History Main / ScienceCannotComprehendPhlebotinum

A note on the most common usage of this: even if magic does not work via our universe's physical laws, in many works [[MagicAIsMagicA it follows its own rules]] and therefore can be observed, experimented with and theorized about. It might require a [[FantasticScience new branch of science]], but if it can be [[SufficientlyAnalyzedMagic observed and experimented with]], then science can comprehend it. Sometimes magic will be [[SmugSnake a jerk]] and [[WildMagic break patterns]] ''[[WildMagic only]]'' [[WildMagic when someone is actually looking for one]], just to invoke this trope. If the scientists persist in offering "scientific" explanations that don't correctly explain the phlebotinum, then this idea has turned into the rather closely related idea that ScienceIsWrong. If this trope is averted because magic ''does'' work via our universe's physical laws that's ScientificallyUnderstandableSorcery.

[[folder: Anime and Manga]]
* ''Literature/ACertainMagicalIndex'': Scanners for psychic energy cannot detect or analyze Touma Kamijou's [[AntiMagic Imagine Breaker]] or magic.

** Averted further when L decides the responsible thing to do with the notebook is acquire a better understanding of it, namely by [[BlackBox systematically testing every rule written in it rather than take them on faith]]. This is the critical point that would have fingered Light as Kira (Light intentionally wrote fake rules in the book to exonerate himself once L found it), [[spoiler:forcing Light to finally kill L before he's caught.]]

[[folder: Fan Works]]
* ''Fanfic/TheBridge'': Gigan is a cyborg who constantly complains that his scanners cannot detect or analyze magic.

* ''FanFic/OversaturatedWorld:'' Magic in the human world was not intended to be particularly flashy or widespread, and as such actively resists any attempt to study or analyze it beyond the handful of permitted rituals.
* ''FanFic/WeresHarry:'' It is apparently a rule of this setting that magic ''cannot'' be logically or rationally explained. The minor wanded magics will submit to a certain level of rational comprehension, but the deep magics are fundamentally illogical.
* ''Fanfic/TheTasteOfPeaches:'' At least, Tinkertech can't understand [[DeityOfHumanOrigin Taylor]]. Any Tinkertech devices that attempt to analyze Taylor break down, because her Industry domain basically looks at the black boxed technology and says, "Science doesn't work that way. Cut it out."

[[folder: Film - Animated]]

[[folder: Film - Live Action]]
* In ''Film/TheHappening'', the mass genocide of humans by plants is described by Elliot Moore as something that just "happened", rather than the unprecedented biological phenomena that it actually was. The film goes further than this as the lead character is a science teacher that "teaches" that nature can not be explained by science and that any explanation given by the scientific community is only a "[[GravityIsOnlyATheory theory]]".
* Invoked in ''Film/{{Primer}}'', where residue on solid evidence is taken in for some formal analysis and they discover it's Aspergillus Ticor: basically, fungus that accumulates everywhere. The device they built a few days ago was caking with the stuff and they had just been wiping it off every five days or so, unaware that [[spoiler:the amount they had wiped off up to this point would have required many years to accumulate to the level that it did]]. The scientist who identifies the fungus for them thinks this ''must'' be a bad joke.

[[folder: Literature ]]
* FasterThanLightTravel in Creator/HarryTurtledove's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Not_Taken_(short_story) The Road Not Taken]] appears to be this for dumbfounded humanity when an alien invasion force attacks [[InsufficientlyAdvancedAlien that operates on 18th century tech levels]]. [[AvertedTrope The subject turns out to be more complex]] once the aliens are interrogated; anti-gravity is so simple a principle that most races discover it before gunpowder. They don't progress from there [[ArtisticLicensePhysics because anti-gravity has no side applications aside from FTL]], in stark contrast to electricity. Too bad for the aliens they [[CurbStompBattle attempted to conquer Earth]] TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture.
* Played with in ''Literature/HouseOfLeaves''. When material samples from inside the house are analysed, the summary is that they're nothing out of the ordinary, chemically speaking. Oh, and by the way, that's a fascinating range you've got there. The oldest samples must have come from meteorites, because they're older than the solar system. Where did you say you found all these, Antarctica?
* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' plays with this. Magic has a tendency to screw with any kind of mechanical and electrical devices, in particular anything made from WWII onwards, so most methods for documenting magic just don't work, despite Dresden's attempts to go public. None of this stops Butters from trying, and he makes some noticeable strides. Wizard longevity is (probably) due to a lack of telomere shortening, for instance.\\
The metaphysical rules governing magic change over time, possibly even in response to human beliefs. For example, strong magic users used to cause flames to burn odd colors and milk to sour back before technology. This would make it ''very'' difficult to quantify how magic works under prevailing scientific paradigms, although not impossible if new ones could be developed for that purpose and magic's effect doesn't "catch up."

* In ''Literature/{{Sphere}}'', all the chaos erupts because of the scientists accidentally using the eponymous [[SufficientlyAdvanced alien device]] improperly. By the end of the story, [[spoiler: they never have figured out how to use it ''right ''or even what it's actually ''supposed ''to do, let alone ''how'' it did what it did.]]
* Creator/HPLovecraft's ''Literature/TheColourOutOfSpace'' applies this to the meteorite the titular color came to Earth in. The meteorite is ridiculously malleable, hot upon landing (real ones aren't, and the characters know this), dissolves into the air within a few weeks of landing, and has a strange bubble of something like a color inside it which pops when hit with a hammer, all of which confuse the geologists looking at it greatly. (The color is some sort of StarfishAlien EnergyBeing-type thing that sucks the energy out of its environment until it returns to space, killing any living thing in the area affected down to germs and turning anything that tries to live there gray and brittle.)

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* On ''Series/StargateSG1'', Tollan technology is so advanced, it contains no apparent circuits, wires, or moving parts. Earth scientists have no hope of reverse-engineering their devices.

* One of the standard pieces of equipment on ''Series/TheMiddleman'' is a B.T.R.S. scanner, which looks for things Beyond the Realm of Science.
* A good portion of the items being hunted and hoarded in ''Series/{{Warehouse 13}}'' fall under this trope.

[[folder: Tabletop Games ]]

* Both played Straight and Averted in ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}''. There are two main schools of thought when it comes to magic in the Sixth World. Shamanistic, which believes magic is an art that you feel rather than analyse. And Hermetic which believes that even Magic can be analysed to the smallest detail and can fit into a grand unified theory. Needless to say there are some [[UnequalRites tensions between the two schools of thought]]. [[note]]Most magic has shown signs of ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve but as a natural phenomenon that migrates periodically. So technically they're both right.[[/note]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

[[folder: Webcomics ]]

--->'''Zimmy''': 'cos what you call "magic" is just a bunch of stuff that is only explained by not having an explanation! You're both right and wrong at the same time!
* An odd variant in ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive''. Magic, in this world, does run on MagicAIsMagicA and obeys set rules that can be scientfically deduced. Indeed, much of Tedd's plot is about his continued researches into magic. However, the Will of Magic is capable of ''changing'' these rules (within certain limits), and does so whenever magic becomes too widespread or too well understood (Magic wants to be used and understood, but only by a select few).

[[folder: Web Original ]]
* Want to scientifically analyse the world of ''Literature/TalesOfMU''? ''"Well, this is where a lot of the unique undead, cursed artifacts, and tainted lands come from. This is how magical abominations are created."''

[[folder: Western Animation ]]
* In the ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' episode "Feeling Pinkie Keen", [[AgentScully Twilight Sparkle]] runs herself ragged trying to analyze/disprove Pinkie Pie's "[[SpiderSense Pinkie Sense]]". In the end, she gives up and admits that maybe the "Pinkie Sense" ''can't'' be analyzed (which turns out to be the "doozy" that Pinkie predicted would happen). It's explained in the same episode that magic in the general sense in My Little Pony is comprehensible by science, so most of the series {{avert|edTrope}}s this. Pinkie Pie and her "sense" still plays this trope straight, as whatever she's doing is still a unique form of "magic" in the series itself.

* Averted by the ''Website/SCPFoundation''. Half of its mission is to try and scientifically explain the scientifically inexplicable by running lots and lots of experiments until they figure out precisely how it works. (The other half is to uphold TheMasquerade.) If it ''is'' scientifically explicable, the anomaly is classified as Explained and safe for everyone else to know about. If it isn't... well, they've made some interesting strides in their research, it's just in fields that prove the physical laws we've ascribed to the universe are about as strong as tissue paper.

* ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'': Scanners for psychic energy cannot detect or analyze Touma Kamijou's [[AntiMagic Imagine Breaker]] or magic.

** In both the ''WebAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsFriendshipGamesShorts'' episode "The Science of Magic" and ''Literature/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsSunsetShimmersTimeToShine'', Sunset Shimmer's attempts to analyze magic go nowhere.
** In ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsFriendshipGames'', Sci-Twi's attempts to analyze magic have more success, but it is clear that she is out of her depth and she eventually loses control of the magic.