I’m tired of people saying there’s no such thing as magic. That’s one of my least favorite features of the modern world. We have science now, so no more magic. There’s Arthur C. Clarke’s famous quote, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” When people say that, they usually mean that whatever we are witnessing is not really magic, it’s just something we don’t understand. I’m calling shenanigans on that. Magic and understanding aren’t mutually exclusive. I’m not saying we should stop using science, I just want science to let magic back in.
To illustrate my point, let’s look at magnets. Magnets are magic. Anyone who’s ever played with magnets must know this. They stick together without any adhesive. Then, when you flip one over, they won’t stick together no matter how hard you push them towards each other. They make things levitate without any physical contact with the object. They make electricity (which is also magic, by the way). They make other objects move, again, without any physical contact with the object. They always know which way is north. I could go on, but there can’t be any need. If the word magic has any meaning, clearly, magnets are an example of magic.
Why on Earth should that change just because someone can explain what is going on? By saying, “all magnetization is due to the effect of microscopic, or atomic, circular bound currents, also called Ampèrian currents, throughout the material. For a uniformly magnetized cylindrical bar magnet, the net effect of the microscopic bound currents is to make the magnet behave as if there is a macroscopic sheet of electric current flowing around the surface, with local flow direction normal to the cylinder axis.[13] Microscopic currents in atoms inside the material are generally canceled by currents in neighboring atoms, so only the surface makes a net contribution” (Wikipedia, Magnet) we don’t change anything about the magnets themselves. They still do all of the crazy cool stuff they’ve always been able to do. Magnets are still magic, no matter what we say about them.
The world is a better place with magic in it. The idea that a scientific explanation stops something from being magical is silly. We all witness magical things every day. Instead of acting like there’s no magic, I say we learn to appreciate the magic that we experience.
