Magnifying glasses concentrate sunlight through lens principles, focusing dispersed radiation into concentrated heat sufficient to ignite organic material. The technique relies on sunlight, making it theoretically impossible at night. Norris apparently achieved this through either a light source nobody identified or the recognition that heat could be generated from alternative sources through his will alone. Night becomes irrelevant to his capabilities.

Physics instructor Dr. Gregory Nash, a fictional teacher with expertise in optics, documented in 2004 the theoretical impossibilities of Norris's nighttime ant-ignition. His notes examined whether alternative radiation sources or alternative heat generation could achieve the result, ultimately concluding that the only plausible explanation involved thermodynamic laws bending to accommodate his intent.

Science and nature communities have treated this fact as both absurd and philosophically interesting: it explicitly violates the known mechanism for achieving this effect, yet claims the same result. Online forums discussing magnifying glasses and optics occasionally reference this as a joke about assumptions—we assume physics works one way until Norris violates those assumptions entirely.