Pretty sure wizards are familiar with old technology like trains and cars. But like another comment said, muggles are advancing while wizards stagnate in their old ways and traditions and shit sice they keep themselves so separated.
Comment on Anon learns a new spell
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 3 days agoDon’t they drive a car? and ride a train? so combustion works…
reseller_pledge609@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 3 days ago
Combustion is very old technology. Putting it inside a different machine (e.g. a gun or a car engine) doesn’t change the chemistry. If you want to get right down to it, we’re just talking about oxidation - which means that in any sort of world where rapid oxidation doesn’t work (i.e. explosives), your lungs also don’t work because you need that oxygen bonding with the iron in your hemoglobin or you die.
If you can light a fire, you can make an explosion. If you can make an explosion, you can use it to launch a projectile.
There’s no world in which fire exists but guns are impossible. Even if you don’t have the metalworking sophistication for a modern gun, you could still make a Chinese-style gunpowder rocket.
LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Or just straight up bombs. The beauty is that an IED can catch even a master wizard off guard. No need for metalworking, and since they have cars, well… surely there is some character with Irish roots, right?
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 3 days ago
Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
This is a world with flying broomsticks and cars, teleportation, and even time travel.
Of course you can get away with saying gunpowder just doesn’t explode here.
icelimit@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
Gunpowder is just fire propagating at the speed of sound through solid (powder). As long as sound exists, the magical world can’t exclude the angry dust.
Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Combustion, sure, but not an explosion. Or the car is a special magic car or whatever.
dohpaz42@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Combustion, sure, but not an explosion.
I hate to do this to you, but that’s kind how explosions work (i.e. combustion).
ccryx@discuss.tchncs.de 3 days ago
More specifically, that’s how cars with a combustion engine work: lots of tiny explosions.
Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
No, they’re a combustion event. An actual explosion (detonation, pre ignition) is really bad news for an engine.
Firearms use a self oxidising propellant, so it would be quite easy to say that just doesn’t work.
GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
Don’t be coy, you absolutely love doing this.
Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Nope, there’s a fundamental difference between a fuel/air mixture burning and something like gunpowder, which is a self oxidising propellant. Most explosives are in the latter category.
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 3 days ago
Explosions are combustion.
And really we’re just talking about oxidation. If oxidation works (which it must, because the characters are breathing) then chemically-propelled projectiles must also work.
Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Look, we’re talking about a world where people fly around on broomsticks like we ride bicycles.
Of course you can just declare that firearms don’t work.
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 3 days ago
I mean… not if your fantasy world has any internal consistency… and if it doesn’t then it might as well be Cloud Cuckoo Land.
zaphod@sopuli.xyz 3 days ago
For all we know the hogwarts express runs on magic and so does the car, after all it flies.
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 3 days ago
It makes steam.
deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 3 days ago
Magic steam.
zaphod@sopuli.xyz 3 days ago
So it’s electric?
Mirshe@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Aesthetic is more important than practicality.