Harry Potter and the Memories of a Sociopath, Ch 6, The Philosophy of Science of Magic

Here's how it is:

At the end of the summer following the events of HPMOR, Harry is still concerned about the fate of the world, but has made significant progress: Hermione obtaining a phoenix and destroying Azkaban's dementors, and Bones apparently grudgingly willing to take his cues on national policy. Progress toward a functional Philosopher's Stone based hospital at Hogwarts has stalled due to ward incompatibilities and a temporary solution is being set up in the now-abandoned Azkaban tower. Harry has built up a relatively long list of things he needs to investigate, including big picture items like Merlin's Interdict, prophecy, magic-technology interactions, and helping Dumbledore, as well as smaller scale things like revisiting his conclusions about comed-tea, looking into Ravenclaw's Diadem, and looking into whether the potion liquid luck is a real thing or a cover story.

Hermione is upset that Harry lied to her, manipulating her into attacking the dementors in Azkaban herself, rather than even trying to deal with it politically. Moody is still suspicious of Gilderoy Lockhart, but thinks it's most probable that he's an incompetent relying on liquid luck for his accomplishments. Moody failed to find persuasive evidence for anything dark and now it's too late for McGonagall to find an alternative Defense professor.

Bellatrix is still at large and able to appear in public despite being Magical Britain's most wanted. The inmate assumed to be Pettigrew has disappeared, leaving questions about his true identity and possible crimes. Sprout has mysteriously received a gift: the long-lost and apparently cursed Hufflepuff Cup and has requested Hermione's help with research of a vaguely defined nature. Draco is angry at the world; at the perceived failures and betrayals of everyone around him. In a flash of incite, Draco concludes that Harry is Voldemort and is the biggest threat to magical society. He begins planning to amass power for the inevitable battle.

With dementors nearly extinct in Britain (a few were being kept in the department of mysteries in case of emergency), and a temporary-but-functional solution for philosopher's-stone-based-healing in the works, Harry had been able to relax quite a bit. He didn't have any good ideas for approaching, much less solving the problem of Merlin's Interdict, and didn't have any non-vetoed ideas for helping Dumbledore, so he had decided to use the opportunity to investigate the science of magic.

Hermione entered his office, "so what's the plan today?"

"I'm mostly interested in determining which fundamental physical laws need to be modified to account for magical effects. We know electronics are disrupted by magic, so electromagnetism seems like a good place to start. There will also be practical benefits to learning the limits on muggle technology that works around magic. So I've decided to start by studying basic circuits. My father sent assorted components and an analog multi-meter, which I expect to produce useful results, even if magic affects its accuracy."

They started by checking and recording the battery voltages. "Those are all reasonable results. That isn't too surprising because I've gotten power from a car battery near Hogwarts before."

"What's the first experiment going to test?"

"We've already learned a lot. An analog volt meter operates by producing a current proportional to the applied voltage across a known internal resistance (by Ohm's law, I = V/R), and uses the magnetic field created by that current to produce a force (a Lorentz force, F = I L x B), which is measured by how far it pushes a magnetic needle against a spring providing an opposing force (F = k x). Therefore Ohm's Law and Lorenz' Law are still valid. Next, let's check the resistor values. An analog ohm meter uses a known voltage to produce a current inversely proportional to the resistance being measured, which is then read the same way as it is for the voltage measurements."

Measuring the values of the resistors produced similarly reasonable results, within a few percent of the indicated values.

"I really should have asked dad to measure the resistors (away from any magic) before sending them. And to record the voltages before sending the batteries, even though they would have discharged a little between now and then. There could be small discrepancies that are being hidden by uncertainty in the battery charge levels and the allowable manufacturing tolerances on resistance values. I could get a more accurate sensor, but it's probably not a good use of time to chase increasingly insignificant digits looking for small anomalies without knowing more about where to look."

"You do realize that magic may modify the voltage, current, and magnetic field in complementary ways, such that you see the same result even though something different is going on?"

"That's not a particularly Occam-friendly hypothesis, but that doesn't make it wrong. We can roughly measure the power produced with the brightness of a light bulb, or measure it more accurately with a resistor in water-proof insulation in a calorimeter. Electrical power is the product of voltage and current, so that would show if the battery voltage were lower than it should be, but inexplicably producing the current corresponding to the expected voltage, or if the current were lower than expected but producing the magnetic field strength for the expected current."

"But if the voltage were higher and the current lower or vise-versa, such that the product were the same, that wouldn't help. Or if the power didn't match the product of voltage and current."

"I suspect that some of these laws are true based on the definitions of voltage, current, power, etc. I also doubt electronics would be failing without some relatively obvious phenomenon that can be detected with this hardware. If we don't find anything interesting today, I'll read up on how electrical properties are defined and how to measure them more directly. We could even start by transfiguring stuff to replicate Millikan's oil drop experiment if you'd like."

Hermione transfigured a bomb calorimeter while Harry verified Kirchoff's current and voltage laws with various networks of resistors and batteries alligator-clipped together. Again, there were no novel scientific discoveries. They then timed how long it took a capacitor to charge while in series with a resistor and a battery before moving on to semiconductors.

Harry was becoming annoyed and frustrated. After seeing analog electronics operate normally, he had really been expecting the quantum physics on which semiconductors were dependent to fail in the presence of magic. Scientists already knew that the Standard Model of quantum physics was incomplete because gravity hadn't been unified with the other forces, and Harry was expecting/hoping that the effects of magic would provide the critical insights required to discover the Theory of Everything. Instead, the diodes, LEDs, and transistors defied expectations by working exactly the way the textbooks said they should.

They briefly discussed the possibility that Harry's office was coincidentally far enough away or well-shielded enough from Hogwarts' magic to allow all electronics to work, but quickly falsified that hypothesis by attempting and failing to turn on an old four-function calculator and a digital watch that Harry had intended to use to measure the physical extent of Hogwarts' stone-age zone.

Harry pulled out a breadboard and built increasingly complex networks of transistors, finally ending up with a 4-bit full adder made with switches, LEDs, and NAND gate ICs. Harry flipped the switches to test the results for a couple of input numbers.

"This is crazy! All of the individual laws and test circuits work right, but consumer electronics don't. I can make a working binary adder, but can't turn on a calculator. What is going on here?"

Hermione shook her head, "Harry, I have to go. I have another project to work on."

"Yeah, I understand. I'm going to have to take a break from this soon too."

Harry briefly wondered whether he'd spent too much time around Mad-Eye because he found himself provisionally assuming that the laws of physics as he knew them applied at Hogwarts, but that something or someone was deliberately messing with him. Perhaps allowing tests to work, but preventing anything practical from being done with that knowledge.

That gave Harry an idea for one more quick test...

Harry frowned as he watched the crowd gathering on the train platform from a distance. For some reason, Hermione was convinced it was important for them to meet everyone here (even though they would see them at Hogwarts in a few hours anyway). He had resolved to make an appearance for five to ten minutes, then take a floo back to his office. Who had the time to spend hours on a pointless train, anyway? Harry made a mental note to suggest that McGonagall install a floo in the Great Hall which could be activated when everyone was coming or going. He glanced at his wrist, noting the time on his mechanical watch, and the absence of time on his digital watch. Apparently electronics didn't work here either-

"So you've been looking for me." It wasn't a question.

Harry suppressed the reflex to jump at the unexpected voice, and turned to face a young blond girl, "I wasn't actually looking for anyone in particular; it was recommended that I make an appearance here to socialize. Also, I don't know who you are."

"Do you typically only look for what you already know? That's not a very good way to learn anything. We certainly couldn't produce a newspaper that way."

"That's good philosophy in general; I suppose it might work in this case... newspaper- you're Luna Lovegood?"

"That's what people have always told me, though I suppose they could have been mistaken. Or trying to trick me."

Harry smiled, "that's true. It's also true that I've wanted to talk to you. Specifically about where the information for your stories comes from. Specifically the frequent stories the Quibbler publishes mentioning me."

"Hogwarts, mostly."

"... What do you mean? You have students there who write for your paper? Or act as sources?"

"No, the paper has used sources and hired investigative reporters before, but I've never seen the point. There's always plenty to write about without them."

"Then what did you mean about getting information from Hogwarts?"

"When I see or hear something about you, it usually comes from Hogwarts. I imagine you don't spend much time in oceans or deserts."

"You get information from the oceans?"

"Usually. They cover three-quarters of the planet, you know. They're also really deep. I wonder if that's why this is platform nine-and-three-quarters? Probably not; nine never means anything-"

"Uh, Luna, what kind of things have you seen in the oceans?"

"Oh, lots of things. Most of it is really dark, though. There are fewer fish in the dark parts, but there are shrimpy things living at the bottom. Especially when there's smoke coming out of the ground; they seem to like it there."

Harry doubted most wizards knew anything about the ocean, especially not about the abyssal zone or hydrothermal vents, but decided to remain skeptical; he could just be pattern matching due to a bias toward wanting someone to have a special knowledge source, like the universal cheat codes Dumbledore used. He'd have to come up with a test that would involve Luna discovering specific information that neither of them could know otherwise. Speaking of tests... "I want you to try to solve a puzzle: you give me three numbers and I'll tell you whether they obey a secret rule. Your goal is to figure out the rule. Your first clue is that 2, 4, 6 obeys the rule."

Luna tilted her head, "0, 0, 0?"

"No."

"2, 4, 6?"

"Uh, yes."

"Any three numbers as long as each is bigger than the last?"

Harry's mouth dropped open, "...Yes, actually. Have you heard this before?"

"What do you mean?"

"Has anyone ever asked you to solve the 2-4-6 puzzle before?"

"I don't think so. Why would anyone do that? It's kind of a strange question to ask people, isn't it? Well, I suppose you're the wrong person to ask that. Not that I pay much attention to that sort of thing either."

Harry distractedly waved at the pair approaching them, "Hey, Hermione, hey Jenny."

"Ginny", Hermione corrected.

Harry shrugged, "Sorry."

Hermione stared at Harry for a moment then said, "Ginny was looking for Luna. They're apparently friends and neighbors."

Harry nodded, then turned back to Luna, "It was a pleasure to meet you. I have a feeling we're going to be friends. When you meet the Sorting Hat, think Ravenclaw thoughts. I think you'll like it there."

Harry and Hermione walked away, ignoring the younger students conversation. Hermione spoke first, "You really don't like Ginny, do you?"

"It's not that I hate her; she's just boring. You'd expect someone who grew up with Fred and George to have done something interesting by now. I mean, even Ron- the first time I met him, I quickly learned that he's mentally slow, obsessed with quidditch, and passionately hates Slytherins, or at least Malfoys. So he'd not someone I have anything to talk about with, but he at least demonstrated a personality. Ginny is like a generic background character who just keeps showing up."

Hermione glared at him, then shook her head, "You know Luna's not really a seer, right?"

"How would I know that? I can't exactly watch every second of her life to verify that she has never and will never communicate a prophecy. That's the only way to disprove the seer hypothesis, while a single prophecy would confirm it."

"Harry, you know what I mean. Between taking divination, arithmancy, and talking to Luna it's obvious that you're searching for ways to get information about the future. I went through the whole fake prophecy thing last year with Millicent and I'm not falling for it again. They both claim to just somehow know stuff, rather than reciting prophecies under a trance, without remembering them later."

"I've basically been given Harry Seldon's job: predicting and preventing catastrophes and plotting the course of civilization centuries in advance. Getting a reliable source of future information could be critical to that; it would certainly make things easier... Hold on, you didn't mention anything about Millicent claiming to be a seer. I would have remembered that."

"She was telling the SPHEW where to find bullies. I don't know how, but it doesn't matter because she's not a seer."

Harry frowned, "Snape said he was giving you notes about where to go. I may have forgotten to mention that."

"Well, I was getting notes, but Daphne was getting the same information from Millicent somehow."

"Oh. Margaret Bulstrode abuses a time-turner. She never seems to get in trouble for it though. But I don't think a time-turner would explain Luna... well, maybe... Anyway, I haven't ruled out the null hypothesis, that she may be doing a form of cold reading, making vague guesses and relying on people to imbue them with meaning after the fact, but that seems unlikely in this case. There are certainly additional magical senses, so it's not implausible that she has one."

Harry continued, "Conventionally, there's no way to find actual objective truth because our perceptions are too fallible, so skepticism is always required; almost nothing ever becomes 100% certain. The best we can do is make repeated observations, have multiple people try to replicate those observations, then try to fit those observations into theories and make testable predictions using those theories. Muggles sometimes talk about 'other ways of knowing', but their examples always reduce to a non-obvious form of science or to something that makes subjective rather than objective conclusions, failing to support their claim of a shortcut to objective truth. But with magic, that's not necessarily true anymore; there may be a way to get answers without years of careful investigation, maybe by using perfectly reliable perception or some type of absolute truth verification charm. Something like that would be game-changing. It's worth some effort to look for it."

"So you've been looking for me." It wasn't a question.

Draco replied to the small blond girl, "Not... specifically, no. Who are you?"

"Luna Lovegood, at least that's what I've always been told."

"Oh..." Draco thought quickly, searching for something that sounded non-threatening and sincere. "For most of my life, your family were considered enemies by my family. But I'm sure you were all doing what you thought was right. My father was a death eater, after all. Anyway, if you have any problems at Hogwarts or need help with anything, don't hesitate to come to us." He left the room as quickly as possible without giving the impression that he was leaving the room as quickly as possible.

"Explain one more time what we're doing", Theodore Nott requested.

Draco sighed. "It's time for the Silvery Slytherins to start taking action. We can't fix everything about House Slytherin right now, but what we can do is improve public relations with those around us. By showing our classmates that there are Slytherins and then there are Slytherins, they'll be more likely to work with us, now and in the future. By showing the first years that not all Slytherins are the monsters they've heard about, they'll be less likely to go to the Sorting Hat thinking 'anywhere but Slytherin'. And then there may be even more of us next year, hopefully creating a positive feedback loop. So we're going to introduce ourselves to the first years and encourage them to talk to us if they have any problems and generally be nice."

As he spoke, they passed an open door, through which they heard Jugson scoff loudly. "Go on ahead; I'll catch up to you. I feel this needs to be addressed", Draco said, stepping though the door and closing it behind him.

He put on a neutral expression, made eye contact, and began, "Acting nice builds a certain reputation, which facilitates trust, which is useful. Not to mention the potential for recruiting followers. Last spring, I lost most of my min- The political alliance that roughly corresponds with Slytherin House lost many of its most valued individuals, including my own father. Certain other interests will control this country for decades without... a somewhat drastic change in methods. I don't intend to stand by and watch their plans unfold. I intend to lead more than a pathetic group of outlaws. I require members of all four houses to respect and follow me. And if you interfere with my ambitions you will regret it." He opened the door and stepped out before Jugson could reply.

As he rejoined others, Tracey was saying "And besides, as a Darke Lady I need to recruit minions. I'm pretty sure that's the real reason we're doing this."

"You could not possibly have missed the point of redeeming Slytherin House any worse if Dumbledore himself had left you personalized directions", Daphne replied.

"Right, of course that's not why we're doing this", Draco added quickly.

So far, nothing unexpected had happened. The Sorting Hat may have been selecting a higher than normal number of Slytherins this year, but it was hard to tell as almost half the students were still waiting in line.

Harry had bought more comed-tea at the train station in order to try an absolutely necessary experiment. He had decided to dilute it with water and drink 4 ounces of the mixture at dinner every other day. He would rate the humor or unexpectedness of events at each dinner, thereby implementing a randomized controlled trial of the effects of comed-tea. He wasn't prepared to do a blinded trial yet (that would require including more researchers than a preliminary investigation), but he decided that he could ask Hermione to rate the unexpectedness that happened every day as well, and he'd be able to make a decent conclusion about whether the potion caused funny things (if even numbered days were significantly weirder) or whether an impulse to drink comed-tea was retroactively caused by funny things (if the diluted mixture didn't result in any significant correlations). His first day of experimentation had begun just prior to the sorting.

Luna approached the chair, looked at the hat for a moment, then hesitantly picked it up and put it on her head.

There long pause.

Students began to fidget, then quietly talk to each other. McGonagall frowned but said nothing.

"Her sorting is taking even longer than yours," Anthony whispered to Harry.

"She's probably going to be the most dangerous dark witch of all time," Padma whispered to no one in particular. Others nodded in agreement.

Finally, the Sorting Hat spoke, "HOGWARTS SORTING CEREMONY... I mean rye... that is... RAVENCLAW!"

Everyone stared in confusion while Luna walked to the table and sat with the other first-years. Harry suppressed a giggle, "Silly Sorting Hat. You had one job... and mirroring her brain almost made you forget what it was."

The rest of the sorting was less eventful.

Hogwarts Castle is known for being full of novel and interesting magical things. Given this fact, and the unreliability of children's ability to remain in a single-file line, it should surprise no one that all first-years do not successfully reach their common rooms after the sorting ceremony without some special help.

Those were the moments Peregrine Derrick lived for. And due to the magic of short memories and summer vacations, a handful of Slytherins were once again following his lead. They'd chosen to stalk the Hufflepuff group, based on their belief that no task was too simple for a Hufflepuff to botch. They considered that belief justified when several of the students in the back of the group paused to look at a painting, then made a wrong turn trying to catch up with the group. A moment later, they'd trapped themselves in a corner and given up practically without Derrick and the others even drawing their wands.

"STOP!" Derrick involuntarily put his hands to his ears in response to the magically amplified voice. At least one of the others dropped their wand doing the same.

He turned and saw Professor Sprout scowling at them, then recovered quickly, "What are you even going to do?" he asked dismissively.

With no change in expression, she twitched her wand and his wand caught fire.

"Hey!" he exclaimed, quickly extinguishing the flames with his robe. "Guh", he exclaimed after Professor Sprout used the distraction to cross the distance between them and put her wand to his throat.

"TWO WEEKS DETENTION FOR ALL OF YOU. AND IF I CATCH YOU HARASSING YOUNGER STUDENTS EVER AGAIN, YOU WILL LOOK BACK AT THIS MOMENT WITH NOSTALGIA."

She gestured with her wand and he was thrown five meters down the hallway. "START RUNNING!", she yelled at them.

She then canceled the sonorus charm and, after they recovered from their disorientation, led the students to the Hufflepuff common room without further incident.

Carl Sloper walked through the hallway, not moving quickly and purposefully but not wandering aimlessly either. He just intended to not make it back to the common room before curfew. Gryffindor didn't even have any house points yet, so it was a matter of principle, really.

But he was observing his surroundings carefully; there was no point getting a detention if it were avoidable. He saw a flash of green cloth at the edge of a shadow and instantly drew his wand and cast a shield, "I see you there. You're not going to ambush me. You've got three seconds to come out before I start cursing."

"Shut up and get lost, Gryffindork. I'm not here for you. What are you even doing this close to the dungeons?"

"Jugson? I wouldn't have pictured you hiding from anyone. Anyway, I've got every right to be in this hallway. At least for another ten or fifteen minutes. What are you playing at?"

"It's none of your damn business, but if it will get you out of here faster, I'm waiting to have a conversation with Malfoy. Boy needs to learn some respect for his elders."

"Oh... actually, I think I'd like to have a conversation with Malfoy too. Now that his father and his politician friends aren't around to protect him."

"Fine. But shut up and disappear. And you'd better not get in my way."

Crabbe and Goyle had been reluctant, but had followed Draco's order to go back to the common room before him, leaving him walking back alone. Their insistence that this was an unnecessary risk simultaneously amused and annoyed him.

Draco walked around a corner, put on a smile and called out "Ah, Jugson, you've made a new friend. I'm glad you took my ideas about inter-house relations to heart so quickly." Internally, he felt anger rising; two upperclassmen against second-year magic was a much fairer fight than he wanted.

"You've brought this on yourself, you arrogant little git."

Draco smirked, "I've heard these hallways can get dangerous. You guys should leave before you get hurt."

Sloper jumped out and cast a stunner. It missed Draco as he'd already started running. Straight down the hallway toward them.

Standard shields are good at blocking standard stunners, force spells (blasting, cutting, etc.), and physical objects (they wouldn't be very useful if someone could simply stick a wand through and cast inside the shield), but they required customization to block other spells. Any good duelist knows, despite whatever shields he'd cast, his opponent may cast something that could bypass them, and therefore has to frequently adapt their shields to their opponent's likely attacks. Therefore, it pays to open with something unexpected.

Draco, while still running, flicked his wand to the right and cast the conjunctivitis curse, blinding Jugson. Draco then dove. He'd timed it perfectly: Jugson had diverted power from his shield to attempt a counter-curse, Sloper had slightly led Draco with his wand while preparing a blasting curse, and Draco had slid just under the curse, which directly hit and overloaded Jugson's weakened shield.

After sliding, Draco rolled behind Jugson for momentary cover and cast a quick somnium at Jugson's back. As Jugson fell, Draco jumped to the side, out of the path of Sloper's next spell. He pointed his wand at Sloper's hand and cast a cooling charm, pushing enough power into the spell for frost to deposit on his opponent's wand. Sloper attempted to cast a another blasting curse, but his numbed fingers dropped the wand. His shield dropped at the same instant and his body dropped a second later.

His favorite part of a battle, even more than the 'winning' part, was the 'sending a message' part. He hovered Sloper on top of Jugson and then hovered Jugson to drag them both along; he'd have to take them into the Chamber of Secrets because otherwise the wards would detect anything worth doing. There were so many ideas he was anxious to try out, but it was such a waste to kill anyone before relearning the horcrux spell. Luckily he did have a few creative non-lethal ideas...