I Pioneered Scientific Magic - Chapter 540 (Patreon)

Chapter 540: Our Universe Has a Maximum Speed Limit!

Under Lynn's explanation, the grand wizards present continuously discussed among themselves.

If this is the case, then the theory of constant light speed certainly makes some sense.

"Wait!" Dennis suddenly noticed a loophole and asked, puzzled. "Lord Lynn, if we go by what you say, then the principle of constant light speed should have a premise—it must be measured within an inertial frame of reference to be a fixed value!"

If once in a non-inertial frame of reference in motion, then the situation is different!

Perhaps feeling that just speaking wasn't quite apt, Dennis gestured with a "Mage's Hand" to bring over a large experimental vessel, filled it with water, and then gently tapped a float on the water's surface.

Under everyone's watchful eyes, ripples oscillated across the calm water.

Since both water and sound waves are mechanical waves, they naturally share the same propagation principle, and Dennis planned to use the water waves as an example to point out the loophole in the constant speed of light.

"Now let's assume this finger is a person swimming!" Dennis once again put his index finger into the water and then slowly approached the float in the direction of the waves. If at this moment, he were considered a reference object, wouldn't the speed of the waves coming towards him appear faster?"

A person moving in water naturally cannot serve as an inertial frame of reference, but in Lynn's relativity, there is no such premise. It states that the speed of light remains constant in any reference frame, which obviously does not make logical sense!

"If light were merely a mechanical wave, then indeed, this would be the case, but unfortunately, its unique properties determine that light differs from other waves," Lynn explained to the puzzled crowd. "Don't forget, the propagation of light does not require a specific medium, it can even travel through a vacuum!"

Dennis and the others furrowed their brows, this indeed was the biggest difference between light and other waves.

"Is it possible that we simply haven't detected the medium for light?" Steger couldn't help but interject.

"Regarding that, I've already tried experimenting, and unfortunately, such a so-called medium does not exist!" Lynn shook his head, then began to demonstrate the light beam deflection he had created.

This was essentially a modified version of the Michelson-Morley experiment. He placed a light beam emitter at one end of the cantilever, which, upon switching on, would emit a beam of light that was split by a beam splitter in the middle of the cantilever into two different directions, and finally reflected back to the detector by mirrors at the ends of the cantilever.

It's essential to realize that the planet beneath their feet rotates around the sun at a high speed of thirty kilometers per second.

Suppose there truly was a medium for light, whether it was stationary or in uniform motion, it could not possibly synchronize with the eternal star orbiting the sun.

This is like the float that caused the water waves moving, and when tested at that moment, it would find the float closer to the forward waves and further from the rear ones.

Although the speed of light is extremely fast, the orbital speed of the eternal star only reaches one ten-thousandth of the speed of light, causing only a minimal deviation, but for wizards with atomic-level sensing precision, it's enough to detect these minute changes.

"Unfortunately, I have done many tests, and no matter from which direction the light returns, the patterns on the detector remain unchanged! This is enough to demonstrate that there is no fixed medium for light, which means there isn't a fixed reference object…" Lynn shook his head.

"If light doesn't have a medium, then why is its speed a definite value?" Steger said, deeply puzzled.

Dennis and the others also found this strange, as the propagation speeds of sound and water waves are determined because they travel through a medium.

To make an inappropriate analogy, it's like ten thousand people standing in a row, with the first person slapping the second, the second person slapping the third, and so on, thus the speed of transmitting force is uniform.

If there were no medium, then the speed of light should vary.

Just as Lynn was about to answer, a voice spoke up first.

"That's because light is an electromagnetic wave, and the propagation rate of electromagnetic waves in a vacuum depends only on the vacuum permittivity and the vacuum permeability!"

As the voice spoke, Anthony, Harof, Aurora, and Victorio, four councilors, walked in from the door.

And the person who had just responded was Anthony!

Steger and the other grand wizards turned their heads and looked at Anthony, their gazes filled with envy and jealousy. Just a few months ago, like them, he was merely a grand wizard, but now he had risen to become a legendary wizard, the chairman of the Wizard Council.

Only Geoffrey's gaze was devoid of jealousy

, rather, it held a hint of admiration. To still be able to successfully complete the legendary advancement ceremony despite understanding the bizarre phenomena of micro-particles made him feel inferior.

Anthony didn't pay attention to these gazes and continued speaking to Lynn. "The reason I was able to discover that light is a type of electromagnetic wave was precisely based on the derivation of Lord Lynn's electromagnetic equations!"

But in Lynn's description of electromagnetic waves, the oscillation of the electric and magnetic fields, their speed depends only on the vacuum permittivity and the vacuum permeability, these two directionless scalars.

Initially, he even doubted whether this could be a lapse by Lynn, since any speed must have a reference object, just like the example Lynn initially mentioned. He had thrown a silver coin, which could be said to move at fifty meters per second or thirty kilometers per second, depending on the reference object.

Unless, as stated in the theory of relativity, light maintains a consistent speed relative to any reference object!

"Correct!" Lynn nodded. "You can think of the permittivity and permeability as the 'resistance' of space to electromagnetic fields!"

"Space resistance?" Steger and the others pondered this concept.

"Our three-dimensional space can be seen as a layer of membrane, heavier objects will create deeper indentations in space, which is the distortion of spacetime, and faster-moving objects will do the same..."

For example, the same thrust applied to a one-ton object might only move it a centimeter, but if applied to a ten-kilogram object, it would fly away at a high speed.

Thus, speed and mass are inevitably connected, leading to the derivation of the relative mass formula.

"As for why the speed of light remains constant in any reference, I speculate that there must be an upper limit to speed in the universe, and that speed is the speed of light!"

"Because light always travels at the maximum speed that space can tolerate, it cannot be surpassed, so even if you are moving away from light at a high speed, the measured speed of light will not change. After all, it has reached the spatial limit, and naturally, it can't be increased in any way!"

Lynn once again threw out a startling view, using the unsurpassable nature of light speed to explain why it remains constant.

"To use an obviously nonsensical guess to justify another even more nonsensical phenomenon is utterly absurd!!" a grand wizard couldn't help but interrupt.

Steger, Geoffrey, and a few others wanted to speak but held back, also not endorsing Lynn's conjecture of the unsurpassable speed of light.

Even Anthony and Harof, these councilors, frowned.

"I think there's no problem with making bold assumptions about an unknown phenomenon and then carefully verifying them." Lynn shrugged and explained.

This was no longer just a bold assumption; it could only be described as nonsense... Steger rolled his eyes. If it weren't for Lynn, the star of magic proposing such a ludicrous theory, he would likely have been attacked by now.

Lynn also noticed the confusion and doubts in everyone's eyes,

The existence of a speed limit in space and the constant speed of light principle is indeed very strange, and anyone hearing this conclusion for the first time would inevitably object.

However, it is a fact, just like the Planck constant, the gravitational constant, and the strong coupling constant, it is an intrinsic property of space, one of the fundamental constants of the universe.

Thinking of this, Lynn shook his head and said, "I should have mentioned before, all magical theories are summaries of the laws of things, they don't need to conform to our common sense, but our common sense needs to conform to the laws!"

"My light speed deflection experiment proves that light does not rely on a fixed medium for propagation, and the measured speed of light does not change regardless of where it is measured, this fully demonstrates the rationality of the constant speed of light."

Lynn's answer was undoubtedly very concise yet effective, just like his argument on wave-particle duality, based on the phenomena to infer the points.

Because the facts are there, so they could only use such theories as explanations!

"Even so, I still can't accept this conjecture, a light speed deflection experiment cannot fully confirm the theory of constant light speed, maybe other factors affected the experiment results!" Steger raised his doubts.

After all, the theory of constant light speed and the impossibility of surpassing light speed are full of loopholes!

Dennis also spoke up. "According to the principle of speed relativity you provided, Lord Lynn, as long as I chase after the light, then for me, the speed of light moving away would definitely be less than the speed of light, and conversely, if I run in the opposite direction to the light, then every second our distance would naturally exceed the speed of light!"

The rest of the grand wizards also nodded, they could think of countless similar methods, the so-called constant light speed and unsurpassable theory were like thin paper, easily pierced!

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