-anything heavier in cosmic rays or any other natural source of wierd particles either. In other words... anti-iridium is pure fantasy and thus belongs squarely in the world of D&D...
Surreal 01-11-07, 01:11 AM	You do realize that the inherent flaw here even beyond the materials in question is the nature of a matter antimater explosion. As soon as you create the spheres and slamm them together only the layers that actualy come into contact with each other convert to energy, the energy of this explosion acutally would push the spheres apart without allowing the remainder of the spheres to interact with each other. If you shape the two "blocks" suitably (very thin, flat sheets), you can have the reaction as close to completeness as needed for all practical purposes. Who said spheres? Why not perfectly flat sheets of an atom's thickness. Now carefully drop one on to the other... Hmph, and here I was thinking that at epic levels I'd try to conjure a tesseract of opposing matter/anti-matter and have the cubes invert into each other. Not that I actually know what I'm talking about... Incidentally, doesn't the Hulking Hurler do more than this? I don't remember.
Donald_Cannith 01-11-07, 01:26 AM	heres an idea as to how he knows about anti-matter...DIVINE INTERVENTION....it solves all problems
fnord 01-11-07, 01:59 AM	Incidentally, doesn't the Hulking Hurler do more than this? I don't remember. Maybe. There's a damped infinite damage loop somewhere that did MUCH more than this, here (http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=8378468&postcount=58). And of course there's actual infinite damage loops, like the one that powers the Omniscificer. heres an idea as to how he knows about anti-matter...DIVINE INTERVENTION....it solves all problems Either you go by the deities and demigods stats for Pelor, in which case it may not (in fact, probably does not), or you go for the omnipotent gods setup, in which case any damage record dependent on divine intervention is redundant, as a direct divine intervention could cause more damage.
Charasanya 01-11-07, 02:08 AM	I can not believe nobody saw a humongous flaw here: "To convert from feet to meters, multiply the number of feet by 0.3048, so 60ft3=18.288m3. For the sake of simplicity, we'll round down." *cringe* That "x 0.03048" for feet to meters, not cubic feet to cubic meters! 60 Cubic feet is a little less then 1.7 cubic meters!
skydragonknight 01-11-07, 11:47 AM	Sounds like the damage has to be recalculated again. For some reason I am not surprised that causing a matter/anti-matter explosion is something a Shadowcraft Mage could do. I've always known that the world would be destroyed either by a gnome or a kender, and in the absense of kender in standard D&D it would have to be a gnome.
El_Machinae 01-11-07, 12:11 PM	There is no need to create the first ball of iridium; the anti-iridium would react with whatever it touches.
rakhir 01-11-07, 01:40 PM	There is no need to create the first ball of iridium; the anti-iridium would react with whatever it touches. The anti-electron cloud orbiting the anti-iridium nuclei would anhilate with the electrons orbiting the oxygen and nitrogen in the air. The energy released would be a good deal smaller than the rest mass energy of the anti-iridium sheet, but it would probably still be enough to blow the sheet to smithereens. That force plus the electrostatic repulsion of the anti-iridium nuclei would cause the anti-atoms to be blown away from each other quite a long way before they eventually find something to anhilate with. This would probably still kill everything on the planet that was not somehow immune to immense doses of radiation. If you put the anti-iridium next to iridium then there would be an electrostatic attraction between the nuclei and the anti-nuclei and they would probably anhilate each other on the spot, again, killing everything on the planet. The rest of the universe would be safe, since this is still much less energy than a garden variety super-nova.
jameswilliamogle 01-11-07, 01:48 PM	This is a bit OT, but how much damage would a character have to do in melee before the force of the air around the blow would be enough to knock everyone flat on there backs (or start causing structural damage around them, for that matter, leaving big craters where they killed "Tim the Evil")? I was just reminded of the Hulking Hurler and Supercharger threads, and how they do a ton of damage in one blow, as well...
Terelion 01-11-07, 02:12 PM	You have also forgotten that some of the energy released would be used in pair creation so the damae would be less than the calculated value.
Valanthe 01-11-07, 02:35 PM	I can not believe nobody saw a humongous flaw here: "To convert from feet to meters, multiply the number of feet by 0.3048, so 60ft3=18.288m3. For the sake of simplicity, we'll round down." *cringe* That "x 0.03048" for feet to meters, not cubic feet to cubic meters! 60 Cubic feet is a little less then 1.7 cubic meters! Actually, someone did see the flaw. Look five posts above yours :p
Aegeu 01-11-07, 03:11 PM	Maybe. There's a damped infinite damage loop somewhere that did MUCH more than this, here (http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=8378468&postcount=58). Er... Didn't that dirty trick only deal damage to itself? Of course, you can always pass it on to other people using share pain, but still.
Valdrax 01-11-07, 03:19 PM	Anything that relies on real world physics in D&D is suspect, unless you have a major grasp of how the theories would change under the conditions of D&D. The RAW, if closely examined, reveals that many real world physical laws don't hold true in D&D. I'm glad somebody said it. Take a deep breath and repeat after me: "Never again will I attempt to combine real world physics with a fantastic or cinematic game system." Repeat it until the mantra heals. For example, the speed of light is effectively infinite, or at least not a velocity barrier. After all, by raw, a character can simply take the epic feat Epic Speed again and again and again, linearly increasing their speed without limit. Actually, it's simpler to violate the speed of light without having to be level 50 billion or whatever. Plane Shift to the Outlands or any other infinite plane. Greater Teleport 12 light-seconds "that way." You have now used the Astral Plane to exceed the speed of light by travelling 2x c. (I don't really even want to go into how screwed up the concept of space-time is in the Astral Plane. Time passes, but you don't metabolically age or heal, yet you still live?) Anyway, all attempts to convert force to damage is suspect. Why does a Fighter with a greatsword and a Str of 18 do more damage than a stick of dynamite to a single target on average? Does the Fighter put out more force that a stick of dynamite?
El_Machinae 01-11-07, 03:24 PM	If you put the anti-iridium next to iridium then there would be an electrostatic attraction between the nuclei and the anti-nuclei and they would probably anhilate each other on the spot, again, killing everything on the planet. I don't think the nuclei would make it to each other, through the electron interactions. Even with regular iridium, I'm pretty sure the nuclei never touch
Elderich 01-11-07, 03:52 PM	osmium is, as far as we know, denser.
rakhir 01-11-07, 04:01 PM	I don't think the nuclei would make it to each other, through the electron interactions. Even with regular iridium, I'm pretty sure the nuclei never touch In regular matter the nuclei never touch because they are shielded by a very large electron cloud. However, if the electrons and positrons anhilate each other then there would be no electron cloud shielding the nuclei from each other. I guess the result would still be a mess. The positive iridium nuclei would repel each other but be attracted to the negative anti-iridium nuclei. The amount of anhilation that occurs on the spot would depend upon whether the electron/positron anhilation plus the same-same nuclei repulsion were enough to overwhelm the electrostatic attraction between nuclei and anti-nuclei. It's hard to know for sure what would happen, since anti-iridium does not actually exist, except in theory. It would be a nobel prize worthy experiment if you could pull it off (without destroying the world and along with it the nobel committee).
NoldorForce 01-11-07, 04:26 PM	osmium is, as far as we know, denser.According to Wikipedia, the two have nearly identical densities (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Density); when I last looked, iridium was slightly more dense (again, according to the article).It's hard to know for sure what would happen, since anti-iridium does not actually exist, except in theory. It would be a nobel prize worthy experiment if you could pull it off (without destroying the world and along with it the nobel committee).If you've already broken six fundamental laws of physics, why not top it off with the shadow-illusory creation of antimatter? (Paraphrased from the Milliways advertisement).
nobodez 01-11-07, 04:28 PM	Wouldn't it just be easier to make a chunk of Neutronium? I'm thinking that such a super-dense form of matter (whether you think of it as pure neutrons, or a neutron-degenerate) would be much better than iridium. Of course, there's no such thing as an anti-neutron, but that's not exactly a problem. (Well, you could go down to the Quark™ level, but that's just too close to Star Trek again).
rakhir 01-11-07, 05:01 PM	Wouldn't it just be easier to make a chunk of Neutronium? I'm thinking that such a super-dense form of matter (whether you think of it as pure neutrons, or a neutron-degenerate) would be much better than iridium. Of course, there's no such thing as an anti-neutron, but that's not exactly a problem. (Well, you could go down to the Quark™ level, but that's just too close to Star Trek again). Anti-neutrons have been made in laboratories, but they are difficult to control since they have no charge. Neutronium should be a factor of 10^15 more dense than either osmium or iridium so anti-neutronium/neutronium anhilation would win big, assuming something spectacularly weird did not happen. Star Trek is 99.9% gibberish, but I wrote my ph.d thesis on the top quark, so I don't put quarks in the same nonsense SF category ;)
Endarire 01-11-07, 05:12 PM	...Relex for half? Assuming this is true, what would happen to a rogue who rolled a natural 20? -EE
Kresalak 01-12-07, 09:07 AM	Anti-neutrons have been made in laboratories, but they are difficult to control since they have no charge. Neutronium should be a factor of 10^15 more dense than either osmium or iridium so anti-neutronium/neutronium anhilation would win big, assuming something spectacularly weird did not happen. Star Trek is 99.9% gibberish, but I wrote my ph.d thesis on the top quark, so I don't put quarks in the same nonsense SF category ;) Do you have a rough estimate of the density of neutrons? Obviously, it would be theoretical, but still useful. By the way, my calculations were flawed. I made the same mistake with cubic feet->cubic meters, but never noticed it. The actual damage from osmium (which is slighly more dense than iridium) would be 1.27119*10^18 damage, about 1/10th as much. The energy release, by the way, would be about 3.44643*10^23 J. We could do much more by using a newly discovered man-made particle, like the ones that don't even have real names yet (Unun...ium), but I don't think we can estimate what their density is.
Subedei 01-12-07, 09:19 AM	Nor does iridium exist in the dnd universe. That's pretty funny. On a related note, we don't breath oxygen in D&D either. We breath air.
rakhir 01-12-07, 11:21 AM	Do you have a rough estimate of the density of neutrons? Obviously, it would be theoretical, but still useful. The density of an atom is much smaller than the density of its nucleus because it is surrounded by a very large electron cloud that is approximately massless (at least compared to the nucleus). The radius of an atom is measured in Angstroms (10^-10 meters) and the radius of a nucleus is measured in femtometers (10^-15 meters). To get the density of a nucleus start with the density of an atom and then multiply by (10^-10/10^-15)^3 (or in other words, 10^15). If you really want to, you can make this more accurate by looking up the radius of a particular element and placing that in the numerator of the ratio. There is also a handy theoretical formula that you can use to get a better estimate of the radius of the nucleus r=1.2*10^-15*A^(1/3), where A is the number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus. There is probably a better way to calculate the density of the nucleus, but I have not finished my coffee yet... I suppose you could look up data on neutron stars on the web, they are essentially giant atomic nuclei... I'm sure my estimate of 10^15 more dense than iridium is in the right ballpark but it could be off by a few zero's here and there.