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submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by CorrodedCranium@leminal.space to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world

He was abducted by Hagrid when he turned 11 so that would place him maybe around the fifth or sixth grade.

I don't know if canonically there are math classes at Hogwarts.


The thought came to while I was watching the anime Mashle. If you are into Harry Potter and One-Punch Man I'd recommend giving it a watch.


Someone mentioned this community below; I wanted to highlight it.

Small promotion for !harrypotter@literature.cafe

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[-] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 203 points 10 months ago

I mean, there must be a reason why wizards are constantly perplexed by muggle technology.

[-] AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 134 points 10 months ago

And why goblins have to do their accounting for them.

[-] AFC1886VCC@reddthat.com 44 points 10 months ago

The series would have ended much sooner if Harry had brought an AK47 to hogwarts

[-] T156@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago

Although that could also be them being perplexed by the fact that muggles did it with no magic at all.

Imagine us discovering a species that developed computers and tech just like ours, but using neither transistors nor electricity.

[-] someguy3@lemmy.world 14 points 10 months ago

I'm not familiar with the series, what's muggle technology?

[-] reddig33@lemmy.world 49 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Muggles is wizard slang for non-magical human beings. Like Darren on Bewitched would be a muggle. He cooks his food using an oven instead of magic. The oven is muggle tech.

[-] state_electrician@discuss.tchncs.de 23 points 10 months ago

Muggle is a racial slur used by magic-able people to refer to magic disabled people.

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[-] shalafi@lemmy.world 21 points 10 months ago

Non magical people living in the real world. It's you. You're a muggle.

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[-] 520@kbin.social 177 points 10 months ago

Hermione mentioned in the first book that wizards tend to absolutely suck at things that are typically Muggle, like logic, so it follows that they probably suck at math too.

[-] Sotuanduso@lemm.ee 51 points 10 months ago

Logically, that does follow, but we're talking about wizards here.

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[-] AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world 88 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I mean, the very existence of magic kind of nullifies the concept of math as a means to ascertain objective fact.

What good is 2+2 when 2 eyes of newt plus 2 legs of frog leads to random quantities of dancing forks with literally no respect as to the how because magic?

Math can't quantify a world where physical laws are replaced by literal nonsense, and if math could ultimately explain the mechanics of magic and predict the outcomes of its applications, the magic wouldn't be magic anymore, it would just be another great force of the universe like gravity or electromagnetism to be mapped by the scientific community.

[-] urist@lemmy.blahaj.zone 22 points 10 months ago

I always wondered the opposite of the harry potter universe.

So much of math was difficult to teach or obscure because of difficulties in visualization or computation. Surely there would have been at least one wizard over hundreds of years that could figure out how to use the powers of illusion magic to visualize things? To demonstrate integrals to the unfamiliar? To render a fractal like a julia set?

Even if magic iteslf followed little internal logic, it could be used as a tool, surely? But that's the sort of fridge logic (warning tv tropes link) that maybe didn't belong in a story book like Harry Potter. I had to stop reading anyway around the time house elves were introduced, anyway. I took issue with that stuff even when I was a kid.

[-] catonwheels@ttrpg.network 19 points 10 months ago

Exactly what more than 5th grade math do you need in such world?

I think a lot of people forget what they learn in 5th grade math. You learn negative numbers. You learn unit conversion, fraction, prime, square roots.

Would more math help absolutely. Especially with the logic wizard seems to lack. But it is not like many people use higher level math today anyway.

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[-] cadekat@pawb.social 12 points 10 months ago

If you haven't already, take a peek at Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. It's fanfiction, but absolutely worth a read.

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[-] beefcat@lemmy.world 77 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

"Arithmancy" is their name for math classes and is mentioned several times throughout the books. It is one of Hermione's favorite subjects.

At one point, the real world evil witch that is JK Rowling suggested that Arithmancy is like dviniation, but with math, saying they use numbers to predict the future. I take this to mean that the wizarding community discovered calculus independently from the rest of the world and mistook it for a new form of magic.

[-] master5o1@lemmy.nz 29 points 10 months ago

Divination with maths is statistics.

[-] nutsack@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago

Jesus Christ this book series is fucking stupid

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[-] rifugee@lemmy.world 64 points 10 months ago

To be fair, I suspect the average adult in real life probably only remembers, and uses, 5th grade math.

[-] ULS@lemmy.ml 18 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Facts

Source: self

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[-] the_q@lemmy.world 44 points 10 months ago

Who needs math when you have magic?

[-] PlexSheep@feddit.de 17 points 10 months ago

Who needs magic when we have science?

[-] the_q@lemmy.world 21 points 10 months ago

Science: Here's why water is wet. Magic: I'm a dragon now.

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[-] Phegan@lemmy.world 35 points 10 months ago

My wife, who is a big potter fan, told me they take traditional classes as well, but they are shown off screen as they aren't interesting to the story.

[-] I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 23 points 10 months ago

Pretty sure they explicitly talk about those kind of classes in the books. They don't have scenes in them, but I remember Ron and Harry complaining about arithmetic, or mathematics, or something like that.

[-] beefcat@lemmy.world 14 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

"Arithmancy" is what they call their math disciplines and it's mentioned a fair bit in the books, though understandably never really shown in the movies.

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[-] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 26 points 10 months ago

I'm sure Hogwarts also covered general education stuff but that would be boring to us so they focused on the magic stuff. That's my theory though.

[-] chaogomu@kbin.social 39 points 10 months ago

They literally go through the class schedule in each book. General studies are not in it.

[-] Caligvla@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 10 months ago

Can you imagine how absolutely ignorant the average Hogwarts student must be then?

[-] skulblaka@startrek.website 33 points 10 months ago

Wizards are, as a whole, pretty damn stupid in that universe to be fair

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[-] CorrodedCranium@leminal.space 16 points 10 months ago

Boring? This is the same universe where wizards canonically defecated in the streets and used fecal vanishing spells.

However, when Hogwarts’ plumbing became more elaborate in the eighteenth century (this was a rare instance of wizards copying Muggles, because hitherto they simply relieved themselves wherever they stood, and vanished the evidence), the entrance to the Chamber was threatened, being located on the site of a proposed bathroom.

https://www.wizardingworld.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/chamber-of-secrets

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[-] orangeNgreen@lemmy.world 24 points 10 months ago

I’m just over here chuckling at your casual statement that Hagrid abducted Harry.

[-] joyjoy@lemm.ee 18 points 10 months ago

He broke down his door, mutilated his cousin, threatened his uncle, then lured Harry away with cake (which was eaten by said cousin).

[-] DefiantBidet@lemmy.world 18 points 10 months ago

arithmancy - which is pseudomaths in a sense....

[-] WastedJobe@feddit.de 18 points 10 months ago

Isn't arithmetic a class in Hogwarts and just a fancy word for maths (not a native speaker)? I think only Hermione takes it though and it's only mentioned in the books.

[-] A_A@lemmy.world 36 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

~~arithmetic~~ arithmancy
source :
Arithmancy | Harry Potter Wiki
https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Arithmancy

[-] UnPassive@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago

Most of us only know 5th grade math

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[-] piecar@lemm.ee 12 points 10 months ago

I think you're right. They probably don't know math. I mean, what would they need it for? They probably don't have to follow the laws of physics for the most part. If math is done it's probably 100% recreational.

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[-] morphballganon@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

So that would put him only a couple years ahead of most republicans

They have arithmancy but Harry never took it AFAIK

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this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2024
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