Grrl Power #234 – Annihilation application
Yes Jiggawatt suddenly has gold hair to match her lipstick since a lot of people thought she looked too much like Storm, which is probably fair. I had planned on fixing all her previous appearances before putting this page up, but migrating the page to the new host took several hours out of several days this week so I’m a tiny bit behind. Like Maxima’s sudden and unexplained demotion, it will probably have to wait till I’m getting ready to do all the fixes at once for the book. Though I suppose I could just change Jiggawatts hair back to the beginning of the fight. I mean, she could have gotten her hair done before her family thing tonight.
I may need to revisit Jiggawatt’s 6 rank on the cast page. She’s turning out to be pretty powerful. I think I put her at 6 largely because she’s a one trick pony. She’d have a bad time against someone heavily resistant to lightning… but, with the “darkning” that really opens up her options. I actually asked about this on a Reddit science thread, and the consensus was that positrons would behave exactly like electrons. You could arc them, store or generate them in chemical batteries, transmit them down wires etc… assuming of course that the chemical batteries and wires were comprised of antimatter. It does make me wonder what would happen if matter was struck with positron lightning. The electrons in the matter would be annihilated, leaving behind a pile of highly charged and unstable gamma irradiated protons and neutrons (I’m guessing.) I’ll have to think about what impact that will have on the comic. I suspect my solution will either be “Holy shit Jiggawatt that’s dangerous! Never use that again!” or “Something about living matter destabilizes the positrons, limiting their effectiveness” which I don’t want to do because it’s such a trite comic booky excuse, but otherwise… jeeze, Jiggawatt may well be one of the most dangerous members of the team. Of course the hugely limiting factor here is the gamma radiation thing. Hulk jokes aside, gamma radiation is super bad m’kay? She wouldn’t realistically be able to use it often without significant risks to her own health. Dabbler’s going to have to have a talk with her.
On the other hand – half the stuff superheroes do should involve radioactive fallout, so I’m not sure why I’m picking on Jiggawatt. I mean… what the hell did Max shoot at that tank earlier? It wasn’t a shitload of C-4. And it wasn’t a thing that opened up a microsecond micro portal to the sun – that would be radioactive as balls. It’s that suspiciously clean energy that all superheroes use, from Cyclops and Havok to Starfire and anyone that shoots “energy.” Not lightning or fire or something identifiable. Just “energy.” Really Cyclops? You shoot kinetic blasts? What is it, red telekinesis? No, it’s “energy.”
So the site has been migrated to the new server. Hopefully it will be zippity doo da fast around here from now on. If you see anything weird (on the page, not in general) try dumping your cache (CTRL+F5) and see if that fixes it, if not, send me a screenshot and your browser version to grrlpowercomic-at-gmail. Oh and I had my guru flip a switch so now the reply field appears right under the comment you’re replying to which is rad.
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The charlatan in me says, “How does Jiggawatt know she is shooting positrons?” She has a purple lightning effect that somehow absorbs or neutralizes electricity. Must be positrons, because I read in a magazine somewhere that positrons do something like that. She could be just plain wrong.
My guess is that her “darkning” is just a side effect of her ability to aim her lightning blasts: she creates a (colorful) channel that allows her to direct lightning toward herself and allows it to be absorbed harmlessly. Just because she uses science in a sentence doesn’t mean she has subjected herself to rigorous testing.
Heh… I was making the same point as well. You get First, though. *grin*
so, if you had lightning powers, you wouldn’t attempt to learn everything you could about lightning?
Then she failed learning what happens when posi-lightning meets elec-lightning
Learning everything one could about lightning, however, would still take time (as well as the intelligence and wisdom to understand and apply what one has learned).
since she can somehow aim her lightning she must indeed be capable of creating a ionized path(lightning is conducted by air that has all the electrons stripped off, otherwise it’s not so conductive) before shooting a big jolt trough it.
and while positrons might behave similar to electrons in negative mater world, they would not flow down matter with protons in it electron or not…
so I agree that it must be something else.
but whether that has something to do with her ionizing ability…?
it stands to reason glow bug must do something similar…
Other have touched on this, but I’ve got to wonder how Jiggawatt knows she can “cancel” lightning with positrons unless she has done it before. Which means that she would know the effects of taking that action.
So, either she isn’t really mixing matter/anti-matter outside of a warp containment field, or she does so at a small enough scale (electrons and positrons are quite small, after all, and the atmosphere absorbs the gamma rays which are created due to natural causes before they pose any danger to people) that it isn’t a hazard to life on Earth as we know it. Or perhaps she provides her own warp containment field…
He is going to doom them all.
AWESOME!
Okay, guys? I think that there’s an obvious solution here instead of everyone being dead from gamma rays. And it’s a pretty simple one, really, and the clue is in how Jiggawatt pronounces and spells her name. To quote Inigo Montoya, “You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.”
What Jiggawatt produces isn’t anti-matter, but more of a lightning dampener. She just heard that lightning is electricity, which is caused by electrons, and she’s heard of positrons but doesn’t really know what they are except they are the opposite of electrons and destroy them. That’s also why it’s dark, because it absorbs rather than emits radiation, so it would appear dark.
To potential white knights: I’m not saying that Jigs is stupid. She probably just wasn’t interested in science because it turned out not to be as cool as Doc Brown’s Lab. Which makes sense, because US High School science classes are boring as hell and don’t teach anything that was discovered last century… like positrons.
Yea, way I figure there are 3 options here
1)She IS producing antimatter, and her brain is a little scrambled from the sonic blast and she can’t see the full picture (so she’s being dangerous to everyone)
2)She is producing antimatter, but her powers allow her to render the resulting radiation harmless (or is even powering her up), so she knows exactly what she’s doing
3)She’s misunderstanding her own powers
You REALLY don’t want her to throw positron bolts. Lightning isn’t actually throwing electrons, it’s just vibrating them fast enough to generate and transmit energy.
A positron bolt, while it would effect the electrons first, and more frequently still in the presence of lightning (due to the charges involved), it would still effect some of the protons too. Which means that it would have a lousy range. And, aside from the gamma release, you also get the explosion from matter/antimatter annihilation AND then comes the fun part. All those electrons which were destroyed get replaced violently, causing a massive electron shift in the area — effectively a secondary lightning strike throughout the area of the previous blast.
All in all, free positrons in anything but a vacuum are a VERY BAD THING!
normal lightning is derived from a static electrical charge, and whether that is an abundance of electrons or a lack of them matter little.
The discharge is the equalizing of the charges.
so it is not is vibrating in the sense of ac current where electrons go back and forth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning#General_properties
Another possibility:
4) She’s lying (or at least being misleading) about the results in hopes that it scares one or more of the villains into reconsidering their choice of career by emphasizing the potential lethality of the forces that they are dealing with.
I don’t think US high schools teach anything worthwhile.
If there are classes like ‘Basic Conversation’ and `Fashion 1o1′
you know it’s geared towards the more… simple-minded folks.
where did you read that?
yeah, my back of the envelope calculations, if most of the electrons present are converted into 2 or 3 gamma rays… most parties present have just received a very lethal dose of radiation.
If the does rate is high 1000 rads / 10 Gys is usually quite lethal (400 is the LD-50 iirc). that’s only 10J /kg of radiation absorbed. so make math easy everyone is between 50 and 100KG so 500 – 1000J is all they need to absorb. lightning bolt is usually what 5*10^9 J. Even without taking into account the % chance a given particle is going to actually collide in the body that’s going to be a lethal dose at a pretty significant range. obviously /R^2 is going to save some combatants far out, as will resistance to the molecular damage to DNA etc that radiation makes.
You might be able to fluff if by saying that she has control over the angular & linear momentum of elec/posi trons and can leverage her stored energy to ” maintain” the laws of physics. While spectacular you could say she was forcing the two streams to “stabilize” as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positronium if you didn’t want gamma radiation to be emitted yet. OR you could just say she can “fix” the requirements of the energy conservation and “direct” the resulting gamma rays (which you could say isn’t really giving her more powers if she’s only able to control the initial direction of the gamma rays produced by annihilation).
The ability to control electrons isn’t as much of a one trick pony power as one might think. Other uses, assuming one has sufficient intelligence and control over the stuff, includes electronic hacking, Magneto powers (I prefer Mikoto Misaka from Toaru Majutsu no Index’s use of this where she uses iron sand from the very ground she stands on as an improvised chainsaw) and even a sort of Gauss cannon/railgun sort of deal. Technically, if there is a proper level of humidity, it can be used to fly (I don’t remember how Toaru Kagaku no Railgun justified it, but it said something about breaking apart the water molecules with electricity). Really, if Jiggawatt figured out how to do all of that she would be way OP.
The vast majority of chemical reactions are based on electron transfer (some are changes to the morphology of the molecule). So true electron control in the destructive sense equals disintegration (de-bond everything) and in the positive sense gives absolute control over chemical reactions. BTW, everyone’s body is one big chemical reaction. So electron control at the highest level is one of the most powerful abilities out there.
if you have that all we have for Jiggawatt(don’t know this other person being refered to) is directing large discharges, in some unknown way.
that does not have to mean she has perfect control over all electric bonds and it seems simpler to assume (this other person) would just electrolysis the water by having one leg charged + and the other –
no other presumed powers required.
if Jiggawatt could for instance make beams of ultraviolet light that would allow her to direct the lightning in a straight line at least and it would be mostly invisible. she might not know how she does what she’s doing.
separating water molecules in to hydrogen gas and oxygen and then providing a spark to ignite it.
seem the logical answer, but you’d better wear a bomb-suit or something like that, inflammable stuff at the least.
I disagree a bit, she must have some way of creating an ionized path to be able to direct the lightning, but other than that she must be capable of generating a huge electrical charge inside her body.
and if you look at the cells in a human they are in a very limited way capable of some of that.
but it would not automatically give you magneto powers,
she could of course carry a huge coil, discharge into that and use the magnetic field to rip all the metal (guns/tools/swords/cutlery) towards herself. similar with being he power supply for a rail-gun or some simple quad-copter backpack without the power supply problems that could function as a quite decent jet-pack etc.
perhaps with control of the path the lightning takes and enough mental capacity to envision circuits in the air she could do more complicated stuff, but it would be extremely difficult to imagine a path in the air more complicated than a couple of coils and plates of capacitors. she’d also be limited to analog electronics.
but I can imagine creating a magnetic field and suddenly making the coils smaller -> EMP.
and possibly generating hf noise to block transmissions etc.
I for one find it sad that the basic super-human with the ability to to generate huge charges within their body with little control of it when it leaves the body is done so poorly or not at all.
hmmm…. warning: the following contains obscene amounts of pseudo-possible comic science and even more that belongs back in the dark ages. If, you know, the dark ages had comic books instead of all the paintings of various saints being mutilated.
What if Jiggawatt (or any other super with energy powers) is using energy stored in fat cells?
Basically, Jiggawatt eats food.
food is metabolized, gets sent to fat cells, which store energy.
When she uses her lightning powers, the energy comes from the cells, burning both fat and the supervillians.
Just a thought.
The energy requirements for most of what superheros do is vastly beyond that available from conventional metabolic food processing and fat storage on a human scale.
They would have to be engaging in the odd subatomic reaction to be able to power some of their feats based on the available fuel mass they consume.
Jiggawatt has done this before, so there is a presumption that she is immune to the effects of this ability (or she’d be dead before now). However, her power has to come from somewhere, and if it’s matter-antimatter based, then perhaps she absorbs the resulting radiation. Looking at Halo’s orbs in comparison, antimatter or possibly zero-point energy generation is at work. Last but not least, there doesn’t really have to be an explanation – this idea is no more complex than Superman absorbing yellow sunlight and gaining immense powers from it.
Depending on how much control Jigawatt has over her abilities (and being able to generate positrons in such quantities suggest a LOT of control at quantum mechanics levels) she can just pump the positrons to a higher level where more exotic particles are produced in annihilation than gamma ray photons. Or she could just absorb the lightning instead, or ground it. Or just outright stop it.
Actual electron manipulation is quite overpowered, because if you can manipulate electrons to that extend, the positive atom nucleus will move with it because of the weak force. Then you basically have Doctor Manhattan, albeit a clothed version. Of course the reason why such characters remain interesting is either because they can’t control it that well (only fire blasts etc.) or they don’t use it most of the time (Mr. Manhattan is mostly interesting because of his character) another example is Scabbard Oogakari from ThirdFang’s Naruto fanfiction epics YAWALEH and TTRT.
And this is why Isaac Asimov’s positronic brains wouldn’t work…..
In “Little Lost Robot” the development of hyperdrive requires humans to be exposed to sublethal doses of gamma radiation. Unfortunately even small doses of gamma radiation destroy positronic brains, so instead of losing their entire robot workforce due to the First Law of Robotics, they build robots with a weaker version of the First Law, which just prevents the modified robots from directly harming humans.
One of those robots develops a sense of superiority to humans, and tries to hide among the other robots, but is tricked into revealing himself by Susan Calvin.
So if positron/electron annihilation creates massive amounts of gamma radiation, Asimov’s positronic brains should burn themselves out whenever they’re activated.
That’s one of the better stories in the set, IMO. True there is a superitory compelx in there but its also the impulse from Rule Two plus a healthy blue streak from a high strung lab tech. Let it be a lesson to all, cussing out something that is intelligent can get you on a soon to be murdered list.
if i remember right, they were only CALLED “POSItronic Brains” because Asimov wanted them to sound “cooler” than “ELECtronic Brains” which were all the rage in period sci-fi stories… they actually were just regular electronic computers in actual operation, nothing outlandish physics-wise.
ST:TNG’s Data, on the other hand, is constantly referred to as having a positronic brain. And they wouldn’t be using that term if it were not accurate, given their level of scientific understanding.
Maxima got demoted? Is it because of the nuke she dropped at the demonstration? Please! Please tell me its a consequence of dropping a nuke in the desert!
No, DaveB changed her rank in the lore to better reflect the story
In the story itself, her rank hasn’t changed
Well damn it! Thanks for the info!
This was back when DaveB didn’t understand military ranking properly (it’s why Sydney was/is listed as being a cadet)
That was not a nuke. Maxima herself compared it to a daisycutter, which is built with conventional explosives. Likewise it didn’t have the radioactivity profile that a nuke would have.
Lets find out how much energy is being created here:
Wikipedia says an average bolt provides 30 kA of of electric current. That’s 30,000 coulombs worth of electrons second. So that’s ~2×10^23 electrons which when annihilated would produce 15 gigajoules of energy. That’s in a second, so that’s 15 gigawatts of energy.
This is EXCLUDING the energy transferred in pushing the electrons (i.e. the electric energy of the bolt itself). That energy is also important. Wikipedia claims it’s 500 megajoules of energy in a single bolt.
15 coulombs (again wikipedia) at 30kA takes 0.0005 seconds. Which gives a power of 1 terawatt!
I have no idea if that’s actually correct (everything I find online isn’t that clear) but if it is then there’s much more energy in these electrons than just their rest mass energy! So the fact that it’s annihilation isn’t all that important, it’s just the fact that the energy itself isn’t being dissipated into the earth but converted into photons. I truly thought it would be the rest energy that was more important, but oh well.
Anyway, 1 terrawatt is 2/5ths of the energy production of the entire world!
To put this in perspective though, every 40 seconds of this blasting would create the same amount of energy given off by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima! (This takes into account the need for 2 bolts).
Here’s a picture of 500 tonnes of TNT. This is exploding every 2 seconds!
To scare you a bit more though, the tsar bomba (largest bomb ever exploded) would take ~30 minutes of annihilating to produce equivalent energy! And the theoretical max of the bomb was twice that!
Long story short: Annihilating bolts of lighting is very bad. Yet compared to our biggest bombs (which had a fireball 8km in diameter), it’s still nothing! That’s right, the bombs we have in real life create much bigger explosions than that baby shot Maxima fired earlier in the comic.
I’m guessing this is where Sidney learns about force field transparency the hard way? (as seen on pg.1) So, as a result, maybe we’ll also get to see what one of her other orbs does? (Going way out on the prognostication limb here…I’ll guess… the green one???)
I’ve never been very good at the waiting game. :/
Sydney’s shield is not affected by the transparency problem her’s has a transitory property becoming opaque when hit with dangerous levels of light. This can be seen when Hex’s buster buddies went haywire.
Sydney’s shield allows energy through, while dampening damaging levels.
I’m a new reader that just finished an archive dive and just wanted to let you know how much I love this comic.
welcome to the community! Thank you for joining us!
Perhaps Jiggy _thinks_ they are Positrons based on reading but the particles she creates to “erase lightning” are in fact putting out streams of particles that are an unknown quantum mix that really does remove the charge without the annihilation result. Tachyons that send electrons into the past (scattered all over time and creation)? Positrons do the Gamma rays because when they strike electrons in a collider (armchair physics activate!) and break into all the quantum particles that make up the two –with Positrons being much bigger of the two. She is an intuitive lightning user who has an intuitive ability to counter lightning.
This is basically the “Yellow sun powers me” kind of thing, the more you try to explain it the less believable it is. Next thing _I_ would like to see Jiggy do would be to target someone/thing and shoot lightning from one hand into them, from the other hand in another direction and do the disassemble reassemble teleport the target into the other hand’s target location. Now that would be cool.
next we will find she can also do neutrons.
That is one to think about.
Well, her powers are electricity-based. Access to electrons and access to positrons is understandable. Protons, neutrons and their antimatter counterparts are more difficult to grasp for electricity-based abilities.
At least to me. It would be mega-awesome though.
Please consider that electrons are what hold matter together. All chemical bonds are through electron sharing, so if you annihilate the electrons in something, my guess would be that it would fall apart into a highly-positively-charged monatomic fog, and would probably fluoresce in the gamma flux. It would be a very nasty thing indeed.
I don’t know if anyone else mentioned it, but it looks like today’s update didn’t get into the RSS feed. Possibly a DNS or WordPress issue.
Crunching the numbers quickly, and rounding for simplicity, one bolt of darkning equivalent to a lightning bolt would contain enough positrons to annihilate all the electrons in … wait for it … just under … 1/200th of a drop of water, or just under 1/5000th of a gram …
Yes. That is a very small number, but do not discount the power of very small things.
that’s not the issue as I’m sure someone has stated before in this comment thread. Antimatter colliding with matter annihilates both particles and produces the equivalent amount of energy that their combined masses convert to using E=MC^2. When you have 1/5000 of a gram annihilating another 1/5000 of a gram you get 1/2500 of a gram of particles converted into energy. 0.0004g still doesnt seem like much I’ll grant you.
but let’s remember that fancy equation E=Mc^2
Well c is the speed of light which is a very big number 299,792,458 m/s. When you square it (multiply it by itself) you get an incomprehensibly huge number. 8.98755179×10^16 m2/s2. multiplying that number by 0.0004g doesn’t make a terribly big difference to the total amount of energy we’re talking about here simply by dint of being such an incomprehensibly large number.
Using this: https://www.1728.org/einstein.htm we can just punch in how much 0.0004grams of particles converts to because I only had a 4function calculator on hand so I couldn’t do it without the internet. I like that the site converted it into kilotons of TNT for me… that was nice.
Anyway lets remove the kilo from kilotons and we cut it down to just the significant figures: 8.5923 tons of TNT.
This is a lot of energy. And the energy is predominantly ionizing radiation. Gamma rays are not cuddly, and this is a lot of energy.
Wouldn’t the positrons interact with the atoms in the air and significantly reduce Jiggs’ range?
Also, the resulting burst of energy would be enormous, and those protons and neutrons won’t just lie around. They’ll start splitting other atoms – think about the way that the original atomic bomb worked. I think the result of an open-air positron emission like this would put Hiroshima to shame.
atomic bombs use a neutron to split a uranium atom. Positrons to be manipulated by things composed of normal matter require powerful magnetic fields which are impractical when dealing with bombs. but yes this would release a ridiculous amount of energy as many others and myself have already calculated.
Positron generation is a potentially game-breaking power that makes Jiggawatt significantly overpowered
The power of the positrons pales in comparison to the power generated by just plain lightning. All the positron bit really does is convert that energy into a straight up explosion, rather than letting any of it funnel into the ground.
but this isn’t plain lightning. this is somehow human generated, non-lethal “nerf lightning” so all our calculations are for naught anyway.
actually that’s an interesting question… how much of a reduction in Amps and/or volts would it take to have being struck by nerf-lighting to be non-lethal?
and yes I know people survive lightning strikes all the time. I mean to the point where they aren’t actually singed in the case of Glowbug’s lightning to Heatwave and Mr. A… Jiggawatt went through those 3 people’s abdomens and left singe marks so she might actually be at natural lightning level. but they were mostly grounded so amperage probably didnt cross their hearts and kill them.
Yeah, it’d reduce her range, but the larger problem would be the POINT-BLANK EXPLOSION! Antimatter is bad juju, and the positrons she’s shooting out would hit the air and immediately explode since, y’know, the air isn’t made of antimatter. So Jiggawatt would get *looks at calcs further up* approximately 8 1/2 tons of TNT worth of explosion, right in the face.
Slightly larger issue than reduced range.
Found this on page 1 of the comments
I wish I had read that before I started doing math, because it reminded me to suspend my damn disbelief…
I was trying to get it to say that it was a quote of DaveB… but I’m still new to Html
you can find it somewhere in this tangled nest:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1415/comment-page-1#comment-172292
anyway I feel like we’re not going to get a retcon or a comic book physics work around out of this so we may have to just let it go. as much as that pains me
Actually, if we look at jigga’s powers so far, she’s able to Turn into lightning.. which implies the ability to convert her mass into pretty much pure electrons, which is naturally something of an implausibility itself but she’s done it already. Turning electrons (or anything else) into positrons isnt a huge leap from there… But as an alternative, what if what she is actualy doing is the inverse of turning herself into lightning.. In other words, her anti-lightning actually turns regular (or super generated) lightning bolts into non-electron particles.. relatively harmless ones such as maybe bursts of fresh air in this case? There might stilll be some emissions of exotic particles in the process.. it might be completely harmless, seems a plausible theory to me, thoughts?
Also as an aside to the Dave, making Jigga’s hair blonde looks good, as a minor suggestion maybe have her hair-band turned blue so it doesnt blend in with the hair quite as much, for whenever you do the big re-working of her prior apperances and such. :)
how do you make a spoiler text? test bracket test carrot test strong
if any of those worked, never mind I figured it out
Solo, I was looking at the profiles again, and I noticed that Sydney is listed as a cadet after all.
More importantly, I think Math got a major upgrade. Superspeed from one (?) Dot to four. Suddenly two dots of damage resistance, and three dots of energy attack. What gives?
Holy effing auto correct! “SO”
As long as you were by yourself when you did so, it would still be technically correct.
Am I the only one twitching at the “one trick pony” comment for someone who supposedly used any form of electricity? That’s like saying someone who has complete control over chemical, kinetic of potential energy isn’t powerful! These are fundamental energies! She could theoretically control friction! Throw in the fact magnetism and electricity are related, and whoaa, we are talking some ridiculous power here. Turning into lightning would make her the FASTEST person on the team for short distances (possible exception of Harem), the NERVOUS system is electrical, she could mimic ANYTHING currently running with electricity, she could “read” the electron currents from substances and figure out what they are, the HEAT produced by lightning is it own thing, and I’m not going to start on subatomic interactions of election and protons in ATOMS.
In Aang the avatar cartoon series blood bending was used to control peoples bodies.
This girl on the other hand can do anything with electricity, so that is the brain and nervous system.
I’m sure it’ll all be canceled out by the gravitons and graviolis.
Just as a heads up – if you want more “girl power” of a different kind, chapter 1 of RWBY volume II is online; https://roosterteeth.com/archive/?id=9439&v=more
Oops! Anyone got a geiger counter handy? I need to check some readings before people start melting.
Make lightning
Turn into lighting
Make dark lightning
Turn into dark lightning?
This is likley going to blow up right in Jiggs face! Or cost her a arm, which ever comes first.
And our misery cape turns out to have a Shao Khan mask. That defiantly leans him more towards the bad guy side. Still just standing there like a boss though.
And why wouldn’t a electric based powered person not be strong? Did you not see how bad ass Electro was in the Amazing spider man 2 movie? There is a reason Electric powers are electrifying!
You are basing electric powers on that shyte movie? With that even shyter actor? o_O
Not just that one movie. And it was fare from shyte!
At this moment, I’m fondest of the idea:
Jiggawatt doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Yes, her power lets her reach out and absorb oodles of electrons, soaking up lightning strikes or electric current like a sponge… But it’s not using positrons.
It’s using cold plasma. In an endothermic reaction, she strips air of electrons and sends the nuclei to their target, where they grab the electrons in a flashy exoteric reaction. Net energy loss? A bit over zero (entropy sucks).
Because the nuclei are a plasma, they interact with light, because they are cold, they have a tendency to absorb it more than emit…
And to someone who’s unedumacated about the finer points of particle physics, they might take that dark stuff for being anti-matter.
Supporting evidence: a positron spark would heat the air as much (ahem, more than) a electron spark, generating a bright spark much like electrons would. This stuff is dark, it must be something different (magic is a viable alternative, but not one I’m prepared to believe in. Creative license is a similar and equally viable alternative).
The Fermi satellite a few years back started seeing all sorts of antimatter that NASA couldn’t account for that was until they started back tracking and looking at where thunder storms where happening around the world. What they found was a bit shocking to say the least antimatter being created in said thunderstorms during the Gama bursts. The antimatter would head out into space and get caught in the polar magnetic field and the satellite would run through it.
So yes antimatter can be created by lighting more to the point during the Gama burst that can occur anyway you cut it it is bad news for our hero’s an villains unless someone knocks her out.
Doesn’t natural lightning already emit pretty powerful gamma ray bursts; producing them over a shorter time-span and with a shorter half-life than nuclear or cosmic gamma rays, but in higher numbers and greater intensity. And since she can sustain her lightning anyway, why would Dabbler worry about electron-positron annihilation spawning gamma rays? Anyone in the vicinity of Jiggawatt’s (or Glowbug’s) lightning blasts would be getting a face full of gamma anyway.
It would be like complaining that Big Mac is bad for your cholesterol and that you should switch back to Whoppers.
If she is dumping gamma, it’s not just the immediate effects you gotta worry about-gamma hits iron, the iron becomes radioactive (same with steel, etc.).
think about how much steel and iron is in the environment and lacks the availability of three feet of Lead between it, and Jiggawatt’s burst-a hell of an EPA nightmare right there.
Your confusing neutrons and gamma rays.
Gamma rays will not make iron radioactive.
not sure what the mass of a bolt of lighting is, but if she is annihilating it with bolts of antiprotons, she is basically converting both masses into energy. According to Einsteins Special Theory of Relativity E=MC^2 where E is the energy produced. M is the mass and C is the speed of light (299 792 458 m/s) multiplied by itself. Everyone there just got exposed to a really really high energy event.
I’m surprised we don’t see more, I mean that is a rediculise amount of power. Any nutroneum being formed?
So far Bowler Hat Man and Skeletor Jr. are just watching. I wonder if they just came to see He-Polaris and Plays-With-Balls (the blonde girl with the tennis hat and warpaint) make a run at Archon. Collect some data, avoid doing anything to get arrested if ArcSwat proves way overpowering (can’t arrest a guy for standing around. “What, you said you wouldn’t bother supers if they didn’t commit crimes or go vigilante. Is ArcSwat rounding up ALL supers?”).
That’s what you get for f***ing with antimatter.
How dare you start such rumors! Anti-matter and I are simply good friends, nothing more.
Just out of interest, how does Jiggawatt know Glowbug’s name? She doesn’t seem to have fancy HUD glasses on and she’s clearly too deaf to have heard Glowbug announce it.
Maybe she just made a lucky guess?
Well, she didn’t get her name right.
And it’s a woman that glows when she uses her powers.
Glowbitch is kinda obvious ?
Good point, don’t believe Glowb even mentioned her name prior to that moment either
Possible explanations:
1) She read it off of the pipboy off-panel (the most likely of these, IMHO) or someone signed it to her off-panel.
2) She simply guessed the “glow” part of it without knowing the name.
3) She’s really good at reading lips (maybe her control of electricity allows her to “feel” sound vibrations?).
I hate to point out something like this, especially since I’ve never really posted in the comments before, but upon re-reading the comic this morning, something jumped out at me. Should Jiggawatt actually know Glowbug’s name? Looking through the archives, it doesn’t look like the name itself would have come up before J lost her hearing. I mean, I suppose she could just be seeing a glowing person, and just come up with a convenient insult, but that might be a bit too coincidental.
I swear Scuffles’ comment wasn’t there when I started to post. I just type slow sometimes. :)