Need help writing character who possesses diamagnetism manipulation

[NativeAlien]

The powers and their limitations are what you chose them to be.

I think you are still trying to make things "realistic" in a scenario which is actually completely unrealistic, but you have instinctively adopted the conventions of the genre with " the machine, instead of killing him, irradiates his body with an electromagnetic charge". The conventions are there for a simple, story-telling reason: reality does not generate super-powers.

The realistic outcome of a burst of radiation from a modern particle accelerator is either no effect, crippling illness or death, in order of likelihood.

One of the documented cases of exposure to a large burst of radiation comes from the development of the atomic bomb when one of the researchers was exposed to what is known as a criticality accident, when sufficient fissile material is gathered together to initiate a chain reaction. The researcher separated the offending materials before the incident could get out of control and saved his colleagues. What was documented was his death from radiation poisoning over a number of days.

When I was a research student, the UK go-to accelerator facility was the Synchrotron Radiation Source. These days it has been replaced with the Diamond Light Source, and to quote their web page, it produces "light 10 billion times brighter than the sun" directed down the beamlines, which sounds a lot and in bulk would do huge damage to human tissue, but so far as I know the power delivered by the beam is a fraction of a milliwatt, so quite tiny. You would get more serious damage holding an operating incandescent light bulb in your hand.

ETA
In the realm of realistic vs convention, "a quantum physicist who tries committing suicide by turning on an atom smasher/particle accelerator" is one hundred percent solid convention and utterly unrealistic. The only physicist I have actually known who committed suicide had access to all manner of high-power equipment that could have done the job, but what he chose was to hang himself.

This is kind of where it gets into “improbable rather than impossible” territory. I know the number of documented incidences of a person committing suicide via exposing themself to a particle accelerator is basically nonexistent, but there are plenty of other improbable ways in which people have killed themselves (like deliberate exposure to this radioactive sphere called the demon core, stabbing through the back of the head with scissors through their mouth, etc.) so this is just a matter of abstract reasoning that someone could kill themself in such an unconventional way. Perhaps atom smasher/particle accelerator was the wrong choice of words. I was thinking something that magnetizes or electromagnetically charges things, so the expected death would be more a result of electrocution than radiation poisoning. This is based on the fact that I heard somewhere a person temporarily becomes magnetic when they are struck by lightning (although this could be complete bogus, in which case I had no idea)

 

[NativeAlien]

I agree. No matter how much you aim for realism, the likelihood is that anyone with a good understanding of the subject will be able to pick holes in your theory - understandable as they may have had years of study whereas you have had weeks. But the chances are that the vast majority of your readers will have little to no understanding of diamagnetism.

The danger with aiming for scientific realism is that this is done at the sacrifice of the story. As long as your explanation is plausible enough in the universe you have created to suspend your reader's disbelief for the duration of the story, then this is all that is needed.

Superman can fly because Krypton had a lower gravity, Peter Parker has spider-like senses because he was bitten by a spider. Moving away from fantasy into a more scientific/technology led story, do we really know/understand how Iron Man creates his powerful suits, what is in Dr Jekyll's potion, how the traveller moves back and forth in time or how Frankenstein brings life to his monster? In most of these cases, the author just tells us 'that's how it is', and we can believe the author because the reasoning is either plausible or hard to argue with.

The 'handwavium' mentioned above is a good idea. Throw in the discovery of some new element, the creation of a new invention or have something radical happen to your protagonist (eg Peter Parker getting bitten by a radioactive spider) - perhaps your character receives a massive electric shock which should kill him, but somehow he survives. This curveball will mean that any scientific theories can manipulated to your heart's content without anyone being able to say anything to the contrary.

But there are certain scientific precedents upon which a lot of fictional elements are based. For instance, you mention Frankenstein. There are hypothetical ways to reanimate a human based on the fact a severed dog’s head was reanimated once in WWII (or at least I think it was around that time). Obviously Mary Shelley didn’t know this at the time she was writing, but she accidentally wrote something that, although fictional, had some sound science backing it up on a much smaller scale (obviously reanimating a dog’s head for a few minutes is a far cry away from reanimating a full human being and then making it so they can be self-sustaining). The problem I’m having is I don’t even know how the powers would work in principle or theory (regardless of their application in the real world). I still can’t tell if diamagnetism means that he would have the ability to repel objects away from him, or if he would be repelled by objects that are diamagnetic (like water, wood, and plastic levitating/repelling him). I’m also stumped on the concept of polarity regarding how it ties into magnetism between things other than bar magnets. Like, if magnetism must have a north and south pole, then how does the magnetic material repel/levitate the frog from both sides? Why doesn’t the frog stick to the magnet lying face-down, but then repel facing the opposite way? Same thing with reversing charges/polarity. Have no clue how that even works, so I have no idea how the powers would work. Usually I am able to visualize things based on descriptions, but not here. I can’t even conceptualize it. Like I said before, I would be willing to pay someone more knowledgeable about this to write out my idea if I knew where to go. It’s lazy, I know, but for the sake of my sanity, I may just have to

 

[Biskit]

This is based on the fact that I heard somewhere a person temporarily becomes magnetic when they are struck by lightning (although this could be complete bogus, in which case I had no idea)

That sounds like a simple extrapolation from the fact that if a person is struck by lightning then a huge electrical current passes through them and that current will generate a magnetic field.

 

[Biskit]

There are hypothetical ways to reanimate a human based on the fact a severed dog’s head was reanimated once in WWII (or at least I think it was around that time). Obviously Mary Shelley didn’t know this at the time she was writing, but she accidentally wrote something that, although fictional, had some sound science backing it up on a much smaller scale (obviously reanimating a dog’s head for a few minutes is a far cry away from reanimating a full human being and then making it so they can be self-sustaining).

I would guess you are referring to supposed experiments into heart-lung machines in the Soviet Union. (There's a wikipedia link Experiments in the Revival of Organisms - Wikipedia)

The claims to have re-animated the dog's, rather than simply keeping it alive, seem questionable and not what I would call sound science.

I still can’t tell if diamagnetism means that he would have the ability to repel objects away from him, or if he would be repelled by objects that are diamagnetic (like water, wood, and plastic levitating/repelling him).

You are still tying yourself in knots trying to generate realistic explanations for something that isn't real. The simple physics answer is that the forces have to be equal and opposite - if your character and another object interact via diamagnetism then they are both pushed away from each other, but the really real answer is that the forces would be tiny. If you want things to work in a way that can be justified in terms of real physics, then you have to restrict yourself to small effects.

The only way you are going to make sense of this, and to allow your character to use gross, visible super-powers, is to pick a set of rules - things that attract, things that repel, when they do and don't.

 

[NativeAlien]

I would guess you are referring to supposed experiments into heart-lung machines in the Soviet Union. (There's a wikipedia link Experiments in the Revival of Organisms - Wikipedia)

The claims to have re-animated the dog's, rather than simply keeping it alive, seem questionable and not what I would call sound science.


You are still tying yourself in knots trying to generate realistic explanations for something that isn't real. The simple physics answer is that the forces have to be equal and opposite - if your character and another object interact via diamagnetism then they are both pushed away from each other, but the really real answer is that the forces would be tiny. If you want things to work in a way that can be justified in terms of real physics, then you have to restrict yourself to small effects.

The only way you are going to make sense of this, and to allow your character to use gross, visible super-powers, is to pick a set of rules - things that attract, things that repel, when they do and don't.

Ok. And this may sound rather dumb, but is there a shorthand way to tell which objects have an equal or opposite charge? I know it could be anything I want technically, but is it random which objects take a charge equal/opposite to another, or is there a specific set of materials/substances that generate equal/opposite forces. I assume it’s diamagnetic materials that will have the opposite charge relative to the source giving off the magnetic field?

 

[ckatt]

is it random which objects take a charge equal/opposite to another, or is there a specific set of materials/substances that generate equal/opposite forces.

I found this video that helped me understand these concepts well enough.
Maybe you've seen it already but a good primer for anyone else following the discussion I think.

 

[Fiberglass Cyborg]

How important is it that the character can't control the power without mechanical help? And could the problem actually be spun as an advantage?

I've been immersed in "X-Men" stuff lately, and there are typically four ways things can go with such a major superpower:
1. Total concious control over it, a la Iceman.
2. Concious control.... sorta. Can usually turn it on and off and direct it, but it often either fails to work or runs out of control. Happens a lot to various incarnations of Jean Grey.
3. No real control over how the power behaves, but can turn it on or off and use mechanical help and/or body posture to direct it. Think Cyclops, who can turn his beams off by closing his eyes, and can aim them by turning his head and focusing with his visor.
4. Always on, can't do anything at all about it. (Struggling to think of good examples offhand, but at one point Rictor literally cannot step on the ground without setting off an earthquake.)

In case 3, your control belt idea would be very interesting precisely /because/ it limits the character. Once they turn the power on, they've only got a certain amount of time to use it before the belt gets too hot to wear. This means that their power is not a silver bullet they can use to effortlessly defeat all enemies- they have to be much more resourceful.

 

[msstice]

I have a writeup for this: You can break physics, but not psychology

TL;DR I think what breaks immersion in a story is characters behaving unbelievably rather than dodgy physics. This of course doesn't mean you can break any world rules you want. Personally, I'll keep reading if things are consistent and start grumbling if laws are broken ad hoc for the purpose of the plot.