When you know how it all works, it's still magical. For scientist and author Felix Flicker, magic is that which is "hidden in plain sight". Helpfully, this also describes Flicker's personal passion, condensed matter physics, which is essentially "the study of the stuff that's all around us" that we take for granted. For example: the fact that 'solid' objects are not actually solid but consist of molecules held together by electromagnetism.
In his book The Magick Of Matter, Flicker whimsically redefines condensed matter physics as a form of sorcery, taking inspiration from stage magicians, fantasy books such as Ursula K Le Guin's Earthsea quartet, and video games such as Half-Life 2.
