Energy Needed by Harry Potter To Fly With His Magic Wipe

Harry Potter is the best-selling novel by writer J. K. Rowling in the fiction book market. Not only the book is booming, this story when in the movie also achieved great success. So who does not know Harry Potter?

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Energy Required

This calculation is very simple, we will not calculate the acceleration that occurs when Harry flies. We consider the fixing speed of the fly, not to change. For this case the calculation becomes very easy, just need a high school level energy formula.

Energy = Kinetic Energy + Potential Energy
E = 1/2.m.v² + m.g.h

Okay, now we move on to the next assumption. When we see the movie, while playing Quidditch, a kind of witch ball game at the Hogwarts School School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Harry and his flying buddies are not very tall, around the height of the 10th or 50 meter building.

Then we assume the flying speed in the game is about 12.5 m / second, equivalent to the world's fastest runner Usain Bolt. The final assumption is that the mass of Harry Poter and his flying broom we consider 56 kg or the normal equivalent of 162 cm. Next, we just enter into the equation:

E=1/2 x 56kg x (12.5m/s)² + 56kg x 9.8m/s² x 50m
E= 4.375 kg m²/s² + 27.440 kg m²/s²
E= 31.815 Joule

Yep .. We already can number it, the energy that Harry Potter needs to fly with his magic broom is about 31,815 J.

Now let's ask the next question, from where is the energy source?

Energy sources

The energy source is of course magic! Okay. If in many stories, the magical magic requires a very high concentration, then we are talking telekinesis or moving objects with the ability of the brain. This means that the energy source of the movement is the brain.

The human brain gets energy from the food we eat every day. The main food sources used as energy for the brain are simple sugars such as sucrose or granulated sugar and fructose (much in honey and fruit).

Sucrose contains energy of 16.2 kJ / gram. This energy-containing food will be processed naturally in our body, the efficiency of the human body is 20%, meaning the conversion ability of 100gram sucrose, will only produce about 16.2kJ x 100g x 20% = 324 kJ of energy.

Assuming the conversion of chemical energy in the brain into telekinesis energy (call it magic) is 100%, then in the course of flying for one second (1 second), Harry will spend about 31,815 J = 31.815 kJ or 31.815 kJ: 16.2 kJ: 20% = 9.82 g of sucrose.

How much Harry Should Eat?

Although the main source of brain energy is produced from sucrose, but we will not calculate that Harry will eat sugar kitchen with 97% sucrose content. We will use a more realistic approach.

One of the highest sucrose-containing fruits is mango, in 100 grams of mango containing 9.9 grams of sucrose, meaning about 10% of the weight of mango.

Back again to the energy that Harry Potter needs to fly is:

31.815 kJ or equivalent to 9.82 g of sucrose for each second.

I'm trying to figure out how long a Quidditch game lasts, but there seems to be no accurate information on this. I assume same as volleyball because the rules must reach a certain score. Professional volleyball takes about 1.5 to 2 hours. We take the fastest time only 1.5 hours. We assume Harry flies around playing Quiditch at 12.5 m / s, 50 m height for 1.5 hours nonstop, then how many mangoes he needs to eat:

The energy needed to fly = 31.815 kJ which is equivalent to 9.8 g of sucrose per second.
It means Harry needs 9.8 grams of sucrose every second. So in 1.5 hours the need for sucrose is 9.8g x 5400s = 52920 grams of sucrose.

The content of sucrose in Mango is 10%. So to get 52.920 grams of sucrose Harry had to eat 52.920g: 10% = 529200 grams.

So in a quidditch match, Harry Poter should eat more than half a ton of mango (529.2 kg). mango is one of the fruits with the highest sucrose content. If we compare the content of sucrose from mango with oranges, it's 9.9: 4.2 or 2.35: 1, just less than half. This means that the amount of oranges that should be eaten by Harry is 2.35 x 529.2 kg = 1243.6 kg, or 1.23 tons.