Hidden Name: C. A. Morgan

We've seen this gum before.

The gum's activation sequence.

Five chapters and over three hundred pages in, there's enough Mysteries of the Arcana canon established that I can begin bringing things back. The gum's a good example. It exists primarily to assist in jumping. Hop hop and then push off and you go flying in the opposite direction of where your foot pressed downward. Chrys has found a brand new application.

I am very fond of Keith's work on this page. Chrys threw one hell of a punch there in that last panel. She's back in the game - the baleful gaze will have to wait for later.

See you Monday!

Kessy Athena
 


I hate to be a killjoy, but Newton's third law?  Sorry, but that last panel just makes me go, "Huh?"

Adamas
 


It's the gum, it makes things very bouncy! Wink

JGray
 

Adamas is correct. The gum is magic - enchanted. A bit like Harry's force rings in the Dresden Files. 

JD
 


Hmm, alright, let's look at this gum scientifically then. Wink
You're citing Newton's third law of motion: every action has an opposite and equal reaction. Good point. How could Chrys deliver such a powerful whallop?

Following Newton's findings, we could say that the gum works by shifting the center of mass between two objects. Place gum, tap right (shift), tap right (shift again), then press, delivering exponentially accelerated power.
Think of a teeter-totter with a 10 pound weight on one end, and a 15 pound weight on the other. Obviously the 15 pound side will be the "down" side. Now say the board between the two is 5 foot long. By shifting the fulcrum point - the center of mass - over one half foot toward the 15 lb side, both sides become equal in gravitation and balance (3 ft. of board toward the 10lb, 2 ft toward the 15 lb). Now shift the fulcrum point again by another foot and that 10 lb side is now equal to 40 pounds versus the 15 lb. 

The gum is 'magically' shifting the center of mass two units toward the object it is placed upon. (We'll use the word magic here due to our ignorance of the actual scientific rule which allows the gum to work.)

Make sense?

Kessy Athena
 


LOL  Not really.  Newton's 3rd says that whenever one body exerts a force on another, an equal and opposite force is exerted on it.  Conservation of momentum, basically.  So the gum can exert a huge force on the Gruh and send it flying, but an equal and opposite force should be exerted on Chrys, sending her flying in the other direction.  Invoking magic physics, you may as well say that the gum magically exerts a reactionless force on the Gruh as that it increases Chrys's effective mass.

It didn't look odd when they were using it to jump because the reaction force was being exerted on the ground - the planet they're standing on.  A planet has such an enormous mass that it is essentially unaffected.

I think I've just been watching too much Mythbusters.  These days my usual reaction to action sequences in TV and movies is to burst out laughing.  Wink

One thing that doesn't quite make sense though: how do you give the gum directionality?  When you tap it, as far as the gum is concerned it's just being squeezed between two surfaces.  How do you tell the gum which one to exert the force on?

Gunsolo
 


Whoa, strong stuff. Makes me wonder what other applications the gum might have.
You could attach it to a throwable object to make a directional grenade, or stick it on a wheel of a car to flip it once it starts moving. Or put it at the end of a baseball bat for a supercharged strike.The possibilities are endless...

JD
 


I'm not too sure any of those would work out too well. Think about how the gum is activated: tap right - tap right - deliver left (with the gum). The gum is placed on the object being affected.  So, how would you activate the gum on a thrown object? And if you were lucky enough to hit your target with the gum side, it would be the object which was affected, not the target, so your grenade may come hurtling back at you much faster than you tossed it.
Sticking it to a wheel would press the gum each turn as well as any wheel on the right side, so by logic it would never activate.
Sticking it on a baseball bat, if it could be activated in some way, would result in the bat rebounding from the ball rather than the ball flying off into space, since the gum affects the object it's attached to.  Notice Chrys didn't put the gum on her fist.

But yes, I could see some wonderful possibilities. Just theorizing, of course. Feel free to shoot me. In fact, you could try sticking some gum to one end of a rod, tapping it twice with your right hand then, using your left hand, slam the gummed end against a wall with the other end angled toward me.

Gunsolo
 


If the gum only affects what it is attached to but not what strikes it, what would happen if you put it on the ground and activated it, and then jumped on top of it? Would there be an earthquake or would it launch you?

As far as the wheel is concerned, I expect you could activate the gum when you place it and then the car would either flip as soon as the gum touches the ground or at the first bump in the road.
I guess it would be the same with the object; tap the gum twice then throw, and when it lands it will be launched in a random direction (probably not very useful, but still fun).

And the rod, why bother with a wall? Just tap it twice, then point it in the direction you want it to go and slap the gum with your hand. Should do the same thing right?
If you held the rod inside a tube of some sort, this contraption would look and behave similarly to a bazooka. Smile