what ia a muggle???

stinky15 · Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 6:17 am Post subject: what ia a muggle???

i understand that a muggle is a person that cant do magic or doesnt have any possible abilities...my big airhead question is how cant muggles have none muggle children????

olah · Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 3:16 am Post subject:

Muggles can have both magical and muggle children.

cadders · Posted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 5:45 pm Post subject:

Muggles who give birth to magical children more often than not have wizarding ancestry in their bloodline even if it is long forgotten.

so if your mother had a long lost second cousin whose mother had magical abilities your children may have a possibility of being witches or wizards.

Its like for hair colour; Parents may have completely different hair colour to their children, but that colour does appear somewhere in the family.

this is assuming that magical ability has anything to do with genetics!

i hope that answers the question sideways

Jibran · Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 3:24 pm Post subject:

I couldnt find the exact quote, but Jo has stated that magic is a recessive gene. So if you know something about genetics - a recessive gene cannot show it's effects if the dominant partner of the same gene is present (genes are in pairs, because chromosomes are in pairs). So muggles who give birth to wizards are - techinically - carrying the gene for magic, but they cannot perform even the most basic of spells.

PS: I tried to make it as simple as possible, but being a science student that was the best I could muster. If someone else can explain more clearly, please do.

cadders · Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 4:50 pm Post subject:

yeah so both parents need to posses the recessive allele for magic, to have a small possibility of producing a magical child from two muggles.

so the chance of having a magical child from two muggles would be 1/4 if the recessive gene theory is correct.