Physicist Peter Higgs Answers Your D&D Questions

This has been drifting around in various social media circles over the last few days. Peter Higgs (after whom the Higgs boson is named) is a Nobel Prize winner, theoretical physicist, and emeritus professor at the University of Edinburgh. So, naturally, he's the ideal person to ask for some clarification on various Dungeons & Dragons rules. From half-elf wizards falling through dimension doors, parabolic arcs and fireballs, dodging lightning, and more, this piece by Mark Rooke is sure to make you smile.

 

[Mr. Flibble]

Here's the one I can't figure out: how does a sphere of annhilation exist in any space that isn't a total vacuum without just wrecking the place?

 

[Morrus]

Here's the one I can't figure out: how does a sphere of annhilation exist in any space that isn't a total vacuum without just wrecking the place?

Magic?

 

[Mr. Flibble]

Magic?

Now how is that answer good science?

 

[Henry]

Now how is that answer good science?

What Russ meant to say is that it's easy to contain a Sphere of Annihilation by amplifying the ionic dampening array.

 

[Rune]

Poor guy... It sounds to me like they pulled a prank on him or something. I don't think it's any less real than a bunch of college students pulling a practical joke on an accomplished scientist, or less real than a D&D book being the closest thing some people might own to a 10th grade physics book (you don't need a Nobel prize winning theorhetical physicist to tell you that there's no evasion rules on being struck by lightning in real life) this piece is as just sad as it is funny. Though it is certainly both.

If it was real (which I very much doubt) and a prank, he would have likely been in on the prank, himself, given the intricate and highly specific rules-knowledge displayed.

 

[Mr. Flibble]

What Russ meant to say is that it's easy to contain a Sphere of Annihilation by amplifying the ionic dampening array.

Oh, well, when you put it that way. But wouldn't that be the long way around? Why not just reverse the polarity of the neutron flow?

 

[Henry]

Oh, well, when you put it that way. But wouldn't that be the long way around? Why not just reverse the polarity of the neutron flow?

Yeah, but that has the same repercussions as when routing an inverse tachyon pulse through your main deflector dish, and NOBODY wants THOSE side effects. Sheesh.

Come to think of it, better to just Counteract the Quantum Gravimetric Effect with a Polaron Generator. Far lower chance of an explosion that way...


...I think....

 

[Rune]

I would think that the point of asking a physicist questions about D&D would be to get simulationist responses, not rules-knowledge or technobabble.

 

[Fralex]

Hmm... but does physics allow the dimension door itself to have velocity? That is to say, if the spell teleports the user by creating a temporary wormhole or other space-bending portal around them, wouldn't the portal, as a product of the user, be brought into existence moving with the user? In that case, passing through the portal to a location on the ground, regardless of what speed you are falling, would be no different from stepping onto a merry-go-round by running alongside it at the same speed and jumping. From the user's perspective, the ground did not "come up to meet them"; it simply appeared underneath them moving at exactly the same speed they were falling at. Motion is relative, after all. Why should the portal be stationary with respect to the planet's motion and not your own?

Well, unless the magic spell does not come directly from the user. The PHB describes magic as the bending of strings on the mystical Weave to distort reality in a specific way. The Weave is virtually omnipresent, so it probably moves along with a planet, not any one person. If it were to create a wormhole and pass it through a creature, that portal probably would not stop the ground's rapid approach and momentum, with respect to the planet and its magic-infused atmosphere (thaumasphere?), would be conserved.

Teleportation circle, on the other hand, states that the portal emerges from a circle drawn on the ground. If you can lift up that patch of ground without disrupting the magic, and you were to jump off a cliff with that patch of ground, then teleporting could save you. Well, unless the circle you draw is just a marker for where the portal will be created, not where it will stay. Then it's got the same problem as dimension door.

 

[AlmirEldignor]

Oh, well, when you put it that way. But wouldn't that be the long way around? Why not just reverse the polarity of the neutron flow?

Hmmm, maybe better to simply erect a semi-permeable molecular membrane around the boundary of the sphere