Broggly comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 5 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: NihilCredo 02 November 2010 06:57PM

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Comment author: Broggly 26 November 2010 01:40:36PM 1 point [-]

Heh, I just thought they'd find themselves unable to walk but that's just horrific. Then I realised that they wouldn't fall as gravity is just the opposite reaction of their pull on the earth, so it's okay. Then I realised that the electromagnetic forces of the chemical bonds within their bodies all rely on opposite reaction, and it went back to horrific. Still, despite the tragic deaths that would result hopefully it would be made up for by all the prisoners who presumably would get somewhat better treatment after Azkaban mysteriously disappeared.

Comment author: Sniffnoy 26 November 2010 02:57:30PM 0 points [-]

Another thought: Newton's third law is equivalent to conservation of momentum. If you can magically counteract the former you could potentially use this to make a magical reactionless drive! Not what the Aurors are going for.

Comment author: Desrtopa 26 November 2010 03:08:01PM 0 points [-]

If it were that easy to create spells of mass destruction simply by tampering with little understood physical principles, I'd think people would have done it before.

Of course, in the wizarding world, I suppose that if people have done it before, there isn't a strong expectation of evidence that the knowledge would be publicly available.