Damn, I am sorry for posting that if this was the result though I suppose I should clarify since it happened anyway.

Magical and non-magical rules can be best compared to quantum mechanics and relativity, both 'work' and yet contradict each other.

That is what I meant, 'muggle sciences' do not predict magic, magical rules only care about magic therefore both are wrong even if, like Newton's Law of Gravity, they are still useful. The goal of science would be to make a theory including both, how is irrelevant since all methods are likely to be tried before anyone even makes the first step.

As to the question if that would work, well a spell works long after it was invented so the rules of magic are consistent and as such can be studied. It is pretty obvious since if magic wasn't consistent it would be useless.

EDIT: Damn it you posted while I was, that's what I get for opening a page and not replying then...

And yes wolf you hit the nail. As obvious and stupid it may sound, if magic exists then it is part of the universe and a single theory can govern both. You can't ignore either side since we know we can throw things on space and they wouldn't stop until something made them stop just because someone use magic to(and only) give the initial impulse doesn't mean the Universe looks at it and says "Ops, no magic here the rules are different."

And off course that which is really the only actual problem in the HP series, if one assumes as is intended that everything we muggles know is the same in the HPverse then things don't fit. Which is an inevitably consequence of J.K. Rowling trying to write a children's story, changing minds halfway and trying to market it as for young adults.

 

Wolf nailed it, but it's always been a point that frustrated me in these arguments: the universe has to be self-consistent. Magic doesn't "ignore the rules" because it is acting in a self-contained system. If it isn't, then obviously the rules of the universe can be ignored, the same way code injection allows you to ignore the built-in constraints of a program somebody else wrote.

 

The question however, is whether the rules which are set are true, or whether they've just proven true in the situation so far examined. Its one of the reasons why text books published 20 years ago are almost always out of date. New information both supports, and undercuts current understanding.

For example, one of the core rules of physics, "speed of light is a constant" is now being questioned from numerous angles. Most recently, the results of the CERN experiments (which the scientists working on it say that they are skeptical of, but have yet to find anywhere that they made a mistake) have, at the very least, called into question Einstein's work. As it turns out, other labs have also come up with the same results, but discarded them (such as Minos), saying that the "possible margin of error was too high." Those labs are starting to reexamine their work.

My point is that while the universe must be self-consistent, it doesn't have to be self-consistent in a way that humans can ever understand it.

ON top of that, the HP universe operates within a different set of rules than the scientific world. It assumes that there is a second or higher level of existence which affects this world at least once (HP not dying from Voldemort's Killing Curse. In a scientific world setting, he and the Horcrux would be dead). So a direct application from a strict scientific world setting to a HP setting is, IMO, impossible as it violates too many foundations of scientific belief.

Without getting into the discussion itself, the system of belief that would probably best relate to the HP world, is the ID argument that (whether anyone accepts it or not, I don't care), is an attempt to fuse elements of science with elements of faith.

Speaking of which, one of my biggest pet peeves are random shots at faith or religions in fics where it's absolutely not necessary. Ironically, it comes across very preachy, especially when ignorance is spewed.

If you're going to talk about the evils of something, at least LEARN about it first!

 

FYI, FTL neutrinos were totally debunked, there was an apology/retraction. A loose cable was blamed. source

ID is just misunderstanding how evolution works and the anthropic principle. Anti fundie rants are not the same as bashing religion because while reasonable people can agree to disagree on opinions, reasonable people cannot agree to disagree on facts. As long as religious people only use religion to make decisions when no better ways are available, they can get along with atheists without any problem at all.

Human faults of scientists exist and they affect the progress of science. There are dogmas and paradigms that people are afraid to challenge. Evidence accumulates bit by bit until finally there is enough evidence to challenge a long accepted idea made by a revered elder. Richard Feynman wrote about the evolution of the value of the electric charge of an electron from Millikan's oil drop experiment to the present day. He suggested that the original experiment had an error and when it was repeated, the new guy got a different value, but the difference was large, so the new guy thought "I made an error!" and he tweaked the experimental setup to get a value closer to the previous known value, within a certain margin of error which seemed plausible, and published. This repeated itself a number of times, each time correcting the value by ~10% closer to the real value, until finally measurements started to give the same result as in previous experiments, without needing to correct anything. Why wasn't the right result published by the first person to repeat the experiment? Because with an error so large, and the original value discoveed by a big name, it was thought to be unpublishable. source

Another more recent example is the 2011 Nobel prize in chemistry. When the discovery was first made, Shechtman was asked to leave his lab for shaming its name by spouting nonsense, and a twice Nobel laureate led a witch hunt against him as a "quasi-scientist". Acceptance came after many years, brave people verifying the results, other brave people saying they have seen this before but disregarded it because they thought it was impossible, and Linus Pauling dying. source

Max Planck said: "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." This is true, but unfortunately, this is true not only for progress but for regress. A new generation of ignorants can also be raised, if it is politically convenient in the short term. We are witnesses to this.

 

True, though scientists have actually slowed down light by passing it through materials at very low temperatures, iirc. Not that it actually changes the "base" speed.

 

The speed of light is normally about 186,000 miles per second, or fast enough to go around the world seven times in the wink of eye. Scientists succeeded in slowing it down to 38 mph by shining it through really cold sodium.

 

This. This, this, this.

This is what I was trying to get across, Taure, this exactly. I apparently didn't do a good job of getting it across - I often have trouble putting my ideas down into written form, something that I find stymies writing my fanfiction. If only I could write from my mind.

But this is what I thought chrnno was originally saying (and it appears I was right), and this is what I agree with. I love trying to do what the people above are talking about - it's fascinating and engaging at the same time.

I imagine a time after the Statute of Secrecy has been abolished in which Muggles and Wizards work together - using the seemingly complete opposites of science and magic - to piece together a complete understanding of the universe and how it works; and this union of science and magic produces something far greater than either one could alone. That's a fic I'd love to read.

 

Originally Posted by T3t

You don't need very cold temperatures to slow down light. There are systems where you can do it at room temp. The theory is called EIT (Electromagnetically Induced Transparency). Got a couple of former classmates working on it.

 

Use of the word "addicting" as an adjective instead of "addictive". "Addicting" is the present participle of the (rarely used, because it sounds stupid) verb "to addict".

Certain illegal drugs are addictive.

Drug barons are addicting thousands to addictive drugs every year.

 

Nicotine is more addictive than anything except heroin. Don't start smoking!

Pet peeve: authors who write Harry as a smoker to make him look more tough. It doesn't work.

 

This. This pisses me off so much. I've been smoking for 7 years, and it's the one thing I regret most about my choices in life. It's not hard, or tough. It's a substance that ruins lives quite often, and seriously fucks people up. Especially when they make him a smoker at 11. Only fucked up people like me do that.

EDIT: 8 years yesterday. Calculated it again. Makes me sad.

 

Double post posts doubly.

 

Holier than thou protagonists. Especially those who 'hide their true skill' from the rest of the world in order to hoodwink the manipulating older generation.

 

Our IRL world has problems: the climate, the pollution, third world demographics and rising energy needs, nuclear proliferation and specific to the US: the oligarchs owning the government, the political system not allowing to seriously address the important topics, public education, the media trying to make everyone an illiterate obese celebrity gossip junkie and many more, but even so, it is not as dysfunctional as canon Wizarding Britain.

Is canon Wizarding Britain ludicrously FUBAR? Yes. So in a canon setting, if you're going to have a fixer-sue that doesn't have godlike powers, what would s/he do? Assassinate some people, bribe/blackmail/threaten some people in government to do some parts of their jobs. Get enough magical/financial/political power to survive the pushback. What else can you do?

If because of some moral qualms the protagonist is trying to minimize number of deaths instead of maximizing future total happiness, they're going to have a hard time building a non-failed state on a rotten foundation. A swift regime change with sweeping cleanup and a period of reeducation while the survivors learn what to do with civil rights if they ever earn them is IMHO the way to go. But teenagers don't have what it takes to write it well, even by cutting corners with imprudently optimistic assumptions. So we get teenage power fantasies.

 

You're such a mudblood, wolfe.

 

Hey, if JKR let Magical Britain be a charming parody of Muggle Britain, and made it only as dysfunctional as the real thing, and let the protagonist be a plucky kid who solves crimes the adults are too narrow-minded to solve, we wouldn't be here talking about it. Have you seen the Enid Blyton fandom lately? Me neither. JKR made it crazy, not me. You can write anything in your AU, but I'm not misreading canon - it's objectively nuts. So what to do with it depends on the reader. A pessimist will say that world is doomed, because they don't have any competent characters to fix it, and anyway they do not deserve being saved. An optimist will say it can be fixed. With god-like powers, it's boring. Without god-like powers, you need to get creative. Afterwards, the easy and safe thing would be to maintain a totalitarian regime forever, because obviously the people are not ready to wield any power. But if you believe in self determination and stuff, you'll try to make Hogwarts turn out citizens instead of serfs, some of whom can work in government without being despots. History says it's really hard.

 

I dunno. It seems to me that you have to be an egocentric asshole at least part of the time in order to change the world on purpose. Just the declaration of 'we're going to change what's wrong' requires it. To do so in an environment where you're opposed by others who can bend reality to their own will (i.e.: do magic) ... humble just won't carry any weight.

Or, to borrow a quote from another fandom:
"It's my estimation that every man ever got a statue made of him was one kind of a son of a bitch or another. "

EDIT: replying in favor of Wolf on this one.

 

When the author makes Harry hide his true potential as soon as he goes to Hogwarts, or hide all of his knowledge of magic even though he has always known about magic for some reason and is secretly the most intelligent student in the school but no one can know... The author always uses the exact same words typed straight from the books with a bit added in here and there about how harry is bored in class because he can already do everything and how he could really beat Granger but doesn't because he thinks being better at magic than a muggleborn is will draw attention to him. :facepalm

 

Ah! So... the point that theWiseTomato was actually trying to make that Wolf550e, Taure and I overshot in personal moments of egocentric pontification? Yeah. You're right- that sucks. I hate it when they do that.

 

That is the real clincher. I wouldn't mind a "holier-than-thou" Harry. Particularly if it was say, a time-travel story with him coming back because X, Y or Z.

With a real plan about how to fix things, him being unable to relate to his quote-unquote "peers" because he is actually a (couple) hundred and X years old, and generally being a manipulative bastard would be moderately awesome.

Especially if it contained something like this.

Harry sat in his usual spot at the Gryffindor table, ignoring the juvenile drivel being spouted by the students around him as he ate his meal. He glanced up from his steak, reassuring himself that Hermione was not in the Hall and where she was meant to be, in the girl's bathroom crying. Ensuring that particular event's occurrence had been almost laughably easy. Hermione was one damn annoying twelve year old.

Everything so far had gone perfectly. He knew what he had to do and what had to occur. There were deviations, yes, but they were slight and well within tolerable limits.

He didn't even look up from his food when Quirrell came racing into the Hall, yelling about the troll. Right on time.

Just as before, he followed the Gryffindor Prefects, but this time he was prepared. He slipped the Cloak of Invisibility out of his robe and had it draped over himself before anyone noticed.

He slipped away quietly. Leaving Ron behind for this would be one of the first intentional deviations. Hermione was brilliant, or would be, and Harry needed her. Her mind, and most especially her loyalty, if he was to change everything. In the original timeline, her loyalty was laways divided between him and Ron, and that was unacceptable, not when so much was on the line.

He walked almost casually, knowing precisely when the troll would reach the bathroom.

He smelled the beast before he saw it. He stepped into the bathroom, plan already in mind.

He froze in shock. This wasn't how it was supposed to be.
He stared for a long moment, unable to tear his eyes away from the sight of a small body and a growing pool of blood. And a troll, a troll that was about to die horribly.

Or something to that effect. Forgive the mediocrity, I only spent a few minutes on it. But you get the point.