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AnthonyC 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: AnthonyC 02 February 2015 10:37:25PM 1 point [-]

Hermione transfigured single walled carbon nanotubes

Comment author: Nornagest 02 February 2015 10:43:05PM 1 point [-]

Hermione transfigured a macroscopic volume into single-walled carbon nanotubes. Barely macroscopic, if memory serves, but still macroscopic.