Heat transfer to energy for mass?

[Sebiale]

I'm tumbling an idea for a werewolf transformation in one of my literary works over in my head.
It was inspired by a discussion I saw on the boards here a long time ago. Couldn't find it, but people, or at least one person, was explaining how a werewolf transformation process could work by absorbing the nearby air and transform it into mass (assuming the werewolf becomes larger as it transforms). Causing a small vacuum, and creating noise as they transformed.
I almost went with that idea, but I decided instead to see if this sounds feasible:
Instead of absorbing physical material, the werewolf would instead absorb the surrounding heat, and use the energy from there to create the mass.

Not sure if that sounds more or less feasible. The actual process of how something like that could be accomplished is something that would probably better be left vague/untouched.

((Le gasp, 400 posts )

[Tock]

Well, according to Einstein, energy IS mass, so I don't see how it's so impossible.
Also, to stop to in-depth research, you could perform a hand wave and just say that the werewolves have more important things to worry about then exactly how they get the mass from heat.
Also, there could be different types of werewolves.
Sort of like the whole "vegetarian" vampire thing./
E.g. Werewolves can actually take the energy from anything, including living things. So, this group of werewolf, upon transforming would make plants wither and die. However, the transformation takes less time.
The other group only uses heat, trying to lessen violence in their lives'.
When they transform, frost would from and it would get cold in a certain radius around them. Also, when they revert to human from, you could make it that it gets very hot, just a way to show where the energy goes.

But, in answer to your original question, yes it is very feasible, and also (I think) rather original. Give it your best shot.

P.S. I remember that thread.

[Terastas]

My own take on it was that werewolves don't increase their mass. They look bigger, but otherwise weight the same.

If you suck in your gut, you're not eliminating any of your mass -- you're just condensing it. That's the basic idea behind my take on werewolf anatomy: they gain their extra size when the body becomes less condensed.

[Tock]

Still, there is something nifty about the heat thing, to my eye at least.
Then again, if done wrong, it could ruin a story.

[Terastas]

One dilemma with the "absorbing heat" theory is that heat is a waste product. When something is burned, exploded or otherwise destroyed, it produces three energy waste products: light, sound and heat. Absorbing light would make the werewolf photosynthetic (and a plant), and to the best of my knowledge, there are no known instances in history of sound or heat being "absorbed" in order to power something.

Additionally, how would a werewolf absorb heat assuming it is warm-blooded and therefore also expels heat?

[Sebiale]

Additionally, how would a werewolf absorb heat assuming it is warm-blooded and therefore also expels heat?

I actually hadn't thought about that. Although it would give me a convenient means by which to limit their transformations. They'd have to stop and actually concentrate to transform. I imagine the immediate area might become slightly cooler. They'd start off kind of like the whole Werewolf in Paris thing, where the dude got really hot before he transformed. For a short time after transforming the werewolf would also be very warm, and (i'm not sure of the heat exchange between the body and air) but I think they could only hold it for a few minutes at most depending on the outside temp. I think the hotter it is the longer they could hold it, and vice-versa.

Another thing I've been tossing around is them and silver. I wanted it to be an issue with them, but not necessarily the whole, "It burns us!" routine. Instead of silver harming them directly, they actually have a sort of affinity for it. An example would be if you stuck a piece of silver into a werewolf, their bodies cells would almost instantly bond with the silver of the object. I'm not sure how directly painful that would be, but it's still a problem because it would be very painful to remove if left in, and it's rather difficult to pull something out of your flesh in the middle of a fight. If left in long enough the silver would actually be subsumed by their body. One of the nasty little techniques that humans have come up with is to mix in other elements with their silver, so that when it penetrates and bond the other elements begin to seep into the body, which I imagine is very unhealthy.

[Tock]

Endothermic reactions absorb heat to power the reaction. Sherbet takes heat from your mouth. When some sports injury packs are opened, they absorb heat from the injury, making quick ice-packs.
Also, just because they absorb heat, doesn't mean they have to absorb light as well.

[Sebiale]

Endothermic reactions absorb heat to power the reaction. Sherbet takes heat from your mouth. When some sports injury packs are opened, they absorb heat from the injury, making quick ice-packs.

Are you suggesting that the initial heat absorption should act more like the igniter, rather than the fuel?

[Tock]

I was more showing that a lot of things use heat to power their reactions, and it isn't something that out there.
Take from it what you will.

[Terastas]

Endothermic reactions absorb heat to power the reaction. Sherbet takes heat from your mouth. When some sports injury packs are opened, they absorb heat from the injury, making quick ice-packs.

"Reaction" being the key word. A reaction isn't "powered" by something, only a response to its influence. When an ice cube (or the aforementioned sports pack) melts, it isn't absorbing heat: it's just reacting to it.

I wish I could think of a better example than this, but all I can think of this early in the morning is a car getting flipped in a windstorm, IE: the car doesn't absorb the wind to power its flip, it just gets swept away by the expulsion of energy from an outside source.

[Sebiale]

So, which sounds more feasible from a scientific standpoint (ignoring that we've already broken the boundaries of science in some ways )? That their increased temperature induces the change, or that it only keeps them changed as long as their temperature stays above a certain point?

In either case, I'm pretty sure they would need to have some sort of altered biology that allows them to increase their body temperature without worrying too much that they'll overheat and die...
Or would it be more like hyperthermia? Staying in their altered shape for too long would cause damage to their bodies?

[Terastas]

So, which sounds more feasible from a scientific standpoint (ignoring that we've already broken the boundaries of science in some ways )? That their increased temperature induces the change, or that it only keeps them changed as long as their temperature stays above a certain point?

Both could be possible, but in reverse, IE: their body temperature increases due to changing, and their body temperature drops as soon as they revert back.

Increased metabolism and better calorie management would be a better explanation, with the werewolf giving off more body heat while shifted instead of containing it.

As for the overheating, well. . . In my own writing, werewolves are susceptible to dehydration because they have overactive immune systems. They don't get serious diseases as often, but they are much more prone to vomiting and diarrhea on account of their immune systems "rejecting" that much more from their bodies, which in turn make them much more susceptible to dehydration. As such, the closest thing to a telltale sign they have is their fluid intake: they tend to take in more fluids than would be normal, and often have stockpiles of spring water or other mild beverages (along with barf bags and toilet paper) for the inevitable next time someone gets sick again.

An increase in body temperature and/or inability to expel body heat could also make werewolves susceptible to dehydration (and heat stroke, as already mentioned). So instead of providing them with some kind of biological mechanism, you could instead address it by modifying the werewolf's behavior.

[Sharfan]

So, which sounds more feasible from a scientific standpoint (ignoring that we've already broken the boundaries of science in some ways )? That their increased temperature induces the change, or that it only keeps them changed as long as their temperature stays above a certain point?

In either case, I'm pretty sure they would need to have some sort of altered biology that allows them to increase their body temperature without worrying too much that they'll overheat and die...
Or would it be more like hyperthermia? Staying in their altered shape for too long would cause damage to their bodies?

I may be missing something here, but you're talking about him taking in heat for mass, right? So, if he were taking in heat, wouldn't his temperature decrease instead of increase? When it increases, that signifies that he's giving off heat.

Of course, I may just be missing the whole point.

[Sebiale]

His temperature increases as he transforms. After he has finished transforming the heat will begin to leak off into the surrounding atmosphere. After they reach a regular human temperature their bodies will begin to revert. The transformation is part of the reason that they rarely leave their valley (which is continent-sized, so it's not too much of a problem yet). The north, north-east is a much colder area for most of the year, covered with snow for most of the year, and it would be very difficult to not only transform but also maintain the transformation. Which is bad because the area is full of werewolf-killing zealots. To the southwest is a jungle, which is only barely more survivable. It's easier to transform, but difficult to actually leave their transformed state, they have to take in a lot of liquids to keep from overheating if they do transform. Sometimes it can even get hot enough to cause them to begin to transform involuntarily. North-west is even worse, it's a desert, very difficult to survive there for them.
The south, south-east is ocean.

[Sharfan]

Yeah, I see how, after they're transformed they would give off heat, but while transforming, they would absorb it, thus, inversely, meaning they would give off cold.

[Sebiale]

Yeah, I see how, after they're transformed they would give off heat, but while transforming, they would absorb it, thus, inversely, meaning they would give off cold.

I don't think it's technically possible to generate cold.

[RedEye]

"Generating" Cold is possible. All you have to do is have less heat energy than your surroundings and voila! generation of cold.

Heat and Cold are relative measurements of the amount of thermal energy in something; be it a mass, a chemical reaction, a physical reaction or even the total amount of energy in a given system. The less energy, the "colder" something is.
Most biological reactions produce excess heat and are labled as "Exothermal" or "Hot" because they give off heat, radiating it into the surrounding space. Some chemical reactions are "Endothermal" or "Cold" because they take heat energy from their surroundings as a part of their chemical reactions... think "Instant Cold Pack" here. The salts in the pack absorb heat as they become liquid- ie; they get "cold".
Getting to the Shift...
This is a biological reaction which would most likely produce heat rather than consume it. Most biological things work that way because it's easier to radiate heat than absorb it. The Shift spends energy turning a smoothskin human into a werewolf. This energy expenditure would manifest as heat. When the wulf reverts back to smooth again, more energy is spent making the wulf's body back into a human one.

Would it be impossible for one of these transformations to draw energy rather than spend it? No. It would be possible... just very unlikely.

[Sharfan]

Yeah, just like RedEye said. If your werewolf absorbs heat for the shift, then it would appear cold. Just like the instant ice cold packs.

[Scott Gardener]

E=mc^2

If you plug in one kilogram of mass (2.2 pounds for us Americans), you get a tremendous amount of energy. It would take something on the order of a nuclear explosion to crank out the kind of energy equal to the mass difference between human form and some peoples' ideas of werewolves in Gestalt form. And, this ignores other problems, like the question of what specific kinds of reactions would create the right kind of mass to pull it off--biological reactions that would have to put CERN to shame, in an organism the size of a werewolf, rather than as big as a Niven ring.

Once one develops organisms with that kind of power, werewolves would be child's play compared to what else one could accomplish at the same level of capability.

[Sebiale]

I'm rubbing snake oil on that particular quandary

[Tock]

And even THEN we're still only talking about biological reactions.
I remember reading an article once about how some organisms could be using nuclear reactions instead of chemical ones.
Think of it this way. You have atoms. Some atoms are short an electron, making them prone to hooking up with other atoms, this is how chemical energy works. You still have the basic elements, you're just making new compounds.
However, if you have an atom with an unstable neutron, it's a whole different ballgame. You're not causing atoms to hook up, you're actually changing elements, either by fusion (joining together) or fission (splitting apart).
This yields a lot more energy, nuclear energy, and to top it off, you wouldn't need as much "food" intake because the processes would be far more efficient. Food would be more like trace radiation.
However, this is probably too out there for most people to consider. After all, it makes whoever has this kind of anatomy almost invulnerable to anything short of a lot of explosives.

Just an idea. Lot of energy = a lot of potential uses.

[Sebiale]

Use it to do what?

An unstable neutron is a free neutron, meaning it's not part of anything else, so it couldn't constitute an organism of any sort.
Even if it could, free neutrons are radioactive; they undergo beta decay in order to stabilize themselves into an atomic structure. This creates a lot of energy, but it's not the kind of energy a cellular organism is meant to handle.
Such a being would not even be made of flesh and blood. It'd be more like something out of Star Trek.

Also, in both fission and fusion, neutrons are only part of the process.
Fission creates neutrons, and fusion combines them along with protons.

[Tock]

That's my point. It wouldn't be life as we know it, rather, something completely new altogether. Plausible, but incredibly hard to pull off making it look so.
It was merely an idea. Perhaps not the one you were looking for, but hey, new input is what we're all here for right?

Also, in both fission and fusion, neutrons are only part of the process.
Fission creates neutrons, and fusion combines them along with protons.

I know. I just didn't want to go into an in-depth discussion about something unrelated to the topic.

[Ansuru]

*triumphant return to the forum* Yay, freeborn is back! <- just found out

I've probably been reading too many Star Marines novels lately, but...

1. The amount of heat you would have to absorb to create mass would be literally astronomical (think about how much heat comes OUT of a nuclear bomb...yes, uranium is probably denser than a human body, but still!)


2. Why not just tap into the zero point field and draw your unlimited amounts of energy from the quantum substrate underlying all of reality? Or rewrite the standing waves in the quantum sea so that the necessary mass just springs into existence (because all matter/energy is just information at the quantum level, and if you know how to write it, you can create it!)


Quantum mechanics basically makes all the old ideas about magic Plausible again. That capital P is intentional.

It even explains the old fascination with the True Names of things (information!)

[Volkodlak]

meeper i didnt do it.

it sounds like sci fi but WWs suposed to be supernatrual beings so its posible