On November 17, the movie “Fantastic Beasts and Where They Live” by the book of the same name by JK Rowling is released in Russia. Mail.Ru movies have included this spin-off of the Harry Potter series, which tells about the events that took place decades before the main saga began, in the top of the main movie festivals of 2016. It doesn’t matter whether you’re thinking of watching the film “The Potterians” or not - there is a good reason to look at the films (and books) about the young magician from the unexpected side of technology and progress.

At first glance, it seems that the technology with the magicians is bad. The matter did not move further than the locomotive: at the level of development, they stopped somewhere in the late 19th century. Even the Night Knight three-decker bus, obviously borrowing ideas from the world of ordinary people, does not use a gasoline engine, but magical teleportation. What can we say about computers, smartphones, the Internet and in general any electronic mechanisms - wizards and sorceresses simply don’t have them.
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A universe limited only by the spells and passes of a magic wand might have looked too primitive. Fortunately, in the world of the "Potterians" there was a place for several good scientific ideas (both initially incorporated in the books and added later), which will be discussed today.

The best fan fiction in the world

The character-rich world gave life to thousands of fan fiction of different directions - from porn to economic theory (from which you learn that a magic wand cost only 3,500 rubles). So it almost does not surprise the attempt to make from the "Harry Potter" scientific community. Basics of scientific research in the "Potter" enough. Voldemort conducted many experiments on the splitting of the soul (personality) and almost reached physical immortality. Individual magicians show interest in scientific research, trying to invent their own spells ( Sectumsempra ), without memorizing ready-made recipes.

The idea of ​​taking a scientific approach in books and building it into an absolute lay on the surface. Now imagine (hereinafter, knowledge of the plot of books / films will be needed) that Petunia married not Dursley, but a university professor. Harry Potter would have private teachers, useful discussions with his father, and most importantly, books, hundreds and thousands of science and science books. At an early age, Harry would be introduced to quantum mechanics, cognitive psychology, probability theory, and other useful things.

It turns out interesting? This is a brief description of the fanfiction "Harry Potter and Rational Thinking Techniques," which was created by Eliezer Yudkovsky. We have already written about fan fiction on GT, but since then the English original has been added and a full Russian translation has been made . Eliezer Yudkovsky is a renowned American expert on AI and problems of technological singularity, popularizer of science, founder of the Institute of Singularity (later renamed the Institute for Machine Intelligence Research to avoid confusion with the University of Singularity created by Google and NASA). He writes science fiction novels, books, and articles on how to create friendly AI.

In the version of "Harry Potter" from Yudkovsky - 122 chapters, which involve 90% of all the themes and characters of the original seven volume book - the main character is very clever and fights against the main enemy of humanity - ignorance. Moreover, the intelligence of Potter is not inferior to the author, but somewhere surpasses it. The result was achieved due to an approach that was not typical in fiction: where a character had to solve a problem in two minutes, Yudkovsky spent the week thinking through the most logical move.

As a result, it turned out to use not only the scientific method in the world of magic and magic, but also organically weave in real scientific research. And if you read the news that scientists using carbon nanotubes and graphene helped spiders to weave strong threads, then do not be surprised to find the following description in the text:


“Methods” is a good, but one fanfic. In 2002, an attempt was made to make a science version of “pro science”, which received the modest name of “The Science of Harry Potter: How Magic Really Works”. The book was translated into Russian in 2006 under the title Harry Potter and Science. So, read it, of course, not worth it. The author is a journalist who writes on scientific topics, but is not a specialist in any scientific discipline. As a result, the text is full of factual errors, inaccuracies, fragments of fiction.

Harry potter and database

The saga often becomes the subject of various studies and practices. So IBM Watson conducted a text analysis using the test of building the psychological profile of the personality of the Big Five , identifying a measure of people's differences in the degree of adaptation to the social environment.

Watson has determined that Voldemort is experiencing emotional instability and is in a state of mild paranoia all the time. Neville Longbottom is close in terms of emotional instability, and Harry Potter himself is catching up on the degree of anger and anger of the Dark Lord.

Of the three main characters (Ron, Harry and Hermione), the role of Ron Weasley is most comical, which is more noticeable in films than in books (however, as the plot progresses, Ron becomes more serious). Harry Potter is the most unfortunate character with the highest level of depression, but latent depression was also revealed in Hagrid.

Sorting Hat

Finish with the characters and move on to real technology. Dispensing hat is a living magical artifact that automates the complex process of choosing the right faculty at Hogwarts. Instead of a series of tests and consultations with a psychologist, you simply trust the hat, which selects applicants according to their character.

To repeat the magic technology, IBM Watson will be needed again. Engineer Ryan Anderson created a hat based on Watson's ability to recognize and interpret speech. The hat (more precisely, Watson himself) relates the words spoken by the user with the characteristics of each faculty at Hogwarts.



Watson translates speech into text and classifies by criteria. After receiving the results of data processing from the cloud, the hat concludes where it is best to identify the interlocutor.



The hat itself is made of bicycle helmet, T-shirt, Raspberry Pi, ARDUINO YUN with Wi-Fi, several motors and LEDs.

The cloak of invisibility

^{Harry Potter studies the properties of nanophotonics (almost)}

The invisibility mantle is one of the most popular magical artifacts, wandering from a fairy tale to a fairy tale for hundreds of years. Now we can confidently say that invisibility like Harry Potter is achievable with the help of metamaterials streamlined for light rays. A metamaterial is a composite whose properties are caused not so much by the features of its constituent elements as by the artificially created periodic structure. In metamaterials there is a negative refractive index in the visible region, thanks to which you can hide a three-dimensional object.

Xiang Zhang from the University of Berkeley published an article in Science stating that his team was able to achieve invisibility in the entire infrared spectrum for a three-dimensional object. The invisible layer of metamaterial 80 nanometers thick consists of a gold substrate, gold nanoantennas and magnesium fluoride. Antennas have a unique property: they can resonate with the light falling on them and then scatter it. Nano-antennas can change the phase of light, while maintaining its intensity. With the help of these antennas, light is given such characteristics as if there was no object under the “mantle”.



^{The image of an object wrapped in a raincoat in scanning electron (A), atomic force (B) and optical (B) microscopes}

The “Invisibility Cloak” currently hides an object of just 1300 micron². Nevertheless, there are no problems with scaling this technology - now they are working on methods for creating a similar canvas for macro-objects. By the way, in an interview with Postnauka about nanoantennas and the optical properties of new materials, it was stated that the authors were inspired by Harry Potter.

"Ear Extenders"

Spyware from the Fred and George Weasley twins shop assortment. They are thin flexible tubes moving independently in the right direction. With the help of "extenders" you can eavesdrop on conversations as if the speaker is standing next to you and telling secrets right in your ears.



Scientists from Princeton University in New Jersey have printed a functional ear on a 3D printer that can hear better than a human ear. The ear combines human tissue with electronics: at the heart of a spiral electron antenna, a hydrogel and cells of the human body that form cartilage.

The created hearing aid is inferior to the possibilities of the idea from “Harry Potter”, but in the future the bionic organs will give us truly “magic” technologies - it will be possible to hear not only acoustic waves, but also sounds at other frequencies (for example, radio).

Marauders' Map

A special map showing the castle of Hogwarts and its immediate environs, as well as any person in the area, wherever he is, even if he is hiding under the invisibility cloak.

Modern integrated security systems, including both video surveillance and analytics of the data obtained, including through the Internet of Things, make it possible to assemble a “map of marauders” for any object. However, such decisions are more like real combat magic and do not agree well with ordinary prank.



The original spirit of the old school is still alive in separate elaborations. Cambridge student Alan Hannah wrote the Marauder Map application , which tracks the location of Facebook users through private messages in the instant messenger and displays the results on a real map. Another story about what happens if you do not turn off the transfer of geodata.

Clock

In the world of "Harry Potter" watches appear often and have different functionality. So, the principle of operation of Dumbledore’s watches is not explained anywhere, but the description is given: “It was a very strange watch. Twelve arrows, but not a single number: only small planets moved along the edge. ”



^Concept

Magical watches met with other heroes, but the most interesting of them belonged to the Weasley family. On such a clock one could see where each of the family members is at the moment.

“Mrs. Weasley looked at the tall floor clock in the corner of the room. They could not help those who would like to know what time it was, but contained a lot of information for everyone else. There were nine golden hands on the watch. On each arrow was the name of one of the nine members of the Weasley family. There were no numbers on the dial, but there was written the name of the places where members of this family could be: at home, at school, at work, and also on the road, lost, in hospital, in prison. In the place where the number of the twelve was on an ordinary clock, it was written: “mortal danger”.

Watch “Whereabouts Clock” became one of the ideas of the project Microsoft Research. The location of people is determined by the coordinates of the mobile phone. When a person crosses the boundaries of an established zone (for example, "school"), the phone sends a message to the watch. If a person is outside the established zone, then he can send a message, which will be reflected on the clock next to his avatar.

Infinite flow of ideas

The most important magic item - the wand - successfully replaces the control of the voice or gestures. " Pipes " at IBM demonstrated in 2008. And if Harry had gone to Hogwarts a little later, he would not have been surprised at the animated photographs on the pages of the Daily Prophet. Regular gifs represent exactly the same magical images, but they are not printed (they print out stereo images created using lenticular printing technology).

The world of magicians is no longer surprising, as before, but it is still a place of concentration of great ideas. The example with the clock demonstrates that, based on the ideas of magic items, you can open a business accelerator. Everything that used to seem fiction somehow finds a real embodiment.