How do you possibly get 2,000 cubic meters of air crossing through square meter of surface area of the Slow spell, a bomb 500 meters down a 2m x 2m mineshaft?
You don't actually get that much air moving, this is why physicists walked away from purely particle based systems in favor of wave and wave-particle systems.
As previously mentioned, the wave system would have the kinetic energy shift from molecule to molecule with little/no movement of the individual molecule, so the Slow spell would be useless against an explosion (but could slow the shrapnel and debris created by it) and the wave-particle (most true-to-life) system would require far too much math and crunch to determine whether or not a particular explosion was successfully affected to use at the table.
Therefore, for the purpose of discussing the physics involved with Slow + Explosion, I used the now-defunct pure-particle model of physics. This had the side benefit of addressing most of the commentary here regarding the physics of explosions (buckets of water, ocean waves, etc) since most of these were presented from a "they're made of particles" argument.
If you really wanted to work at that wave-particle system, you could simplify it by looking at each cubic meter of air that the explosion would (normally) impact inside the Slow spell and count it as 1.2 kg towards the limit (so if you have 10 cubic meters that would be inside the explosion, you have 12 kg towards your limit).
Of course, if you're worrying this much about physics, you'll also ask "what happens the the energy-mass relationship when the Slow spell reduces the speed of an object from 2000 m/s to 1 m/s". Well, since the fundamental and quantum forces are maintained normally (per the slow spell), then the energy of the 1999 m/s would be converted, via Einstein's Relativity, into mass, so again, the spell will fall apart under almost all circumstances as the sudden loss of kinetic energy must be addressed by a sudden increase in potential energy (mass, since you aren't changing any other characteristic of the energy equations) in order to ensure that the fundamental forces are not affected by the Slow spell.
Simply put, do not argue any form of physics regarding the Slow spell, as it is a rabbit-hole of half-statements and misunderstandings of physics. Either figure out it's intention (not hard to do) and re-write the spell without references to physics, or ignore the spell out-right.
Lol no, you need to actually defend your position. Blast waves (unsurprisingly) are waves, with all the classic properties, they can diffract, refract and even reflect (chunky salsa rule). But the wave actually creates a huge difference in pressure that actually compresses air and it actually creates very strong 'wind". Have you ever actually studied shockwaves? You realize in a High Explosive device not only is there flow, it's
supersonic.
In the first place, you're wrong that in "the wave system" there would be little to no movement of the molecules, I invite you to observe that "in reality" there ACTUALLY IS pressure driven flow. A thought experiment: I release some colored smoke by a bomb, then detonate the explosive, does the smoke remain in place spreading only by diffusion while the wave of the explosion "ripples" through it, or does it ACTUALLY get blown away? And you realize that after the explosion there is a negative pressure effect that causes air to rush BACK right? How do you explain that with your half made up nonsense? And you HAVE felt the wind on your face at some point right?
Also? The math for this is actually quite easy, especially for open air hemispherical point source explosions.
Second,
If you really wanted to work at that wave-particle system, you could simplify it by looking at each cubic meter of air that the explosion would (normally) impact inside the Slow spell and count it as 1.2 kg towards the limit (so if you have 10 cubic meters that would be inside the explosion, you have 12 kg towards your limit).
This would be a step in the right direction since you're not creating massive imaginary volumes of air to add thousands of kilograms to your math, but it's still silly. Use the actual air between the shadowrunnerss and the explosion. Although I hope this demonstrates how ridiculous your previous math was, 12 kg vs. 2400 kg, lol!
Of course, if you're worrying this much about physics, you'll also ask "what happens the the energy-mass relationship when the Slow spell reduces the speed of an object from 2000 m/s to 1 m/s". Well, since the fundamental and quantum forces are maintained normally (per the slow spell), then the energy of the 1999 m/s would be converted, via Einstein's Relativity, into mass, so again, the spell will fall apart under almost all circumstances as the sudden loss of kinetic energy must be addressed by a sudden increase in potential energy (mass, since you aren't changing any other characteristic of the energy equations) in order to ensure that the fundamental forces are not affected by the Slow spell.
No, just no. In the first place, it's magic. In other spells it creates energy from nothing, it's not exactly crazy to allow the reverse. Second, I invite you to actually do the math, it's stupidly easy.
KE = 1/2 Mair V^2, E = Mcreated C^2.
Mcreated C^2 = 1/2 Mair V^2
Mcreated = (Mair V^2)/ (2 C^2) = (1.2 * (1999^2) / (2 * 300000000^2) = (0.6 * 399601) / 90000000000000000 kilograms
I'm not even going to reach for my calculator to finish that, I trust that the enormous difference in order of magnitude is apparent? I mean it should have been obvious the second you started thinking about energy-mass conversion from something as paltry as that kinetic energy but oh well.
To the people with the bullet talk: The spell is limited by mass not "weight".
