Buffyverse Physics: It’s about Time (Pt 2: Energy)

We’re back to talking about Time considerations in the Buffy episode “Anne” (s03e01), and this time, our exploration into the demon universe leads us into energy exchange, speed changes, and explosions. We’re going in fast, hot, and… energetic?… okay, let’s get into it. Note: If you haven’t watched Season 3 Episode 1 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, be aware that this post will contain spoilers. Even though it was released in 1998 (twenty years, y’all!) it’s a super fun watch, so go watch it first, and come back for some science. The energy required to accelerate things The first post in this series concentrated on the magnificent subject of special relativity, and all the wonderful effects that stem from it. In this post, we’re moving on to think about what kind of speed changes an object (or a randomly unsuspecting teenager) goes through when being thrown in. Before we get into this, let’s have a quick reminder about what we’re actually dealing with here. The phenomenon and problem Buffy encounters a demon that unceremoniously throws teenagers into a portal to another dimension where they are forced into hard labor. When they’re too old, they’re tossed out into our universe again. in demon-dimension, time passes super fast compared to ours; 100 years in demon-verse is only 1 day in our universe, so what was 70 or so years for the poor teenager doing hard labor, is less than a day for Buffy. There are three main concerns with this episode; you can expand the section below if you want a reminder. Expand to be reminded of the scientific concerns in the episode There are three main issues we are tackling on this exploration of the episode: Relativity: We have two places where time runs differently, which is where relativistic effects come in. If you haven’t already, you should read about this in part one. Energy: Time affects movement...

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