Hi, I'm thinking of hosting a 3-army battle at the Madison wrap-up. Do you have suggestions for how it would work? I'm thinking armbands or headbands that you try to snatch off, like in the mangas. It doesn't seem very battle-like though.

P.S. small correction about the Madison wrap-up. Middleton and Madison are basically the same city, and the state is Wisconsin.

I'm so confused about the wand. Why does Harry still have the wand? Obviously Voldemort should have demanded that Harry drop the wand before giving him 60 seconds to speak.

He's not permitted. LV said "name one or more of those", where those refers to the people he named in the previous sentence, i.e. Harry's parents and his "mudblood friends" in the armies.

Can we each propose a non-transfiguration solution? Even if it's just a rough idea. I feel like we're getting stuck on transfiguration, and a bunch of those require very precise handling of things 10 feet away (such as death eaters) or significantly big things (Harry's body parts). Hermione struggled to get the stunning hex right on the first try, and I feel Eliezer will categorize "transfigure this very precise, remote thing" as a "new magical power".

Ssome livess I have already promissed you, but otherss I did not. . . For each unknown power you tell me how to masster, or other ssecret you tell me that I desire to know, you may name one more of thosse to insstead be protected and honored under my reign. Thiss alsso I promisse and intend to keep.

Is Harry permitted to name himself as a person to be protected? It doesn't seem to say that he cannot. I believe partial transfiguration would buy him a life. It's an unsatisfying solution, as it only saves Harry. But then again, the exam only requires Harry to survive.

Dear Eliezer,

For the best experience, if you have not already been following Internet conversations about recent chapters, I suggest not doing so, trying to complete this exam on your own. . . .

Although you've requested an individual exam format, two mathematicians aren't "the same smart" as the smartest of the two of them.

The Polymath Project got off to a slow start. . . Jozsef Solymosi from the University of British Columbia posted a comment. . . over the next 37 days, 27 people wrote 800 mathematical comments. . . Just 37 days after the project began Gowers announced that he was confident the polymaths had solved not just his original problem, but a harder problem that included the original as a special case. Link

You spend many chapters teaching Harry the importance of collaboration.

"Anyhow," Hermione said. "Captains Goldstein and Weasley, you're on duty for thinking up strategic ideas for our next battle. Captains Macmillan and Susan - sorry, I mean Macmillan and Bones - try to come up with some tactics we can use, also any training you think we should try. Oh, and congratulations on your marching song, Captain Goldstein, I think it was a big plus for esprit de corps."

So I'm afraid I urge everyone to do the opposite of what you've suggested and collaborate. Sorry.

I don't think Hermione is actually asleep anymore. I was expecting her to wake up right away when resurrected, and that didn't happen. Then the death eaters started appearing with loud pops loud enough to count distinctly, and that didn't seem to wake her. And since she's fully repaired there's no need to sleep to recover.

Chapter 73

Hermione felt the jolt of Innervation bringing her awake, and out of some intuitive strategism she didn't roll to her feet right away; it had been a completely hopeless battle and she didn't know what she could do but some instinct told her that leaping to her feet wasn't it.

Chapter 30

"Let me guess," Harry said, the sickness already churning in his stomach. He really hated losing. "It was a very easy battle, right? They dropped like flies?" "Yes," Draco said. "We got them all on the first shot -"

Are you going to release the transcript? If not, are we going to get any summary from the Gatekeeper?

I know in real life that would be akin to AI out of the box.

Why?

My grand plan is starting now - with an extreme epistemic update I was in denial about. Hah. And I thought I left those things behind me!