2 Aug 2022, 05:52
Professor's Office
Reducio
The numerous empty bird cages of the office hung at varying heights and depths from both ceiling and walls across the room. Their empty natures certainly portrayed the empty heads that children had; having every potential to be filled, but just as much of a chance to be lost. The key of course to each was owned by the new Professor of Transfiguration, Gregor Aarden. The man stood tall with his back turned away from the entrance door, focused upon the two chalkboards in the far back behind his desk. His desk had a smooth exterior of high-quality oak with just enough dust to indicate Gregor hadn't even sat down and begun to grade papers on it. Of course, rather than papers, was a rather average to large fishbowl with a rather large miniature castle and a single goldfish swimming steadily with the water inside. The few slit windows of the office brought in enough rays of light to illuminate the entire room in a golden hue. This light would only be enhanced upon bouncing off the glistening scales of the goldfish that swam in a peaceful motion; some would find it blinding, and others would find it relaxing or even envigorating to take sight of.
Of course, though, there were still the intimidating factors that came with a subject such as transfiguration. The two chalkboards in the very back contained the more hard heavy curriculum notes and ideas that some would expect upon entering. The one-off to the right upon entrance held varying shapes of different patterns associated with a letter in the English alphabet. The first couple were circles with varying lines or dashes inside or out, the next few were like a simple drawing of a button mushroom at varying angles, a triangle, the letter "L" mirrored, flipped, twisted, and turned, and finally a similar collection of cubes with dashes and lines to the first row of circles. The next chalkboard was where Gregor stood in front, slightly blocking the view of whatever "thing" he was working on.
Eventually, a knock would tremble against the wooden door slightly out of hearing but loud enough to catch Gregor's attention, "Phillip, who did you scare this time?" The old-looking professor would ask as he turned himself away giving a slight glare at his goldfish as it meekly swam in an innocent fashion. No response was given by the fish, but that was always to be expected: "Please, Come In!" The Professor would yell as he turned back towards the chalkboard. It appeared to have a sketch drawing of a bundimum with varying detailed writings of various chemical expressions surrounding it such as "H - Cl" and "CH3OOH" with multiple question marks to go with. Gregor placed the chalk down and took a seat at his desk. In front of him would be three desks and chairs with quills and ink bottles. This was preparation for the sets of threes that students typically entered all at once; he oddly admitted that students at most always came in groups of three and almost never more. If he did need more chairs, he could always create more when needed. "Please take a seat! Would you like to feed Philip?" He would ask, as he would open a drawer and take out a bottle of fish treats.
Office Hours are: Open
This thread allows IC interaction between students and the Professor of Transfiguration. Please follow standard site rules. Only one student at a time may interact till the Professor has stated so. Professor Aarden is available whenever the office is "open."
It is not a loss nor a win. In the end, you all will learn something new.
10 Oct 2022, 07:35
Professor's Office
Gregor gave a welcoming smile to the young girl that entered upon his request: "Well good evening Ms. Blaze, or is it afternoon? What do you reckon Phillip?" The Professor placed his hand on his beard slowly twirling it with his finger. With each twirl, the beard changed into various colors, from green to pink, to orange, and back to gray. He didn't say the incantation to a spell, nor did he wield his wand. A little trick and mystery with a bit of goofiness to surprise and amuse the children that walked through. Many tended to be nervous, and he figured a bit of silliness after classes had ended wouldn't be too big of an issue.
As for his question, his pet goldfish Phillip simply opened its mouth letting out a small bubble to rise and pop with no sound to it. The professor of course, always took this as a sign and spoke to the fish as if it were a real person, "Ah! Right! Apologies, where are my manners? Take a seat, take a seat," he gestured towards the young Slythryn girl to sit in one of three chairs he had set up near his own desk. He himself took a seat and placed the bottle of fish treats close to the edge of his desk, "If you'd like to feed him, then go ahead. Don't worry, he only bites Hufflepuffs." A joke, once again, to calm the nerves of those who entered. Transfiguration certainly was a difficult subject, and Gregor had to seem serious to make sure everyone studied, did their homework, and understood the material. As such many were intimidated by his position and facade.
"As for your question Ms. Blaze, it's murder." To which, he just blatantly said it. This was something all students needed to know, and Gregor wasn't going to sugarcoat it. "For the case of living creatures, like a beautiful siamese cat, causing them to vanish would be considered murder. If you were to make a piece of their body, like a paw, or a leg vanish. Then it would be similar to taking a knife and cutting such parts off." Now he was sounding a bit cruel, but Gregor said everything in a calm and saddened tone. As for looks, he was stern and rather serious about this sort of subject. "As for where the atoms of the body go, well... are you a muggle by chance Ms. Blaze? Well, even if you aren't there's a famous equation that you'll come to learn." Gregor gave a look of excitement to the girl, snapping his fingers to cause the chalkboard behind him to erase the already written chalk. Upon it, a new piece of writing was written as the chalk magically floated and wrote on its own:
"This is an equation about energy and mass. I, you, the walls, the chairs, and the cat are all made of mass. However, there is also energy. Energy is like light, we can see it and feel it but can't really touch it. The world is full of energy and mass. Now, this equation actually tells us that mass and energy are the same things, and we can trade them off. We can make mass by trading energy and we can make energy by trading mass." Gregor smiled as he began to ramble, but eventually, it fell back to the stern look as he had to address the question: "When you cause something to vanish, it becomes non-being or well... everything. You've turned the mass into the energy that is contained in the entire cosmos and our surroundings. As for if it comes back, well yes and no. It will come back as the Universe wants to set things right... but the mound of time it takes would be unknown. You may be as old as I look before that cat ever returns." He joked, trying to brighten the mood a bit for the young girl. "Now, you've read about Gamp's Law I hope. You could conjure a cat that looks like the one you caused to vanish... but it won't be the same... it's never the same." The Professor had a slight glance at Phillip, but it was rather fast and he eventually smiled back at the girl hoping his explanation wasn't too complex for her to understand: "Does that make sense? Or any more questions you have Ms.Blaze? Oh! Would you like a chocolate frog, that was an excellent question to have asked."E = mc^2
@Lily Blaze
It is not a loss nor a win. In the end, you all will learn something new.
21 Oct 2022, 06:17
Professor's Office
The girl was a rather polite one, and Gregor was glad to see such courtesy in young children these days. Her "Umm's" made him have a slight doubt about whether she actually understood the things he said, as usual, Gregor sometimes rambled off forgetting he was speaking with children or teenagers on some occasions. Too many things were utmost fascinating that they required all of Gregor's attention. As such, he had a tendency outside and inside lecture times to go off on random tangents or even stories. Sometimes his own students would have to remind him that he was getting off topic, which he didn't mind as it was understandable.
Her correction of answering made Gregor ponder a bit if he still gave off rather an intense aura to certain students, he usually tried his best to be as calm as possible. He supposed it was only a natural thing, and eventually, everyone would warm up to the old young coot. Opening a drawer, he began searching through various items. It was out of the student's line of eyesight, but loud sounds of rambling could be heard. Eventually, though, Gregor would take out a chocolate frog box "Ahah!" he'd state with excitement, before letting out a small cough to re-establish his professional facade. He handed it to Lily, glad to have seen such curious minds still being present at Hogwarts: "I myself was a student here, one of the top Slythryn's of my year. I sure do hope they cleaned up those dungeons rather well. Stick to your studies, and come by again if you or a friend have anymore questions Ms. Blaze."
@Lily Blaze
Office Hours are: Open
This thread allows IC interaction between students and the Professor of Transfiguration. Please follow standard site rules. Only one student at a time may interact till the Professor has stated so. Professor Aarden is available whenever the office is "open."
It is not a loss nor a win. In the end, you all will learn something new.
3 Feb 2023, 16:09
Professor's Office
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The transfiguration classroom always had the same effect on her every single time she entered it. The bird cages, the giant blackboards, the millions of papers on the desks, the scientific equations pretty much everywhere... it made her shiver with anticipation. There was so much she didn't know yet, but she planned to find out every single thing she could.
The professor, who seemed to have been writing something on the blackboard behind his desk, was now sitting at it. He smiled at her kindly and asked her to take a seat. Mahlioz shook herself, zoning back in from her awed observation and walking over to him, taking a seat at one of the three desks in front of his. "Would you like to feed Phillip?" Professor Aarden then asked, which took Mahlioz slightly off guard but she nodded anyhow with a small smile. There was no harm in it, and anyway, Phillip was cute. Taking the bottle of fish treats, she sprinkled a few over Phillip's fish bowl.
Once that was done, though, Mahlioz had to speak. It was the reason she'd come here in the first place. She steadied her nerves, not knowing exactly what she was going to say (which was never a good thing), but going for it. "I, um... I hope I haven't bothered you or something." She didn't introduce herself since it was already halfway through the year and he was bound to know who she was by now. "We've been doing lots of stuff with atoms, and, uh, electrons and protons and all that stuff. I just had a question... Well, not really a question." She was rambling now, and blushed. For goodness' sake, her brain told her, get to the darn point! She took a breath and obliged.
"You see, I've always been really interested in the periodic table. There are so many elements and I'm really confused as to what they do. How does a different number of electrons change so much in one material? How does that make it reactive or non-reactive? Why are there 118 of them? Is it possible to see them all in your life? Why do they all have such weird names? Will we ever learn what each and every single one does?" She stopped her rant to take a breath. She had a whole lot more questions, but she decided to leave it at that, because it was already a little overwhelming. "I'm sorry - I just have so many questions... And I know you're not a science teacher like there is in muggle schools, but I feel like you're the closest there is to one here. In my old school, they said I'd learn about the periodic table in seventh grade, but I left in fifth, so I was hoping you can help me..." She then smiled, half apologetically, at her professor.
11 Feb 2023, 05:15
Professor's Office
Gregor chuckled as the girl sprinkled some fish treats into the bowl for Phillip to snatch at. The best way to calm students was with a pet, but unfortunately, Gregor didn't have fuzzy cuddly ones like Crups, Kneazles, or Pygmy Puffs. The glistening scales of a goldfish were enough to calm his mind and others, and he was glad to make others feel calm with such a "majestic beast" as he would put it. He took an ear to listen to the girl, opening his mouth briefly "There are no such things as a bad quest-" yet before he could finish the girl's rant had begun. The long multitude of questions spewed from her mouth in a rather anxious way in the eyes of Gregor. All he could do was listen with a look of amazement and surprise. He hadn't expected such a flurry of questions to emit from a young student as herself. Many students were either too afraid or worried to approach the old-looking Professor, especially since he taught a rather difficult course.
He twirled the hairs on his chin, a rather common thing Gregor did when he was deep in thought. A smirk appeared on his face as the girl eventually finished, "A science professor I am not, but I am a half-blood who taught modern physics for a year or two. I know more about science than I do magic if I were to be honest Ms..." it took the Professor a moment, but could you really blame him? He had to recognize the faces of almost every student at Hogwarts, a memory potion a day wouldn't hurt: "Evethisawe, correct?" His eyes looked rather apologetic, as he hoped he had guessed her name correctly. Familiarity is the first step in calming one's nerves to learn.
A slight cough escaped the Professor as he readjusted himself to think back on what the girl has said, "Well, for starters electrons, protons, and neutrons change a lot about an element. There is a lot to it that you'll come to learn, but I'll try and take it slow. The best way I can put it is reactions occur based on the space that electrons occupy, the charges of atoms, and the energy they have. If you recall from your first lesson, we learned that electrons are located in shells, but there are a number of shells in an atom and these shells also can only occupy a maximum amount of electrons. When a shell is full (or half-full) the electrons are in a very stable low-energy state. Take Helium for example, it has only 1 shell and that shell is filled with a maximum number of two electrons. There are also other factors as well, such as the charge of the nucleus to the electrons and the distance between the electrons and atoms. The higher up you are in the periodic table, the less shells their are. Less shells means the electrons are closer to the nucleus. Imagine the nucleus has a hand, it can easily grab and hold the leectrons in place the closer they are, but the farther the electrons are from the center of the nucleus the less "grip" the nucleus has on them. That's why reactivity generally goes up when you move down the periodic table. Helium is at the very top, it has only 1 shell, so its electrons are very close to the nucleus which has a strong positive charge that holds onto those electrons. From all that Helium is not reactive with, well, anything.
Now let's take Lithium (Li) on the other hand. It has one more proton, 1 more electron, and one more shell than Helium. Despite those very small differences, Lithium is extremely reactive. The reason has to do with the space the electrons occupy. Remember those shells? That extra Electron in lithium occupies a shell that isn't full, and a non-full shell is not a happy shell. Thus the electron wants to break off, to react and attach itself to another element, elements that are 1 electron away from having their own shells be full, like Fluorine (F). If you look at the periodic table," The Professor took a moment to raise himself, grabbing a piece of chalk to begin writing on a board behind him. Honestly the fact he was about to go on an extremely long rant about the periodic table from pure memory was certainly showing his dedication.
A slight cough escaped from his throat as he continued, having magically drawn the periodic table with the assistance of a couple of floating pieces of chalk: "The elements all the way on the right we call noble gases. We call them noble because of a certain German word I can't recall at the moment. Yet, they all have something in common: fully-filled shells. All the space in their shells is occupied by an electron, making them very stable, happy, and unreactive. Meanwhile, the elements in the column before them (we call Halides) and the elements all the way on the left column (we call alkali metals) have shells that are either one over from being full or one less from being full making them very reactive because they either wanna get rid of or wanna find an electron to occupy their shells space."
The rant was continuing, if anything it was going overboard of what was needed to be explained. Yet the Professor clearly was showing some sort of passion in his explanation, his back toward the student every so often turning to direct her towards the periodic table. He was clearly enjoying himself, and he was hoping he was making his words clear enough. "Everything else in the middle has to do with the distance of the electrons to the atom and the charges for how reactive they can be. Now as to why their's 118 it's simply because there just are. The universe was capable of reacting a bunch of protons, electrons, and neutrons together to form various elements. Some of these elements are made inside the sun, some are only made when a star explodes, and actually, a couple of these were made inside muggle labs; because of that, it is possible that 118 will not be the concrete number forever. Fascinating stuff, and I hope your astronomy Professor can teach you more about that.
Obviously, the periodic table is important, and we will discuss it in certain lectures but not all the time. Our world isn't just science, it is also magic. I'm here to teach both and not all 118 atoms are important to know as of right now. Oh! As for their names, well... it varies. Let's take Sodium (Na) for example. We call it sodium in English for reasons related to Soda. However, if you said sodium in other non-English speaking regions they may not understand you. The Na that represents sodium is its Latin name, Natrium. If you say Natrium anywhere, then a well-taught person would know what you mean. Now, you can actually find some fun words in there and relate them back to modern English, like Lead (Pb). The Pb stands for Plumbum, which is where we get the English word "plumbing" because a lot of plumbing involves lead pipes. Although some other ones can be strange like Germanium because the person who discovered it decided to name it after Germany. A few others are like that, naming a place or a person."
The Professor looked over at the student, realizing he was probably rambling a bit too long, perhaps perplexing rather than interesting the student. He placed his hand by his mouth and let out another cough, "Apologies, I do hope I didn't confuse you. All these are rather advanced ideas, and you will come to learn them in the coming years. Are there any other questions you may have?"
@Mahlioz Evethisawe
It is not a loss nor a win. In the end, you all will learn something new.
3 Mar 2023, 16:25
Professor's Office
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And answer her questions he did. He spoke a whole lot longer than she had (which helped calm her down, since she was much more keen to listen than to speak) about atoms and shells and electrons and protons and nuclei and reactivity and even Latin. He seemed absolutely passionate about what he was saying, and as much as learning made Mahlioz happy, learning from someone who loved what they were teaching was so much better.
Throughout the explanation, Mahlioz nodded and watched with increasing interest as the professor drew the periodic table on a nearby blackboard. He went on, not only answering the questions she'd asked, but also a few she had not, and the young Slytherin didn't seem to get bored or misunderstand anything. Sure, there were a few concepts and words she hadn't exactly caught, but she could piece the main ideas together. Like lead being Pb - she hadn't exactly understood what Plumbum was, but she did know lead was plomb in French, which had both p and b in it. And just understanding these little things brought a sheen of excitement to her eyes and a grin on her face. By the end of his speech, professor Aarden apologized and said he hoped he hadn't confused or perplexed her. But it was quite the opposite - he'd just made her even more eager and glad she had come.
"I think I understand now," she said, all shyness forgotten in the moment. "Thank you very much. Although, just one more question, if you don't mind... you said some elements are only made when a star explodes, or inside the sun. How do scientists know about them then? Do they send spaceships to the sun? I feel like they would melt."
Of course she had other questions, but she didn't want to bother the professor for too long, and besides, now she knew the answer to these, she had a whole library to explore with new knowledge. And she never said no to a chance to go to the library. Her mind was now buzzing with thoughts of electrons and reactivity and unstable atoms (was that the name of them? well, it was now) and she was eager to find books about them. But for now, she had another answer to listen to, and she was not giving that up for anything in the world.