ROBERT A. METZGER
Piper Halliwell isn’t just the levelheaded, bra-wearing, heir-bearing sister, Robert A. Metzger says. She’s also the one with the most power, real and potential. And the scientist in him can’t help building a better Piper—nuclear capability and all.
MAGIC AND SCIENCE DON’T MIX.
Most folks might believe that—but most scientists don’t.
What is not often appreciated is that the goal of scientists is not in the deriving of new equations, the building of a better eight-sliced toaster or the discovery of a new species of an Amazonian tri-horned beetle. No. The goal of scientists is to perform magic. No one has articulated this better than Arthur C. Clarke, a scientist of great renown (he invented the concept of the geosynchronous satellite) as well as one of the major science fiction writers of the twentieth century, having written 2001: A Space Odyssey. Clarke created three laws that distilled the core of how science and scientists work. They are:
LAW 1: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
LAW 2: The only possible way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
LAW 3: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
So why should you care?
You’re interested in the Halliwell sisters—in witches, Whitelighters, demons and the various powers they wield. Digging into the nuances of Arthur C. Clarke’s three laws is not why you’re reading this book about the Charmed Ones. But there is a connection.
Science can show us how to build a better witch.
And when we’re talking about better, we’re talking about powers. Might it be possible to take a look at what powers the Charmed Ones possess, analyze them from the perspective of a scientist and then come up with a better witch? I think so. Let’s first take a look at just what powers the witches of Charmed manifest:
PRUE: Telekinesis and Astral Projection
PIPER: Molecular Inhibition and Molecular Combustion
PHOEBE: Premonitions and Levitation
PAIGE: Orbing and Telekinetic Orbing
All these powers are certainly magical and quite complementary (the better to fight demons with). However, there is one witch whose powers have a decided physics bent to them—still magical of course, but powers that your average physicist-on-the-street might take a moment to consider. That witch is Piper, whose powers center around the manipulation of molecules. Scientists just love molecules, having spent centuries in not only figuring out just what they are, but also in figuring out how to control them and how to harness their powers. So Piper will be the template upon which we’ll build a better witch through science.
Imagine for a moment that you are a young scientist and you’ve had a startling breakthrough in the lab where, instead of running the standard experiments on blending frog DNA with a Pentium 4, you’d spent the last week watching the first seven seasons of Charmed. You run to the office of your mentor, Dr. Ancient One (Clarke defined an old scientist as one over the age of thirty), and tell this master of the equation and test tube that after having downloaded every episode of Charmed ever produced into your neocortex, you experienced a genuine eureka moment and realized that it would be possible to analyze the powers of the Charmed Ones, discern the underlying scientific principles of those powers and apply your broad depth of scientific insight to figure out how to enhance their magical abilities, pushing them into realms of witchdom never before imagined.
This is the working hypothesis that you present to Dr. Ancient One. Dr. Ancient One has of course never seen a single episode of Charmed, so does not have a clue as to what your sleep-deprived ramble is referring to. However, he is able to ascertain that you’ve claimed you can improve the magical ability of a witch by applying scientific insights.
“Impossible!” he wheezes.
Hearing that makes you smile, because you know Clarke’s first law: if an ancient scientist tells you something is impossible, then he is probably wrong.
“Impossible!” he wheezes for a second time.
And now your confidence grows even greater, because you know Clarke’s second law: it is only while exploring the realm of the impossible that you will discover something truly new. Dr. Ancient One has confirmed your suspicions that you are in fact operating in the realm of the impossible. Excellent!
“Magic?” Dr. Ancient One finally croaks.
And with that you know you’re on the verge of major discoveries because, as Clarke’s third law tells you, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. If Dr. Ancient One believes you’re operating in the realm of magic, then you’re undoubtedly knocking on the door of an earth-shattering breakthrough. And quite possibly, if you can successfully apply scientific principles to the creation of the ultimate witch, perhaps the Charmed production staff will hire you as a technical consultant. Then your knees go weak and you break out in a cold sweat. You realize that if you can pull this off, perhaps they might even ask you for a script treatment.
Just before you faint, you manage to use all your scientific powers to pull yourself together (you start mumbling the value of pi out to 200 significant digits—a very powerful, mind-numbing spell, that works on both mortals and witches), regain some small amount of composure, shake Dr. Ancient One’s gnarled, old hand and run back to your lab, stopping only at the vending machine to stock up on salt-laden snacks and hyper-caffeinated sodas, knowing it will be another all-nighter in the pursuit of scientific truths. You barricade yourself in your lab, plop yourself down at your desk and open up your notebook. The entry you put down is:
How to Build the Ultimate Witch
Where to start? Like any good scientist, you know that it is best to consider those avenues of research for which you feel passion, with which your persona resonates. You think of all the experiments you’ve run, and ask yourself what have been the most exciting moments of your scientific career.
Invariably you recall those moments in which you blew something up.
Nothing quite says science like an explosion.
You smile as you think of Piper and her dual powers of Molecular Combustion and Molecular Inhibition. Fire and Ice. This is a sort of yin and yang thing, and as a scientist you resonate with that. One of the most fundamental premises of physics is that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is what drives a rocket ship: the hot, explosive gasses blowing off in one direction, the rocket then thrusting off in the opposite direction. You first consider Piper’s power of Molecular Combustion. As a scientist, this one is easy for you to understand. Heat is nothing but enhanced molecular motion.
Take a balloon full of gas. What keeps the skin of the balloon taut are the gas molecules inside of it, bouncing about, ricocheting not only off one another, but against the sides of the balloon as they smash into them. Each time one hits the inside of the balloon and bounces back, the “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction” credo comes into play. As the molecule bounces away, the side of the balloon recoils just a microscopic bit. Because these gas molecules are striking the balloon evenly on all sides, the balloon does not go scooting away like a rocket, but all that bouncing does apply a uniform pressure to the inside of the balloon, keeping it inflated and its skin taut.
Then Piper’s power is applied.
Molecular motion is increased, so that the molecules in the balloon start moving around faster, and as a consequence, when they collide with the inside of the balloon they impart a greater force.
So what happens then?
The balloon grows bigger, of course. And the more that molecular motion is increased, the bigger the balloon gets. If this continues, eventually the balloon pops and the hot molecules go spilling out into the room. What works for a balloon will work for any object, including the demons that Piper typically focuses her power on.
So Molecular Combustion makes scientific sense. This is the yin of her powers. Now for the yang: Molecular Inhibition. This one makes you scratch your head a bit. Molecular Inhibition you certainly understand from a physics perspective. If you took that same balloon and decreased the motion of the molecules within it, the punch with which they’d hit the inside wall of the balloon would decrease, and the balloon would start to shrink as the gas inside cooled. The problem is that when Piper employs this power it is not in order to slow down or stop the motion of molecules but rather, seemingly, to stop time. When Piper unleashes Molecular Inhibition, the fragments of an exploding object suddenly hang still in midair. Your physics training tells you that this is not really a case of Molecular Inhibition, but of Temporal Inhibition, in which time is slowed or stopped, and that is a whole different ballgame.
If you take an object, freeze it to a temperature of absolute zero, what happens is that the molecules within it stop buzzing about and are in fact locked in place. But if you take that object and knock it off a table, it still falls to the floor regardless of what the molecules inside of it are doing. So something else is at play in the case of what the Charmed Ones refer to as Molecular Inhibition.
So where is the true yang of the yin’s Molecular Combustion?
Then you see it and realize once again that it pays to do your research. Since you just reviewed every episode of Charmed, the episode “Bride and Gloom” is still fresh in your sleep-deprived brain. In that episode Prue was forced into marrying an evil warlock in a ceremony that, in turn, made the other sisters evil. This also had the effect of twisting the sister’s powers. What had erroneously been called Molecular Inhibition now truly became Molecular Inhibition, when this ability was transformed into what was then called cryokinesis. Piper could literally freeze objects, encasing them in ice.
Now this is more like it.
And it suddenly all makes sense from a scientific perspective. When Piper is a good witch, she can explode objects by increasing molecular motion, but when she is a bad witch, she can freeze objects by decreasing their molecular motion. There is none of the confusing aspect of time slowing and stopping involved in this—it is a pure case of equal and opposite reactions, in this case manifesting itself differently depending on whether Piper is good or evil.
And it is at that point that you have your eureka moment of scientific bliss.
What you just realized is that your insight is nothing new. In fact, the scientific basis for this magical ability to speed up or slow down molecular motion is more than a century old, developed by one of the greatest scientists of the nineteenth century—James Clerk Maxwell.
Never heard of him?
Well, you should thank him.
More than a century and a half ago Maxwell came up with a set of equations that unified electricity and magnetism, and with the aid of these electromagnetic equations, such developments as radio and television became possible. Whenever you talk on your cell phone, your voice is transformed into electromagnetic waves that obey Maxwell’s equations.
But there was also something else he did in another area of research, that of thermodynamics. He created what is now called Maxwell’s Demon. That’s right—one of the greatest scientists of all time created a Demon.
And this is what his Demon did.
Maxwell imagined a sealed box full of gas (much like our balloon) that is divided into two compartments connected by a very small door. Sitting next to the door is a demon with the power to see individual molecules. Whenever the demon sees a molecule zipping about at great speed (high-energy molecules are what make things feel hot) about to hit the door, he opens the door and lets the molecule pass into the other compartment. In a similar fashion, whenever he sees a molecule dragging by, barely moving (low-energy molecules are what make things feel cold) in the compartment that he just let the hot molecule zip into, he opens the door and lets it into the other compartment. After a while one compartment holds all the slow-moving molecules, while the other compartment holds all the fast-moving molecules.
Wait a few moments and something magical happens.
One side of the box starts to grow icicles, while the other side of the box glows red from heat. Has this behavior ever been observed? Have you ever watched a box grow icicles from one side and burst into flames on the other?
I doubt it.
And the reason should be obvious—you don’t have access to a Maxwell’s Demon. They are tough to control, no doubt about it. Scientists have been trying to build one of these little beasts for the last century and a half without much luck, though in the last few years they have had some success building them to operate in very small boxes, such as you might find in the microscopic corners of integrated circuits.
But in this case you don’t need to build one.
Because one already exists—Piper’s powers obviously flow from a Maxwell’s Demon over which she has control. Now while Piper can use her Maxwell’s Demon to explode some evil demon, or encase a witch in ice, to the scientific mind it is obvious that Piper has not even scratched the surface of the inherent powers of a Maxwell’s Demon.
But a scientist can show her the way.
Consider first the classical operation of Maxwell’s Demon. He works best when shoving hot molecules in one direction and pushing cold molecules in the opposite direction. Think about Piper as she faces down a demon, attempting to use Molecular Combustion to blow it up. She could get so much more bang for her buck if she played to the strength of Maxwell’s Demon. Rather than having it just try to stuff fast-moving molecules in the vicinity of her target, she should also have it remove slow-moving molecules and direct them toward a second target.
Two for the price of one.
Take a standard demon, and have Piper’s Maxwell’s Demon concentrate every fast-moving molecule in its head and every slow-moving molecule in its chest. Faster than you can say presto, its head will explode, and its frozen chest will shatter into infinite pieces from the shock of the exploding head. Or, if facing two demons, one can be made to explode and the other frozen and then shattered. Yin and yang. For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. This is science pure and simple. Such an approach would be so much more efficient, requiring far less strain on Piper and probably allowing her to use her powers over much greater areas.
But that is just the tip of the iceberg.
The essence of Maxwell’s Demon is that it can control the positioning of individual molecules. Here is a fun trick: Air is a gas. Like any gas, if you get it cold enough it will turn to a liquid, and if you get it even colder it will turn into a solid. Now, levitation is a handy thing and Phoebe has the power to use it. But Piper could make her own sort of levitation. She could use her Maxwell’s Demon to place the most frigid air molecules right in front of her, actually freezing the air to assemble a solid staircase. Piper could then literally walk on air. Might not be levitation in the conventional witch sense, but it would certainly get the job done.
The positioning of molecules does not have to be restricted to selectively moving only the hot and cold ones about. Maxwell’s Demon could also target the type of air molecules he is using. Air is composed primarily of nitrogen and oxygen molecules, but also traces of carbon dioxide, neon, argon, water vapor and a whole host of various polluting gases (like carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide and ozone). If you assemble these different molecules in to thin sheets and shine a light at it, the light can be bent as it passes through or even reflected (all described through the use of Maxwell’s equations) depending on the thickness of the sheets of molecules and the distance between each stack. The ability to bend and reflect light would allow Piper to wrap herself in a cloak of specially aligned air molecules, making her invisible or even transferring her image to a different location. Now that would be a mighty handy ability to have when trying to sneak up on a demon.
Further consideration of Maxwell’s Demon would lead one to believe that, if the Demon can manipulate a gas molecule, then it should be able to grab on to that molecule and have some fun and games with it. An oxygen molecule actually consists of two oxygen atoms tied together with a chemical bond. This bond can be broken by adding a dab of energy. Now we know that Maxwell’s Demon is a master of moving energy about, so it should have no problem breaking a bond between atoms.
This opens up a whole new range of powers.
Everything is constructed of atoms, and the atoms in a particular object are held in place and locked together because of the bonds between them. Piper should be able to command Maxwell’s Demon to sever any bond between atoms she desires. Imagine a speeding car is hurtling down the street at Piper. While she could apply the powers of Maxwell’s Demon in a conventional manner, turning the left half of the car into an exploding fireball and the right half into a chunk of frozen steel and plastic, she might still be crushed by the oncoming debris. So why not just use Maxwell’s Demon to sever all the bonds down the center of the car, causing it to collapse in half—with the two halves then falling to either side, missing Piper as they rush by?
With a wave of her hands, she could cut anything. And in a similar fashion she could use Maxwell’s Demon to bond atoms together. Fighting a horde of rampaging vampires? No problem. Simply attach atomic bonds between their feet and the street and they’d be stuck, literally glued there, unable to escape and waiting for the sun to rise.
The ability to break or attach bonds would also open up another whole realm of possibilities in the area of health. Diseases generally fall into two categories: those caused by bacteria or viruses, and those that come about because of a genetic defect in DNA. A well-trained Maxwell’s Demon could eradicate diseases occurring under both of those conditions. In the case of a viral or bacterial invader, it would be a trivial thing for a Maxwell’s Demon to locate the bugs (they’re so much larger than gas molecules) and snip a few key bonds within them—they’d be dead, and the patient cured. In the case of genetically based diseases, it would be a bit more challenging, requiring the demon to manipulate the patient at the genetic level, correcting defects in DNA by snipping out defective genes (nothing but long chains of twisted molecules), and then through molecular manipulation assemble a healthy gene to replace it. No easy task to be sure, and it might require a witch with a detailed knowledge of genomics and molecular biology to take full advantage of a Maxwell’s Demon with the ability to manipulate DNA. But once you’ve trained your Maxwell’s Demon to fool with DNA, then a person’s entire DNA could be rewritten, resulting in subtle transformations such as turning someone’s brown eyes to blue, or more major modifications such as giving someone a tail, another person’s face, enhanced mental powers or a speedier metabolism to quickly burn off those unwanted pounds.
Maxwell’s Demon could handle all of this.
But with a little training it could do even more.
Piper could train her Maxwell’s Demon to go nuclear.
Now, because Maxwell’s Demon can access molecules and atoms, it would be no problem for it to seek out some very specific atoms—say those especially heavy varieties such as uranium atoms. While these atoms are relatively rare, the demon wouldn’t have much problem flitting about over great distances, gathering an atom here and there before returning and placing all of them in a pile.
Take a uranium atom with just the right number of neutrons and protons in its nucleus (called uranium-235 for this application), and these atoms will on occasion spontaneously decay into two smaller atoms, spit out a few neutrons and give off a big burst of energy. Those neutrons are really energetic and, if they collide with another uranium atom, can cause it to spontaneously split, throwing off more fast-moving neutrons in the process. If you can keep these uranium atoms packed together in a tight enough volume (not easy since the heat they are giving off wants to blast them apart—just like when Piper uses her thermal combustion powers to blow something up), this chain reaction of splitting atoms will result in a nuclear explosion.
Piper should be able to teach her Maxwell’s Demon to do this.
With Piper’s current limited understanding of the science behind her powers, she can at best explode a demon’s head and freeze a few objects. But if she were able to get in intimate contact with her inner Maxwell’s Demon and learn just what the possibilities are when you can control individual molecules and atoms, Piper’s powers would be almost infinite, including invisibility and pseudo-levitation, as well as the ability to tear anything apart or attach anything together, simultaneously freeze and vaporize any object, cure all diseases, alter anyone at the DNA level and, for those extreme emergencies (possibly when facing the Source of all Evil), even unleash a nuclear reaction.
This would be one powerful witch.
And then there is the final step. While atoms and molecules are small, on the order of one-billionth the size of the tip of your finger, there are objects much much smaller. Theoretical physicists believe that the fabric of the universe, what is called space-time, while over most distances (even atomic) shows no structure or texture, does in fact eventually show structure at distances that are a billion-billion-billion times smaller than that of an atom. At those dimensions space-time is a churning froth of tortured geometry. It is at those distances that wormholes are born, connecting different points in the universe together—shortcuts across normal space-time. For a witch who had mastered all the capabilities of a conventional Maxwell’s Demon, the final frontier would be to train that Demon to access the very fabric of space-time, to touch reality at those distances a billion-billion-billion times smaller than that of an atom. To be able to generate wormholes from the froth of space-time would allow a witch to open up portals between any two points in space, time or both.
Teleportation becomes trivial. Time travel is a snap.
And for the witch and Maxwell’s Demon who really wish to impress friends and throw a scare into evildoers, the application of just the right jolt of energy over those infinitesimal distances could initiate another Big Bang, the event responsible for the creation of our entire universe. Yes, such a witch could create an entirely new universe.
That would be the ultimate witch.
And it really would not take much. All that is required is an understanding of the scientific basis of magical abilities and a bit of extrapolation, plus a solid background in science, and you have the ultimate witch, one in whom magic and science have been melded together to create something that neither could have spawned alone. The key of course is for Piper to comprehend the underlying basis of her own magic, as she will only be able to fully exploit her inner Maxwell’s Demon once she understands the physics behind the manipulation of molecules, atoms and the fabric of space-time. If Piper could master the science that truly underpins her magic, then she’d find herself not only on the path of becoming the ultimate witch, but also in fulfilling the prophesy of Clarke’s third law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Robert A. Metzger is a research scientist and a science fiction and science writer. His research focuses on the technique of Molecular Beam Epitaxy, used to grow epitaxial films for high-speed electronics applications. His short fiction has appeared in most major SF magazines including: Asimov’s, Fantasy & Science Fiction and SF Age, while his 2002 novel Picoverse was a Nebula finalist, and his most recent novel Cusp was released by Ace in 2005. His science writing has appeared in Wired and Analog, and he is a contributing editor to the Science Fiction Writers of America’s Bulletin.