CAN TECHNOLOGY REPLICATE THE REDUCTOR CURSE?

The reductor curse is used to destroy solid objects by splitting them into pieces or a fine dust. Harry used it against a hedge but only managed to burn a small hole in it, while it has also been used to explode shelves.

If we wanted to achieve the same effect, we would have to identify the solid material to be destroyed and then find the most suitable method to do so. In essence though, whatever method we use boils down to finding a way to break the bonds that hold the material together. This would generally involve some kind of physical, chemical, or biological reaction. So, in what ways could we replicate the effects of the reductor curse?

Chemical Reactions

A chemical reaction is one where electrons are gained or lost by a substance. If no electrons have been traded, then it isn’t regarded as a chemical reaction. Common chemical reactions include milk going sour, rusting of iron, and combustion, i.e., burning. In all chemical reactions, chemical bonds between atoms and molecules are broken and new ones are formed.

What chemical changes could break down a solid into a fine dust or else cause it to burn, explode, or split into pieces?

To burn a small hole in a hedge would generally imply that combustion has taken place. A combustion reaction causes a substance, called the oxidizer, to react with another substance, called the fuel. The oxidizer acts to take electrons from the fuel and releases energy in the process. The fuel is then considered oxidized. There are different oxidizers with different strengths, but the major oxidizer of combustion reactions on Earth is oxygen, which is why things on Earth generally need oxygen to burn.

In a combustion reaction, oxygen takes electrons from the fuel, and we say that the fuel has been oxidized because it has lost electrons. The process by which oxygen gains electrons is called reduction. While the fuel is oxidized by oxygen, the oxygen is reduced by the fuel. In fact, you can’t get one process without the other.

Whenever something has undergone oxidation i.e. been oxidized by having electrons taken, the substance that has taken the electrons (the oxidizer) must have undergone reduction i.e. it has gained the electrons. As such, these types of reactions are also known as redox reactions, which is shorthand for reduction-oxidation reactions. Combustion is a fast-acting redox reaction, whereas a corrosive process like rusting is a much slower redox reaction.

It may be tempting to relate chemical reduction to the reductor curse, but in the case of burning a hedge, the wizard would be more correctly oxidizing the hedge through combustion. Could the reductor curse be an extreme form of oxidation, then?

Extreme Oxidation

There are various oxidizers with different abilities to pull away electrons. One of the strongest is an extremely reactive and highly toxic substance called chlorine trifluoride. Chlorine trifluoride is hypergolic, meaning it spontaneously ignites when mixed with other substances. It readily reacts with all known fuels, as well as cloth, wood, asbestos, sand, people and water, with which it reacts explosively. It was investigated for use as a possible rocket fuel but subsequently deemed too dangerous.

If a wizard’s reducto spell instigated a chemical reaction like oxidation of a wooden table, it would still take a fair bit of time to actually burn the table down to an ash or fine dust. The wizard would have to manipulate the speed of the reaction to make it happen quicker. In chemistry, catalysts can be used to achieve this, but increased temperature can also help. A catalyst is a substance that speeds up the rate of a reaction, without being used up in the process or chemically changing itself.

When Parvati Patil “produced such a good reductor curse that she had reduced the table carrying all the Sneakoscopes to dust,” perhaps her spell rapidly oxidized the wood, using some kind of magical super powerful catalyst. However, as muggles have discovered, rapid oxidation could be a very dangerous thing to attempt indeed, considering the explosive reactions that can occur. Other than chemistry, what other means could we use to imitate a reductor curse?

Physical Reactions

A physical change (reaction) is one where there is a change in some aspect of a substance (such as temperature, shape, color, size) but no change in the composition of the substance. For example, when ice is heated it changes from a solid to a liquid but still has the composition of water. The water is said to have changed state in this case i.e. from solid to liquid.

Other examples of physical changes include crushing a can, boiling water, breaking a glass, demolishing a building, and grinding peppercorns. If a reductor curse acts by causing a purely physical change, then, depending on the target, there are a few physical processes that could create that effect.

A shockwave from an exploding rocket or meteor in midair can smash windows, though the solid concrete parts of the building would remain comparatively unharmed. For a shockwave to disintegrate or pulverize a wall or rock face would require an immense amount of energy. There is still a way to break up rock, though, and it doesn’t use explosives.

Things in nature are subject to the elements such as wind, rain, and heating by the sun. The elements’ effect on natural objects is known as weathering. This is frequently seen when water gets into cracks in certain rocks and repeatedly freezes and thaws. The water expands and contracts over and over again, developing stresses in the rocks. Eventually, blocks fracture and break off, ending up as a scree slope at the base of the rock face.

Weathering is a rather long-winded process and would only be possible on certain types of rock; it wouldn’t work on wood or a hedge as they are more flexible and can withstand the stresses and strains. So, how about we cool things down a lot more.

Frozen Solid

When some objects like polymers, flowers, or fruit are frozen to extremely low temperatures they can be simply crushed or else shattered with sufficient impact. This works because as the temperature decreases the material becomes more brittle. Liquid nitrogen is a common substance used to bring the temperature down, as it typically only exists as a liquid between minus 210 and minus 196 degrees Celsius.

At room temperature, the structure of a substance can better absorb an impact, dissipating any stress and strain by stretching and deforming. At this temperature, the molecules in the structure are free to slip past each other. However, as the temperature is reduced, the material becomes less elastic until it reaches its frozen state. At that point, the molecules are less free to move and so the energy of the impact is not dissipated but rather concentrated in localized regions, leading to brittle fractures and potential shattering.

Brittle fractures are a result of the breaking of atomic bonds, which lead to the substance being cleaved apart on a molecular level. The energy put into causing the break is required to overcome the cohesive forces between the atoms along the crack path. We see this when wood is broken into chunks and giving off splinters, but it wouldn’t turn the wood into dust. Usually, this requires repetitive action from a saw or chopper.

If wood or paper is frozen, they don’t become brittle in the same way because they are made of fibers which, although may become brittle in themselves, can still slide passed each other and so allows a level of flexibility in the object as a whole. So, reducto couldn’t be used on a table by making it extremely cold; the table would break but not shatter or be reduced to dust. How about using sound to break up a solid object?

Sonic Reducto

The use of sound waves to break up solid materials is a well-known phenomenon, as seen in the ability of some singers to shatter glass using their voice alone. Muggles have a contraption called a lithotripter that can use sound to pulverize solid masses in the body known as calculi but commonly called stones. Calculi include bladder stones, gallstones, and kidney stones. They form as a result of minerals and salts clumping together after becoming highly concentrated in the urine. The stones are usually quite small and get passed out unnoticed in the urine. However, if they are too big, then treatment to remove them may be necessary. The lithotripter allows provision of a noninvasive treatment such as ESWL, which stands for extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy. Extracorporeal simply means “outside the body.”

In ESWL, the lithotripter is used to focus high-energy ultrasound shockwaves at the stone. The shockwaves travel through the body alternately compressing and stretching tissue as they pass. Most body tissue is quite resilient to the resulting tensile forces. but solid materials such as the stones have less give and are more susceptible to fracturing. For most of the journey through the body, the waves are spread out so they don’t impart as much energy. However, when they reach the focal point where the stone is, the energy from the shockwaves are more intense and sufficient to cause the stone to break up into smaller pieces, some as small as sand grains. It should be noted that it requires more than a thousand shockwaves to pulverize the stones, with some treatments lasting up to an hour. Again, the rate at which the breaking up occurs is still too slow for the immediate needs of the brawling witch or wizard. So where does this leave us?

Reducto!

Burning a hole in a hedge is a very possible technology. Blowing up glass objects is also possible either by using sound waves that match the natural frequency of a glass or more broadly through the creation of shock waves. These could smash glass shelves if carrying enough energy, however they would need to be many times stronger to break brick.

On a smaller scale, it’s also possible to break down internal stones, or calculi, using supersonic sound waves through the body. Wood is more difficult to reduce to dust, unless you’re willing to wait a number of minutes for it to burn down, or else find some physical object to break it up. So, we do have technologies that can replicate aspects of the reductor curse, but a fully functioning one-size-fits-all technology is currently out of the question.