2010-03-08, 23:10 | Link #1 |
Adeptus Animus
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Abilities and Technologies: Speculation based on Science, Metaphysics, and Magic
The idea for this thread was inspired from a discussion that was taking place in the Uiharu character discussion thread where posters were making a legible effort to explain her abilities from a scientific point of view. Now that we have this thread, we no longer need to limit ourselves just with Uiharu's abilities to talk about the science. There are plenty other espers with equally interesting abilities to talk about.
All spoilers are allowed, but they must be enclosed in clearly marked spoiler tags to accommodate anime-only viewers. The only other rule that must be followed is that everyone needs to respectful toward each other's opinion. Some of the posts were copied in the below from the Uiharu thread to give the participant a gist of what this thread topic is about. Enjoy this interesting discussion! .. Last edited by monir; 2010-03-18 at 14:01. |
2010-03-08, 23:10 | Link #2 |
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((TL;DR version: Her AIM maintains the thermal energy level of objects in contact with her.))
I think I'm going to ahead and say why I believe Uiharu's ability isn't entropy stop, psychokinesis, microwaves, or anything requiring conscious thought. Temperature is defined as the partial derivative of the energy in the system with respect to entropy: T = dE/dS where S is entropy. If there's no change in entropy, the derivative goes to zero and there's no temperature. Or, at the very least there's no change in temperature of whatever object she's touching. Now, if there's no change in temperature, that means the object she's holding can't give off or receive heat. The effect would be like touching something that's exactly the same temperature as your hand, but it isn't. This isn't the effect Uiharu has on the tayaki; it's definitely giving off heat. The best explanation of her ability would be that she can make an object's thermal energy remain constant, just like how the guy in the ball bearings (young Kuroko episode) can maintain constant potential and kinetic energy in a ball bearing. That way, the object Uiharu's touching never decreases in temperature, nor goes up, but can still give off heat energy. As a side note, her ability probably isn't telekinetic control over excitement state, using EM fields or microwaves of any sort. If it was, she'd be able to heat and/or cool things or basically set any object at any temperature she wished. Maintaining the heat energy level with one of these powers would require incredibly precise control of heating or cooling along with constant knowledge of the state of the energy level of the object at all times. That sounds more like level 5 control, like Mikoto having trouble keeping something from boiling over in the holodeck camping trip episode. Even she had to focus. The flowers are a red herring, and entropy relating to chaos doesn't mean it's bad. |
2010-03-09, 01:10 | Link #3 |
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Well... creating energy out of nothing does seem like a common trait with all of them ESPers...
Still, I bemoan the discovery that Uiharu turns out to be a Fire-type pokemon. Maybe someday, Flame users understand that they are in fact controlling oscillating vectors on individual atoms and take control of that, thus leveling up as wannabe Accels. Maybe that is why we don't see Fireblasters above Level 3, besides being a relatively common skill.
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2010-03-09, 01:13 | Link #4 | |
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We don't know exactly what Uiharu experienced when she was holding the box of taiyaki, nor do we know what Haruue experienced when she took one taiyaki from the box. Thus, it may be that the box did not feel noticeably warm to Uiharu, and the taiyaki did not feel noticeably warm to Haruue until she removed it from the box. What we do know is that: A) When Haruue was holding the taiyaki in her hands - and thus, not touching Uiharu or the box - it was warm, as if it was freshly-baked. B) Uiharu stated that she can maintain a constant temperature in objects that she touches; this apparently includes relatively complex systems or frames of reference, like taiyaki inside of a box, where she is in contact with the container rather than the actual object. C) Uiharu stated that she cannot handle very hot objects. D) Uiharu is a level one ability user. Given that Uiharu is only level one, perhaps she can only suppress up to a certain, relatively low rate of entropic equalization? For example, she could keep a cold drink from warming or a taiyaki from cooling to room temperature, but she could not keep a ice cube from melting or a piece of hot metal from cooling to comfortable handling temperatures, because the rate at which they are losing or gaining energy is too great. Once the ice cube was a puddle of cold water and the piece of hot metal was cool enough to touch, their rate of entropic equalization might be within her power's range of suppression, and thus she could keep them from heating or cooling further. In this scenario, suppressing the entropy of the system would not require any great degree of thought - that would come later, possibly, if she ever learned to suppress it only to a certain degree, so that objects under her power would heat or cool at a reduced rate. Again, just playing devil's advocate; given the existence of the aforementioned 'constant speed' power, i think that Uiharu's power functioning similarly to that one is the more likely possibility... |
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2010-03-10, 03:22 | Link #5 | |||
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Before anything else, I'd just like to say that my person opinion is that the flowers are a red herring, a distraction, and that it means nothing. Moving on...
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Just going to go through some stuff in your post because you make some great points. Quote:
B) Since all espers generate an AIM field, I posit that certain AIM fields extend further from an individual depending the individual. In this case, once Uiharu touches the box, her field envelops the box. Her ability then simply applies to everything within the field. Complexity wouldn't matter, but this is speculation. Uiharu probably has to consciously expand her AIM field power to objects she's touching though, Saten had to hug Uiharu in ep13 to stay warm. C) Not being able to handle hot objects is actually a huge argument against entropy stop. If entropy stops the moment she touches an object, heat transfer immediately stops. She could then touch anything she wanted to and maintain that temperature for the item. She says she can't handle hot items because she can't touch them, not because she can't keep it that warm. D) All sorts of espers violate conservation of energy principles no matter what the level, I suppose a level 1 Uiharu can do so as well. Quote:
Last nail in the "entropy control" theory: If you can control entropy, a whole series of better abilities would result if she had that power. She'd be able to kill any living being just by touching them. Entropy increasing is tied to things like fluid dynamics and chemical reactions. She'd be able to tell blood not to flow, or inhibit the chemical reactions that let plants generate energy. Hell, she'd actually make plants on her head die faster! If you can control entropy, you can't pick and choose what effects that it has. If Uiharu's maintaining constant entropy on say, a person, you would get the -Fluids don't flow. (She'd be able to stop a river, or blood from flowing, suffocate people or suffocate herself.) -Chemical reactions don't take place. (Cause living matter to rot from lack of ATP, or stomach acid to chemically break down food. Prevent explosions.) -Freeze an object's state right down to the quark level. (Essentially a freeze time method for an object without actually mucking with the fabric of time. If she was a higher level, I assume.) These are vastly superior powers than "constant temperature," which she doesn't say she has. ((PS: I'm also dreadfully afraid that the author will come out and say "Uiharu can control entropy, her effects just aren't consistent because I didn't research properly." and he would be completely in the right and all my thinking would be wrong.)) ((PPS: Entropy control suddenly just became an awesome idea for a power... but you'd have to get the effects right, and that would be tricky.)) |
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2010-03-10, 10:49 | Link #7 | ||||||||
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2010-03-10, 12:31 | Link #8 | |||||
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I thought I laid that out pretty clearly. Again, if she controlled entropy, she could cease their heat transfer by stopping entropy, and no heat would be given off. Quote:
Any idea that involves a transfer of heat will without fail show effects of temperature loss over time unless there's some sort of heat energy source. There must be something giving energy to the tayaki, there's no way around this point, using controlled entropy or thermodynamics can't change this point. Quote:
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I'm currently out of time, but I will be back with more later. I'm enjoying these debates too much. >.> You're very good at this, Alhazred. |
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2010-03-10, 13:56 | Link #9 | ||||
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One could ask, if Aerohand and Hydrokinesis are somehow subsets of 'pure' Telekinesis, rather than 'material manipulation,' why can Kongou not telekinetically affect anything other than atmospherically dispersed gases? Similarly, you could ask how Accelerator's power is any different from very strong telekinesis, or why 'Aerohand' and 'Offensive Armor' are both considered level 4, when 'Aerohand' should theoretically be able to accomplish the exact same effect as 'Offensive Armor,' in addition to all the other things it can do. Part of increasing level is increasing your understanding of how your 'personal reality' functions. In another thread, i actually did posit that greater understanding of her power might lead Uiharu to make the mental connection between vibrational motion and transitional motion, and the expansion of abilities such a breakthrough would grant. If her power remained the ability to create 'closed systems,' it could lead to some very bizarre effects - including the 'Constant Speed' effect. It may be that Constant Speed and Constant Temperature are both subsets of the same broader power, and the users of each are just starting with different base assumptions about the nature of their personal reality. Quote:
Actually, what Uiharu said was 'Misaka-tachi,' which roughly translates as 'Misaka et al.' The only person explicitly included in the 'does not know' group is Misaka. This might be because Uiharu idolizes Misaka, and was embarrassed by her relatively weak power. Kuroko obviously knows what Uiharu's power does; they've been friends for years, they trained in Judgment together, and Kuroko actually thought about it for a while before concluding that Uiharu's power wouldn't be able to get her out of jams. Saten may or may not know, but if she doesn't know, that might be because Uiharu is sensitive to Saten's insecurities regarding her own lack of ability, so she didn't want to bring it up if Saten didn't ask her about it. |
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2010-03-12, 13:13 | Link #10 | |||||
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Sorry for the delay, midterms tend to disrupt my ability to make well reasoned posts, so I didn't make them.
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While all esper abilities make break laws like conservation of energy or momentum, all observers in all frames of reference can agree on which law is broken. If not, there's no consistent universe for there to be anyone in. This is the very basis of General Relativity. Quote:
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Again though, having control of entropy may give constant speed and constant temperature effects, but being able to generate a constant speed effect may not guarantee that person to have entropic control abilities. But yes, if Uiharu ups her level, she may start displaying a whole range of super powers. Quote:
This reminds me, I have an interesting theory on how Touma's ability can be made consistent with the problem of "stopping railgun blasts but not accelerator accelerated objects." I should post that some other time. I hope I'm not being premature, but I'm going say that I can not rule out entropy control without either two things: -Uiharu can make a thermally isolated system (ie. tayaki gives off no heat until touched by Haruue.) -Uiharu levels up and provides more information on the effects of her abilities. Though, like you, Alhazred, I still maintain that it's more likely she's drawing zero-point energy to keep the darn piece of tayaki the same temperature. (To spite the author though, I will point out that if the tayaki's maintained at a freshly baked temperature for that long, it's probably dried out and untasty when they eat it.) |
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2010-03-12, 14:11 | Link #11 | |||||||||
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2010-03-12, 14:50 | Link #12 | ||||
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And to the "no, it's not..." thing, well, he'd have to live with the fact that I pointed out one more consistency! (and then he'd not care about it, which makes me sad.) |
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2010-03-12, 15:09 | Link #13 | |||
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2010-03-12, 18:02 | Link #14 | |
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There's no evidence to suggest what half of the stuff you just wrote. Any object accelerator uses his power on doesn't need to transform into any other state of energy or otherwise. Why does the expansion on the universe matter? A bullet he tells to move in the opposite direction to him doesn't transform into some energy any more than a girder he's throwing a Touma. ------------------------ Focusing on the more important: I hope we're not misunderstanding each other on the concept of frame of reference. Are you saying that accelerator defines his frame of reference to be at rest, so that the when the bullet hits him, he can define an opposite vector for that bullet to go? |
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2010-03-12, 18:18 | Link #15 | |
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He can also 'go big' as well. Recently in the light novels he changed the vector of an entire building relative to the rotational center of the earth, causing the entire building to move 2 kilometers contra-rotationally at the angular velocity of an object on the surface of the earth. If he expanded this even further, he could alter vectors relative to center of the solar system, the center of the galaxy, the center of the universe, etc. Thus, if he told all of the independent vectors in a bullet, from the subatomic scale all the way up to the scale where they can be perceived as a bullet, to 'go that way,' all at once, relative to the center of the universe, the bullet would break down into subatomic particles and energy, and shoot off in the indicated direction with velocity determined as a function of the expansion speed of the universe. |
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2010-03-12, 18:58 | Link #16 | |||
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-the earth takes it's frame of reference to be zero. Then accelerator changes the vector of the building and it moves. To the earth, the building just moved 2 kilometres. -to the building itself though, it would set it's own frame of reference to be zero, and suddenly, to the building, it appears that the earth just rotated underneath it 2 kilometres. The earth would say the building moved, and the building says the earth moved, but both frames are valid and equal. Simply choosing a frame of reference doesn't make it special. Quote:
Accerator can tell a bullet to go "that way" relative to himself though. There's a logical break from where you jump from "bullet goes that way" to "bullet breaks down into subatomic particles and energy." One does not follow the other. While the bullet is a huge complex system with multiple vectors from the atoms and spinning electrons, to the frame of reference of the bullet, the whole universe is moving towards the bullet. The complex system of "the bullet" is going about it's merry business with all it's internal electron orbiting and so on. When the universe, with accelerator in it, hits the bullet, the bullet sees the rest of the universe bounce away from it uniformly. This frame of reference is just as valid as Accelerator setting himself as an unmoving frame of reference where the bullet is heading towards him, then the bullet is bounced by his power. There's no picking a frame of reference, they're all valid. And technically, any esper powers that move things just goes, "move this in relation to me." We might need to move this over to the accelerator thread. If you want to, quote my post and just post in the other thread. I'll check both threads for your reply. |
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2010-03-12, 20:11 | Link #17 | ||||||
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2010-03-13, 04:27 | Link #18 |
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wow, amazing tread: love the spechula
if you two, Alhazred and CrazyPerson, don't mind me being third spoke, I'd love to join your conversation. (I have read over your posts, and have a general gist of what each person said, and where you are coming from, but being the lazy person i am, i probably won't quote anything. Please correct me if I misinterpret or am wrong. Since both of you seem to be familiar with physics I will make assumptions about your knowledge. And yeah, i made this account with the sole purpose of posting in this epic tread.) First of let me say that we are making assumptions about the world the anime inhabits that might necessarily not be true. There could be some exotic form of physics and unfamiliar laws which affect reality. We are, in fact speculating about the precise physical mechanisms which control a fictional world, designed for the purpose of entertainment (i guess you call this part of the entertainment experience too). However, i do believe we are entailed to these assumption as no meaningful conversation could arise without using the laws and logic familiar to us. It is also apparent that the universe that Uiharu inhabits is similar to our own, as it is created by individuals who live in our reality, and seemingly want to emulate an enhanced version of our reality through the creative medium. A corollary of this, is that the director or creative designer in charge of implementing this realism might have untrue assumptions about how the world works, or might not have understood a physical phenomenon to the point at which they can successfully implement it in the story. This is readily evident in most anime, and especially so when it deals with unfamiliar environments like space. (constant thrust does not equal constant velocity!) Uiharu's world, does have its plot holes, both physically and human aesthetically, however overall it is still a close enough representation of our own world to capture our imaginations. I agree with Alhazred when he says computation is an important aspect of an ability user's power. It makes sense when you consider the fact that information is inseparable from its physical reality. Most users can only use their powers by thinking about it, and the repeated referenced Personal Reality, seems to suggest that the inner subjective reality of an individual modeled in the brain, seems to have an effect on the objective world. It also follows that users who understand their ability better would be stronger than those who did not. The exact physical mechanism between a user's mental computation and the physical manifestation of an ability i cannot say. They haven't given us nearly enough information, but if I had to guess, the AIM field generated by the computation of the mental system somehow causes changes to occur on a metaphysical level (probably defined by their understanding of physics) which then influence their actual world. This is all theoretical and shouldn't really be taken to seriously, but an interesting conclusion i can draw from it is that ability users define their own power. I think it was stated previously that a power works based not on an absolute mechanism, but on how a user believe their power to work. If we consider that most users start of powerless, or with very little ability, it becomes easy to imagine a reinforcing process where a young esper develops a power based on what he sees/imagines his power doing. Makes sense when you consider that what dictates certain users to certain powers seems arbitrary. In reality all abilities are probably really manifestations of a few phenomena, or more likely a single one. People just interpret it differently based on how they experience it. It also explains why certain people can't use powers, as they do not have the ability to imagine themselves using a power which defies physical convention (they are to grounded in reality) as well as the genetic basis for powers, as minds are in a large part designed by genes. Although i think this is already understood. Getting to the topic of this tread, if we think about the specific mechanism involved, i think uiharu's ability is exactly what she says it is: to be able to keep physical systems at a constant temperature. It doesn't matter whether this is achieved through keeping Entropy constant, or through isolate a system (yes, they are different, will explain), or through heating/cooling the system herself. Why? Because that's the limits to the understanding of her ability. There is no specific physical mechanism because it's unobserved. As time passes, her power will evolve with her perception of it. So if she realizes she is really just a pyro, she will be able to create fireballs and such. However, that's an extreme and unlikely example. Because the human mind is so rooted in reality, it is much more likely that she'll realize she can increase or decrease temperatures as well, or invent a reasoning, such as zero entropic change for her ability which becomes reality as she gets used to it. Some of these of these physical mechanisms are quite fun to speculate however. For example, an isolated system would mean that any system Uiharu affected with her ability, would become essentially unobservable (such as the taiyaki in the box) as any interaction by photons or detectable forces would change the arrangement of the system. This means that Uiharu could make things invisible (unobservable is a better word - think event horizon), or rather nonexistent in the physical reality of her universe. This doesn't really seem that plausible, as she would have interpreted her ability as being different to what she thinks it is. Also if she is using her ability to overclock her computer when she does her thing, how can she receive information from other networks unless they were also isolated in the same system as her computer. Unlikely due to her low level. Another one thats interesting, and probably more applicable if she chose, was constant entropy. I know CrazyPerson doesn't really like this idea but i think your thinking of entropy in the wrong way. Rather than no exchange of heat between the box and the environment, what if Uiharu was able to control probability instead. Remember the second law of thermodynamics is only a suggestion not a rule. It's more likely for a system to go from a state of high entropy into a state of lower one, but there is no law at the fundamental level which says it must. Thus Uiharu might be able to control some metavalue of entropic probability of particles that interact with the system in question. For example all the kinetic molecular energy lost to heat by the box, the same arbitrary amount of kinetic energy is added back into the box. This would inherently be different from her intentionally heating the system, as the physical phenomena would be unimportant, random, and uncontrollable, and only lead to the desired effect of maintaining constant entropy. Of course you could explain all the ability through some manipulation of probabilities and metavalues (basically information entropy), and thats the point since all the powers have a common source. A consequence of the idea that all the powers are from the same source, and the understanding of a power leads to more precise definitions of the boundaries under which a power can operate means that people who do not contemplate their powers at all, can have much broader abilities. This requires that information processing, remain discrete, by using abstractions outside thinking. Knowledge of how to manipulate the powers could be passed down without the actual need to understand the physical system that dictates the power. Yes, i am talking about the magic. This completely makes sense when you consider that magic in the anime requires absolute ignorance about the process, and that espers, who use a different mental model about the physical phenomenon that causes the power when compared to magicians, can't use magic (vise-versa). I am getting of topic, but if we return to the problem of the mechanism that controls Uiharu's power, my general thesis is that there is no definite mechanism as the user herself hasn't defined one. But if i had to chose the most probable; some sort of entropic control of physical (and informational) systems. -Kwantum0 PS. Is it just me or are some or do some of the powers seems FTL? If so why are there no time travel mechanism archs? PPS. Accelerator probably can only change the vectors of objects based on definite reference frames he can comprehend. The angular momentum of the earth is OK (somehow...), but the differences in velocities between the galactic core and everyday things is to large to meaningfully understand. |
2010-03-13, 07:34 | Link #19 |
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Time travel would be too complicated, even more complicated than calculating with the involvement of the 11th dimension. Awaki Musujime, a powerful long-distance Teleporter at Level 4 has developed a trauma of using her powers on herself because she experienced being stuck waist-down on concrete after teleporting.
Another thing to ponder on is that the 11th Dimension is somewhat misleading because there are no 5-10th dimensions to begin with, well, AFAIK. Teleportation and some other powers require manipulation of 3 dimensions, but Time Travel would require both mastery of the 3 dimensions plus the ability to manipulate the 4th dimension on himself, which would be a whole new world of calculations.
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2010-03-13, 09:14 | Link #20 |
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Actually, time isn't a '4th dimension' in the sense that the other dimensions are. It's only called that because it's convenient to conceptualize it as a 'fourth axis' visually. The actual 4th dimension, as well as dimensions 5-11, are actually further spatial dimensions. If I remember my random meanderings through wikipedia correctly, dimensions 4-10 are pretty much confirmed as part of a theory called 'superstring' or something, and it's only the 11th which is currently being contended (alternatively, there might be even more). If I've got it right, the spatial dimensions we (as humans) can't sense are supposedly the dimensions by which non-contact forces like gravity or the strong and weak nuclear forces work, via the interactions between subatomic particles such as quarks ('cause, y'know for example, how can gravity pull objects towards each other if they aren't even touching? lol, you might think 'what are you saying, don't even ask that question' but it turns out, if you think about it, that maybe they actually are touching. It's just that the way they do so is via some theoretical particles which are called gravitrons, which are connected to each other in a higher dimension). As for the 'string' part of string theory, those are the theoretical things 'connecting' all these particles in those higher dimensions--what we percieve as 'particles' are really just the ends of these 'strings', the rest of which are hidden in some other dimension.
Teleporters using the 11th dimension to teleport things therefore makes a 'meh' sort of sense to me, given my low-level understanding of this stuff. Moving through a higher spatial dimension would indeed appear to be teleportation to our perception, just like how they explain what we percieve as 'forces at a distance' like gravity. But I'm sure that, to all the real physicists who know what the 11th dimension is actually supposed to do or who might even be arguing that it doesn't exist, such an explanation for psychic 'teleporting' abilities might be completely off-base. To the rest of the physics guys: lol, I'm just a n00b procrastinating his way through an undergraduate degree here. My lectures have gotten nowhere near addressing this stuff (don't think they ever will), so call me out if anything I've said was complete bullshit. |
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