What is Magic?

[bluesqueak]

No: HPFGUIDX 42489

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "digitopolis_2000" <digitopolis_2000 at y...> 
wrote:
<Snip>
> 
> I like to think that magic is woven into the fabric of space-time. 
> Oftentimes, I think this too about good and evil (on other days, 
> the idea is balderdash). In ancient times, people believed that the 
> world was made up of elements: fire, wind, water, earth (eventually 
> `ether' (space) joined this group). I'd like to add magic to this 
list.
> 
> These are conceptual elements, unlike the physical elements of the 
> Periodic Table that we use. Magic isn't physical – it's not made up 
> of atoms – which leads me to believe that magic might be some sort 
> of radiation.
> 

Radiation is physical. It's made up of particles, or sometimes waves, 
or possibly wavicles, depending on what it happens to feel like at 
the time [I'm serious!]. Light, for example, comes in measurable 
packets called photons - the fact that they are discrete and 
measurable is where the 'quantum' comes from in quantum physics.

> What we have is the electromagnetic spectrum, including light, 
> infrared, ultraviolet light, radio waves, microwaves, X-rays etc. 
> which are of different wavelengths. However, I have reason to 
> believe that magic simply isn't an extension of the EM spectrum:
> 1. Muggles can't detect it using any instrument. Detection would 
> rely on interaction between the radiation and something else, but 
> that doesn't happen for muggles. 
> 2. Magic interferes with electronic equipment which uses/gives off 
> radiation in the EM spectrum.

The above two statements contradict each other. If magic interferes 
with electronic equipment (which it does; that's canon) then it can 
be detected by muggles by that interference. 

So magic certainly *interacts* with the electro-magnetic spectrum.

Currently muggles DON'T detect magic, but that's simply because the 
MOM is putting a lot of effort into making sure us muggles don't 
realise magic is there.

> 
> Now we have three ideas: (don't want to call them options, as they 
> might be interrelated.)
> 1. There is another spectrum parallel to the EM spectrum that deals 
> with magic. 
> 2. Magic is a fundamental force or the manipulation of the 
> fundamental forces. There are four – weak nuclear, strong nuclear, 
> gravitational and electromagnetic. 
> 3. Two words: Quantum physics.
> 
<Snip> 
> 
> Magic interacts with waves in the EM spectrum, for example the 
> invisibility cloak. Light waves seem to pass straight through – 
> like glass. And like glass, the person/thing under the cloak 
> remains solid. However transparency is a property inherent in glass 
> due to crystal structure, I believe. I don't think that the cloak 
> can give properties like that, so it must mean that it somehow 
> interacts with the light rays, bending them in some manner so that 
> it appears that we can see straight through.

Alternatively the cloak is a device which *detects* the reflected 
light rays hitting it from the objects outside it and *replicates* 
their patterns on its surface. Rather like a TV replicates a pattern 
of electrons according to a received signal. This would allow the 
light rays to continue on through the cloak, so Harry, et al, can see.

> 
> This bending of light reminds me so much of space, where large 
bodies 
> warp space-time due to gravity. This was Einstein's idea and was 
> proven during an eclipse when a star that was supposed to be behind 
> the sun, was seen next to it. The light from the star (radiation) 
> travels a straight path, but when the path is bent, the path of the 
> light is curved, and the position of the star appears changed. 
> 
> The reason I bring this up is that this relates to one of the 
> fundamental forces – gravity. Therefore, we could assume that magic 
> is the manipulation of the forces. By influencing the forces we can 
> control matter – it's possible then that this is the underlying 
> principle of magic. 

I think there's a joke somewhere, possibly in canon (the 
schoolbooks?) that Einstein was a wizard whose job was to *confuse* 
us muggles. But all historical magic was about manipulating the 
forces that control the universe - which is also a pretty good 
description of engineering; the two are closely related.

> 
> And now we move on to Quantum Physics (which I don't know much 
> about/can't understand very well). In the Lexicon FAQ I came across 
> this (which I shall quote here since I don't think I can explain it 
> any better), which got me started on the idea of quantum physics at 
> work. It's about the Time Turner:
> 
> "In the scene where Harry and Hermione use the time-turner to 
> rescue Buckbeak why didn't they replay the scene as many times as 
> they needed to get it right?  At first, this thought seems a 
> reasonable question, but there are two factors that count against 
> such an action.  Firstly, there would be high chance that the pair 
> would encounter an earlier Harry and Hermione, and, secondly, they w
> ould not be able to make further attempts if they had observed any 
> sort of outcome. 

I think we're getting confused here; Hermione obviously has been told 
that it *is* possible to change the past, and that the consequences 
are terrible. She also obviously *thinks* that rescuing Buckbeak is 
changing time, because she believes he's been executed. If it's as 
easy as Hermione seems to think, why were the MoM EVER prepared to 
give a Time Turner to a teenager? 

I suspect McGonagall has warned Hermione of the horrid consequences 
so she doesn't TRY changing the past, but that it takes a really 
powerful wizard to actually do it. 

This would be in keeping with the current physics of time travel - 
forward time travel into the future is no problem [in the sense that 
we know the theory, we just haven't worked out the engineering yet] - 
it simply requires someone to speed up to near the speed of light. 

Travelling backwards into the past is the major problem, since it 
requires you to travel faster than light. I certainly don't 
understand the maths, but someone *has* calculated the energy 
required to change events, and it's basically like the effort 
required to lift yourself off the ground by pulling on your own 
bootstraps.

Of course, Harry might well be capable of changing the past - perhaps 
Hermione's so scared in PoA because she's instinctively realised that 
Harry DOES have the raw power to change events.

> 
> "To expand on the second of these points, the theory goes that, 
> using the time-turner, people can only change the course of time if 
> the outcome is uncertain or, "exists in a state of `Quantum 
> Ambiguity' where it can go one way or the other".  The rescue of 
> Buckbeak was possible only because Harry and Hermione had not 
> witnessed his death; they heard the axe fall, but they did not see 
> him beheaded.  Once they had rescued him, the ambiguity of the 
situation was resolved. 

I would argue that there was *NO* ambiguity in events, simply that 
Hermione and Harry did not have the information necessary to 
interpret events correctly the first time. 

Poor old Schrodinger actually argued that his cat thought experiment 
was a load of rubbish, and far from being in an indeterminate state, 
the cat was either definitely alive or definitely dead - we just 
can't *observe* it until we open the box.

Hermione and Harry rescued Buckbeak because they already HAD rescued 
Buckbeak. If they hadn't, they certainly wouldn't have heard 'the 
unmistakeable swish and thud of an axe', because cutting off 
something's head with one blow of an axe is a) difficult, as Nearly 
Headless Nick can testify and b)tends to result in a swish, thud of 
axe, and *second* thud as the detached head hits the ground. Or even 
more horribly; a swish, a crunchy squelchy sound, and then a thud.

The problem with Hermione's and Harry's free will implying that they 
have the ability to change things only appears because we insist on 
looking at things as if TT Hermione and TT Harry were not present the 
first time round, and that pre TT Hermione and pre-TT Harry are not 
interacting with their later selves [oh, English just doesn't have 
the tenses for time travel].

In fact, the ENTIRE sequence of events only happens because of the 
decisions both Harry's and Hermione's make. If they'd made a 
different set of decisions, it would be a different sequence of 
events. For example, if TT Harry had rushed into Hagrid's hut to try 
and capture Pettigrew, and had succeeded, he might have been captured 
by Sirius (who wanted Pettigrew), and it might have been pre-TT Harry 
who needed to rescue his later self instead of the other way round.

[I think I'm getting a headache]

<Snip>
> 
> "Could this be related to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, 
> which holds that one cannot measure both the momentum and location 
> of an electron with any accuracy at the same time?  In other words, 
> if an action (momentum) is resolved in one place (location), it  
> becomes impossible to return to that place to achieve an 
> alternative outcome. 

Not quite. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle states that you can't 
measure an electron's location and velocity simultaneously because 
measuring velocity requires measuring *change* in location over time, 
and measuring location requires that you consider the electron as if 
it wasn't moving. [Very roughly]. 

However, it also states that at the sub-atomic level, whatever you 
use to measure the electron's velocity/location is quite likely to 
affect the electron. Light for example, has energy, and at the sub 
atomic level the beam of light you use to try and 'see' the electron 
is quite capable of knocking the wretched thing out of the location 
you were trying to measure.

[It is now possible to make some very pretty pictures by controlling 
the way microscopes can move individual atoms around]

So Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle would apply not because you 
can't go back in time to measure the location of the electron after 
you've measured velocity, but BECAUSE TT Harry and TT Hermione are 
the observers, whose observations are affecting the observed (pre TT 
Harry and Hermione). 

Hermione and Harry can't observe an 'original' course of events - a 
pristine state where they didn't go back into the past; because in 
going back into the past they affect the past they're observing (most 
obviously by Harry rescuing himself, but as Valerie says in the 
paragraph below, they also affect the past in many subtle ways).

> "In relation to, PoA there are many subtle clues to events caused 
> by the time-turner.  For example, when Harry, Ron and Hermione 
> enter the entrance hall under the Invisibility Cloak, they hear 
> departing footsteps and a door slamming and proceed to Hagrid's hut 
> to comfort him over the death of Buckbeak.  Later, after using the 
> time-turner, Harry and Hermione appear in the entrance hall and 
> hide in a broom cupboard, where Hermione hears herself, Ron and 
> Harry outside, under the cloak, on their way to Hagrid's."
> 

End of the Time Turner Section.

> Currently, lots of physicists are experimenting with quantum 
effects 
> (for lack of the real term). They say that they've managed to bring 
> particles to an `entangled' state. Extrapolating, they say that it 
> could be key to creating teleportation devices (a la Star Trek). 
> Apparation immediately come to mind – disappear from one place, 
> reappear almost instantly in another. This is basically what 
> happens in Star Trek, basically what the scientists say they may 
> eventually be able to do years from now – and wizards do it all the 
time!
> 
I think in many ways Wizards have a much more accurate view of the 
Universe, and how to manipulate it than muggles do. But they don't 
seem to see as far as muggles do - more interested in practice than 
theory (though this may be an illusion created by Harry being in the 
very early stages of his schooling).

<Snip the genetics discussion> 

> Looking forward to hearing your thoughts,
> > Valerie Parker

Pip! Squeak.
[Arrgh! My brain hurts]