Chapter 65: The Essence of Magic

In the mansion's magic research institute, on the first floor, Laura Kruger was giving a report to Murphy in the meeting room.

"Currently, the institute has produced three valuable papers, and another paper titled 'The Essence of Magic' is undergoing peer review. It's considered the second major conjecture after 'The Pathway of Transformation'."

"The other two papers are 'The Hereditary Probability of Magical Qualities' and 'The Aerodynamics of the Levitation Spell'."

"The authors of the first three papers have received point rewards, with Andrew, the author of 'The Pathway of Transformation', receiving the most points, about 30. He'll also get a share of the rewards if the paper is cited and the ideas are validated."

"Andrew chose to save his points, but Mitra Galiya, the author of 'Levitation Spell', used her 15 points to buy a bottle of Amortentia."

"Additionally, since the formation of the transformation research group, it now has 17 members. It includes subgroups like the Animagus research team, the Polyjuice Potion research team, the Werewolf and Vampire research team, the Boggart research team, the Complex Potion research team, and the research teams for Gillyweed and Beautification Potion, totaling 10 groups."

"Most groups are in the initial research phase, collecting related data. The Werewolf and Vampire group has started a few experiments using the vampire true blood you provided."

"Following the formation of the transformation research group, several researchers proposed forming their own groups, like the Mind Magic research group, Elemental Magic research group, Space Magic research group, Non-Human Intelligent Beings research group, and the Death-themed research group."

"I've approved a few of them, but no research outputs yet. These special groups don't have designated leaders. I plan to appoint the proposers as leaders when their research directions become clear, similar to the transformation group. What do you think?"

Murphy nodded, "That sounds good. Go ahead with that plan."

"About the author of 'The Essence of Magic', call him over. I want to hear his conjecture."

Laura hesitated, "The paper hasn't passed peer review yet."

"That's okay, I just want to hear his thoughts."

Soon, a young man with long flowing hair and wearing slippers came before Murphy.

"You're the author of 'The Essence of Magic'?"

Murphy wasn't surprised by his hippie appearance, as the culture had swept the globe in the past decade. Many young people in the West liked to express their individuality through such unique styles.

Murphy was indifferent to people's cultural attributes, "Tell me about your idea."

"Okay, boss. My name is Haldan Haber, a basic physics researcher specializing in condensed matter physics. My conjecture about the essence of magic is related to my research area."

"Please go ahead."

"Okay, I'll start with my conclusion. I believe that magic is a special privilege to manipulate the material world. The essence of magic is the directed collapse of wave functions."

"Firstly, since magic is an objective and universal existence, it cannot be entirely independent of non-magical physics."

"Two years ago, the inventors of the Scanning Tunneling Microscope won the Nobel Prize in Physics. With such observation tools, modern physics has extended its reach to the nanoscale."

"If magic were something completely different from what modern physics knows, it would either exist on a scale smaller than 10^-9 meters and its influence on the material world would be limited to that scale, or it would be a form of dark matter or dark energy, barely interacting with ordinary matter."

"Given the properties of magic we have observed, neither of these possibilities is likely."

"Magic can exhibit macroscopic physical effects. The reason why Muggle scientists haven't observed this is that magic doesn't overturn our known physical facts. It just adds some capabilities to ordinary physical facts."

"When this magical capability is granted to a person, they can manipulate ordinary physical facts to display magical effects."

"Quantum physics suggests that matter doesn't exist, only particles and fields exist, and even particles may not exist. There's only energy and fields, and the probability clouds or wave functions that make energy and fields appear as particles or matter."

"The collapse of a wave function depends on the rules within the system, like the probability of an electron appearing at a certain point depends on its quantum numbers."

"In a non-magical physical world, everything follows this system, so everyone has the same 'permissions'."

"In this world, to change something, you have to transmit the influence through fields, achieving the goal indirectly."

"But magic might directly influence the collapse of wave functions."

"It can bypass these indirect influences and directly specify a phenomenon to occur. Therefore, magic can be without intermediate processes, even surpassing logic."

Murphy frowned, "If magic is as you say, bypassing logic, how can we study it?"

"We can definitely study it," Haldan said. "Different wizards have varying magical strengths, affinities for different types of magic, and different difficulties in learning certain spells. What causes these differences? Are there ways to enhance a wizard's magic, expand their affinity, and make magic stronger and easier to use? These are the questions we need to research."

Murphy nodded, "Do you have any thoughts on these issues?"

"Of course. Based on my conjecture about the essence of magic, I've conducted a special study on the form of spells, proposing several hypotheses," Haldan said. "I've also conducted some preliminary experiments with Professor Alexis to validate these hypotheses."

"Firstly, based on the essence of magic, I derived the first hypothesis."

"The Probability Payment Hypothesis."

"I believe that the interference of magic with physical phenomena requires a cost. The larger the discrepancy between the interfered result and the non-interfered state, the greater the cost required. This discrepancy is measured in wave functions, or probabilities."

"For example, if the probability of an electron appearing at a certain point outside an atomic nucleus is 1%, but magic makes it appear there, then the discrepancy between the interfered and non-interfered result is 99%."

"The less likely something is to happen, the greater the cost of magic to make it happen."

In other words, the natural course of physical phenomena is inertial. To transcend this natural state, one must apply 'magic'.

This somewhat resembles Newton's First Law.

"Secondly, the Necessary Conditions Hypothesis for Spells."