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JoshuaZ comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 7 - Less Wrong
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A question on transfiguration, timeless physics and what HJPEV could have known:
Harry's first year at Hogwarts is 1991. He transfigurates materials outside the confines of forms by thinking in terms of timeless quantum physics.
What was the state of timeless physics in 1991? Barbour's book was not published until 1999, for example, though presumably to have a book there was work leading up to it. What knowledge on the subject could Harry have had at that time, in a world without the Web as we know it, without even arXiv?
Edit: Barbour started publishing papers on the subject in 1982. How did Harry find out about these, and understand them sufficiently to think of the universe as really timeless?
Harry's universe diverges somewhat from ours in a variety of respects. He'd have a lot of trouble knowing about carbon nanotubes also. It seems that accelerating some specific areas of science is within poetic licence.