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Qiaochu_Yuan comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 18, chapter 87 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Or... the Stone can actually do a ton of other things and Flamel successfully hushed up what they were because some of them cause extinction events? "Make me immortal and wealthy" is the minimum Flamel needed public to explain his own continued existence and wealth. Everything else... there are gates you do not open, there are seals you do not breach.
Maybe the stone is a terminal with root access.
Plenty of people have been able to copy his process to make the stone (the terminal) but no one else so far has guessed the password (PASSWORD)
Actually, the password was originally "12345". Flamel was just the first wizard to use Arabic numerals, and he changed it. Merlin kept typing in "MMMMMMMMMMMMCCCXLV", and never understood why it didn't work.
That's the kind of code an ID10T puts on his luggage!
The password is always SWORDFISH.
Flamel didn't need to make anything public. He could have switched identities or countries every few decades - he pretty much did this anyway by going into hiding. If he could have kept the Stone's existence a secret, and given that as far as we know he never used it for anyone but himself and his wife, then he was a colossal fool to allow its existence to be known and linked with his name.
The fact that a stone exists can be ascertained via magic. The location of it, likewise. That is why it is currently at Hogwarts. - Flamel is worried about the divination efforts of Voldemort. Given that the world knows anyway.. Not so foolish as all that.
I'm not talking about him hiding for the last few years. I'm talking about the hundreds of years he lived before that.
The stone is some sort of ultimate permanent transfiguration spell? Similar to a universal assembler in scifi.
I figure anyone who's a great enough alchemist that they're the only person ever to successfully create the Philosopher's Stone, with other people having hundreds of years to try to duplicate the feat, probably doesn't need the Stone to make them wealthy. So really, only the "make me immortal" part is needed to explain his continued existence and wealth.