Descending through the illusory roof while invisible was a strange experience, and then Harry found himself in a metal corridor lighted with a dim orange light—which, Harry realized after a startled glance, was coming from an old-fashioned mantled gas lamp...
...for magic would fail, be drained away after a time, in the presence of Dementors.
But the others, maybe. Or maybe not; we also have
Minerva gazed up at the clock, the golden hands and silver numerals, the jerking motion. Muggles had invented that, and until they had, wizards had not bothered keeping time. Bells, timed by a sanded hourglass, had served Hogwarts for its classes when it was built.
I revise my position. 500 years seems to be excessive, in many areas. I would guess that the Hogwarts Express, and potentially even the toilets do rely on some level of magic, though.
My understanding was that most of the “modern” items (excepting things like the lamps in Azkhaban) are magic-based items, they simply got the ideas from muggle items. There’s no obvious indication that Minerva’s clock was purely mechanical; the one Trelawney used had voice recognition, for example.
Even torches are a “muggle-inspired technology” if you think about it. Purely magical lighting would be a glowing globe, or even unexplainably-lit rooms like the Wizengamot hall, there’s no reason to have it shaped like a torch (albeit proximity self-lighting and ever-burning) unless you got inspired by real torches and just went on with tradition, and at least many of those are probably not created by enchanting a manufactured torch. (Given how many there are in Hogwarts, and that you seem to find them even in rooms that didn’t exist yesterday, I’d guess the weird self-building architecture just includes most of them by itself.)
In terms of the knowledge that Muggles have culturally accumulated, yes. They’re at least 500 years behind the times.
It varies. There are trains and gaslamplikethings and indoor plumbing.
I’m willing to bet most of them run on a non-negligible ammount of magic, though.
But the others, maybe. Or maybe not; we also have
I revise my position. 500 years seems to be excessive, in many areas. I would guess that the Hogwarts Express, and potentially even the toilets do rely on some level of magic, though.
My understanding was that most of the “modern” items (excepting things like the lamps in Azkhaban) are magic-based items, they simply got the ideas from muggle items. There’s no obvious indication that Minerva’s clock was purely mechanical; the one Trelawney used had voice recognition, for example.
Even torches are a “muggle-inspired technology” if you think about it. Purely magical lighting would be a glowing globe, or even unexplainably-lit rooms like the Wizengamot hall, there’s no reason to have it shaped like a torch (albeit proximity self-lighting and ever-burning) unless you got inspired by real torches and just went on with tradition, and at least many of those are probably not created by enchanting a manufactured torch. (Given how many there are in Hogwarts, and that you seem to find them even in rooms that didn’t exist yesterday, I’d guess the weird self-building architecture just includes most of them by itself.)