Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 19, chapter 88-89

Vaniver

This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. This thread is intended for discussing chapter 88-89. The previous thread has passed 500 comments.

There is now a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author’s Notes. (This goes up to the notes for chapter 76, and is now not updating. The authors notes from chapter 77 onwards are on hpmor.com.)

The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system. Also: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18.

Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically:

You do not need to rot13 anything about HP:MoR or the original Harry Potter series unless you are posting insider information from Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).

If there is evidence for X in MOR and/or canon then it’s fine to post about X without rot13, even if you also have heard privately from Eliezer that X is true. But you should not post that “Eliezer said X is true” unless you use rot13.

Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically:

You do not need to rot13 anything about HP:MoR or the original Harry Potter series unless you are posting insider information from Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).

If there is evidence for X in MOR and/or canon then it’s fine to post about X without rot13, even if you also have heard privately from Eliezer that X is true. But you should not post that “Eliezer said X is true” unless you use rot13.

It'll release about 28 kilocalories per GRAM as it reacts with itself for one (and probably boil anything it is right next to if you made a solid chunk of it rather than have it wind up dissolved in solution), but the more interesting bit is when it touches something else or winds up in solution and goes around doing the same sort of reactions that hydrogen peroxide does. Except instead of producing small oxidized molecules from whatever big molecules it reacts with, it would produce all kinds of crosslinked gunk instead.

Wow this got off topic.

edited for a math error

So, not a better thing, for the same reason that hydrofluoric acid probably isn't better.

If I ever learn partial transmutation, I want to know exactly what kinds of things to transmute trolls, good-aligned wizards, rival dark wizards, and the physical portions of dementors (if they have any?) into. My very first thought was either something with a very low melting point (Solid hydrogen?) or as reactive as possible (off the top of my head: Hydrazine). Then I considered what would happen after the transfiguration wore off in cases where my opponent sublimated or aerosolized while within wand distance.

My current best-guess for weaponized transmutation is the old standby: stone. But not granite- talc.