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Link: http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/commentary/alttext/2007/07/alttext_0718
Lore Sjöberg, Wired's resident humourist, takes a look over the various spells from the world of Harry Potter.
This will be my only Potter-related link ever, promise. Ritchie, on the other hand, will happily post reams on why magic is entirely unscientific and therefore only marginally more believable than string theory.
*laugh* No, you go right on ahead. I quite like the Harry Potter series, and good fantasy in general. I get riled only to the extent of internal self-inconsistency of the rules of the game. If it were otherwise, we wouldn’t have the graphic novel collection we do ;)
I’m not going to complain about magic in the same way I’m not going to complain about talk of mythology. Well, until they start teaching my children that the Egyptian Book of the Dead is real, that the story of Geb and Nut means that evolution is false, and that they’re going to have to pray to Osiris before every class.
I wouldn’t say more believable, but based on how much it inspires interesting works of fiction versus the contributions of string theory, I would go so far as to say it’s much, much more valuable.
Snark appreciated, though ;)
Fortunately for magic, too, it doesn’t seem to involve n-dimensional calculus, and thus ought to be able to be taught in a practical manner to first-year students.
When Expelliarmus fails, though, it’s time to switch majors.
…possibly to something other than physics ;)