What is magic, and why are people fascinated by it?

Magic is conceived through mind and 'want that to happen' or 'I chant thee to death' , while science is full of what is real causes what's going to happen for real

As to why are people fascinated by it? Well, why not? Magic is art, and artism exists in every one of us

Uh, having been part of a research team, I can definitely say there is little in the world more mind-numbing than taking a thousand nigh-indistinguishable measurements, beating your head against a brick wall debugging the code to analyze it properly, then finding out half your findings are void because one of your measurement tools doesn't interface properly and having to do it all over again.

Ouch. That's me and rubber tubing all over again. I have a gift: I can find the faulty ones by just sticking my hand in the large box and pulling out smaller boxes at random.

Can we say 'inconclusive results due to inadequate sealing' often enough?

Not to mention all those times your circuit doesn't work because one wire out of hundreds is broken invisibly under the insulation coating and spending days with a logic probe trying to find which because the broken one looks normal most of the time since the open parts drift high. Yeah that was fucking gripping, lemme tell you.

edited 24th May '12 2:27:32 PM by Pykrete

Mathematicians have it easy. The worst that happened to me was spending weeks working on some nice, interesting proof, and then noticing that the "obvious" lemma that I used at the beginning was actually false. Really irritating, but I cannot fault the equipment

The thing about lab equipment is you actually kind of hope something will catch fire. a) It breaks up the monotony, and b) at least then it's obvious where the problem is and why it's not working.

I can't speak for others, but to me magic represents the idea that anything is possible. It stems from that time as a I child when the limits of the world where nothing, where only your imagination and wonder refused simple realities in favor of more fantastic explanations.

Magic is the fascination with the intangible, it represents the idea of both a higher impossible to understand larger picture and the belief anything is possible. Magic is the most romantic, most idealized concept in history It demolishes what is and is not and opens the door into what can be, what might be.

Magic offers the oldest kind of escape from day to day horrors and atrocities, it's the stuff of dreams, the power to warp the world, to change, to be more then you where. It makes us forget the limitations we set on ourselves and opens the door to be more then we thought we could be, more then we ever dared to be.

Thinking about it...

Magic is science that works the way you want it to.

"Inconclusive results due to equipment combustion."

As for the topic, magic is related to magical thinking, which is seeing patterns that don't exist, yet very well could under the circumstances. It accounts for everything from lucky pennies to elaborate rain dance rituals to trying to get finicky electronics to work. And if those patterns were as simple as we usually think they are, wouldn't it make a great setting for a story?

edited 24th May '12 5:51:31 PM by Aryn