magic
magic: 1. adj. As yet unexplained, or too complicated to
explain; compare automagically and (Arthur C.) Clarke's Third Law:
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from
magic." "TTY echoing is controlled by a large number of magic
bits." "This routine magically computes the parity of an 8-bit byte
in three instructions." 2. adj. Characteristic of something that
works although no one really understands why (this is especially
called black magic). 3. n. [Stanford] A feature not generally
publicized that allows something otherwise impossible, or a feature
formerly in that category but now unveiled. 4. n. The ultimate
goal of all engineering & development, elegance in the extreme; from
the first corollary to Clarke's Third Law: "Any technology
distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced".
Parodies playing on these senses of the term abound; some have made
their way into serious documentation, as when a MAGIC directive was
described in the Control Card Reference for GCOS c.1978. For more
about hackish `magic', see {Appendix A}. Compare black magic,
wizardly, deep magic, heavy wizardry.
![[prev]](../gif/left.gif){kind=small}
![[up]](../gif/up.gif){kind=small}
![[next]](../gif/right.gif){kind=small}