Reality and Chaos

It’s been a while since I blogged about the intersection of science and magic, the reason I started writing Potions for Muggles. And while this is something I still find interesting, in reality I have too many interests and read too many books. While randomly coming across The Science of Dune, which I wrote about recently, I also noticed there’s a Science of Discworld series. I’ve only read one Pratchett book, and it was so long ago (two to three decades), I’m not sure which one. (I suspect Guards! Guards!)  I did remember it being wacky and chaotic. I had not learned to appreciate it yet.

 

Thanks to the internet and Wikipedia, I discovered a flowchart for the Discworld novels. The Science series is an offshoot of the Rincewind series. I suppose this is fitting, since the Rincewind series begins with The Colour of Magic, also the first book about Discworld (I think). Thanks to my local library, I borrowed a battered old copy (cover shown below) and read it this weekend. It’s a short novel and a riot to read, as in chaotic riot. Or should there be riotous chaos? It reminded me of Jasper Fforde’s series that I discovered several years ago. This has helped me appreciate the chaos amidst a reality of some sort.

 

The main protagonist of The Colour of Magic is named Rincewind, a wizard who flunked out of magical school – for reasons that are (partially) explained in the book. In a series of unfortunate events, he takes up with a clueless tourist named Twoflower who hails from a different realm and is looking for adventure after apparently reading about the adventurous deeds of colourful characters in Rincewind’s realm. Twoflower travels with a strange many-legged magical Luggage box that stores his belongings, and sports a Demon-in-the-Box polaroid camera. Yes, there is a homunculus-like demon who operates the box. He remains unnamed, but I vote for Maxwell.

 

What is the colour of magic? Given my interest in how magic might be transduced via the electromagnetic spectrum, and the fact that Pratchett-fans lobbied for a new element to be named after this colour – I mentioned this in a previous post – it was fun and interesting to explore the wacky world of science and magic in Discworld. Reality meets chaos is how I would summarize Pratchett’s formula. But there are rules. Of a sort. Here’s Rincewind trying to explain some theory:

 

[Rincewind] tried to explain that magic had indeed once been wild and lawless, but had been tamed back in the mists of time by the Olden Ones, who had bound it to obey among other things the Law of Conservation of Reality; this demanded that the effort to achieve a goal should be the same regardless of the means used. In practical terms this meant that, say, creating the illusion of a glass of wine was relatively easy, since it involved merely the subtle shifting of light patterns. On the other hand, lifting a genuine wineglass a few feet in the air by sheer mental energy required several hours of systematic preparation if the wizard wished to prevent the simple principle of leverage from flicking his brain out through his ears. He went on to add that some of the ancient magic could still be found it in its raw state, recognizable – to the initiated – by…

 

You’ll have to read the book for yourself if you want to know more. Today’s quotes are found in Part 2, “The Sending of Eight” – yes, there is a magic number too (cubed). Interestingly, I’ve had my students go through a similar exercise, but I didn’t have the wit to call it the Law of Conservation of Reality. I’m stealing that phrase for the next time I facilitate a similar discussion. In any case, the adventures of Rincewind and Twoflower get progressively wackier, but there are limits. Ummm… conservation limits of some sort where reality smacks you in the face. I don’t pretend to understand how this works (maybe the Science series will be illuminating), but here’s another colourful description by Pratchett:

 

But Time, having initially gone for the throat, was now setting out to complete the job. The boiling interface between decaying magic and ascendant entropy roared down…

 

Yet amidst all the chaos:

 

There was a sound on the edge of Rincewind’s hearing. It sounded like several skulls bouncing down the steps of some distant dungeon.

 

Perhaps gods do play dice with the universe. I should remember this every time I sit down to play a boardgame.