On the other hand,
"Because all alchemical circles have to be drawn 'to the fineness of a child's hair', it isn't any finer for some alchemies than others.
strongly implies that different alchemical procedures require different circles. What are the odds that Dumbledore just happens to have the right circle for philosopher's stone creation ready, given that he has no desire for immortality, no special need for gold, and access to an existing philosopher's stone anyway?
We definitely don't know enough specifics about HPMoR-alchemy to come to any firm conclusions.
Does the "alchemical circle" that has to be so precise refer to just the containing circle itself, or to all the runes inside it, too? If the former, then the circle could be a permanent part of the room, while the runes are drawn (the earlier passage does say the Transfiguration studio's diagram was "drawn") slightly more crudely in some way that's erasable. If the latter, then,
Are there different runes for different alchemies, or is it always...
New chapter!
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 102.
There is 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.)
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: