Hogwarts: From Selling White Peppers to Becoming a God

Chapter 200 Magic Antenna

Murphy gave Hermione and Tom a few math problems to test their math skills. As expected, their math level was only equivalent to that of a fourth or fifth grader in elementary school. Tom's math skills were slightly better, but still at the level of an elementary school student.

Even so, this is already top-notch among British children. If Harry and Ron were to compete, they would most likely get multiplication within ten wrong.

"You two need to brush up on your math. At the very least, you need to understand some basic analytical tools," Murphy said. "Quantification is the first step in research; without quantification, it's difficult to conduct in-depth analysis of a subject."

Hermione was somewhat disheartened. She rarely disappointed her teachers academically. "But, teacher, we haven't even finished learning some simple spells yet. Isn't it too early to start studying advanced magic now...?"

This is also the sentiment of many young wizards, after all, it is really strange to let first and second graders start doing magical research.

"I don't expect you to achieve any specific results," Murphy said, "but I hope that you can learn to understand and study the way magic works through exploring the unknown, instead of just blindly following others or reciting from the book."

This is why Murphy chose to teach children in grades one through four, and simply let go of those in grades five and above.

Children who have studied magic at Hogwarts for four or five years have become accustomed to the school's didactic teaching methods, and their mindset is likely already fixed, making them too difficult to change.

"Alright, you two come over here."

As Murphy spoke, he led the two children to a support frame.

It was a tripod with a magic wand fixed on it, the tip of which was pointed at a target a meter away.

Behind the tripod, there was a wire mesh with a human-shaped outline, and dozens of strange boxes were installed on the wire mesh.

"These are portable magic testing devices," Murphy said, pointing to the boxes. "It took me a lot of effort to make them usable at Hogwarts."

The magical fluctuations around Hogwarts are extremely intense, making it impossible to use the most sophisticated electrical appliances. Murphy spent a long time researching these magical testing devices to make them function properly in a high-concentration magical environment.

Simply replacing electricity with magic is possible for ordinary electrical appliances, but for devices like magic testing instruments that require extremely high precision, it's easier to improve the device's magic resistance than to stabilize the magic.

As he spoke, Murphy took out an old-fashioned camera and aimed it at the tripod.

For the same reason, modern cameras were difficult to use at Hogwarts, and he could only use this old-fashioned, bulky flash camera.

"This camera is used to take pictures of these portable magic testing devices," Murphy said. "When we do the experiment later, we need to monitor the status of all the magic testing devices at the same time. There are dozens of magic testing devices here, and it is difficult for the human eye to distinguish and record them instantly, so we will take pictures of them first and then record them one by one."

Seeing that the two still looked confused, Murphy thought for a moment and then explained.

"This set of equipment is used to test the magical effects of wands."

"I want to understand how wands work before I start making them."

"Aren't you surprised? Wizards and magical creatures both have magic, but magical creatures don't need to use wands or anything like that, while wizards do—of course, not all wizards do; it's said that some wizards from other countries don't use wands at all."

"But in any case, without our wands, many spells are unusable for us wizards. I'm very curious about what role the wand plays in all of this."

"Have either of you had any guesses about this?"

Hermione and Tom both shook their heads. They had only just entered the magical world, and everyone used wands, so they took it for granted and hadn't thought about why.

This is why every year, Muggle-born wizards enter schools, yet they still fail to bring scientific thinking to the wizarding world.

They were all too young when they enrolled, and their worldviews were easily swayed. Faced with a completely unfamiliar field, they naturally believed whatever others said.

That's why Murphy, who brought the soul of a Muggle adult to Hogwarts, is an anomaly.

"Hmm," Murphy nodded, encouragingly, "Let's not do any scientific deductions, let's just guess. What does this property of the wand remind you of?"

Tom frowned, completely clueless, but Hermione thought for a moment, then raised her hand. "Teacher, it looks a bit like an antenna."

Murphy's eyes lit up. "Great! Excellent! Fantastic!"

"Your idea is exactly the same as the teacher's first guess!"

"Look at the wand, and considering its ability to enhance a wizard's spells, isn't it practically a magical antenna?!"

"Excellent, Miss Granger. You now possess an important quality for becoming a researcher: the ability to make connections."

"The laws and rules of all things in the world are interconnected and similar. The ability to associate is to connect two things that may not be the same in essence but have some similarities, and to use the laws of the part of things that we are familiar with to decipher the unknown part."

"Associative ability, or correlation guessing, is a magic weapon for researchers to solve difficult problems."

"So-called research is actually a process of observing, summarizing, and revising things, then observing, summarizing, and revising again. The most crucial step of summarizing the rules is, frankly speaking, guessing."

"We guess that apples fall to the ground because of gravity, and we guess that light has a diffraction effect because it is a wave, and so on. All laws originate from guessing, and association is a very good method of guessing."

Hermione blushed at the praise, but still asked doubtfully, "But, teacher, what you're saying sounds like the methods Muggles use to study science. Can it be used to study magic?"

Murphy nodded. "That's right, it's the same method. What do you think science is? What is magic? What are the differences between them?"

This question stumped the little girl. She frowned and pondered deeply, but Murphy didn't disturb her and waited patiently.

After a while, Hermione suddenly seemed to remember something. "I heard my teacher say that science is materialistic and follows laws, while idealistic things are called magic. Is that the difference between them?"

This must be something her teacher at the Muggle school said.

"That teacher was probably just using an analogy," Murphy said. "The so-called idealism and materialism are actually philosophical concepts; they are ways of looking at the world. Materialism means that the essence of this world is material, and consciousness arises from matter, while idealism means that the essence of the world is spirit, and matter is a product of spirit."

"What that teacher meant when he said that science is materialistic is that science provides a materialistic worldview. But in fact, the more important attribute of science is that it is a methodology, a way of understanding the world."

(End of this chapter)