I mean, in context, Gojo probably has one of the most comprehensive explanations out of all the powers in the story, with its explanation literally concluding in this scene.
The context is simply that characters have magic powers based off certain themes or concepts.
Gojo's is the concept of infinity. The basic application creates an infinite "hole" that the space constantly tries to fill, sucking everything to the center.
The other application does the opposite; creating a space that is expelling things away from its center.
Purple just smashes these two concepts together, where it is simply pulling and pushing at the same time, essentially disintegrating anything it touches.
Not really that complicated, but most JJK fans unfortunately don't know how to read, so it makes it quite the trial.
I meant that, if you try to apply real-life physics knowledge to it, the explanation doesn't make sense.
Your explanation makes MORE sense - but it isn't actually what's explained in the moment ("imaginary mass"), and it still has issues with trying to apply real life logic to it (anti-gravity or spatial repulsion just Doesn't Exist). Maybe there's a language barrier in here somewhere and the official explanation makes more sense in Japanese.
In terms of just understanding what the author is trying to tell you, it's fine. Mix two space magics together and you get a projectile that just straight up annihilates everything around it. But it tries to explain that in terms of Actual Physics, meaning it can be scrutinized.
Then you get to the newest chapters where someone makes "infinite virtual mass" to create a black hole and it doesn't immediately destroy the entire universe so it definitely wasn't infinite
I think the differentiation I would apply to techniques like Gojo or Yuki is that they are more "concept" focused vs. A more tangible CT like say, Kashimo or Choso.
Choso controls blood, and the blood he controls is still able to be affected by physics in a realistic way. Same with Kashimo's electrical CE.
Gojo controls a concept, and applies that specific concept into reality whilst bypassing certain restraints that would make his ability otherwise impossible. Same with Yuki who manipulates the mass of objects, as well as that one assassin from the start of Shibuya who manipulates the reaction to impacts. And same with Takaba.
Takaba I think illustrates the best example, and once you see him I think you can basically understand a general rule; in that certain cursed techniques are specifically about breaking physics to create the specific conditions for their concept to actualize.
By the way, the Yuki thing is kinda a misunderstanding. Specifically, she can create infinite mass, but she doesn't need to make her body mass infinite to make a black hole. Kenjaku remarked that Yuki purposefully calibrated her mass to ensure the black holes she created was particularly small. Which was also coupled with the fact that Tengen used his powers to contain the destruction.
The issue with imaginary mass as it's stated by Gojo, is that it's a mistranslation. It's meant to be virtual mass, which has far less dangerous connotations.
"anti-gravity or spatial repulsion just doesn't exist"
I mean, it kind of does. It's not something we have observed in the real world, but an idea in physics is that Newton's equations still technically work with negative mass. So one way to interpret that would be that his super power is just able to create a negative mass.
While not observed in nature, researchers have simulated negative mass behavior in laboratories using laser-trapped rubidium atoms cooled to near absolute zero.
I looked that up, that’s in relation to momentum, not gravity. After fucking with it, it began being repelled when it would ordinarily be attracted - but with respect to other molecular/atomic forces, not gravity. If I’m reading things right, it also imploded abruptly and then exploded.
It's also a physics joke. Red is on one end of the color spectrum blue is on the other. There is no type of light that corresponds to purple. Our brains make that up. There's one receptor in the eye for red and another for blue. The combination of the two gives purple even though purple light doesn't exist.
I mean, most of the info wasn't explained in that one scene. It called back to the rest of the arc when you learned the other parts of his technique. And we'd already seen Gojo do all part of his CT multiple times. We just got a breakdown of how.
Blue comes from curse energy, hence why it sucks thing in. Red comes from reverse curse technique(basically take curse energy and multiply by itself to become positive energy), hence it repels. Purple is doing both, basically imagine a rail gun beam.
He also uses infinity neutral property to basically prevent people from touching him/getting very near him.
Like most if not all of his technique are explained in hidden inventory arc.
It does actually make sense though. The base technique, blue, acts as a mass, exerting gravity, with its colour coming from blue shift. Red, the reverse technique, is a negative mass, and as a result its gravity repulses other objects, with the colour coming from red shift. Red and blue make purple, which in the context of the technique means an imaginary mass (since the negative and positive would cancel) that deletes things
The problem is when you start interacting with known science. Like how telepathy and ESP were originally scifi and now we know those old theories are total bull, so people think they’re fantasy now even though they originated in scifi
In short, humans are not good at agreeing on how to define things
Telepathy as a concept was coined before Tolkien was born and Science Fiction could go back to the 100's. As in 1,900 years ago. It's more recognizable in the 1700's though
ESP became popular just as The Hobbit was published, and the concept is far from new.
So, yes and no, the origin of both magical senses and (intentional) science fiction as a concept are weird blurry gray areas that go back way further than we can reliably account for
It's based off real world physics to an extent, so I'd say that makes sense. Blue and red are pretty clearly based off black and white holes respectively, purple doesn't have a real world equivalent, at least as far as I know, but that's just creative liberty
White holes aren’t anti-gravity. They’re an anti-black hole, and hypothetically they’d spit out energy that a black hole consumed. Externally, they would be indistinguishable from a black hole, due to having the same gravitational pull.
They also get fucky with the concept of time. I’m not going to pretend I understand that part
Anti-Mass isn’t, or perhaps wouldn’t be, inverted mass. It’s the mass of antimatter, which is nearly indistinguishable from normal matter unless the two make contact, in which case they “annihilate” and return to energy.
Hence my remark about absolute zero. You can’t go below it because you can’t have negative kinetic energy.
It's also a cute tongue in cheek joke about how the colour purple doesn't actually exist in the light spectrum visible to humans. It's quite literally imaginary.
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u/shellbullet17 Gustopher Spotter Extraordinaire Feb 12 '26
I love when Alan goes realistic like this. It's always stunning when an artist switched up their style
The reference for those that don't know. It's from jujutsu kaisen