Vanishing is Transfiguration, which vanishes stuff into "non-being, which is to say, everything". We know that Transfiguration is a very complex, difficult subject. Also, let me quote some A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration:

Bolded the important part. That's extra canon (directly from the wiki), but even if you choose to completely ignore that, we're shown in the books that the larger the transfiguration, the harder it is. Everything vanished in the books is small, smaller than human small.

Magic does have limits, despite our magic > mundane belief. Something as vast as the entire world... I, at least, imagine utterly impossible to vanish.

 

Time and space matter in magic. Mass and energy don't seem to be part of magical law, but volume and distance are. We frequently see magic get harder for things that are bigger or further away. We know that a dragon-sized object is the approximate upper limit for transfiguration. The Earth would just be too big to cast magic on all at once. But I imagine a wizard would have no problem casting spells on a tennis ball with the mass of the Earth.

 

In the pottermore quote above, what does wand power refer to? Is it the affinity of the wand to different types of magic, or something else?

 

I don't hate it.

In fact, I think it has higher canon status than the books.

And as others have pointed out, nukes are using a completely natural process.

 

but if a spell can break through a shield charm why cant a nuke? theres a reason wizards had to hide from muggles after all

 

Magic > tech. Thats why

I suggest you actually read through the entire thred before posting something that does not really drive the discussion further.

 

Going by canon, the reason wizards hide from muggles isn't that they're scared of getting nuked (nukes are kinda ridiculously impractical weapons to use against wizards anyway); it's that they were tired of muggles dragging them into their problems and asking for magical solutions to everything.

But seriously, nuking wizards is a stupid idea, even if one accepts that magical defenses can't stop a nuke. For one, most of them live in the middle of muggle neighborhoods. You can't nuke Diagon Alley without hitting London in the process. Second, most of them have access to multiple forms to teleportation (Floo network, portkeys, apparition) that could get them out of the blast radius as long as they have minimal warning.

 

I guess the shield charm itself wouldn't be able to repel muggle attacks, but I think a variant such a strong ward like charm would be able to. This is just what I think it would do though.

 

I think a shield charm might be able to stop a nuke from hurting a wizard, at least the shockwave aspect of it. Flame freeze charm for the fire aspect and then apparate away from the radiation. Though like Qordath said, they'd have to nuke a whole bunch of muggles to get at the wizards first.

 

Trolls hit with clubs. Not magical clubs. Just clubs. Trolls were supposed to be a threat. The Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor ran away *and expected people to believe he couldn't deal with the troll* that was in the dungeons. If the Shield Charm is all powerful against mundane threats why are Trolls a threat? Why would anyone believe him? The idea that nothing physical can break a Shield Charm is rather silly. And once we accept that something mundane (like a troll club) can break a Shield Charm than it is only a matter of determining the dimensions and strength of the Shield Charm. Can it be more powerful than a nuke? Sure why not but eventually it should have an upper limit.

 

Because once you take away the club you have the Troll's fists which are certainly magical.

 

I just figured that going on the defensive against a troll wouldn't be a huge problem, but putting it down definitely was. Unless you have giant balls and knock it out nasally.

 

How magical is a troll's fist? The Shield Charm should be able to deal with a lot of magic (you'd think since it is pretty much base line defensive spell). I have a hard time thinking troll fists just go through it.

Though if that were the case what about wizard fists? I mean heck wizards are magical right? If we go with your premise it becomes super amusing to think that the bad ass nuke stopping shield spell doesn't stop a flying fist. :0

 

Doesn't really matter how magical. You can't compare magic with magic the same way as you would magic with non-magic. We don't know either way for magic-magic comparison and there isn't much point speculating.

 

This entire thread is about speculating.

 

There is speculation and then there is extrapolation. One is based on evidence from the text and logic.

 

From the text its clear the shield spell is designed to shield people. One would think it would shield people from the fists of big things.

 

There is a stunning spell whose purpose is to stun things, and yet it doesn't knock out dragons and giants in one hit. That's because Dragons, giants, and yes, trolls too, are magical creatures and their interaction with magic is not the same as that of a non magical creature. The killing curse kills as well, but doesn't kill Harry because there was a magical conflict.

A troll is a magical creature which complicates handling it, and Quirrell was intentionally trying to create panic and a distraction. They are not remotely equatable situations.

 

What makes a creature magical? Obviously it's not that they have magical cores...

For example, what makes a flobberworm worth it's status as a magical creature, when the only description we have of it is that there's nothing interesting or useful about them? How about kneazels? We do know that muggles have no way to recognize the magical nature of a kneazle, so why bother hiding them?

Are flobberworms and kneazels immune to nuclear explosions?

 

If you want to bring down a shield charm, a flute may be a better choice of weapon than a wand.