Magic and Physics ⋆ Charlotte Henley BabbCharlotte Henley Babb

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. ” Arthur C. Clarke
“Profiles of The Future”, 1961 (Clarke’s third law) English physicist & science fiction author (1917 – )

In a brainstorming session last night, the question was raised, “What happens when magic collides with physics?” Is magic only a different technology than our current physics? How does a cellphone work?

In fantasy fiction, magic is the nullification of physics, the ability to fly without wings, the teleportation of objects, transformation of one kind of thing, such as a person, into another, such as a frog or a teapot.

What then, is the benefit of reading ot writing such illogical stuff, of making wishes and performing acts of manifestation? Why all the affirmations, the visualization CDs, the DVDs of Abraham, the Secret and Raymon Grace? What’s wrong with the idea that we should work hard to get what we want?

The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible. Arthur C. Clarke, “Technology and the Future” (Clarke’s second law)

Without our being willing to open our minds to a higher level of physics, we cannot see how our own thoughts, a form of energy, affects the other energy forms around us. Why do some people continually have travel delays and mixups? Why are some people often in the path of reckless drivers? Why does shit happen to some people and not others? Isn’t life a series of random events?

There are too many people who manage to stay happy and breeze through even terrifying events. Some people seem to live charmed lives, yet they are often the ones who are the first to help others from their own good fortune. Their aggravations are small and handled with calm and finesse.

Students of magic and energy work often talk of quantum physics, although they and the scientists who study it know very little about how it works. That’s the reason for building the new Hadron Collider, to see what happens when phyiscs (proton particles–they know the protons are particles because they set up the experiement to work with particles, rather than waves) collides with physics. Perhaps they will find magic in the form of alternate universes and new understandings of the energies of the universe will be created, even at the unlikely risk of a few ephemeral nano-black holes.

It seems from the layperson’s point of view that the mathematicians (mathmagicians?) predict some odd particle or effect, and then the physicists set up experiements, and then new particles, wavicles, or other effects are discovered, right where they are predicted to be. It’s as if the effect is created rather than discovered.

So if there are any literalists still read this far along, take hope. Impossible means that we just don’t understand how it works, or we haven’t asked the question in the right way.

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. Arthur C. Clarke, Clarke’s first law)

Keep thinking those good thoughts. Keep dreaming of what you want. Remember that every convenience we depend on today was at best, a science fantasy when Arthur C. Clarke was born in December of 1917. It is the dreamers who create the world.