imeeji_frontstage | (no subject)

Hmm. . . There are mechanical appliances here, but a lot of what's in here are chemicals.

[ with a little wave of her hand, and one of the shelves is opening up, seemingly magically floating to the workbench ]

...so you have potion making too?

[Following along to see the work bench.]

I think alchemy is a closer concept to chemistry, but I guess you could say they're potions?

[ the shelf contains a box inside, which felicity is picking up and setting onto the workbench delicately. once she opens it, rufous will be able to see hexagonal . . . clouds?

at least they look a lot like a cloud might. ]

Alchemy is pretty close to potions. At least in the Isles. Like...

All potions are a kind of alchemy, but not all alchemy is just potions. [Wild Magic has some Alchemy Stuff, SO.]

[He leans close to look at it, tilting his head curiously.]

Some kind of...dense smoke?

Mm, that makes sense. Likewise, mixing chemicals together would be chemistry, but not chemistry isn't just about mixing chemicals together.

[ picking one up carefully, offering it out to him ]

This is a microporous silica! It's 99% air, and it feels almost as light as air, too.

Microporous...sillica? [What's a sillica?]

[He will taking it though!!!]

Whoa, that's...weird.

[ it feels a little bit like glass so maybe that might be what it is ]

Microporous means it has a lot of tiny little holes in its structure, and silica is a type of compound—you'd find it naturally in sand and in quartz! Not like this, though. I made this!

[ while she reaches for a bunsen burner ]

[Maybe????]

I see.

....no offense, it is an interesting material, but what would something like this be even used for?

[ grins ]

That's a good question. It's really delicate, after all—the gaps in the structure means it's really easy to break.

But the gaps have another quality, too. Here, you can put it on this.

[ she's set up a bunsen burner and ring stand, with a watchglass on the ringstand. gesturing to the watchglass ]

[????]

[He will put it on the watchglass?]

[ and she will turn on the bunsen burner. ]

What is your understanding of heat?

...I....understand it?

I guess how you mean?

Uhm. . . So you know heat is energy, right? And there are three methods of heat transfer?

Edited 2022-01-27 11:29 (UTC)

Oh!

Yes.

There's conduction which is direct contact, convection which is through moving water or air, and when its radiated out by another kind of energy like magic. [WHICH. Is close enough to electromagnetic waves, okay.]

[ close enough ]

Ahaha. . . in our world, radiation would be electromagnetic waves. But okay! So, this microporous silica is a great insulator, since it can block two out of three methods of heat transfer. See?

[ the fire's been on the watchglass for a while now, and felicity is reaching over to just. stick her finger on the top of the aerogel ]

Electromagnetic wave?

[wejaioejwaioew] Felicity!

[Reaching for hand because]

[HONESTLY]

[He has plenty of reason to believe she'd stick her hand in Literal Fire, okay.]

[ because she absolutely would

and she absolutely just took his panic as enthusiasm ]

See? Isn't it cool!

[Felicity please!]

[Also looking over her hand.] You could have burned yourself-

[ completely uninjured hand. it isn't even like, More Warm than usual ]

It's okay, I'm not hurt. And I wouldn't have burned myself—well, if I fell, I could have, but see, I didn't!

[Oh]

[Ooooh]

[Feeling her hand.]

...its an insulator?

Mmhm, yep! It can withstand up to about 600 degrees Celsius. Which. . . uhmm. . .

[ pausing ]

That's about around the melting point of aluminum!

[~~tmw I have to wonder what metal forms in a giant's corpse-~~]

And it just...keeps all the heat out?

Well, it won't keep out radiating heat, but otherwise, yes!

You said you don't know what this would be used for. It's not a material I remember from back in my world, but on this planet, they use it for all sorts of things—like building infrastructure and making blankets and clothing retain more heat.

It doesn't withstand enough heat for what I want to use it for, so I don't have much of a use for these, but it was a fun first experiment.

[ turning off the bunsen burner, now ]

Just this...electromagnetic kind, or things like magic? [Paaaause.] We could actually test that. [WHAT WOULD THERMODYNAMIC DO IT TO IT????]

That does make sense. Keeping a house cool is pretty hard to do without magic. Need proper air flow and structure and things like that. If a material kept out heat, it would help a lot. Probably help keep heat in when they needed it warm too.

What are you looking to do?

[ that's a good question. it would be warmed but not boiling which doesn't mean it couldn't melt??? ]

I'm looking to research volcanoes, of course!

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