#now you see me now you dont

[inkintheinternet]

The Modern Alchemist

By Arjuwan Lakkdawala

Ink in the Internet

It is said that the arrow of time always travels in one direction, time and the events that unfold in it are linear. The First Law of Thermodynamics states that the energy in the whole observable universe is the same, except it changes its state, like when you burn firewood and it turns to smoke. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that Entropy increases and is irreversible, like when you break an egg, and that systems always go from orderly to disorderly.

And then there is the matter of reaching equilibrium, like when you pour milk into a cup of tea, the milk will flow through it till it is evenly spread.

When scientists study any phenomena, the wisest know that the main objective should be to find principles and laws about how a certain entity, or system functions, this is very difficult, and could be considered the greatest secrets of the world as we know it.

Why the fundamental laws are so elusive and mysterious we don't know, but it is clear that whenever scientists were able to establish (even if to a certain percentage) a law or principle, it was a catalyst for inventions, technology, and scientific developments.

The history of scientific studies dates way back to a branch of the science of the time called 'Alchemy" originating from the Arabic 'Al Kimia." In present day Arabic the word means 'Chemistry.'

Historical records state that Alchemy very likely started in Egypt and Arabia, and then the knowledge was passed down to Rome and ancient Greece, and then to the west. However, whatever were the scientific endeavours of the original Alchemists, it became generally indistinguishable from the other non-scientific ideas and theories that are part of Alchemy.

Western medieval Alchemists had three priorities; Find the Philosopher's Stone - which they believed has supernatural powers, find the Elixir of life and youth - possibly using the stone, transform common metals into silver and gold.

While these are fantastical aspirations, somehow the experiments that the ancient Alchemists did with the elements, was the start of sciences like pharmacology, metallurgy, and chemistry.

I do think there is a linear learning connection throughout the past centuries, and into the future, perhaps a pattern of the methods of discoveries, or fragments of information that will fit together like pieces of a puzzle.

In this century scientists and thinkers are the Modern Alchemists, and chemistry is the real scientific Alchemy.

But do we still try to attain things that seem on the boundaries of the supernatural - while I was going through the collection of H.G. Wells books, I read The Invisible Man, a masterpiece like his previous books that I have read.

(Spoiler Alert)

In the science fiction story he explains invisibility through chemistry, and I have seen various movies with similar ideas, the most memorable to me is the beloved Walt Disney classic: 'Now You See Him, Now You Don't,' and the Hindi classic: Mr. India.

In the first it is invisibility through chemistry, and in the second it's invisibility through the bending of light.

The two movies sum up the whole business of hypothetical invisibility by light and chemistry.

My interest sparked by Wells and the movies, I found invisibility really interesting to explore scientifically and I did a web search.

A 2022 Big Think article came up in the search, titled: 'Invisibility Cloaks Are Not Just Possible, But Are Becoming Reality'

Feels like the quest for the Philosopher's Stone, or the Elixir of Life (Modern Alchemists at work)

Perhaps this is a pattern of human curiosity that won't stop even at what appears (or literally doesn't appear) impossible.

The writer mentions science fiction invisibility in Star Trek, and goes on to explain a scientific project involving cutting edge technology, materials, and lenses.

The aim of the project is to combine "Metalenses with Metamaterials"

Metamaterial will be engineered using nanotechnology to bend light, while the Metalense will pace the wavelenght speed of each colour of light (invisible in white light) to appear again as white light after passing over the Metamaterial.

To give a more precise description:

The reason is that each colour of light has its own speed, and this is why a prism is shaped to split white invisible light into a rainbow because they don't travel through the prism at the same speed. The Metalense will balance the speed to equilibrium and so it will appear as white light again. 

When travelling in a vacuum the different wavelengths of light can travel at the same speed but not when going through a medium.

We are in 2024 so I'm guessing the "invisibility cloak" which I think will be like the one in Harry Potter, is still in the making, pretty much like Alchemists trying to turn common metals into gold.

When it comes to nature camouflage is the closest thing to invisibility so far discovered.

The relation of colours, wavelengths of light, and nano structures will require volumes of books, but I have a few fascinating brief examples. The colour blue that we see is an illusion caused by nano structures, and most of the time in nature when you see blue it is iridescence, and not a pigment, it generally doesn't exist as a pigment like the other colours.

Bats hunt moths with radar like sound waves that detect them, so to counter this there are moths with hairy coating which deflect the sound waves - making it invisible to the bat.

In technology stealth planes are designed to deflect radar detection like moths, so they are invisible to radars.

However, I found more astonishing than all this was the creation of light by chemistry; such as bioluminescence and chemiluminescence. The first happens in living things, and the latter in non-living.

Light of this type is 'cold light' (very low heat.)

But how is it used for camouflage - well here comes the Hatchet Fish, it has organs that create light and point downwards, so that its silhouette against the surface of the ocean is camouflaged (in this case called counterillumination) as sunlight, and predators swimming below cannot distinguish it. Organs like these are called 'photopores.'

Another sea creature the Brittle Star uses the bioluminescence it can make in a rather ingenious type of camouflage or a decoy, that is when it is threatened by a predator it detatches a glowing arm (which it can regrow) and leaves the predator following the arm while it sneaks away.

The sea cucumber detaches its luminescencent parts on other fish, so the predator follows the glowing fish instead of it.

Bioluminescence is produced by the compound luciferin; with a chemical reaction either with the enzyme luciferase or the chemical photoprotien.

An example of chemiluminescence is the element phosphorous, officially discovered by the German alchemist Hennig Brand in 1669, when he was trying to create the Philosopher's Stone, he named the element from the Greek meaning "bearer of light" because it glowed. White phosphorous is highly flammable and toxic.

Glow-in-the-dark toys and products have phosphor. How it glows is like this: when light is shone on phosphor, its electrons get excited and are dislodged from their 'ground state' to 'intermediate state' and when they return to the ground state the energy of this is emitted in the form of the glow, it is more precisely termed 'electroluminescence.'

Arjuwan Lakkdawala is an author and independent science researcher.

X/Instagram: Spellrainia

Email: arjuwan.writer@gmail.com

Copyright ©️ Arjuwan Lakkdawala 2024

Sources:

Flights of Fancy by Richard Dawkins

Big think - invisibility cloaks are not just possible, but are becoming reality, ethan siegel

Royal society of chemistry - what is alchemy

NIH - National institute of general medical sciences, biomedical beat blog, phosphorous: glowing, flammable, and essential to our cells, abbey bigler-coyne

Britannica - philosopher's stone, written and fact-checked by the editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Britannica - alchemy, pseudoscience, robert p. multhauf, robert andrew gilbert,

Fact-checked by the editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Ocean conservancy - here comes the hatchet fish, billy unotti, former communications assistant

National geographic, bioluminescence

Science direct - chemiluminescence, and overview,

Science world, chemical light reactions

Secondary article, the science behind glow-in-the-dark toys

[corpsentry]

pick your battles

[umblrspectrum]

happy solvermas

[pi3rat]

if you're trans, you have to live.

if you accomplish something else, then good.

if you accomplish nothing else, then good.

but you have to live.

🤍

[arsenicflame]

Bonus round! Do you use a queue tag?

[cowardlykrow]

"Suck it, weeb-ass BEEETCH!"

Richie loses to Ruth. (She probably cheated)

[dookiespooky]

Driftingstars and dreamcaptor fusion au thing! This takes place right after mabel falls through the portal ig dk what im doing lmaooo

(Dreamcaptor au belongs to @neonross )

[pixlatedvampire]

hi the literal whole entire reason i made these was bc i watched this 10 sec clip on youtube pls watch

[cherrirui-official]

I hope u guys don't mind me posting these au doodles while I work on things ahaha

I also gave JD slightly longer hair in these doodles as a funny haha but I don't think it's funny anymore he looks genuinely good with his hair like that ahahaha I hope you're not mad at me for changing his au design a bit

[turtleplushi]

I haven't seen anybody post the full Riddle Chain yet (including Silas Birchtree) so here you go :)

I didn't find any of these codes myself by the way! I'm not sure who to credit for the rest of them, but I did get the Silas Birchtree code from @dismissivedestroyer (sorry for tagging you ^_^" if you don't want to be tagged let me know and i can edit the post). You can also get the answer using the code "STOD EHT TCENNOC"

(SPOILERS BELOW)

RIDDLE (would you like to play a game) > YES (what's Mcgucket's favorite soda?) > MOUNTAIN DONT (what's a medieval homonym?) > LYRE LIAR (the 20th ingredient of Anti-Cipherzing Tonic?) > HAROLDS RAMBLINGS (how is clown repellant made?) > UNION MADE (Bill's govt file number?) > 29121239168518 (who comes from Zimtrez 5?) > GREBLEY HEMBERDRECK (what's on Bill's flag?) > 3466554 (what leaves a thin line in the snow?) > TINSEL SNAKE (the 6th option on Bill's editing software?) > TORTURE MENTALLY (name an unpronouncable wizard) > XGQRTHX (where do Tri Angels come from?) > 333SUNDAPPLELANECOZYCREEKIL6071494611 (Bill Cipher's Lawyer?) > CAESARATBASHVIGNERE [or] MULTI LEVEL MARK (who defeated Silas Birchtree--?) > EMMALINE BUTTERNUBBINS (you've earned a treat! enter 'DISPENSE MY TREAT' to download) > DISPENSE MY TREAT

The 'treat' you get is under the cut

"BILL FILES DO NOT OPEN"

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[isatartdump]

Would do the entire dialogue but drawing Bonnie crying is the bane of my existence! HA

Anyway my reaction to when this entire dialogue was over was just. Hihi.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

Hi!! Your Cherik is so good and gorgeous 🤩🤩 If you don't mind wanna try to draw some Fall of X Cherik please?

thank you so much !!

i have a couple of ideas relating to the fall of x period specifically since theres. A Lot i wanna play with, so i hope this lil thing may be a satisfactory start :]]

and the obligatory bonus:

[cubbihue]

When you said that the unluckiest person is most hopeful, it reminded me of Nagito Komaeda. If the universe were combined, do you think he would fair well having Anti Cosmo as his anti fairy?

Funnily enough, I feel like it would be Hajime who would have an anti-fairy companion. I mean, he’s surrounded by extremely skilled people! That would attract bad luck in some way for him. Nagito wouldn’t be good food for anti-fairies. Or Fairies. Or Pixies.

...Honestly, Fairies aren’t quite sure what food he produces. It’s like a weird amalgamation of luck, desire, greed, and all sorts of emotions they can’t disentangle. Like a crockpot gone horribly horribly wrong. Eating any bit of that would make any fairy sick.

Eugh. The hell is wrong with that one.

Bitties Series: [Start] > [Previous] > [Next]

[mossy-aro]

ultimately i think my insistence on aro positivity honestly is as much a political stance as a personal one.

when i say aro positivity is crucial and that i dislike doomer-ist posts that express sentiments like 'I hate being aro so much I wish I was dead instead’ it's not because I don’t think there can and should be a space for negativity and acknowledging self-hate, or the many ways being aromantic can really suck sometimes. i find that to be very important!

that being said. there is smth here about how self-hate posts are sometimes just arophobia that we inflict on ourselves. and when we put that out into the ether it (intentionally or not) can become arophobia that we inflict on other members of the community. i think there absolutely needs to be a place for negativity and the expression of anger and frustration and self loathing even - these are all good things to talk about because these are things that we experience. that being said, it can also be genuinely upsetting and triggering to people to have what is essentially arophobia shown to them and then have that be validated by other aspec people. your personal thoughts can affect your wider community on a level you may not anticipate. and i understand it i truly do! it took me so long to be able to recover from accepting being aroace - it threw my entire world off kilter and made me question everything about my place in the world.

but my insistence on aro joy and positivity is because ultimately i do believe that building is at the core essence of it all. that ultimately discussions and the purpose of community should be about construction, not destruction. and this is both a personal and a political stance. talking about how much you hate yourself and cultivating online discussions/spaces where negativity about aspec identity is the main and only theme is destructive - if that’s where we let the conversation end. these thoughts can and should be used as a vehicle to look for a path forward!

joy and positivity create a space where the focus can become on forging a path forward, on construction, on community building instead of tearing ourselves and others down with negative thoughts. it’s not productive or healthy when it stops at a place of negativity - it becomes actively destructive to the essence of community.

and i do think that this is especially poignant considering the fact that being any kind of queer, but especially aromantic (and/or asexual) means forging a path for yourself and making your own happiness where there is no obvious way forward. our communities exist mostly online (right now, anyway), there is little recognition of our existence in the real world, the effects of amatonormativity are both pervasive and actively dehumanising, and there are legal, economic and social structures in place actively making our lives more difficult. yes that all sucks! it’s good to acknowledge that. we need to in order to change it. but more importantly, that’s not the end. we are still here and our happiness, our future is for us to determine. even if we can’t change the laws or society, loving yourself and understanding aromanticism as a political identity (as well as personal), as a radical worldview, and as a protest against amatonormativity is essential for both community and personal well being. the personal is political.

tldr. i guess my point is that as a community, we should focus on building, improving, and nurturing ourselves and each other (construction) as opposed to destruction. we should recognise aromanticism and asexuality as political identities as well as personal ones and rely on community and self-love in the absence of anything else as a form of protest and political power. destruction (the recognition of everything that is wrong) is essential as a starting point - but where do we go from there? we rebuild.

[scutesketch]

GUYS I KEEP HEARING RUMORS ABOUT PERI IN THE SEASON FINALE WTF PLEASE TELL ME IT AINT TRUE WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY GONNA DO TO PERI NOOOO-