Entertainment wasn't explored in canon, but that doesn't mean muggles need TV, or that you can't worldbuild something that will fit thhe wizarding world themes.

 

Hermione specifically says in GoF that electricity and computers don't work at Hogwarts because of the sheer concentration of magic in the air. It's not that they're completely incompatible, it's a localised thing - there's no other specific mention in canon that I know of, but with that in mind I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that you'd struggle to get a computer working in the Ministry, or Diagon Alley, for example. Equally though, it can't be that bad, as both those places are in the heart of London, which even in the 90s was hardly tech free. Maybe those areas are just 'cursed' with slow Internet.

 

Its Northern Scotland in the nineties. No way they have internet. Not even accounting how isolated Hogwarts is.

 

The Internet comment wasn't really about Hogwarts - as far as I can tell, other than Hogsmeade and the Forbidden Forest there's fuck all else to be found for miles around, so obviously they don't have Internet there, reliable or otherwise.

 

On the contrary, we know that there is some mechanism for them to record music since we see there's radio, the Wizarding Wireless Network. We have at least two examples of wizarding music groups, with Celestina Warbeck and the Weird Sisters. There was also Potterwatch, so it's not some kind of funky protean charm that's transmitting sound from a specific transmitter in Hogsmeade to all receptors, the radios.

 

Does the proteon charm even work with sound though? I mean the only real examples in canon were those galleons that Hermione made, and maybe the dark mark. Could it transmit sound, I think it would be a little weird if everything got done by the same spells. To be fair the proteon charm is the only example of a transmission charm, so you might be right.

 

Well, if protean charm transmit vibrations of a master speaker it is all you need to transmit voice. It is instant information transmission assuming protean charm is instant. That is really strong and suitable thing to base off your communication system. Though we don't know exact limitations of it.

 

I was mostly using it as an example rather than a serious proposal. That said, we know that a lot of spells are fantastically flexible.

 

In a wizards vs muggles war, I have a feeling the muggles would eventually win. The wizards have a lot of unfair advantages over the muggles, however, I have a feeling some of the squibs would side with the muggles and provide them information about the secrets of the wizards. With knowledge, I think the muggles would be able to pull a win, after all they have some bombs that do more damage than anything we have seen from wizards.

 

I like this. It's detailed, insightful and offers a good perspective on the difficulties of waging a war on a tiny, hidden population living in your own cities and countryside, in places populated by many thousands more of your own citizens, with bombs.

 

You quoted my post from 2016, but sure, I can correct you now.

I looked over all Protego usages in the Department of Mysteries (surprisingly few - searched for 'Shield' and 'Prot' and skimmed the text):
Blocking Spells, including summoning:

Other shields in "The Only One He Ever Feared" are Dumbledore's conjured protections, not the Protego shield charms
Didn't find much by searching for 'table'.


++

To try and answer my own, original question, I looked over the references in Harry Potter Wiki (I know, but I looked them up in the text of the book). There seems to be a physical element to the shield, as Snape flies backwards upon a particularly powerful cast Protego:

another alleged reference from the Wiki falls short.
Wki claims that "Dolores Umbridge used a shield charm to protect herself from the centaurs' arrows in the Forbidden Forest."
I found only this:

I doubt using Harry Potter as a shield counts as casting Protego, but...

Another pushing effect occurs in the Deathly Hallows:

So anyway - couldn't find evidence of blocking a physical force with a Protego.
Found at least a single case where a strong casting of a spell pushes someone backwards (but this could be similar to how a disarming charm operates when used with too much power - gives the spell itself some pushing power, but is not an inherent quality of a spell).
There's also the final, Ron leaving scene, it seems to indicated stepping backwards from the strength of the spell - but we are not explicitly shown that it would have blocked physical attempts to cross?

Is this enough to claim that the canon shield charm works against physical attacks? No idea.

 

The fact that Harry and Ron can't go at each other once the Protego is cast makes it safe to say it does stop physical attacks. I mean, if it doesn't, what was the point of Hermione casting the spell? Or Harry later on when Hermione confronts Ron?

 

Also in DH, the shield charm is used to block the water from the Thief's Downfall.

 

To stop the spells? They both were drawing their wands?

I'd argue that "Thief's Downfal" is a magical effect, and not necessarily physical attack.

Mind, I'm not saying that a shield charm cannot stop physical attacks, nor (more in tune to the general thread) that there is no way to stop a physical force with magic (such a claim would be silly), I'm just saying that most of fanfic writers and readers assume that Protego works in such cases. I have yet to see a non-ambigious canon (books, not film (film does have Umbrige blocking arrows)) example of using Protego to deal with a physical danger.

During the maze task in fourth year Harry uses Impedimenta to stop a physical assault, instead of protego.

This might be because he's not good enough with Protego yet*, or because Protego is not really suted for such an situation.


*

The date is ambigious, but it's at least a few days before the final task.

 

When Ron comes back, Harry casts the shield charm between him and Hermione. Hermione at that point doesn't have a wand and Ron obviously wasn't going to curse Hermione, so it was to stop Hermione from physically assaulting Ron.

 

This is actually the most compelling example of them all.
Hermione hits Ron and then tries to grab Harry's wand. (well, her own wand, but that's details)

Every time anyone was pushed back by the spell, I was dubious, but the line about not being able to approach is probably the best case I could hope for that proves a physical barrier exists.

I could, perhaps, try to weasel out of it, going for "ah, but it stopped only wizards as was shown, so perhaps stopping a wizard counts as stopping magic from passing through", but I'm not really convincing myself.

So, we do have a single instance of a shield charm blocking physical objects.

Cool. It works as fanon intended!

 

Just watched the Crimes of Grindewald and I am convinced that wizards are gods.

I mean y'all talking about muggle bombs but Grindewald almost destroyed Paris with fiendfire. That is nuke equelent.

 

A bit off-topic and over a year and a half late, but:

I'm writing a fic that goes deeper into HP magic and science but I'm trying to avoid wizard/Muggle wank. The default I want to use is "(Muggle) science falls under the umbrella of magic" because the Muggle understanding of the world is incomplete because they have no knowledge of magic.

But I'm including some sci-fi/extraterrestrial elements that use what could be considered "magic" to Muggles (and to a lesser extent wizards), but it's not to them because they have a more complete understanding of how the world/universe works. Sort of playing on the Sufficiently Analyzed Magic trope, but can magic ever be fully understood?

Science: the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment; a systematically organized body of knowledge on a particular subject (which can include magic).

Magic: the power of apparently influencing the course of events by using mysterious or supernatural forces (which can also include magic, obviously).

Where can the line be drawn?

 

I think the various branches of magic can individually be incredibly well understood, things like transfiguration, charms, alchemy and potion.

But the magical rules of nature are less predictable, things like true love are utterly unreplicable through magic alone and Rowling herself said that certain parts are inherently unscientific, with thr example of Harry's survival.

 

Holy hell this is probably the best take I've seen on this.

Any complaint that it would be "too hard"/"take too much energy" to block bullets, explosions and hell even nuclear weapons can be dismissed by this. Every time a wizard conjures 1kg of matter, under muggle science they utilised the energy equivalent to a 20 megaton nuclear bomb. Lack of energy is not an issue.