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The Wonky Faint
The Wonky Faint by moshpit
Tue, 10/07/2008 - 05:10- Story type: General fanfiction
- Complete: Yes
- Genre: Essay
- Timeframe: Moot
- First point of canon divergence: None
- Length: 1,001 - 5,000
Summary:
Breath-taking Quidditch can really take it out of you. As Hermione knows, life is more than just a game.
Comments
An interesting analysis...
... but completely irrelevant in my view. You are trying to apply the laws of physics to a process that by its very nature defies those same laws. You start out by saying that since the broom should be unable to take off, that magic must be negating the force of gravity.
If we accept that, then we may as well also accept that it can also negate all the other G forces involved, making this entire discussion a moot point. :-)
- SC
I can't agree, obviously . . .
The brooms are known to have Hover charms on them (the part that allows them to fly at all, as far as I'm concerned, as it adds extra lift). This is demonstrated in canon, even though it's not made explicit as far as I remember.
It doesn't matter if you call it a magical bicycle or allow it to fly; the g-forces involved affect the blood in your body, as well as everything else. If you want to say that magic is canceling out every force involved, it's your choice -- you can do that. I'll ask you to articulate what magic is involved, what powers it, and so forth.
I did the write-up for the same reason I leave rather pointed reviews for people that insist Harry has a vault with more than ~10M galleons in it. Even 10M is ridiculous in my opinion, but to each author their own. The value of that in ~1995, nevermind the volume or mass in gold, is absurdly large for a system that has little need for money.
moshpit wrote: It doesn't
It doesn't matter if you call it a magical bicycle or allow it to fly; the g-forces involved affect the blood in your body, as well as everything else. If you want to say that magic is canceling out every force involved, it's your choice -- you can do that. I'll ask you to articulate what magic is involved, what powers it, and so forth.
I didn't say it is, I said it can. I suspect if all said forces were completely cancelled out there would be little interest in flying at all. That said, its made obvious from book 1 that there is a lot more to broomsticks than a hover charm, and since such moves as those you describe as being deadly have been described in canon, I've always interpreted that to mean that an integral part of racing / quidditch broom design would be to make it safe to make such manoeuvres. My thinking is something akin to the inertial dampeners that built in to all the Star Trek ships. I've never had any reason to be more specific in my thinking than that.
I did the write-up for the same reason I leave rather pointed reviews for people that insist Harry has a vault with more than ~10M galleons in it. Even 10M is ridiculous in my opinion, but to each author their own. The value of that in ~1995, nevermind the volume or mass in gold, is absurdly large for a system
I'm not disagreeing with the concept that there should be some sanity involved in how things are quantified, but at the same time I think that in describing a magical world you need to make allowances for situations where magic is capable of overriding the laws of physics.
- SC
I thought I had left a
I thought I had left a comment yesterday on this article. For whatever reason, I've always enjoyed speculation like this. Which point out the unlikeliness of some assumptions that are built into some stories. Using "inertial dampers" from Star Trek to support a fictional construct is just taking another form of "magic"--for that's what the science of Star Trek really is--to support the magic in this fictional universe. Its all Newtonian and G-forces are real, and so are the limits on human perception.
Your article reminds me of the seminal speculative article by Larry Niven on the sex life of Superman--which is hysterically funny even though it may not sound like it from the title. It points out that he probably can't have one without serious or fatal injury to his partner. But thats off topic.
Thanks for this interesting speculation.
PS. I always presume that 150 mph really meant maybe 30 to 50 mph or something like that. I think that in canon, JKR is vague for good reason on specifics of that kind.
You did . . .
. . . and now I'm confused. So did rbackwards, but his review disappeared as well.
Hrmm. Curious.
As for the "it's magic" clause, that works to a point (for rbackwards et al). The ludicrous extreme of described Quidditch matches, however, doesn't change with that label. The whole point of the exercise was to illustrate the various points that just don't make sense.
Ignore g-forces, if you will. You noted that you can cross the pitch in either direction in less than 1 second (short ways) or 3 seconds (long ways) at the "150mph" figure. So many writers have them tearing about the pitch at top speed, and then naming top speed as 150mph, that it's clear very, very few have ever thought about it.
Asking/aiming for a bit more realism in broom-related scenes isn't very useful if there's not an explanation of what's gone "wrong" through neglect. There were other points, of course, but the real target audience is only likely to stumble across it at FFnet.
(And the issue of Superman's intimate sex life? I think it might be easily solved: his partner has to use Kryptonite-laced KY. Of course, then you risk genetic mutations at conception, and the partner has to be resigned to a C-section no matter what . . . hmmm. Bad bunnies, bad.)
A ha . . .
I forgot that we switched how comments work here on MF. Originally, comments were stuck on the root node of a story -- meaning the story summary, etc -- and not on the chapter. After some back and forth, we went back to the "normal" method of comments on chapters.
So some comments are here, and other comments are on the chapter. Your original comment, as well as rbackwards' comment, can both be found there. It's a bit confusing for one-shots, but mentally saving for the multi-chaptered things.
Quidditch and physics
I think that some FF authors misunderstand performance figures. The Firebolt can do "naught-to-60" in 4 seconds and has a top speed of 150 mph (I don't know if these are the canon performance figures, but they are close). This sort of performance sounds like a sports bike or a decent sports car. Now then, these vehicles do not go whizzing about at maximum acceleration or maximum speed all the time. They rarely use that sort of performance. It think the same is true with the brooms used for Quidditch. Oh yeah, if I remember correctly the brooms used for Quidditch are usually called "racing brooms." Quidditch isn't racing and vice versa.
Catching a Snitch... Its all a relative motion problem isn't it? If you are the Seeker doing 20mph and a 30mph Snitch is closing on you from the front, well I think a 50mph winged ball hitting the palm of your hand will HURT! Chasing down a Snitch seems to reduce the relative speed to 0. That's a nice soft catch. A manuevering Snitch in a chase will require a quick closing speed and a bit of luck; a sharp maneuver and you'll miss the thing. Again, I don't remember all the canon matches, but weren't most catches astern chases or slow motion grabs?
Quoting canon . . .
Here's what canon says about the Firebolt directly, regarding critical parameters (I'll skip random descriptive text):
"An acceleration of 150 miles an hour in ten seconds and incorporates an unbreakable braking charm."
"... has a built-in auto-brake, and-"
And that's about all I can find through Books 3 and 4. The rest is flowery language, or people discussing how awesome it is, but it's sadly lacking in details. Where are your numbers coming from?
As for the catches, sometimes it's a low-differential catch as you describe, and sometimes it's an orthogonal catch (the snitch changes direction abruptly). The first won't hurt much, but you know that second one is going to be felt all the way to the bone, depending on the new trajectory of flight. And if the differential is large enough, you'll break all the bones in your hand.
I agree that the game should be played at a much lower speed, which is one of the arguments in the analysis. I also point out that you would fly the slower brooms very differently from the fast brooms. I'm not sure anyone has thought about those issues, really, but there you are.
Quote: moshpit Where are
moshpit
Where are your numbers coming from?
Good question. If the numbers aren't from Naked Quidditch Match then they are quite possible out of my ass.
Regardless of top end performance, in a Quidditch stadium I would imagine things like 10-50 mph acceleration, maneuver responsiveness and stability, and braking would be of high importance. As you noted, highspeed flying requires a much larger maneuver area than a Quidditch pitch provides. Also, matches in many fanfic stories are written as two-dimensional contests, except perhaps the Wronski Feint move. The only expressly vertical component in a game was in the last match of MoO 1, Ginny was climbing after the Snitch for quite a distance if I remember.
The area factor is why I put Harry's TLT flight training in a remote location off the British Isles. Plenty of room, no one around. You don't suppose Area 51 is really an American Auror flight training location, do you? :-)