Stones of Power

To gear up for Avengers: Infinity War, I am re-watching a selection of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies. According to the Wikipedia page, I am in the midst of Phase Two, having just watched Guardians of the Galaxy (Vol. 1). I had forgotten it’s the first time all six infinity stones show up briefly as the Collector explains them briefly on his fancy screen.

Perhaps the only good thing about having a poorer memory in recent years is that I’ve forgotten most of the storyline in the older movies. So it’s a treat to watch them again, because while I know the good guys ‘win’ at the end, I don’t remember how. I’m also reminded how good some of the early movies were, especially the first Iron Man. Perhaps ‘origin’ stories are easier and more interesting to work with. (Bear witness to the popularity of prequels.) Making the sequel is much more difficult. Anyway, next on the docket is Avengers: Age of Ultron, which I vaguely remember is not as good as the first one, and then Ant-Man, which thanks to my poor memory I couldn’t tell you the storyline at all even though I watched it less than three years ago. At least Ant-Man has featured in my blog.

As Infinity War is about to be released in the U.S., I should now try to avoid spoilers. I did read some interesting articles leading up to the release. (I won’t actually go watch the movie for another two weeks because I don’t like crowds.) The best of these, in my opinion, is from the BBC on the “allure of mystic stones”. If like me you enjoy history, you’ll find the article quite interesting. The philosopher’s stone gets mentioned first and foremost; no surprise there. But there are quite a number of other fascinating tidbits and factoids.

The worship of holy stones, it is speculated, comes from the use of stone altars. The bigger and more interestingly shaped, the better. Meteorites – stones from the sky – would be of particular interest. In the cosmos of the ancient world, this would be a god-send – literally sent by the gods in the heavens. Wakanda’s vibranium is also discussed since it comes from a meteorite. Different stones have different powers. There are a number of interesting image summaries on the Internet. Here’s one of my favourites (from Comix Unlimited) that suggests a connection between the name of Thanos and the six stones. The soul stone, the only one unrevealed in a movie so far, is likely in an artifact starting with the letter H.

Two stones bookending the Harry Potter series possess immense power involving life and death. In Book 1, the philosopher’s (sorcerer’s in the U.S.) stone is the elixir of life, maintaining source youth and preventing aging and death. In Book 7, the resurrection stone makes its appearance. It can bring back the dead, a marvelous feat indeed, but not like Jesus of the Bible. The Christian view of bodily resurrection involves a ‘glorious’ new body (unclear exactly what it is). The resurrection stone on the other hand only brings back a shade or a wisp of the body, and even then it is unclear if the body can enjoy life in the same way or even last very long. That is as it should be. In fantasy games, resurrection is one of the most difficult magical spells. Only a mage or cleric of the highest order might be able to perform it, and possibly at great cost. Healing spells should be much more difficult than destructive spells. In many other stories, a death is the price of bringing back a life.

Why, though, are stones used to represent artifacts of power? The chemist in me suggests that from a molecular-electromagnetic point of view, the solid is the most stable form to carry energy (stored in chemical bonds perhaps). The solid is also the most dense state of matter (‘normal ice’ of H₂O being an exception in this regard). Maybe density lends an air of compressed power. Combustion of a solid typically leads to an overall increase in entropy, and thus the free energy released can actually be larger in magnitude than the reaction enthalpy, i.e., no entropic penalty is paid, rather there is an ‘entropy boost’. (Students attending my thermo lectures should find this familiar.) For story-telling purposes, solids can also be affixed to a variety of devices. Thus, you have tesseract cubes, orbs, scepters and a necklace. The liquid-gas-ish aether, on the other hand, seems unwieldy and is subsequently compacted into a stone of some sort.

While I’m looking forward to learning what the new stone might be, I will continue my memory-refreshing quest. Tomorrow night will be Age of Ultron which is the mind gem, and leads to the creation of Vision. I can’t remember how or why, but I’m reasonably sure it will be a glorious mess of cinematic action.