No Conservation of Energy: Difference between revisions

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** While the Discworld novels are reasonably respectful of conservation of energy (as much as one can be while satisfying the demands of [[Theory of Narrative Causality|Narrative Causality]] and [[Rule of Funny]]) they often play fast and loose with ''entropy''. A lot of [[Discworld/I Shall Wear Midnight|Tiffany Aching's]] practical magic, in particular, involves moving heat from one place to another.

* ''[[Wild Cards]]'' shapeshifters often have a [[Hand Wave]] of "virtual particles", basically acting in ways that in no way resemble the virtual particles of real-world physics.

** However, when "Captain Trips" undergoes an uncontrolled transformation into the gigantic creature called "Monster" in one book, the narration makes it very clear that the process is sucking up a huge amount of the nearby landscape to provide the mass for the creature's huge body.

* [[Alastair Reynolds]] ''Revelation Space'' novels feature two examples - the Conjoiner engines, space drives with a more-or-less unlimited energy source used by lighthuggers to get around, and Cryo-Arithmetic computers used to siphon heat out of the universe. The former is subverted in ''Redemption Ark'' when it is revealed that {{spoiler|The engines are powered by a miniature wormhole that opens into the Big Bang, as, even though trying FTL travel is a [[Cosmic Horror]] in its own right, ''time travel'' is just practical enough to work.}}

** {{spoiler|Relativity allows for all sorts of crazy things to exist, including wormholes that join different regions in time and space (FTL travel implies time travel). Having stuff travel into the future seems positively safe compared to inertialess FTL drive system, seeing as it doesn't even cause any paradoxes}}.

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* [[Dan Brown]]'s ''[[Angels & Demons]]'' is based around the female protagonist/her dead father pumping vast quantities of energy into the LHC to form [[Antimatter]], which they can then annihilate with normal matter to provide 'clean, sustainable energy for all' (instead of the bomb it inevitably becomes). It somehow never occurs to either of these highly trained scientists that they would have to put more in energy to create the antimatter than they could ever get out. The second law of thermodynamics wins again.

** [[Antimatter]] is pretty much impossible to contain in real life. You'd be hard pressed to find a less portable energy source.

* Lampshaded in ''[[Firestarter]]''. After a government experiment in which Charlie McGee vaporizes a cinderblock wall with her pyrokinetic powers, the next chapter is an Interdepartmental Memo in which one of the evil government scientists points out to the head evil government scientist that, despite producing 30,000 degrees of spot heat, the nine-year-old girl in question burned about as many calories as if she were reading a good book—leading the seriously weirded-out scientist to wonder just where the hell the energy is coming from (and to start thinking about stuff like black holes and things we breathe a sigh of relief that we can only observe from millions of light-years away and pretty much wondering if this little girl is some kind of rift in the very fabric of the Universe).

* Lampshaded in ''[[Firestarter]]''. After a government experiment in which Charlie McGee vaporizes a cinderblock wall with her pyrokinetic powers, the next chapter is an Interdepartmental Memo in which one of the evil government scientists points out to the head evil government scientist that, despite producing 30,000 degrees of spot heat, the nine-year-old girl in question burned about as many calories as if she were reading a good book—leading the seriously weirded-out scientist to wonder just where the hell the energy is coming from (and to start thinking about stuff like black holes and things we breathe a sigh of relief that we can only observe from millions of light-years away and pretty much wondering if this little girl is some kind of rift in the very fabric of the Universe). The last lines of one of penultimate chapters suggest that she might be tapping into the Sun for her power, and that she might one day be able do more than just draw on it.

* [[Alan Dean Foster]]'s ''[[Humanx Commonwealth]]'' series has a brain-bending use of this trope in its mechanism for [[FTL Travel]], which involves generating a small black hole in front of your ship and letting it "pull" you along until it evaporates, at which point you generate a new black hole, and so on. The first novel in which it's introduced even [[Lampshades]] it by having the viewpoint character struggle with the concept.

* Moorcock's series ''The Dancers At The End Of Time'' averts it: one million years in the future the advanced technology of mankind has turned the remaining members of our species into undying [[Reality Warper|Reality Warping]] [[Physical God]]s. Except that this technology cost so much energy that the Degenerate Era (an era that should comes by 100 ''trillion'' years from now) has already began: in other words, by achieving godhood, mankind as divided by ''one hundred million'' the lifetime of the universe. {{spoiler|of course, since it happens in Moorcock's Multiverse, one man eventually realizes that with an infinity of ~~universe~~, there is an endless pool of energy to draw from, which allows the dancers to flip one off Thermodynamics by the end of the story.}}

* Moorcock's series ''The Dancers At The End Of Time'' averts it: one million years in the future the advanced technology of mankind has turned the remaining members of our species into undying [[Reality Warper|Reality Warping]] [[Physical God]]s. Except that this technology cost so much energy that the Degenerate Era (an era that should comes by 100 ''trillion'' years from now) has already began: in other words, by achieving godhood, mankind has divided by ''one hundred million'' the lifetime of the universe. {{spoiler|of course, since it happens in Moorcock's Multiverse, one man eventually realizes that with an infinity of universes, there is an endless pool of energy to draw from, which allows the dancers to flip one off Thermodynamics by the end of the story.}}

* Averted in regards to conservation of mass in the ''[[Deverry]]'' novels. The mazrakir (shapeshifters) all change into an animal form the same size as their normal form. Nevyn pokes fun at the old 'sorcerers turning people into frogs' story by pointing out the stories never mention that the frogs would have to be big enough to ride.

* Averted in Eric Nylund's ''A Signal Shattered'' where an alien merchant sells the people of Earth a teleportation device which works by borrowing a negligible amount of the Earth's rotation. Needless to say, widespread use of this "free" technology results in Earth's destruction. {{spoiler|Which was all part of the alien's plan, of course.}}

* Starships in the ''[[Honor Harrington]]'' universe use the Impeller Drive, which create gravity waves that the ship can "surf" on at over 500 G's acceleration. A starship requires far less energy from its fusion reactors to run its Impellers than the amount of kinetic energy it gains from that acceleration.

* In ''[[The Dresden Files]]'', magic "still has to do business with physics" so that energy can't come from nowwhere. Generally energy is drawn from latent magical energy in the world, which is produced by life and emotions, though there are plenty of other sources, such as large leylines of raw energy (which should not be messed with unless one is a skilled wizard) [[Hellfire]] (from ~~downbelow~~) [[White Magic|Soulfire]] (drawn from one's [[Our Souls Are Different|soul]]) or even from existing energy, like latent heat. The latter has been used multiple times by Harry Dresden to freeze things by ripping latent heat from his surroundings, like pulling the heat from a lake's water to freeze it, or pulling the heat from around a vampire to freeze it (and then throw that heat at another vampire to burn it to ashes).

* In ''[[The Dresden Files]]'', magic "still has to do business with physics" so that energy can't come from nowwhere. Generally energy is drawn from latent magical energy in the world, which is produced by life and emotions, though there are plenty of other sources, such as large leylines of raw energy (which should not be messed with unless one is a skilled wizard), [[Hellfire]] (from down below), [[White Magic|Soulfire]] (drawn from one's [[Our Souls Are Different|soul]]) or even from existing energy, like latent heat. The latter has been used multiple times by Harry Dresden to freeze things by ripping latent heat from his surroundings, like pulling the heat from a lake's water to freeze it, or pulling the heat from around a vampire to freeze it (and then throw that heat at another vampire to burn it to ashes).

* The titular character of ''[[The Chronicles of Professor Jack Baling]]'' wonders about this one, both as it applies to the perpetual motion machine created by his student and his own disintegrator ray. Using the latter in quick succession does end up blowing a fuse, but the amount of energy involved in powering the thing in the first place is staggering. He shouldn’t be able to get that much juice at once in the first place.

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