Atom Bomb

[o_caipora]

No: HPFGUIDX 76562

Emily Rose <jedillore at r...> wrote:

> My thoughts are that a plane full of muggles would never be able to 
fly over
> the stadium at all.  Arthur Weasley described a charm that made 
muggles
> suddenly remember they had to do something else whenever they 
approached the
> stadium so that they turned around.  I expect that that would apply 
in the
> plane and the pilots would suddenly need to make a course 
correction or
> return to the airport or something.

Two similar examples from fiction come to mind.

In _The Diamond as Big as the Ritz_, F. Scott Fitzgerald had a place 
that was unmapped because surveying instruments with a slight error 
had been substituted for the mapmakers' usual tools. This didn't work 
against airplanes, though, which was important to the plot.

In "True Names", Vernor Vinge's protagonist was able to confuse a 
modern military force because all of their GPS devices, maps, 
communications, etc. worked through a computer network, and the 
protagonist had subverted the network. 

The avoidance spell is canon. Also, of all magical powers, that of 
illusion is the most common. A pilot could simply feel like changing 
his route, or if he flew over the stadium, could see something else. 

Some twenty years ago I read a book on Dungeons and Dragons (alas I 
do not recall the title) whose author had a firm grasp of the 
principles rather than the details of such games. One recommendation 
he made to adventurers is to always carry . . . a winch. For 
springing booby traps, moving immovable objects, or what have you, "a 
winch is a wonderful thing."  Straightforward mechanical contrivances 
trump any number of magical or physical obstacles.

It's clear that simple physical processes (e.g. burning at the stake) 
are perfectly effective against wizards. Why shouldn't any sort of 
bomb work at Hogwarts?
  
  - Caipora