You know the corollary to Arthur C Clarke’s “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” which is “Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from technology”? That’s what I think the explanation and manipulation of the electromagnetic force and strong and weak nuclear forces basically are. We just figured out the rules for how magic works, and now we manipulate them to make rocks think and show us pretty colors over vast distances, and can also explode cities with glowing rocks and weird gasses. Also we can make potent potions from strange biological and chemical essences that make the body do what we tell it, mostly. And we’re getting better at it (and would be getting better at it faster if it weren’t for metaphorical dragons getting in the way).
Just because we can explain it doesn’t make it any less magic.
You know how they call traditional medicine that works? Medicine.
You know how they call magic that works? Technology.
And by “them” I mean “us”.
Ooh is that a reference to Tim Minchin’s Storm I see?
A direct quote, I dare say.
Pretty sure if you understand it…
That makes you a wizard.
I’m a wot?
There are a lot of layers of awe when learning about electromagnetic properties. I’ll never forget the first time I used an amp clamp. That shit blew my mind until I remembered perpendicular forces.
I took a university course specifically on electromagnetism and can confirm it’s magic. They even use hand gestures to summon the powers of science to show which direction the current flows.
It’s not magic if it can be scientifically proven and studied
Clark’s 3rd Law:
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
So it is magic. As long as we don’t get it.
I’m not convinced. Most magic systems in fiction have rules, meaning they can be scientifically proven and studied. Magic is simply when something falls outside your understanding of how the world works. It’s all about your perspective.
There’s a part in the Lord of the Rings where Galadriel shows Sam and Frodo a scrying pool. To Galadriel it’s normal, simply the way the world is. To the hobbits it’s magic.
‘And you?’ she said, turning to Sam. ‘For this is what your folk would call magic, I believe; though I do not understand clearly what they mean; and they seem to use the same word of the deceits of the Enemy. But this, if you will, is the magic of Galadriel. Did you not say that you wished to see Elf-magic?’
Just wait until you get to nuclear chemistry/physics. We use invisible rays, which can kill you, to turn one rock into a different rock, which possibly can kill you. Only if you have studied for many years are you allowed to wield the magic transmutation beams. We create elements not likely seen in nature (possible, but unconfirmed because of their short lives). We create temperatures colder than anywhere else in the universe. We peer at the fundamental forces of nature and then fuck with them.
Bring this rock close to this other rock, and voilà. It creates magic heat!
Don’t get too close, because it will curse you to an agonizing death years later. However you can use this to boil water and channel the power of thunderstorms.
Don’t forget making temperatures many many times hotter than our own sun, sometimes mere meters away from the coldest temperatures in the universe.
I found the juggalo
Magnets, how do they work?!
I had the opposite. When we learned about magnets in high school, it was pretty much told assuming the atomic and crystalline scale of natural magnets to be a black box. Meanwhile, the instructions on electromagnets gave me enough to go off for me to extend that down to said crystalline and atomic level. So when I stepped to my teachers, claiming I had a theory and enthusiastically explaining that spinning electrons created an electric current, which in turn create magnetic fields at the atomic level, which can then line up with neighbouring ones to become a whole magnet, they responded “yeah, that is exactly how magnets work.”
