The Muggle World (long)

[atelecky at mit.edu]

No: HPFGUIDX 6258

What if the Muggle world really starts 
> > interacting with
> > the Wizarding world?  
> 
> This is exactly what I was thinking.  We already know that the 
Wizarding 
> world is divided.  Manpower will be limited and Ministry workers 
(those not 
> on the Dark Side) are going to have their hands full fighting evil. 
 There is 
> going to be little time for memory charms on Muggles.  
> 
> Going off on this....Muggle technology, the equivalent of magic, may 
have 
> some solutions that the Wizarding world could use -- and vise versa. 
 Maybe 
> Muggles have something that could deflect the Avada Kedavra curse.  
A united 
> front could be a possibility.  

I really like the idea that the wizarding world may finally at least 
begin to come together with the Muggle world. I imagine that in three 
books JKR could only begin the process of bringing the two worlds 
together; it would be a bit much to ask that in only three more books 
none of which are to be as long as GoF she entirely restructure the 
"real" world as well as the wizarding world, and defeat Voldemort into 
the bargain. But it seems that the wizards miss a lot by segregating 
themselves from the Muggles; I cannot imagine that magic entirely 
takes the place of math, at least, and maybe even some of science. Who 
knows; if Muggle scientists and wizards got together they might even 
find out that magic actually ties in with science somewhere. 
And "magic" and "science" might not be so far different from one 
another.
Hermione advised Harry in GoF that he might "get" the Summoning Charm 
if he understood the "theory" behind it. Snape had his students coming 
up with their own recipes for antidotes, so there must be some sort of 
rules and formulas to follow in potion making; you don't simply read 
the recipe and blindly follow it because you can't explain why it 
works. It seems that magic is no more mysterious or illogical to 
wizards than physics or chemistry is to us. And it actually makes some 
sense that it would be: after all, from the little I've studied so far 
of Newton's Laws and the laws of Thermodynamics etc., and unless I'm 
grossly mistaken, they aren't and can't really be "proven"; they 
simply are statements of things that people have observed to be 
consistently true in the world around them. They are something like 
axioms in math--they're given to be true, and given that they are 
true, you can prove that various theories follow from them. The 
best that you can do as far as proof goes is just endlessly testing 
them; this is no more effective a "proof" than trying to prove a 
mathematical theorem by putting millions of different specific 
cases/numbers into your formula/theorem with a computer--there are 
infintely many more to be proven no matter how many millions you have 
already proved. And its not like you can ever say WHY these things are 
true. They are just true based on your experience of the world that 
you live in. They seem intuitively reasonable; if you'd grown up 
watching your parents cook dinner in three minutes with a wand or 
apparate home from work every day, different things would of 
course seem entirely normal and sensible to you than if you'd grown 
up with a Muggle family.
I really wonder what Arithmancy is like- I don't imagine that wizards 
can simply tap a theorem or math problem with their wand and so 
automatically prove it or solve it. Perhaps wands and magic serve 
the same sort of function as calculators and computers; they have 
certain limitations but can be useful tools. (I'm imagining Arithmancy 
tests where the "graph" and "integrate" spells are not allowed, or you 
may only use your standard four-function spells. TI-92 or above spells 
are not allowed. And your wand's memory must be erased before the test 
:). Then again, maybe they only did that at my high school. Does that 
sound familiar to anyone else?) There are plenty of problems that 
magic doesn't solve or apply to in any way. But perhaps wizards have 
some entirely different math that they need to solve equations in 
Potions or Transfiguration; I believe that Calculus came from a 
practical need to understand concepts like instantaneous velocity in 
Physics--maybe there are similar problems which arose in wizarding 
disciplines and led to some similarly revolutionary solutions? Perhaps 
magic does come into solving at least these sort of math problems in 
some curious manner? 
One of the things I notice in the Harry Potter books is that JKR makes 
you fairly comfortable with all of the spells that play a major role 
in the plot, rather than trying to pull some spell that will suddenly 
solve everything or explain everything out of a hat at the last 
minute. We encountered Polyjuice Potion before Crouch jr. ever used 
it, so that when we did, it seemed familiar and reasonable almost as 
it might to a wizard used to the limitations of magic as well as the 
possible solutions to any problem that magic might provide. 

Well, I am off to do some Muggle Physics and Calculus problem sets. 

Alexandra