Scientific use of Chi/Qi/not so espiritual energy

[AidenFlamel]

Hi, I wanted you guys to tell me whether you like this idea I had and if you have any ideas on the implication of it, and whether it would work as I describe it or not.

So, in this world I created, there is a basic understanding of physics by the scholars, but most people don't even understand what a force is, i mean, pre-Newtonian understanding of physics, so everything i describe from now on won't be explicitly explained to the reader. They most likely will only get a good analogy and that's it.

Well, the thing is like this: There are three kinds of "energy" (which actually work like fields and waves, but for this part of the story they are just understood as "energy flows of some kind"). These are physical energy, spiritual energy and mental energy. The first one, which is called Uro by the scholars and Zhi by the monk sages, has different effects on the physical world depending on how you train it. The use I want to explain in this thread is the one a group of monks give it, for both therapeutic and martial usages.

This monks have developed a training method which allows monks to use the Zhi in a kind of "rock, paper, scissors" way by manipulating the way forces act and react on contact. The "scientific" explanation I'll be hiding from the reader is that this is indeed the ability to modify to some extent the effect of Newton's third law.

By using the Zhi in "the way of the mountain and the landslide" (Which believe me sounds better in Spanish) this monks are able to change the direction of a part of the forces coming from another body, by an angle of 90 degrees. Leaving only a 1/2 F_a in the normal direction and the other 1/2 F_a spreading "away" in a perpendicular direction. The same would happen when the monk applies the force himself (for example, throwing a punch) but only this time F_b (the reaction) would be the one deflected.
The effect I imagined this would have was that from the monks perspective and senses, every force applied to him would be strongly diminished, and every force it applies, would find half the resistance it would usually find.

Well, that's one of three ways of using the Zhi in a martial way by modifying Newton's third law of motion. If I receive some feedback I'll publish the other two and hope you guys help me get a better understanding of this whole mess I made in my head!

 

[jedishrfu]

Isn’t this what happens when someone deflects a punch?

Some of the momentum comes your way as you block and rest goes to the left or right.

 

[AidenFlamel]

Isn’t this what happens when someone deflects a punch?

Some of the momentum comes your way as you block and rest goes to the left or right.

Thanks for taking the time to read my post

As far as I understand Newton's third law, in our universe, every force applied to a body (action) generates an equal force but with oposite direction (reaction). No matter how hard you try, in real world physics you won't be able to change the direction of the reaction relative to the action. What I am changing in the world of my story is that there is a way, and I would be glad if someone from this forums would help me understand what effect that might have, as it is something kind of impossible to simulate in our reality.

One way I thought about it was that, for the user of Zhi, this technique would feel as if he had more mass and strength to move it, than he/she actually has.

Apart from that, "The way of the mountain and the landslide" consists mostly of blocking the full weight of the hit and striking hardly and in a direct way, using the fists, forearms, shinbone, metatarsus and top of the head, while grabbing and throwing using this enhanced strenght. This would be the "rock" in rock paper scissors analogy, so not to much deflecting here.

Thanks for the reply anyway.

 

[Tiran]

Despite the fact that Newton's laws are stated separately, they don't actually describe separate forces that can be accessed or manipulated separately. Saying that someone has the power to bend force 90 degrees is little different than saying he has the power to make things appear out of thin ear or travel back in time. I wouldn't take a nice fantasy/super hero story and ruin it with a little bit of bad science and incomprehensible math.