[HPforGrownups] Hermione was wrong about muggle artifacts

[imhotep1]

No: HPFGUIDX 67742

Jon wrote:

>For quite a while now, I've held the theory that the whole 'muggle 
>artifacts go haywire around Hogwarts b/c of all the magic in the 
>air' belief is nothing more than superstition.  Most of my argument 
>comes from logic rather than the books:
>
<snip>

>Now, even if you somehow find an argument to beat all of that, there 
>is the simple matter of Harry's watch.  Harry's muggle watch, prior 
>to its destruction in the fourth book (when Harry wore it 
>underwater), worked fine, even in Hogwarts.  Now, most watches made 
>today are powered electrically, as well as having moving mechanical 
>parts, so, clearly, neither of those forms of energy can be 
>problematic. 
>

I think you are taking the logic of science to seriously and neglecting 
the "magic" of the magical world.  There are numerous explainations that 
don't "make sense" to us muggles but that make sense if you look  at the 
wizarding world from a magical angle.  My take on this has always been 
that Murphy's Law just tends to apply more around wizarding places than 
it does in the muggle world.  More complex objects (computers, etc) are 
more prone to break down because there are more things that could go 
wrong.  A watch is a very simple machine, and really, either the battery 
dies, or you physically break it, there is not much else to happen to a 
watch.  Technically a knife is a machine, and those don't beak down very 
often either :)  Murphy is more cruel when the object or task in 
question is more capricious.

There are other ways of explaining the muggle machinery problem.  One of 
my favorite movies is a detective/cthulu movie called "To Cast a Deadly 
Spell," and in one scene a man is cursing at his broken down truck.  
When he opens the hood, it is filled with gremlins, who have invaided 
his vehicle and are pulling out wires.  With all the gnomes, doxies, 
boggarts (they like confined spaces) what is to say that larger muggle 
equipment isn't more suceptible to "infestation" and that smaller 
objects (like watches) are much less so.

Ultimatly, I don''t think an exact explaination isn't needed.  Magic 
isn't science.  You needn't (and often can't) mix the two.

-imhotep1