We know that many other Hogwarts students will invent and/or believe the weirdest theories. I’m definitely looking forward to the theories about why Hermione’s body was there for Voldemort’s rebirth, and about how she defeated him …
Any suggestions? (Aside from the obvious one: “Harry must have taught her some of his tricks!”)
I think it's pretty obvious.
Voldemort has always been attracted to power, and it's well known that Hermione is the most powerful witch of her generation.
He made several overtures to her, but was unable to turn her from her path, and so he killed her.
Upon her death he felt great remorse (such was his passion) and decided to bring her back from the dead (such was his power).
Dumbledore tried to stop him, and so was eliminated.
In fact, Voldemort was so enamored of Hermione, that after she was brought back, he use dark magics to give her even greater power.
Quirrell (who has been hiding his identity of David Monroe) was secretly on hand for the ceremony, but by the time he realized what was happening, it was too late to stop it.
Cutting charms were used on Voldemort's hands, and other terrible damage, but despite all this, Quirrell was defeated.
Ironically, having given her the power of friendship, it was the power of friendship which ultimately was his downfall.
Oh, sure, I'm not saying the kids aren't capable of performing the actions they did. What I'm wondering about is why the rest of the world is playing along. Even if these children - 11 year olds if I have that right - are the sanest people in Hogwarts, does the Hogwarts faculty recognize this, and the Auror office, and the Board of Governors, and their own parents? Or are all these people magically aware of the story theme that you mentioned, and the title of the last few chapters.
Susan Bones is giving the Aurors orders because it is her Aunt that runs the Auror office.
I don't think that's how police forces generally work...
I notice you are confused. I think you've made two questionable assumptions;
Assumption 1. Wizard Children are not generally treated as competent at age 11.
Assumption 2. The children making the announcement at Hogwarts are responsible for brokering the deal. I.e. they aren't just mouthpieces for their respective families.
Assumption 2b. The Hogwarts staff is aware of 2.
Assumption 1 might be true - but I note that the age of majority has been increasing over time, and wizarding society is in many ways old timey. It seems reasonable to me that allowing a child of 12 to command a wizarding army is no stranger in wizard society than allowing David Farragut to command a ship at age 12 was during the war of 1812. Also, we haven't seen the reactions of the wizarding world in general - maybe everyone who isn't on the Hogwarts staff is scandalized. For that matter, maybe the staff is too, they're just not openly scandalized.
But assumption 2 seems completely wrong to me, and likely the main source of the confusion.
That sounds reasonable, but unless everything we saw about Quirrel is lie, he is unable to cast animal Patronus, being cynical sociopathic rationalist with a homicidal tendencies.
There is some possibility that Quirrel have analyzed his conversation with Harry, words about "rejection of Death as a part of natural order" and picture of stars being able to keep Dementation away and re-discovered True Patronus (there is speculation about Quirrel being enemy of Death, so it at least plausible), but True Patronus couldn't look like a snake.
PS: Your argument partly applies to the Patronus of Lucius being a snake, though.
True Patronus couldn't look like a snake.
I see no justification for that statement. Perhaps True Patronuses can't take the form of an animal, but that says nothing about what they can look like.
Would a sentient snake wizard say a True Patronus can't look like an ape?
I'm repeatedly seeing 'Monroe' spelled as 'Munroe'. Is this due to a disagreement about how the name should be spelled, a common spelling error that has perpetuated in these forums, or is it a shorthand reference to some prior discussions or concepts which I'm thus missing in my reading on these discussions?
Well, it's probably supposed to be spelled "Momroe" as in "David Troll Momroe". :)
It's spelled "Monroe" in Chapter 86, and there's a "Most Ancient House of Monroe". Personally, I never get these names right either, but I keep a text file handy with all the names, and hard to spell spells like Legilimency Occlumency Occlumens, and Legilimens. Then it's just a simple matter of cut and paste.
What is the effect on Harry of the attacks on Hermione?
To make him stronger and more resolute.
Therefore, why is someone attacking Hermione?
Because they want Harry to be stronger and more resolute.
Dumbledore and Quirrell want that. They have both been specifically training him for it, each in their own way. Did they arrange H's death?
No. Quirrell's dash to the scene and the conversation of Dumbledore and Quirrell about Harry after H's death indicate that they are afraid of what this experience will do to Harry. Therefore they are not the ones who arranged it. The only other person strong enough to be the agent behind Hermione's death is Voldemort.
Harry and Voldemort are enemies. Why does Voldemort want Harry to be stronger?
Because Harry is Voldemort's intended heir.
Why does Voldemort want Harry for his heir?
Dumbledore's talk of heirs to Harry alludes to Voldemort. Harry, as transformed by the experiences Voldemort is forcing on him, will be the person Voldemort would wish to be. In addition, Harry's scar is a horcrux of Voldemort. That is the spell that Voldemort cast in his confrontation with the baby Harry. The Killing Curse was directed not at Harry, but at Lily, to provide the death magic to create the horcrux. Voldemort intends to not merely be succeeded by the forcibly matured Harry, but to be him.
Dumbledore and Quirrell are also trying to develop Harry. Why not just destroy him instead? Quirrell at least would think of that at once.
Both sides want Harry as a weapon in the war.
What is the prize in the war? Surely nothing so trivial as ruling the world? Harry's own aims are far above that. Since arriving at Hogwarts, he has aimed directly for the heart of magic, using all the methods that wizards know nothing of to figure out how it works, and aims to remake the whole universe according to his desire.
That is the prize: the unification of magic and science, which will unleash power such as the world has never seen.
The secret that this is possible cannot be concealed for ever. Those in power have tried concealment: that is why Magical and Muggle Britain are so sealed off from each other. How could either side know so little of the other, when they live side by side, and everyone at the top level is familiar with both? Propaganda, lies, and concealment both magical and Muggle, to prevent people from learning the dangerous secret, convincing scientists that magic does not even exist, and wizards that science is useless.
It was not always so. Before Science, there was no need. When Science got started with Roger Bacon (his diary is an Important Object in the story, a Chekhov's Gun which has not yet been fired), someone in the wizarding world eventually realised the potentialities. It cannot be stopped: once a single person discovers the idea, someone will eventually do it. Only the agreement of the most senior wizards to not go there kept it from happening, until Voldemort defected. That is what the wizarding war is about. It was Dumbledore's plan that Harry Potter should be the one to make that unification of science and magic, and use it for the light side. So he was bred for great inborn magical power, given a scientific education, and then brought to Hogwarts while still immature, that he might be moulded to the cause.
The Singularity is approaching. Dumbledore and Quirrell are striving for a Friendly outcome, while Voldemort wants to be the outcome.
Quirrell's dash to the scene ... indicate that they are afraid of what this experience will do to Harry.
It seems more likely to me that Quirrell's dash was primarily for the purpose of burning holes in Hogwarts. Despite leaving before Harry, and Harry stopping to pick up the twins and stopping at the library, and supposedly making a more direct route, Quirrell still failed to arrive before Harry, or for that matter, at all.
I'm not saying Quirrell is unafraid of what this experience will do to Harry, just that I don't believe Quirrell's dash is evidence of that.
There's a scam I've heard of;
Mallet, a notorious swindler, picks 10 stocks and generates all 1024 permutations of "stock will go up" vs. "stock will go down" predictions. He then gives his predictions to 1024 different investors. One of the investors receive a perfect, 10 out 10 prediction sheet and is (Mallet hopes) convinced Mallet is a stock picking genius.
Since it's related to the Texas sharpshooter fallacy, I'm tempted to call this the Texas stock-picking scam, but I was wondering if anyone knew a "proper" name for it, and/or any analysis of the scam.
Usually he fails, but on Earth he gets lucky. C-Omega uses a coin flip to place/not place the million dollars.
There is a contradiction here between "lucky" and "coin flip". Why does he get lucky on Earth?
Can someone explain how it is in the “original” problem?
In the original problem Omega runs a simulation of you, which is equivalent to T-Omega.
There is a contradiction here between "lucky" and "coin flip". Why does he get lucky on Earth?
I don't see the contradiction. C-Omega tries the same con on billions and billions of planets, and it happens that out of those billions of trials, on Earth his predictions all came true.
Asking why Earth is rather like asking why Regina Jackson won the lottery - it was bound to happen somewhere, where ever that was you could ask the same question.
In the original problem Omega runs a simulation of you, which is equivalent to T-Omega.
I could not find the word "simulation" mentioned in any of the summaries nor the full restatements that are found on LessWrong, in particular Newcomb's problem. Nor was I able to find that word in the formulation as it appeared in Martin Gardner's column published in Scientific American, nor in the rec.puzzles archive. Perhaps it went by some other term?
Can you cite something that mentions simulation as the method used (or for that matter, explicitly states any method Omega uses)?
Consider the following two mechanisms for a Newcomb-like problem.
A. T-Omega offers you the one or two box choice. You know that T-Omega used a time machine to see if you picked one or two boxes, and used that information to place/not place the million dollars.
B. C-Omega offers you the one or two box choice. You know that C-Omega is con man, that pretends great predictive powers on each planet he visits. Usually he fails, but on Earth he gets lucky. C-Omega uses a coin flip to place/not place the million dollars.
I claim the correct choice is to one box T-Omega, and two box C-Omega.
Can someone explain how it is in the “original” problem?
That is, what mechanism does the “real” Omega use for making his decision?
(Long-time lurker; first post)
Some points from earlier chapters that remain unclear to me: any insights would be appreciated?
1) Why did Neville's remembrall go off so vividly in Harry's hands? Also, how are there now two remembralls?
2) Do we have any more information/guesses about Trelawney's prophecy that Dumbledore cut off? What starts with 'S'?
3) Who told Harry to look for Hermione on the train? The writing is ambiguous, and it's not really clear why McGonagall would've wanted them to meet. I guess other theories are worse, though.
4) What's up with Harry's father's rock? Just a way for Dumbledore to encourage Harry to practice transfiguration?
5) Why are we so sure Dumbledore burned a chicken (or transfigured something)? His explanation makes total sense, and Harry's confusion at the time is well-explained by his lack of familiarity with phoenixes. It seems more reasonable to assume almost-burned-out phoenixes look like chickens than...whatever the alternative is.
6) Who is saying "I'm not serious" in Azkaban?
7) Is the "terrible secret" of Lily's potion book really that Snape and Lily fought about it? That just seems like a bizarre reason for a friendship to end. Were Dumbledore's suggestions incorporated into the potion Petunia took?
8) Why did Quirrell leave a polyjuice potion in Bellatrix's cell? (especially since the crime was meant to go unnoticed)
on 3; From chapter 6
As his hand touched the back door's handle, he heard a last whisper from behind him.
"Hermione Granger."
"What?" Harry said, his hand still on the door.
"Look for a first-year girl named Hermione Granger on the train to Hogwarts."
"Who is she?"
There was no answer, and when Harry turned around, Professor McGonagall was gone.
Seems clear to me that the whisper came from McGonagall - Harry was talking to her, Harry turned his back and heard a whisper from "her" that sounded like her. Harry thinks so to - in chapter 8 we have;
The boy's mouth was hanging open. "Were you told to wait for Harry Potter on the train to Hogwarts, or something like that?"
"No," Hermione said. "Who told you about me? "
"Professor McGonagall and I believe I see why.
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So I've been thinking about the feasibility of cutting stuff with a thin wire. As the thickness of the wire goes to zero, and the tensile strength goes correspondingly up, does the effort required for cutting actually go to zero?
It seems to me that it can't go to exactly zero, because you still need to counteract whatever forces were holding the material together. But does it go to a small value or a large value, in the case of cutting a strong material like bone? Say, if we tried using a thin wire to decapitate a person standing up, would they actually get decapitated, or would they just fall over?
Seems to me the force needed to penetrate tracks the diameter, but the strength tracks the area of the cross-section.
That is, decrease the thickness by N and it decreases the force needed by N but the strength by N squared.
Below a critical thickness, the wire would just break.
Spiderwebs don't slice you up if you run into them.