Energy takes many forms in this universe, and while many of them are thought of as being very different (mechanical, chemical, gravitational, electrical, etc.) they are all truly the same thing.  This means that, for example, sunlight energy that takes the form of high-energy particles of light can stream down onto a solar panel, become converted to electrical energy, and that electrical energy can then be stored in the form of chemical energy in a lithium ion battery.  That battery can then be plugged into a motor, which consumes that energy to create mechanical energy of movement to power a remote control car, which will eventually be lost as heat from the friction of the moving tires and body against the ground and air, respectively.  Once that energy becomes heat, it is no longer usable to do work, making it the ultimate end of all forms of energy.

One of the more unusual examples of energy is something called lattice energy. Essentially, when energy is put into something to build a structure, energy must be used to take it out, and that structure will resist any attempt to tear it down that amounts to less energy than the lattice energy.  Diamonds, for example, form naturally when carbon-containing compounds are buried deep underground in high-temperature, high-pressure situations.  The immense energy that has gone into building the diamond has now created a chemical structure highly resistant to any form of scratching or erosion.

What is fascinating to me as both a biologist and an educator is that the concept of energy follows us through our daily lives.  We have multiple forms of energy, all interconvertible, but ultimately we must spend this energy to stay alive.  Our forms of energy as humans in a society include the actual chemical energy in our cells, as well as our food, money, property, time, employment, and even the relationships we build with other people are a form of energy.  The old adage “time is money” has some basis in thermodynamics after all! Consider this example: to get enough food to eat for a day, you can either grow it yourself (which takes time and an investment of physical labor), do something else valuable with your time to make something to trade for food, or belong to a social structure of people who provide it for you. In the last case, you belong to a high-energy group, and this high-energy group that takes care of you may eventually expect you to contribute something in return to further the aims of that group (such as a family structure). This gets to one of the most philosophically and thermodynamically challenging questions: what is the value of a baby?

OKAY BUT WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH QUIDDITCH? Well, it takes a certain amount of energy to put on a quidditch tournament. Not only money to reserve the pitch and for teams to travel as well as lost work hours, but also the energy that has gone into building a lattice of knowledge of how to play by the players and how to referee by the refs. Thus, a quidditch tournament is a culmination of building many structures which reflect investments by the quidditch community. If you just show up and spend no energy refereeing, volunteering, or spending money, you are just there to play, you are a quidditch baby. You represent many potential futures with limitless possibilities, but for now you are a drain on the resources of people who have to ref your game, explain the rules and strategies to you, and buy your gas and possibly even food.

Do we expect babies to carry their weight? Of course not, they’re babies. But how long is it acceptable to be a baby? You represent an investment, and make no mistake, the quidditch community has many needs that you represent a potential return on. We need players who explain the rules rather than need them explained. We need referees, especially certified referees but even experienced table refs and goal refs make everyone’s lives easier. We need people who make money elsewhere to spend it on merchandise and pay for their own transportation and that of others so we can have a team again next year.

All these needs are currently being met by people who do them because otherwise they won’t get done. But the input of energy may not always meet the drain, and there is a phenomenon in ecology called the Tragedy of the Commons, where a resource that is not regulated and no one is responsible for but everyone uses can be drained, harming the entire population that needs that resource. We see this current phenomenon in the unregulated release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, creating global climate change, and in quidditch it costs a certain amount of time, money and chemical energy to be a referee, in addition to the lattice energy of time it has taken to train to be a referee. We need more referees, and to get them, thermodynamics states we must put energy into them to build up that lattice energy of knowledge.

You may, of course, reach your own conclusions, but here is one that may help: since a referee must build up a certain amount of practice in order to referee effectively, use practice time to train your own referee crew to be better referees, especially by having your beaters battle and try to cheat. Teach your ARs how to make good calls confidently, when to alert the head referee, and how to implement turnovers without any help.

It is likely many team leadership individuals will have negative reactions to this suggestion based on three premises: 1) it will take valuable practice time away from preparing to win games, 2) it will make practice less fun, and 3) we’ve never run that kind of practice before and it sounds hard. These are all sacrifices of energy that make your team weaker but make the community as a whole stronger. If you focus only on what will make your own team better, you are suffering from the mentality that results in the Tragedy of the Commons. If you are a player and not team leadership, try taking the initiative yourself to advocate for this use of practice time and personnel so it will be less of a leap for your leadership to impose on the team. When presented with the choice to have fun making your team better prepared to win games or to not have fun preparing to make the tournament run better, you will reveal the nature of your own character in your choice of response.