[HPforGrownups] World Building And The Potterverse

[k12listmomma]

No: HPFGUIDX 167213

> Ken:
> Being one of those people who feels that our author should have found
> ten days or at least ten minutes out of those ten years to do some proper
> world building, I have to comment. Surely the characters are the sparkling
> gems in this story and I am perfectly fine with that. Some of that luster
> is obscured by annoying incongruities that result from not paying
attention
> to the "maths". You don't need to master partial differential equations or
> tensor calculus to build a credible world. But if you are setting your
story
> on planet Earth your weeks need to have seven days, your months the
> appropriate number of days, you months have to start on the days of the
> week that the calandar for that year specifies, full moons should occur
> every 29.53 days, Mars can only be "bright tonight" at two year intervals,
> and Orion isn't visible in June, to name but a few. Above all you should
> not write time travel into your story unless you *have* taken a course in
> tensor calculus!

"Mars is bright tonight" can have several meanings, and only ONE of them has
anything to do with the calculation of how close it is to Earth and how
often it occurs. That it the first meaning, that Mars is close to Earth in
relative proximity. Another possible explanation can be that the sky is
clear, and that region of the sky where Mars sits is particularly
unemcumbered with clouds, atmospheric interference, and so forth. It may
have been cloudy yesterday, obscuring Mars, but Mars is bright tonight. A
third possible explaination is along the lines of smelling rain before it
comes- the Centaurs are reading signs that Mars is telling them, and that
those signs are usually strong for them at that moment. In the same way that
I don't need to be a professional meteorologist to smell rain or have an
arthritic knee telling me of coming rain, the Centauars reading that Mars is
bright tonight could be Rowling's way of telling us that the Centaurs are
reading the cosmic winds of change, so to speak. Frankly, my money is on
that final explanation, and in that, I see no mistake of Rowling in that
passage! As for Orion, using a star program, I see that it does drop off the
horizon for Scotland in February, and that indeed, it's not visible in June.

By the way, what the hell does tensor calculus have to do with time travel?
My husband is an engineer, he uses tensor calculus in his daily professional
life, and he agrees with me that your wisecrack about needing it to be able
to write any story involving time travel is just bullshit. So we know, and
Rowlings has admitted to making mistakes in the series. So what. I don't
think any of us have the right to criticize her for doing something that is
way beyond what any of us can do- which is to write a 7 book series that
makes us instant millionaires and shatters records for book sales in all
categories. It's kind of like those of us who can't skate criticizing a
Olympic skater for putting their foot down a fraction of a second early in a
single jump while earning the Gold medal with a stunning performance.

Shelley