Chapter 336 -324 My method is using gear and light speed!
Under the puzzled gazes of everyone, Ailoke installed the gear in front of the alchemical device that emitted light beams and placed a very strangely shaped piece of glass between them.
It was then that Lynn finally began to explain. “This is a semi-lens! Unlike ordinary glass, as the name implies, only one side allows light to pass through!”
Glenn looked back and forth in amazement. One side clearly displayed the scenery behind, while the other side was blurred.
“This experiment is also very simple,” he continued, “it involves the alchemical device emitting a beam of light. When the gear is stationary, the light passes through the gaps between the teeth and shines onto the mirror opposite. It then reflects back the same way, hitting the opaque side and forming a somewhat larger spot of light, allowing us to see it directly!”
As he spoke, Lynn activated the alchemical device, and immediately two beams of light appeared in the air.
Just as he had said, the light passed through the semi-lens, over the gap between the two gears, and accurately hit the distant mirror before returning, passing through the gap in the gears again and hitting the semi-lens.
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“But if the gear begins to rotate…” Lynn paused, then with a thought, he caused the gear to slowly start turning under the influence of the “Mage’s Hand”.
Without needing much explanation from Lynn, everyone could see that the light beam behind the large gear began to flicker, and the spot of light on the semi-lens also started to twinkle. This was because the returning light might either pass through a gap in the gear or be blocked by the gear…
Just as the assemblage of Wizards was frowning and pondering over this phenomenon, Lynn spoke up again.
“Theoretically, if the gear’s rotation speed is fast enough, the light that passes through the first gear gap and then travels the eight kilometers back will just pass through the second gear gap, and in doing so…”
Before Lynn could finish, Glenn, as if struck by a realization, exclaimed in shock, “In that case, every light element that passes through a gap in the gear will surely return through the second gap, and there will be no possibility of being blocked, making the beam and light spot incredibly distinct!”
Glenn’s words were like a boulder thrown into a calm lake, causing an uproar among the Wizards present.
“This is truly… a stroke of genius!” said Rafael, his voice trembling.
Previously, he had been wondering how this star of magic would measure the speed of light, and he had not anticipated that the other party would accomplish it with just a small gear!
The brilliance of the method lay in its simplicity and cleverness!
The crux of the experiment was to synchronize the time it took for the gear to rotate one segment with the time taken for the light to be emitted and return.
What was ingenious was that the light needed to travel a whole eight kilometers, while the corresponding gear only needed to turn slightly to reach the second gap!
That meant, every tooth on the gear represented eight kilometers of light traveled. If there were a thousand teeth, and they completed one full rotation, the light would have to travel eight thousand kilometers, and ten rotations would amount to eighty thousand kilometers!
The Wizards, who also grasped this revelation, couldn’t help but draw a sharp breath. This small gear was like a super amplifier!
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The speed of light might be unimaginably fast, but similarly, the speed of the gear’s rotation could also be increased to an incredible pace…
“This is a race between the gear and light in terms of speed!” Harrov also remarked in awe.
However, Lynn was quite underhanded. The gear moved five millimeters (the distance of one tooth), while the light had to travel eight kilometers… a difference of hundreds of thousands of times!
In the end, one only needed to know the distance traveled by the gear multiplied by this ratio difference—just by looking at the number of teeth on the gear and the number of times the disc rotated per second, one could calculate the speed of light!
No wonder Lynn was so confident he could measure the speed of light…
“Incredible, truly a star of magic!” Sanchez praised with a sigh.
He was utterly convinced, wondering what kind of mind could come up with such an idea.
However, many wizards in the audience still wore expressions of utter confusion.
What exactly are you all talking about? Why can’t I understand…
But in order to maintain their dignity as wizards, they pretended to understand and nodded along, offering a few words of praise.
“Truly a star of magic…” “This idea is great! I knew he would have a solution!”
Amid the chorus of praises, there were also quite a few voices of dissent. Yasosi and others insisted that the speed of light was infinite, no matter how fast Lynn could accelerate the gears, it would all be in vain!
“Principal, may we begin now?” Lydia called out loudly.
Lynn nodded, instructing the halfling girl to start the internal combustion engine to increase the gear’s rotation speed.
Under the watchful eyes of the crowd, the 720-tooth gear began to rotate slowly, then faster and faster—five circles per second, ten circles, fifteen circles… soon it turned into a blur.
The light beam and the spot on the semi-translucent lens also flickered incessantly. Their frequency increased as the light constantly shifted between passing through and being blocked…
“It’s so fast…” the witch Nancy murmured to herself. She could no longer see the gears’ speed of rotation clearly. “At such a speed, can the light really distinguish the tiny gaps between the teeth?”
Each gap was only 0.5 centimeters wide. At high speed, it would become a sharp cutting instrument. What if the light elements missed a gap? Wouldn’t they become unseeable?
“We might not be able to distinguish them, but the light definitely can!” Lynn asserted confidently.
“Look, the frequency of the light beam and spot flickering seems… to be slowing down!” Rafael hurriedly interjected.
He wasn’t the only one who noticed this change; it was so clear, it couldn’t possibly be an illusion. As the gear’s rotation speed increased again, a look of horror spread across the wizards’ faces…
“The light spot… it’s disappeared!”
Sanchez’s eyes widened in amazement at the extraordinary scene before him. The thin beam of light emitted from the alchemical apparatus stopped at the gear during its return, and the light from the gear to the semi-translucent lens suddenly disappeared, not flickering in and out as before, and no light spot hit the lens anymore.
This was the opposite of what Lynn had predicted…
“What exactly is going on here?” Rafael almost tore off his own beard, his mind filled with confusion.
“That’s because the light that passed through the gaps, hit the teeth on its way back, indicating that the speed of light is finite. We have already succeeded halfway!” Lynn’s words echoed in everyone’s ears.