How does disintegration work? What does it really do?

[SimonMoon6]

Disintegration as we know it in games and other fiction is entirely a fictional concept, as far as I'm aware. There are no real world disintegration guns as far as I know. The word disintegration is defined in various ways in real world dictionaries, but few of them exactly match up to the fictional version of disintegration that we all have in our heads.

For example, 3rd edition D&D mentions that "Any creature reduced to 0 or fewer hit points by this spell is entirely disintegrated, leaving behind only a trace of fine dust." Okay, but why? What's the operative process that is going on? What is the dust composed of? What has happened to the person or object that has been disintegrated?

Obviously, this question can't be factually answered (since this kind of disintegration is entirely a fictional concept), but I'm curious about what *might* be happening from a pseudo-scientific (or even narrative) viewpoint.

Like, are the molecular bonds being removed? Do we get a pile of the various atoms that used to make up the person? But if so, why is there so much less mass afterwards?

Or is something more substantial happening? Perhaps, the strong force that ties quarks together is temporarily negated, causing all the protons and neutrons to fall apart into their component quarks? But then what happens to the quarks? Do they reassemble? If so, where has the mass of the original person gone? Would the quarks reassemble into protons and neutrons, forming perhaps simple atoms (like hydrogen)... or would they go off and do their own thing?

I really don't understand disintegration.

It's like objects or people basically vanish, but maybe not completely (because there's still dust left over), so it's not simply banishing things to the Shadow Realm or anything like that. Objects and people are being destroyed, but matter/energy can not simply be destroyed. You can convert matter into different kinds of matter or energy, but you can't just destroy matter. And I know, D&D's disintegration is "magic" and therefore it can do anything, but what about in a super-science or superhero game? How will disintegration work from this scientific perspective? If I disintegrate a planet (like Mano of the Fatal Five did to his home planet), what's left behind? Is there still the mass of the planet in a different form which might then re-coalesce into a new form? Or has matter vanished? Will the remains of the planet still have its same gravitational effects? Or is the mass gone, meaning no gravity?

Any thoughts?

[Vahnavoi]

There isn't a single disintegration effect. It's a loose descriptive word that could describe the end result of a wide variety of processes. The best way to visualize D&D disintegration is that it skips to the end of some natural ongoing process, such as decay or burning. The dust that gets left behind is the inert detritus that cannot be oxidized or otherwise chemically altered by power of the spell. For example, the dust left by a disintegrated body would be identical in composition to organic ash. Disintegrated stone would just be sand. Exact volume and mass of leftover dust versus volume and mass of the original object might likewise depend on composition of the original object: f.ex., a living creature is largely water, which might be evaporated by the effect, accounting for apparent loss of volume and mass. With solid stone, the volume and mass of sand would be equal to the original block of stone.

[Imbalance]

...but matter/energy can not simply be destroyed.

If one wishes to play make-believe, this is among the first truisms one should abandon.

[OldTrees1]

Oh disintegration is simple, it is destructive spell that has to deal with the target's defense in depth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_in_depth_(computing)). It attacks the body and tries to break it down into component parts. If the body immediately rejects it with the first line of defense, then it deals minimal damage from minor decomposition / deletion / etc. If it overwhelms the first line of defense then it has some time to do more damage before the body reacts and counter. If the counterattack is overwhelmed then the process continues until nothing is left but a pile of dust. On the other hand if the counterattack eventually overcomes the spell, then the body still suffered massive damage.

Imagine falling into a fire. You will get burned even if you get out quickly. If you take too long to get out, then you will catch on fire and get very serious burns. If you get burned badly enough that you can't escape the fire before you lose locomotion, then you will burn to cinders.


So despite answering how disintegration thematically works, I really haven't answered which version of disintegration is being cast in that campaign. Some disintegration spells do violate "conservation of matter". Other disintegration spells convert spell energy into a magical process that breaks molecular bonds. If the body does not throw off the hostile enchantment in time, then the decompose into a pile of carbon dust with trace particles and some gases. I think under 22% (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_of_the_human_body) of your mass would be dust under this ruling (but it would be very very fine dust) because oxygen is so prevalent in our bodies.

[Ionathus]

Oh disintegration is simple, it is destructive spell that has to deal with the target's defense in depth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_in_depth_(computing)). It attacks the body and tries to break it down into component parts. If the body immediately rejects it with the first line of defense, then it deals minimal damage from minor decomposition / deletion / etc. If it overwhelms the first line of defense then it has some time to do more damage before the body reacts and counter. If the counterattack is overwhelmed then the process continues until nothing is left but a pile of dust. On the other hand if the counterattack eventually overcomes the spell, then the body still suffered massive damage.

Imagine falling into a fire. You will get burned even if you get out quickly. If you take too long to get out, then you will catch on fire and get very serious burns. If you get burned badly enough that you can't escape the fire before you lose locomotion, then you will burn to cinders.

So despite answering how disintegration thematically works, I really haven't answered which version of disintegration is being cast in that campaign. Some disintegration spells do violate "conservation of matter". Other disintegration spells convert spell energy into a magical process that breaks molecular bonds. If the body does not throw off the hostile enchantment in time, then the decompose into a pile of carbon dust with trace particles and some gases. I think under 22% (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_of_the_human_body) of your mass would be dust under this ruling (but it would be very very fine dust) because oxygen is so prevalent in our bodies.

So, a successful disintegration is just the spellcaster getting root access to your body's existence? I love it. Especially given how often spells are compared to computer programs :smallbiggrin:

Yeah the amount of ash left over does really make sense when you factor in how much of our bodies would convert to hydrogen/oxygen.

[OldTrees1]

So, a successful disintegration is just the spellcaster getting root access to your body's existence? I love it. Especially given how often spells are compared to computer programs :smallbiggrin:

Yeah the amount of ash left over does really make sense when you factor in how much of our bodies would convert to hydrogen/oxygen.

Yes in a sense. The spell wins by penetrating the passive defenses and destroying / overwhelming the reactive defenses despite multiple layers of defenses (defense in depth is having defenses behind other defenses for when the first line fails).

It does not need to do this in a program based manner (although I like that idea). It could be nanobots investing the body and being attacked by the body's biological immune system. It could be an enchantment that is fighting against the body's ability to hold itself together and its ability to repair itself.

So it is less about root access (although that could work), and more about overwhelming the multiple lines of defense and achieving enough access (root access would be sufficient) to cause total destruction.

[Millstone85]

Consider the Doctor. (https://youtu.be/8CRNKAb8hsI) This is something I have seen in at least a couple other series. A character's death by disintegration is faked through simultaneous use of teleportation.

Now, it could just be that both look the same, but that's boring. So what if, instead, both technologies make use of the same extra spatial dimension or intangible state of matter, one to move particles from point A to point B without collision, the other to disperse particles without anyone else suffering from what should effectively be a nuclear explosion?

In a D&D context, the target could be made to exist on all planes at once for a brief instant, leaving an equal quantity of dust on each plane.

[Telok]

In Starfinder being immune to acid makes you immune to disentigration. Yup, SF disentigration just does acid damage. Total let down.

[Calthropstu]

Disintigration is actually the breaking down of atomic bonds in molecules. It breaks down the integration of molecules (ie: dis-integrate) makes them unable to hold a shape. The matter itself doesn't disappear, but the bonds between the atoms are gone.

Doing this and converting the resulting matter to energy then reversing the process is considered reconstructive teleportation and is the core of my world specific time travel theory.

[NichG]

You could have all sorts of things. A kind of very fast burning process that releases most of the energy as neutrinos. A nanoscale teleportation effect that scatters things over a thousand kilometers. A negative matter (rather than antimatter) effect that results in zero energy release annihilation. A temporal acceleration effect that instantly ages the target area 100000000 years on a spreading front. An effect which causes localized collapse into neutronium powder. An effect which causes a stable temporal discontinuity in which the universe forgets that that matter was there. A quantum tunnelling enhancement effect that causes the particles of the target to escape their energy minima and adopt very high position uncertainties...

[PhoenixPhyre]

Disintegration imposes a chaotic mix to the aspects of the anima that makes up objects. As a result, it falls apart into "unpatterned" anima, aka dust. It's basically a focused jamming device, disrupting the coherence of matter at the aspect level. Note: I don't talk about atoms or molecules or conservation laws. Because those things don't exist. All matter and energy is merely anima with various aspects applied[0] and at various levels of condensation; there is no "smallest particle" or "conservation of matter" or "conservation of energy".

Doing it to living things requires burning thorough their store of ready-to-use anima[1], and a nimble person can avoid the brunt of it. If excess life energy is available, the damage is repaired just like any other damage (at the cost of significant life energy).

[0] One model describes these as being mostly elemental, but there's disagreement about that.

[1] AKA HP, the store of energy one's soul houses and applies to fix/prevent any disabling wounds. Basically a limited healing factor.

[Onos]

If one wishes to play make-believe, this is among the first truisms one should abandon.

Why? It's not incompatible with the majority of fantasy.

OP, since magic is a thing it stands to reason that the equivalent of E=mc^2 must be different in whichever given fantasy universe. Does Disintegration covert some of the mass to "pure" magic? Part into the EM spectrum and partially to heat? Nothing really pulls off total conversion other than matter-antimatter, so the fact that there's a little dust left tends to fit quite well - a small amount of matter blasted by huge amounts of energy? Yup, sounds like it'd result in a little pile of ash.

And don't say "where's the explosion then?" since you can easily have a "safe" amount of the energy go into a band which won't harm the surroundings to a significant degree. Remember, magic.

[Millstone85]

A negative matter (rather than antimatter) effect that results in zero energy release annihilation.I have this idea that the D&D Ethereal Plane is a place of zero-point energy from which the Inner Planes are constantly alimented and annihilated in pairs: Fire/Water, Air/Earth and of course Positive/Negative.

Something on the Material Plane allows these essences to coexist and mix. A disintegration spell would suppress whatever that is, causing the target to collapse into ether.

[Composer99]

I'm pretty sure the answer to this question is the same one Star Trek TNG technical consultants had to give when asked how the Heisenberg Compensators worked: "Very well, thank you."

If you want to come up with vaguely sensible ideas:
- in D&D that leaves ashes, it could be like a targeted immolation; most body mass escapes as water vapour and other atmospheric gases, leaving carbonised ashes.
- in Sci fi (like Star Trek) where no solid remains are present, it could be a complete vapourisation, where everything is turned to vapour, gases, and particles too small to the naked eye to see.

[Imbalance]

Why? It's not incompatible with the majority of fantasy.

Because I'm not about to track subatomic particles in any gameworld where matter and energy are created and destroyed at will by GM caveat. It is made incorporeal, utterly, and its essence diffuse and depleted. It's gone, done. Troubles us no more, is the point. I won't knock the joy of the thought exercise going on here, but mechanically or for any purposes of worldbuilding, ceasing to exist is a perfectly acceptable outcome of disintegrated matter, needing no further esoteric or philosophical explanation. Unless the GM wants it to.

[Duff]

I'm pretty sure the answer to this question is the same one Star Trek TNG technical consultants had to give when asked how the Heisenberg Compensators worked: "Very well, thank you."
I do love that reply

[DwarfFighter]

In Star Trek, disintegrated objects disappear in a flash of light. This is beyond vaporization: Vaporized water should be visible as a cloud of steam. Since we don't see any residuals, they can only be present if they are somehow invisible. I guess this could happen if the disintegration process breaks the object down into quantum particles, something photons would not interact with.

However, it is worth noting that the cause of the effect is a fictional device, the result is a fictional effect. It is not unreasonable that the mechanics involved are also fictional:


A disruptor blast deconstructs the affected object with a pycllo field that induces the breakdown of the material structure into self-negating multi-elements.

That's a bull explanation, but no less than the idea that something called "a disruptor" is an actual thing, and the resulting disappearance of the target object is something that can happen.

-DF

[Kane0]

I believe Disintegration is typically a transmutation effect, so you would be getting turned into ash in the same way petrification turns you to stone

[Calthropstu]

I believe Disintegration is typically a transmutation effect, so you would be getting turned into ash in the same way petrification turns you to stone

Polymorph any object. I transform Ashe into ash.

[druid91]

Why? It's not incompatible with the majority of fantasy.

OP, since magic is a thing it stands to reason that the equivalent of E=mc^2 must be different in whichever given fantasy universe. Does Disintegration covert some of the mass to "pure" magic? Part into the EM spectrum and partially to heat? Nothing really pulls off total conversion other than matter-antimatter, so the fact that there's a little dust left tends to fit quite well - a small amount of matter blasted by huge amounts of energy? Yup, sounds like it'd result in a little pile of ash.

And don't say "where's the explosion then?" since you can easily have a "safe" amount of the energy go into a band which won't harm the surroundings to a significant degree. Remember, magic.

I mean, most concepts of Magic pretty much do the opposite all the time, creating matter or energy from nothing.

[Bohandas]

I assume it's exactly what it says on the tin, Dis - Integration; the forces holding the victim together are suspended and so it collapses into a cloud of mostly hydrogen and oxygen (or your world's equivalents thereof) and a fine powder of whatever other elements remain

[Onos]

I mean, most concepts of Magic pretty much do the opposite all the time, creating matter or energy from nothing.

I can't disagree more strongly. Magic is a form of energy, all you need to do is account for an extra gauge field and with a few minimal assumptions like having a biological means of interaction (being a mage) you can have a world pretty much totally compatible with ours while having magic.

[NichG]

Magic commits greater sins against information theory and computer science than against conservation of energy...

[Vahnavoi]

Magic commits greater sins against information theory and computer science than against conservation of energy...

Hah, true. Don't think too hard of how that spell knows how to do what it does.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I can't disagree more strongly. Magic is a form of energy, all you need to do is account for an extra gauge field and with a few minimal assumptions like having a biological means of interaction (being a mage) you can have a world pretty much totally compatible with ours while having magic.

Not really. The laws of physics are self-consistent in a tightly-coupled way--adding another gauge field would, among other things, change the energy-density/stress-energy tensor of space with strongly visible results (ie orbits no longer closing). Bad Things Happen when you muck around with such things. Plus strong (intrinsic) violations of causality due to faster-than-light travel (any kind of summoning or planar travel or teleportation).

Any kind of magic requires a complete rewrite of the basic laws of nature from the ground up. And will only result in something earth-like at the surface, not at the detail level.

/physicist soapbox


Magic commits greater sins against information theory and computer science than against conservation of energy...

True.

[Bohandas]

Plus strong (intrinsic) violations of causality due to faster-than-light travel (any kind of summoning or planar travel or teleportation).

Well that's easy enough, you just need to make the speed of light non-constant

[PhoenixPhyre]

Well that's easy enough, you just need to make the speed of light non-constant

At which point everything is radically different, because relativity (special, in this case) is actually a consequence of the laws of nature, not an extra constraint. It's all coupled tightly together like a giant game of Jenga. Except more precarious. Every piece depends on every other piece--change one and the whole structure has to be rebuilt.

I'm pretty sure you know that, but just amplifying.

[Imbalance]

Only the speed of magical light need be variable. That's how irl Daylight Saving Time works, right?

[Bohandas]

At which point everything is radically different, because relativity (special, in this case) is actually a consequence of the laws of nature, not an extra constraint. It's all coupled tightly together like a giant game of Jenga. Except more precarious. Every piece depends on every other piece--change one and the whole structure has to be rebuilt.

I'm pretty sure you know that, but just amplifying.

It would certainly change most of the universe by mass, but on the scale we inhabit most things reduce to either newtonian physics or quantum mechanics anyway. That majority part of the universe is mostly in space. The main one I know of that isn't in space are the properties of gold and other heavy elements, as their outer electrons move at relativistic speeds; these would either have to behave differently or a new force would have to be introduced to make them act the same. As for stuff that is in space, the only one that's really relevant is that it would probably affect how stars shine, but they could still shine for millions of years nonetheless without any relativistic or quantum effects at all. Before radioactivity was discovered, Lord Kelvin tried to work out the age of the sun based on the principles known in his time, and as it turns out, even without any transmutation at all, just the thermal energy released by the matter in the sun settling would be enough to make it glow for millions of years*. That's not enough time for evolution from single-celled organisms, but given that most of D&D's races were created by gods that's a non-issue

*(https://gilkalai.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/answer-lord-kelvin-the-age-of-the-earth-and-the-age-of-the-sun/ https://zapatopi.net/kelvin/papers/on_the_age_of_the_suns_heat.html the second link is the primary source; if any of you who are better at reading scientific papers than I am** would be kind enough to double check the baron's math I would be much obliged)

**(I have a bad tendency to completely lose my place and my focus a couple of paragraphs in)

[PhoenixPhyre]

It would certainly change most of the universe by mass, but on the scale we inhabit most things reduce to either newtonian physics or quantum mechanics anyway. That majority part of the universe is mostly in space. The main one I know of that isn't in space are the properties of gold and other heavy elements, as their outer electrons move at relativistic speeds; these would either have to behave differently or a new force would have to be introduced to make them act the same. As for stuff that is in space, the only one that's really relevant is that it would probably affect how stars shine, but they could still shine for millions of years nonetheless without any relativistic or quantum effects at all. Before radioactivity was discovered, Lord Kelvin tried to work out the age of the sun based on the principles known in his time, and as it turns out, even without any transmutation at all, just the thermal energy released by the matter in the sun settling would be enough to make it glow for millions of years*. That's not enough time for evolution from single-celled organisms, but given that most of D&D's races were created by gods that's a non-issue

*(https://gilkalai.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/answer-lord-kelvin-the-age-of-the-earth-and-the-age-of-the-sun/ https://zapatopi.net/kelvin/papers/on_the_age_of_the_suns_heat.html the second link is the primary source; if any of you who are better at reading scientific papers than I am** would be kind enough to double check the baron's math I would be much obliged)

**(I have a bad tendency to completely lose my place and my focus a couple of paragraphs in)

Not really. Relativistic effects are visible at surprisingly low energies. Heck, even the relativistic correction to the orbital energies of carbon is large enough that without it, you'd not have stable carbon-carbon bonds. And the permitivity/permiability of free space would change, which would change things like frequencies, etc.

Plus the more basic fact that the speed of light is not a free parameter. It's a consequence of other things. Which in and of themselves have huge impact. And you can't add a new force that affects things at the atomic scale without screwing up the tightly balanced quantum mechanical system. It's all tightly coupled. Any disturbance anywhere and everything falls apart and has to be rebuilt from scratch.

Source--I have a PhD in computational quantum chemistry and taught both chemistry and physics at the university level and at the high school level.

[Cluedrew]

In science fiction: All the forces holding together molecules are "turned off" for a moment and then they rebind. They tend towards simple combinations, so even the water might still be water, or it might be oxygen and hydrogen.

In fantasy: Forces component elements together. Working with the classic four it leaves you with very find sand (dust), pure heat and light, moisture and air.

On Magic: But magic doesn't have to actually work. In fact I think the most useful line is that "if this did work what would it do", that is to say predictability. Or call it internal consistency, but it doesn't have to be consistent to the point of being able to run the numbers.

[Vahnavoi]

The simplest explanation for fantasy and sci-fi games both is that the world is somehow artificial and all the non-sensical local cases that seemingly can't be reconciled with global rules are fine-tuned exceptions inserted by creators of the world. Depending on genre, you just either call those creators "gods" or "programmers".

[Herbert_W]

I believe Disintegration is typically a transmutation effect, so you would be getting turned into ash in the same way petrification turns you to stone

On one hand, this is probably precisely right. Disintegration is a transmutation effect (at least in 3e and IIRC 5e, and it probably would have been in 4e if that edition had kept spell schools). It changes the form of a thing, and does so permanently. In this sense it's a specialized polymorph any object that can only turn things to dust and can be cast as a ray.

On the other hand, this doesn't fully answer the question. It just pushes the question out by one step. Just how does petrify turn people into stone, anyways?

I think that the cleanest answer is to abandon modern science entirely. The world of DnD is similar to the world that ancient people thought that they lived in - so there's no atoms and molecules. (Maybe there are atoms as envisioned by the ancient Greeks, but those aren't the atoms of modern science.) Instead, there's matter and there's forms. Transmutation spells impose a new form on existing matter, either permanantly or temporarily. Disintegration is a specilized transmutation effect that can only impose one form on matter, and that form is dust.

[NichG]

Incidentally, the 'convert the entire mass-energy into neutrinos' is now my favorite sci-fi disintegration effect. I calculated that if you were standing right next to someone when this happened, despite the energies involved being the equivalent of a city-leveling bomb, you'd only receive maybe a few rads of radiation exposure, 1/100th or so of a noticeable dose.

Interaction probability for neutrinos is ~10^-18 for a meter of material, and a 60kg person has 5 * 10^18 Joules of mass-energy, so you'd get ~1/2 of 0.5 to 5 joules of energy from neutrinos if you captured everything in a half-sphere (almost certainly less than this). A rad is 0.01 J/kg.

[Kane0]

On one hand, this is probably precisely right. Disintegration is a transmutation effect (at least in 3e and IIRC 5e, and it probably would have been in 4e if that edition had kept spell schools). It changes the form of a thing, and does so permanently. In this sense it's a specialized polymorph any object that can only turn things to dust and can be cast as a ray.

On the other hand, this doesn't fully answer the question. It just pushes the question out by one step. Just how does petrify turn people into stone, anyways?

I think that the cleanest answer is to abandon modern science entirely. The world of DnD is similar to the world that ancient people thought that they lived in - so there's no atoms and molecules. (Maybe there are atoms as envisioned by the ancient Greeks, but those aren't the atoms of modern science.) Instead, there's matter and there's forms. Transmutation spells impose a new form on existing matter, either permanantly or temporarily. Disintegration is a specilized transmutation effect that can only impose one form on matter, and that form is dust.

You could go to ye olde elements
Earth = petrification
Water = liquefaction
Air = disintegration
Fire = Phlogistination

[Calthropstu]

You could go to ye olde elements
Earth = petrification
Water = liquefaction
Air = disintegration
Fire = Phlogistination

I had never heard of Phlogistination before. Took some effort to look up. Today I learned.

[Bohandas]

Fire is Dephlogistonation

[Duff]

In science fiction: All the forces holding together molecules are "turned off" for a moment and then they rebind. They tend towards simple combinations, so even the water might still be water, or it might be oxygen and hydrogen.

In fantasy: Forces component elements together. Working with the classic four it leaves you with very find sand (dust), pure heat and light, moisture and air.

On Magic: But magic doesn't have to actually work. In fact I think the most useful line is that "if this did work what would it do", that is to say predictability. Or call it internal consistency, but it doesn't have to be consistent to the point of being able to run the numbers.

I call how magic works "Thaumophysics".
And it helps us to work out what happens when a spell goes off

So, in the above case, a disintegration will have a bang as air is released (important because if it's big enough, it will carry a long way, maybe trigger avalanches etc), a flash as the light is released (so a chance to see a bit of info if it's otherwise too dark), dust (which might reveal invisible creatures walking around) and if it's cold, there'll be a puff of fog left hanging in the air.

So, imagine you're a monster in a dark set of tunnels. There's a bang and a flash of light several corners away - can you tell if it was a lightning spell some distance away or disintegration much closer?