Here is a really good encapsulated chunk near the beginning of chapter 6:
It has the setup for Harry's background, the basis for what makes this version of Harry different (science), a dramatic challenge, and finally promises of epicness and wry humor.
The Muggle world had a population of six billion and counting. If you were one in a million, there were twelve of you in New York and a thousand more in China. It was inevitable that the Muggle world would produce some eleven-year-olds who could do calculus - Harry knew he wasn't the only one. He'd met other prodigies in math competitions. In fact he'd been thoroughly trounced by competitors who probably spent literally all day practicing math problems and who'd never read a science-fiction book and who would burn out completely before puberty and never amount to anything in their future lives because they'd just practiced known techniques instead of learning to think creatively. (Harry was something of a sore loser.)
But... in the wizarding world...
Ten Muggle-raised children per year, who'd all ended their Muggle educations at the age of eleven? And McGonagall might be biased, but she had claimed that Hogwarts was the largest and most eminent wizarding school in the world... and it only educated up to the age of seventeen.
Professor McGonagall undoubtedly knew every last detail of how you went about turning into a cat. But she seemed to have literally never heard of the scientific method. To her it was just Muggle magic. And she didn't even seem curious about what secrets might be hiding behind the natural language understanding of the Retrieval Charm.
That left two possibilities, really.
Possibility one: Magic was so incredibly opaque, convoluted, and impenetrable, that even though wizards and witches had tried their best to understand, they'd made little or no progress and eventually given up; and Harry would do no better.
Or...
Harry cracked his knuckles in determination, but they only made a quiet sort of clicking sound, rather than echoing ominously off the walls of Diagon Alley.
Possibility two: He'd be taking over the world.
Over the weekend the Methods of Rationality audio-book podcast tipped 1000 downloads, and I figured in celebration I'd put a trailer or two out on YouTube. Nothing fancy, just some stills/pics with an audio clip of 30-60 seconds. Thing is, I don't know what would work best for this. So I'm asking any readers of the fanfic - what first really captured your attention when you started reading Methods of Rationality? When did you say "Ok, that's it, I gotta read all of this now"? Or, if you're a listener to the podcast, are there any particular points that you thought were cool enough to share widely?
The restrictions are that it should be somewhere in the 30-60 second range, and that it has to be from the first 6 chapters (since that's all that's been recorded so far).
Thanks!