NEW CANON- Teeth and Transport

Erin erinellii at yahoo.com
Sat Feb 7 07:16:20 UTC 2004


Steve wrote:
The British don't put Fluoride in their water, so they are notorious
for having bad teeth. Apparently, like some Americans, they are
convinced fluoride a great government conspiracy to poison them all,
even though the discovery of the connection between good teeth and
fluoride was done in France when a connection was made between
naturally occurring fluoride in well water and good teeth.

Erin replies:
Gaaah! No one likes that question except me! Well, I don't care.
It's my question, I'm keeping it on there, and I'm asking it. None
of the rest of you have to. So neener neener neener.

I refuse to believe that JKR takes the bad teeth for granted. If she
did, she wouldn't even mention them, they'd just be... taken for
granted and not mentioned. And even if she actually somehow did end
up answering the question (a miniscule chance) and said that she
hadn't thought about it much before, well, possibly it would wake
her up to the fact that her American fans do consider it unusual and
horrible and make her think twice before saddling another character
with them. And that would make it worthwhile in my book.

Steve:
> When asking questions, it's great to think of all the answers we
would like to know, but the odds of getting an answer to those
questions are slim to none. It's much better to try and think of
question JKR would be likely to answer.

Also, given the many many many many etc... people who will likely be
> on-line for this, I suspect there will be equally many many many
> people screening the in-coming chat messages and only relaying
> messages they think are significant to JKR. Therefore, asking a
> question that is NOT likely to get answered, very much means, it is
a question that is not likely to get asked. Also, it helps to be cute.

Erin:
I don't know about the screening thing. I have participated in chats
before, several times to talk with the people who designed the
popular computer game The Sims (or I should say "tried" to
participate; none of my questions actually made it on). Those were
big chats, I remember at one point they mentioned 9,000 people trying
to ask a question at once. And they don't screen at all, instead it
seems to be more a system like calling in on a radio show, whichever
one they happen to pick up on is the one that goes on there. Quite a
few times they get stupid questions like, "when is this chat over?"
or stuff that was just asked a few minutes ago.

And having seen the past interviews/chats JKR has done, there are 
several questions on there that strike me as not having been screened 
at all.

I have been trying to phrase the questions in ways that I think JKR 
would be more likely to answer them.  I'm not sure exactly what you 
mean by being cute in the context of a web chat.  Like spell stuff 
wrong, or what?  I'm open to anything that will give us a better 
chance.


Steve:
> Things I would like JKR to answer, but don't see much chance of the
> question ever being posed to her.
>
> Brooms, Portkeys, Apparation, Floo Network, Owls, and Thestrals -
> what's up with that?


Erin:
Sorry, but I don't quite get what you're asking, specifically.
Clarify it for me and I'll put it on the list. Do you mean why so
many different types of transport? Or why non-mechanical ones?


Steve:
> How fast is the fastest broom?
>
> Harry's Firebolt will go from 0 to 150 in ten seconds, Ron's
> Cleansweep will go from 0 to 70 in ten seconds, but that is
> acceleration in a fixed period of time; I want to know what the TOP
> SPEED of the fastest broom is. I suspect it's currently drag limited
> to about 250mph.

Erin:
I'll put it on there as: What is the top speed of the fastest broom?


Steve:
> Typically, what is the greatest distance a person can Apparate?
>
> JKR said in an interview that Apparation gets harder as the distance
> gets longer. So what is the typically limit? About 500 miles seems
to be the limit we have seen so far. Devon, the Burrow, to London is
> about 150 miles, so we know that can be done. There are some
> implications that London to Hogsmeade can be done; that's just under
> 500 miles.
>
> So can you go London to Paris? ...London to Rome? ...London to
> Istanbul? ...London to Bombay?

Erin:
I have one question on there already (inspired by you, I believe)
that says:

Are there limits to how far a wizard can be transported by apparating
or portkeys? If so, what are the limits?


Steve:
> Tell me more about Portkeys?
>
> I had a theory that the reason Portkeys are so tightly controlled is
> because it is a dangerous spell to perform, get it wrong, and the
> result could be just as disastrous as improperly apparating. I would
> like JKR to confirm that I am right.
>
> Also, what are the limits on Portkeys? Can you portkey from China to
> England? Apparently, if I remember the World Cup episode correctly,
> you can portkey from the Black Forest in Germany to the World Cup
> which appeared to be in Scotland somewhere.
>
> Over great distances, you might make a multi-layered portkey where
> maximum distances are traversed in automatic leaps; Peking to Tibet,
> Tibet to Russia, Russia to Ukraine, Ukraine to France, France to
> England. ...confirm or deny?
>
> So, what's up with that?

Erin:
LOL, Steve, I know I said "What's up with" a couple times, once for
the teeth and once for the socks. Are you mocking me? I can change
the wording to "why are there so many mentions of socks?" and "why
are there so many people with bad teeth in the books?" if you like.

I don't like to just ask for a whole, open-ended explanation of how
portkeys work, because she might mistake what you're asking for and
say something like "if you've read book 4 you'll know all about
portkeys!"

We could specifically ask why portkeys are so tightly controlled and
if they are dangerous. I don't want to include lots of our own
theories or ask questions that take entire long paragraphs.


Steve:
> What are the limits of the Floo Network?
>
> Is it strictly in Britain, or does it extend to the nearest
neighbors
> is Europe (France, Germany, Spain)? Can you Floo to China? ...North
> America?
>
> Next, applying to Floo, Portkey, and Apparation, how long does it
take to cover distance?
>
> For example, does the traveler perceive 1 seconds travel time for
> every 100 miles traveled? That would make travel from London to
> Scotland seem to take place in 5 seconds.
>
> Personally, I think it's more like 1 second perceived for every 20
> miles traveled. That would make the flight to the Quidditch World
Cup about 30 seconds long. (Burrow to London=7.5 seconds)

> Do Owls and Thestrals travel by magic?
>
> Given the flight speed of a typical muggle non-enchanted owl, Owl
Post seems to be very very fast. On some occasions, I seems almost
instant.
> So, are Post Owls just owls, or as I suspect, are they enchanted
owls? Owls with magical capabilities that allow them to travel great
> distances in a extremely short periods of time.
>
> We are reasonably safe in assuming that Hogwarts is in the Highlands
> of Scotland. From that general location to London is just under 500
> miles, and the OotP rescue mission to the Ministry of Magic appeared
> to reach their destination in short order. Given that and the
> description in the book, I have to suspect that magic is involved in
> the Thestral's ability to fly.
>
> Not just magic that allows them to fly fast, because the required
> speed would have been too excessive for their passengers to endure.
If the flight to London took and hour and a half, that is a speed of
> about 325 miles per hour. It would be extremely difficult for an
> unprotected person to endure that high speed in the open.
>
> I've been on a motorcycle at sustained speeds of over 100 mph over
> long distances (no jacket, no helmet, no gloves, no windscreen), the
> force of the wind and the wind chill effect are substantial, very
> substantial. The full force of three times that would have been
> excessive. Hurricane and tonado windspeeds just in excess of 100mph
> are enough to uproot trees and blow over buildings. Three hundred
> miles per hour would make it next to impossible to stay on the
> Thestral's back.
>
> So I conclude that the free flight of the Thestrals allows for some
> type of Star Trek-like magic movement through time and space that is
> not proportional to the apparent required speed. In an old
discussion on this subject, some one suggested warp jumps, implying
that for a quarter of a second the Thestrals fly in real-time and for
the next quarter of a second they are at warp/magic speed. By
combining Magic warp and real-time flight, you get the perception of
flying at 50 mph while actually covering ground at 500 mph.


Erin:

Okay, so what I'm getting so far is:

1.) Are there limits to how far a wizard can be transported by
apparating, the Floo network, or portkeys? If so, what are the limits?

2.) Why are portkeys so tightly controlled by the Ministry and are
they dangerous if done improperly?

3.) What is the top speed of the fastest broom?

4.) Messenger owls and Thestrals seem impressively fast. Do they
travel by magic? And if so, how exactly does that magic work?

If there's more in there, prune it down for me, okay? Distill it
down to three lines or less, and I'll add it in the morning. I'm
going to bed now. Good night.

Erin







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