I Pioneered Scientific Magic - Chapter 504 (Patreon)

Chapter 504: The First Magic Crisis, The Collapse of the Electro-Optic Theory

"The world is undulatory, the inference regarding light propagation in a vacuum." "Shock, the latest interpretation of the light diffraction phenomenon, wave theory is just a clown's absurd talk!" "The biggest omission of particle theory is this, optics is in imminent danger!"

In the City of Fire Oil, within the optics magic laboratory, Glenn slowly put down the newspaper template in his hands and couldn't help but speak out, "Roland, it's already noisy enough outside, are you sure it's okay to publish these things?"

"Of course, it's okay. Look, in just one and a half months, we've received more optics papers than we did in the previous year!" Roland replied with a smile, then continued helplessly.

"No matter whether it's Master Anthony or Master Jeffrey, I really can't afford to offend them. Whatever they write, I just publish it!" Roland said, explaining that he was merely responsible for creating catchy headlines and lightly embellishing the content!

Glenn was speechless but had to admit that competition indeed was the biggest driver of magical research.

These days, the wizards supporting the particle and wave theories had conducted extremely meticulous studies on the various properties of light, presenting a plethora of conjectures.

Some of these conjectures were wildly imaginative with no logical basis, but many theories were supported by experimental evidence, and if validated, they could earn a Morning Star or even a Silver Moon Medal.

Seeing that Glenn fully understood his dilemma, Roland smiled, took the template from his hand, and handed it to an assistant to speed up the printing.

Yesterday, they had printed nine hundred thousand newspapers, distributed under the kingdom's jurisdiction and in newly occupied cities, which were sold out within a few hours, indicating that the printing was still not fast enough!

"By the way, Glenn, I heard that last night, Master Sanchez personally visited you, is that so?" Roland suddenly asked gossipingly, already picking up a pen, ready to record at any moment.

One could guess that Master Sanchez definitely wanted to woo Glenn, the renowned developer of the focus magic.

If agreed upon, it would certainly be a huge scoop!

Although Glenn was only a third-circle wizard, he had caused a sensation at the last academic symposium with his thousand-mirrors light speed measurement project and stumbled upon the focus magic, gaining the appreciation of the Magic Star and the Councilors. His potential influence was not inferior to that of a grand wizard.

When Roland brought up this matter, Glenn could only give a wry smile. Indeed, not only Sanchez but also several wizards advocating the wave theory had approached him, detailing the superiority of the wave theory. However, he hadn't responded to either side.

Firstly, he did not want to get involved in this dispute, and secondly, both theories had optical phenomena they could not explain.

For instance, the wave theory explained the effects of light dispersion, diffraction, interference, and superposition well, but it was weak in explaining the photoelectric effect and pinhole imaging.

As for those adhering to particle theory, they had come up with the electric element explosion theory to explain the diffraction phenomenon, which Glenn found entirely unconvincing, a theory concocted just to explain the phenomenon without solid experimental evidence.

Before understanding it clearly, Glenn thought it best not to take sides, to avoid a potential disaster.

Roland, hoping to make a big news story, was quite disappointed and put away his pen and paper, turning to inquire about the progress of photographic technology.

This was an optical phenomenon Glenn had discovered a year ago, using a board with a small hole to block between a wall and an object, creating an inverted real image of the object on the wall.

Glenn was quite sure he was not the first to discover this phenomenon but definitely the first to utilize it!

Not far from the City of Fire Oil was an oil field. While on shift duty there, he accidentally found a type of asphalt extremely sensitive to light.

This asphalt would harden under light exposure, with different degrees of hardening based on the intensity of the light, using this property, combined with the principle of pinhole imaging, he successfully created the first generation of photographic cameras.

The problem was that using this asphalt to make photosensitive plates was too troublesome, and the images were hard to replicate, not conducive to mass dissemination.

So, over the past year, Glenn had been trying to use different elements to make photosensitive equipment to improve the photographic camera, and now they had upgraded to the third version, with the problem of image replication initially resolved.

The first large-scale use was in a propaganda war to disintegrate the empire's citizens' beliefs.

"About the improvements to the camera, I already have a plan that can further enhance the clarity of the photos through developing techniques, and maybe even the printing magic developed by Councilor Lynn could be used in image replication..."

Glenn spoke enthusiastically about the latest achievements in optical

 photography, and when he got excited, he even demonstrated the developing magic he had developed to Roland.

Roland was also extremely interested, as every advancement in photography meant that the [Magic Daily] would sell a bit better. Under Glenn's direction, he soon stood on a photosensitive screen.

"Just like this!" Glenn extended his right hand, closed his eyes, and began to sense and generate electricity.

He couldn't directly create light, only control light beams indirectly through the phenomenon of electric luminescence.

According to the particle theory, light and electricity might actually be the same thing, with light being a more microscopic existence than electricity.

Roland waited curiously in place for a while, but unexpectedly, Glenn didn't move, and his face was filled with horror.

"What's wrong, Glenn?" Roland immediately noticed something was off, vaguely worried about his safety, wondering if there was some error with the magic.

"The charge... The charge is gone!" Glenn suddenly opened his eyes, speaking in horror.

"What?" Roland was stunned, somewhat confused about what this meant.

He certainly knew what a charge was, the substance carrying positive or negative electricity, generally, lightning magic was based on artificially creating this potential difference.

"The charge is gone, I suddenly can't sense it anymore!" Glenn's eyes were blood-red, his voice trembling, he could no longer generate even the simplest electric current, all his lightning-based spells were unusable!

"Glenn, this is no time for jokes." Roland frowned, but seeing Glenn run crazily to one side towards an electric generator, extending his hand to physically sense the electric current, he realized the severity of the situation.

Roland hurried over but didn't dare disturb Glenn's actions, could only watch as his body unconsciously trembled rapidly under the assault of the electric current, taking several minutes before finally collapsing.

"How is it?" Roland asked worriedly.

"The electricity exists... The electricity is there! I just can't control it anymore!" Glenn muttered to himself, his face full of confusion and frustration.

"Are you too tired, maybe you should rest a bit." Roland consoled him, thinking it might be due to Glenn's relentless research day and night causing his spirit to be sapped.

"No, I'm fine, very fine!" Glenn said defiantly, his expression wild as he stretched out his hand, and a burst of fireball appeared in his palm.

This was precisely a second-circle spell—[Flame Burst]...

Clearly, his mental strength hadn't weakened to the point of being unable to cast spells.

Without waiting for Roland to respond, Glenn eagerly called over his assistant, asking him to perform a lightning spell, any kind would do.

Hearing Glenn's strange request, the assistant was also baffled, but after trying for a while, his face revealed the same shocking expression, collapsing as he shouted, "Where did the charge go?"

Roland and Glenn looked at each other, a chill immediately rising from their feet to their hearts, they quickly dropped everything, hurriedly wrote an urgent letter, and sent it to the Holy City, reporting this bizarre situation to the Councilors.

In fact, the council's desk was already piled up with similar letters, with wizards like Glenn who suddenly found themselves unable to control electricity not being uncommon, and it spread like a plague...

After some investigation, the internal council quickly came to a conclusion: as soon as any wizard questioned the nature of electro-optics, they would immediately lose the ability to sense charges in the elemental view.

What puzzled them the most was that wizards who firmly believed in either the particle or wave theories still had normal casting abilities, whereas those just watching the excitement were almost completely defeated.

Those lightly affected had only intermittent casting obstacles, but the most severe cases, like Glenn, completely lost the ability to sense charges.

Panic spread throughout the kingdom, this kind of spellcasting obstruction known as 'disease' had never been seen before, and most wizards, whether affected or not, were extremely worried, these worries and panics soon turned into anger towards the wave theory.

Originally, everyone was casting spells just fine, then Jeffrey's wave theory came out, and directly made them unable to cast spells, now even the release of thunder spells became a problem!

The next day, a group of grand wizards from the particle faction jointly published a paper in the [Magic Daily], furiously denouncing the wave theory as a completely destabilizing magical foundation!

With many neutral factions also criticizing, the already disadvantaged wave theory even reached a point where everyone was attacking it.

Until a blockbuster news directly blew up everyone's understanding!

Without any warning, Anthony suddenly turned to believe in the wave theory and published a paper stating he had found new evidence, even discovering a new model that could explain the structure of atoms based on this theory!

The news stunned Sanchez, Alade, and other particle faction grand wizards, they were just about to take advantage of the situation to strangle the wave theory in the cradle and return magical studies to orthodoxy, but Anthony, the leading

 contributor to the discovery of the photoelectric effect, had betrayed them!

"Has Anthony gone mad?" Sanchez jumped up and down in anger.

The achievements of the particle faction over the past few months were directly ruined, and an infuriated Sanchez wished he could kill Anthony himself.

"Could it really be that light is a wave?" Alade was extremely puzzled; he couldn't think of any other reason for Anthony's sudden switch to the wave faction.

"Did you forget our research, Alade?" Sanchez's face immediately darkened; they had already successfully used particle theory to 'explain' every phenomenon of light, now they were just a few decisive pieces of evidence short!

Moreover, Anthony even boldly claimed to have found a new model that explained the internal structure of elements.

This was simply madness, knowing that Councilor Lynn's celestial orbital element model had been unanimously recognized by all wizards, it could only be described as perfect.

Any wizard who saw the orbital model would unhesitatingly accept that this was the ultimate form of elements!

And if light and electricity were one, could the electrons inside the elements also be waves?

Sanchez absolutely did not believe this twisted theory, but the impact of Anthony's 'betrayal,' the proposer of the photoelectric effect, was still terrifying, a large number of wizards who believed in the particle faction were shaken, instantly losing the ability to sense charges.

This dispute, which was spreading more and more widely, had already subtly exceeded the limits of debate and had naturally also attracted the attention of Harof and others.

Even Lynn, who was engrossed in researching quantum theory, had received a report.

"Spellcasting obstruction, huh?" After listening to Philip and others describe it, Lynn was also quite surprised, he hadn't expected the particle and wave dispute to lead to such severe consequences.

"Lord Principal, you should be fine, right?" Philip couldn't help but ask, now nearly half the people had been deprived of their ability to sense charges.

"Of course, I'm fine..." Lynn raised an eyebrow, his body surrounded by electric light, this was the lightning系 spell—[Electromagnetic Barrier]!

Seeing that this Magic Star was unharmed, Philip and others breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that nearly half of the wizards had lost the ability to cast corresponding spells.

Many wizards supporting the light particle theory, even sarcastically coined a new term for this spellcasting obstruction called 'Wave Plague,' implying that the wave theory was the source of this magic crisis, and would spread like a plague.

Lynn pondered for a moment and faintly guessed the reason for this magic crisis.

Anthony's 'electrotherapy induction' method, although it gave wizards the ability to sense and control charges, was just a shortcut; their understanding of electricity was very limited.

It was like a child who had barely learned to walk and run by relying on muscle memory, and now suddenly two people came out, arguing with each other, insisting on telling the child whether it was more scientific to step with the left foot first or the right foot first, which leg nerve should be controlled, and how many degrees the step should be to be most appropriate, directly confusing the child who could run, and now he couldn't even walk...

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