by Ashlie Minamida » Fri Jul 09, 2021 3:34 pm
"It's quantum energy, right? Suppose it simultaneously exists in all states, pure potential energy. We don't know why but we know that quantum states collapse when measured. Observed. Like how light is simultaneously a particle and a wave but when measured always behaves like one or the other. Now imagine an energetic state that exhibits many more potential properties. Perhaps even all possible properties. It's a particles that are electron, neutron, quark, every wavelength of light, muon, photons, positron, Higgs boson, every sub-atomic particle at once, every kind of energy and state, existing in a separate layer of reality."
She pulls up a screen on one of the workbenches, in full teaching mode now, drawing just a solid area on one side and an approximation of Earth on the other, complete with not-to-scale people.
"Now imagine if through evolution a protein came to be that forms the tiniest opening." She flicks her finger across the dividing line a couple times, erasing bits of it to create gaps. "And in that moment the infinite potential energy is observed by this person."
She adds a couple of wavy lines passing through one of the gaps and leading to one of the people on the other side.
"In that moment the infinite potential is going to collapse into something stable. Like opening Schroedinger's Box, this moment changes the properties of this particle from 'Everything' to only a couple specific things. Things that could take any form. Transform matter, reshape physics. And it keeps being observed, it's part of this person now. This mutant. But that observing isn't just a simple yes or no, it's a complex process colored by countless factors. Environmental. Psychological. Emotional. Genetic."
She draws a whole bunch of arrows pointing at the person.
"And based on all of these factors, all this context provided by this person and the world around them, the particle collapses into a very specific waveform." she says, pointing at the read-outs from Tosh's scanner. "An energetic state that goes from being capable of anything to facilitating some very specific effects. A mutation."