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skeptical_lurker comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, January 2015, chapter 103 - Less Wrong Discussion

7 Post author: b_sen 29 January 2015 01:44AM

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Comment author: Nornagest 29 January 2015 11:33:59PM 0 points [-]

Unlike nukes, antimatter weapons can be made small enough yeild that you don't flatten the whole of hogwarts when you use one.

...but the amount of antimatter you'd use for that is very small indeed; about 0.000023 grams for an explosive yield equivalent to 1 ton of TNT, going by Wikipedia's numbers. I wouldn't put it past Quirrell to figure out a way to transmute quantities that small, but it'd be tricky; everything we've seen transmuted onscreen has been macroscopic.

Also, all the initial yield would be in the form of highly energetic gamma rays, so we'd likely be looking at something more like a hard radiation pulse than a bomb.

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 30 January 2015 11:38:08AM 0 points [-]

Do wizards generally have a reason to transmute microscopic things?

There's also the possibility of transmuting a larger portion of antimatter, levitated within a vacuum (bubble head charm maybe?) and then subdivde it, if that is possible.