This might actually be deadlier than just density. I don't know if Oxygen is an alpha particle emitter when it sheds parts but inhaling or ingesting an alpha particle emitter is about the worse form of radiation poisoning one can get.
They break down by emiting Beta radiation and neutron becomes a proton, hence why they become florine. I don't understand how O-15 emits positrons, but we use artifically created O-15 to run PET scanners. But that breaks down into Nitrogen
You know the drill. I got Elemental Water powers. I make water with magic. Poof
So I was thinking, how heavy is that water? Well... it's most likely Oxygen-16, Hydrogen-1
Assuming I had the ability to cherry pick my isotopes, what is the heaviest water I could make and how much more heavy would it be compared to normal water. I would like the radioactive and non-radioactive examples. Note, it would have to exist for more than a few seconds.
Right Now, Assume it 0xygen-16 and Hydrogen-1 is the base. I think, stable-wise, I could get H-3 and Oxygen-18, for an extra 6 neutrons per water molecule.
But Oxygen-22 has a half-life of 2.25 seconds, so half the O-22 would be gone in 2 seconds, but 0-22 as a half-life of 13.51 seconds so that should be long enough. H-4 (tritium) has a half-life in years, so that works, but every other hydrogen isotope has a half life in picoseconds.
So I think weight wise, I have 18 vrs 24 (stable) vrs 28 (radioactive)
or 33% heavier / 56% heavier
So, If I had dueling water elementalists, would there be a significan advantage to making my water out of heavier isotopes when I hit someone with an ice spike?
Note, I already determined that the best Ice to make is Ice-7, which is stable at room temperature... and at about 40,000 atmospheres. It is 180% the density of normal ice.
Well using heavy water just adds more mass into the attack with in theory to more damage, but would make sense to be harder and expensive to conjure/cast, also using short lived isotopes are advantageous for the extra spicy radiation damage, since even if they know about rads (and at this point why not?) They would need to cast healing or some anti-rads costing time, magic and attention.
But if we're at this point is probably better and more eficient to just point a mariana trench level pressure washer magic into the enemies than use complicated advanced physics
Well using heavy water just adds more mass into the attack with in theory to more damage, but would make sense to be harder and expensive to conjure/cast, also using short lived isotopes are advantageous for the extra spicy radiation damage, since even if they know about rads (and at this point why not?) They would need to cast healing or some anti-rads costing time, magic and attention.
But if we're at this point is probably better and more eficient to just point a mariana trench level pressure washer magic into the enemies than use complicated advanced physics
Well, the isophysics of this is a bit more narrow than classical physics. The para-isophysics of a given universe is dependent on a number of factors. Dark Matter has a dampening effect on paraphysics of all sorts as well as makes hypophysics (quantum mechanics) less influential. The closer you are to the dark matter reefs, the less magic and more "normal" your science.
The universe in question is close, but not so close as to eliminate all paraphysics. Magic has a hiracrch to it.
The universe in question cannot allow any magic above Elemental, but there are ways around that.
The demons get around that by being able to "steal" elemental magic from other demons. So demons have elemental "Goblin", but if a demon succubus ripped the demon core out of a goblin, there is a chance she can steal a small amount of "goblin" elemental power. Not that you would want to, but theoretically possible. Demons can grown their own element, but the element is usually very ridgedly defined.
Elves broke the rules by finding a way to have a frame work (what you would consider a classic wizard) by externalizing their magic into a familiar. Alas, this makes it rather dangerous, because if your familiar dies... guess what?
Humans have access to Elemental cores and Aura cores. Few have both. The MC is one of the rare ones, but for a good In Story reason. He then, as an engineer, immediately went about trying to quantify how magic works on a fundimental level. (one of his hobbies is quantum mechanics) and has been trying to push the boundries of what is and isn't allowed with magic, CONSTANTLY.
Just recently he managed to help the local lightning mage. He built him a magic circle out of superconducting mythral and gave him a no heat loss capasitor. Said lightning mage went a wee bit crazy, over charged the thing, and basically went Super Sayan resulting in him blasting a hill with a bolt of plasma.
Part of the point of the next story is, the MC is preparing to fight the Demon Lord, so he's going a wee bit nuts on "Pimping out the national army" Basically giving them magical machine guns, plasma projectors, and soon, chemical warfare with Hydrofluoric Acid Exploding Ice mortars. However...
The neighboring country of Eirin will attack Lyonesse. The two have a lot of bad blood and Lyonesse got its ass handed to it in the last war. So when the two armies meet, they are going to go whole hog on Eirin's army and just VAPORIZE them.
Which will horrify the MC when he sees his weapons of mass destruction used on humans. And THEN...
The MC will find out that the Demon King tricked Eirin's army into attacking. So while they are destroying the Eirin's army, The Demon Lord will be attacking Eirin's capital and just SLAUGHTERING its people. The MC will want to help, but Eirin's army will be half dead, with the other half recovering from chemical burns, plasma burns, explosions, Shell Shock, etc. So, it'll be rather difficult for Eirin to save it's own people.
But if we're at this point is probably better and more eficient to just point a mariana trench level pressure washer magic into the enemies than use complicated advanced physics
If you can manipulate isotopes as long as it's water, yeah you've got Hydrogen and Oxygen to play with, but also a bunch of other minerals because water is rarely as pure as H2O. You'll have a hard time arguing that the sea is not water, and it's definitely not only H20.
So if you want a Big Kaboom, you could skip the pesky steps of figuring out what is heavier and go straight to "hey, salt water has a bit of everything, can I summon some with unstable isotopes of the Uranium kind?" and you've got your nuke-on-demand!
