Identifying with Muggles: Magic & Science in the World

[Ken Hutchinson]

No: HPFGUIDX 158305

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Steve" <bboyminn at ...> wrote:
>
> ---  "Ken Hutchinson" <klhutch@> wrote:
> >
> > > 
> > > Quick_Silver: 
> > 
> > > I agree that Hogwart's focus on the pragmatic ... 
> > > unfortunate ...the joke that's called History of 
> > > Magic). The Sciences are an interesting topic however 
> > > especially since JK and Hermione stated that 
> > > technology
 specifically computers, radar, and ...)
> > > electricity don't work around ... magic (like 
> > > Hogwarts). ...
> > >  
> > 
> > Ken:
> > 
> > JKR and Hermione may both say the electricty doesn't 
> > work at Hogwarts but the hard science fiction reader
> > in me cannot accept this. Human beings like all the 
> > higher animals have nervous systems that run on
> > electricity. ..
> > 
> 
> bboyminn:
> 
> Fair point but one doesn't necessarily eliminate the 
> other. The brain is a electical instrument that is 
> suprebly insulated. For example, when your TV reception 
> suddenly goes staticy, it is because of outside electical
> interference; lightening strike or whatever. But when 
> that happens, you brain doesn't go all staticy.

Ken:

No, your brain doesn't. Neither does your computer, your wristwatch,
your blender, your automobile, your (insert a multitude of electronic
devices here). TV's and radios are specifically designed to be very
sensitive to narrow bands of radio waves. TV's and AM radios both use
amplitude modulation and cannot reject interference that appears on
the channels they use from outside sources, including nearby lightning
strikes. FM radios (which use frequency modulation) can reject quite a
bit of this interference and are in fact quieter during thunderstorms
than TV's and AM radios. 

If JKR had merely said that these magic spells disrupt radio
transmissions in and out of Hogwarts I could buy that from a technical
viewpoint but it creates other problems. It is fairly easy to jam
radios by transmitting noise on the frequencies that they use. The WW
would have to be quite a bit more cognizant of Muggle technology than
they seem to be in order to do this. Furthermore jamming radio bands
reveals the jammer to anyone with a radio receiver and that would
defeat the purpose of making Hogwarts look like a pile of rubble to
the Muggles. They'd want to bulldoze the rubble to silence the
interference so that they could listen to the BBC!

> bboyminn:
> 
> On the subject of lightening strikes, most people do 
> survive them, but very very very few electical or 
> electronic devices do. Another indication that the 
> electical properties of the brain are far different
> than that of electical or electronic devices.
> 

Ken:

Lightning is very powerful. I believe a single lightning bolt produces
a few megawatts for a few microseconds. I doubt that very many humans
survive a *direct* hit from a lightning strike. I think that most
lightning survivors are victims of nearby strikes. Dangerous voltage
levels and current flows extend for many meters from the point where
the strike actually hits something eartbound. Someone in that danger
zone will be injured but is far more likely to survive the hit than
someone struck directly. Lightning victims often face long, painful
recoveries and frequently are never the same. Most electronic
equipment that is destroyed by lightning is connected to an antenna of
some kind: an actual antenna, the AC power grid, or the wired
telephone network. This antenna effect exposes them to dangers similar
to a direct hit even though the actual strike occurred a considerable
distance away. Isolated battery powered devices are seldom harmed by
lightning unless struck directly. One key difference between our
gadets and ourselves is that we have self repair mechanisms and they
do not.

> bboyminn:
>
> When you put your brain in an MRI (Magnetic Resonance 
> Imaging) it still functions, but any electronic device
> put into the same MRI is going to go into 'overload'. 
> 

Ken:

I'm not sure that is true. It may be true of some devices and not
others. The MRI machine itself is one big electronic device with some
very sophisticated signal processing equipment as well as one or more
computers and *it* isn't disrupted by the large magnetic fields it
generates. I knew MRI before he was a superstar. Back then he was
called NMR for nuclear magnetic resonance. Shortly after he went into
the medical practice he droped the N and added the I because patients
are afraid of the N word. In this case it has nothing to do with
radioactivity or nuclear energy but human nature is what it is and
nuclear had to go. The NMR machine I saw was installed in a physics
lab at the University of Wisconsin. The lab was full of all kinds of
senstive electronic instruments and they all worked while the machine
was running. 

In any event Hogwarts is not protected by NMR technology, we'd see all
kinds of weird magnetic effects on metal objects at the school if it
were. These are good, thoughtful counter examples that you came up
with but in my engineering opinion they don't work out in the end.

> bboyminn:
>
> I have always speculated that the aura of magic around 
> Hogwarts doesn't prevent the simple flow of basic 
> electrical current. For example, a simple flash light 
> (torch) would likely work. But any electronic devices 
> like calculators, radios, TVs, computers, printers, fax
> machines, cell phones would be 'overloaded' by the 
> magical energy.
> 
> So, the magical aura /can/ overload electical and 
> electronic devices and still /not/ overload the human
> brain.
> 

Ken:

I prefer to think that the magic operates on the student's brains to
make them think these devices don't work just as the Muggles see a
rubble pile where Hogwarts is. The magic would also have to scramble
the output of any microphones in Hogwarts to foil bugging devices but
I find that believeable in the context of the WW that Rowling has
created. I just can't find a blanket disruption of electrical signals
consistent with life as we know it. The WW I see is imaginary, true,
but it is also recognizably our own. We can plausibly believe that
such a world could exist right beneath our noses, that is a big part
of the fun of it all. I know I'm being a nerdy engineer but mucking
around with electromagnetism is very dangerous business indeed for a
work that hopes to remain plausible. I'd rather believe this
particular type of magic works on the human brain which is known
throughout the work to be sensitive to magical manipulation.

> > Ken:
> >
> > ...edited...
> > 
> > Hogwarts students need a science education as much as
> > anyone else. Magic in the Potterverse has to be viewed
> > as an extension of ordinary physics not a denial of it. 
> > ...edited...
> 
> bboyminn:
> 
> I've already said that Wizards do study science, they 
> study the science of magic, which in their world serves
> that same purpose as technology in ours. I've also always 
> contended that magic is just science/physics that muggles
> haven't discovered yet. Many items in fiction, even at 
> the time unbelievable items, eventually become reality. 
> Science has always been considered magic, until some 
> muggle comes up with an explanation, at which time it 
> is no longer 'magic' but science.
> 
> ... Snip ...
> 
> It is possible in 500 years, muggle will discover the
> science of magic, and apply it to magical energy free 
> cars, to faster that warp-speed spacecraft, to magical 
> farming and food production, to powering our cities 
> without polution. 
> 

Ken:

There is a proverb among science fiction writers that any technology
which is sufficiently advanced is indistinguisable from magic. If we
could transport someone from the year 1000 to our time he/she would be
quite conviced that we are *all* wizards and witches. The things we
take for granted would astound our ancestors.

I agree that the magic in the WW functions as a technology and in fact
*is* a technology. It is so easy to use that most wizards and witches
have little understanding of how it works. This makes most of them
physically and intellectually lazy. One could argue that as our
technology level advances it is having the same effect on us. If the
author did not seem so absolutely certain that her story is about
other things I would say that it is one of the main purposes of the
work to hold this mirror before the face of our technical society. A
highly capable society that has little in the way of humanities and
religion to align its moral compass is a dark and dangerous place to live.

I agree that Muggle scientists in the Potterverse could tap into
magical techniques if they knew magic existed. This may not be the
reason the secrecy act was instituted but it is, I am certain, one of
the prime reasons the WW continues to enforce it. If I lived in the WW
I'd be quite frightened of the possibility of a Muggle magical
technology. I would not want Muggles trying to invent one. If magic
were revealed to Muggle scientists I don't think it would take 500
years. Maybe as much as 50. 

But that isn't the story Rowling means to tell so I can't fault her
for not going there. It is the sort of story a lot of SF writers would
choose to tell and I'd be surprised if no one takes up the challenge
after Rowling moves on. Killing off Harry probably would not protect
the Potterverse from pilferage so why not let Harry live? Sorry, just
had to throw that in, sign me up for IWHTL or whatever Geoff calls it! 

Ken