I Created Scientific Magic

Under Lynn's explanation, the gathering of great Wizards discussed incessantly.

If we go by this argument, then the principle of the constancy of the speed of light indeed has some merit.

"Wait a moment!" Dennis suddenly noticed a flaw and asked in confusion, "Chairman Lynn, if we go by what you said, then there should be a prerequisite for the principle of light speed invariance; it must be that the speed of light detected is a fixed value only within an inertial frame of reference!"

If it were a non-inertial frame of reference in a state of motion, then the situation would be different!

It seemed that simply talking about it wasn't quite clear enough, so Dennis gestured and used "Mage's Hand" to draw over a large experimental vessel, filled it with water, and then lightly tapped a float on the surface of the water.

Under everyone's gaze, ripples danced upon the serene water surface.

Ripples and sound waves are both mechanical waves, and their propagation principles are naturally the same. Dennis was about to use the ripples as an example to point out the flaws in the principle of the constancy of light speed.

"Now let's assume that this finger is a person swimming!" Dennis inserted a finger into the water again, and then moved towards the float in the direction of the ripples. "If at this moment we take him as a reference, doesn't the speed of the incoming waves seem to increase?"

A person moving in water certainly cannot serve as an inertial frame of reference, but in Lynn's theory of relativity, there is no such premise. It states that the speed of light is constant in any frame of reference, which clearly defies logic!

"If light were merely a mechanical wave, then indeed, that would be the case. However, unfortunately, its special properties mean that light is not the same as other waves," Lynn explained to the confused crowd. "Don't forget, the propagation of light does not require a specific medium, and it can even travel through a vacuum!"

Dennis and the others furrowed their brows; this indeed was the most significant difference between light and other waves.

"Is it not possible that we just haven't detected the medium of light?" Steg couldn't help but interject.

"Regarding that, I have already tried with experiments. I'm afraid that this so-called medium does not exist!" Lynn shook his head and then began to demonstrate the light beam displacement lever he had created for the audience.

This was actually a modified version of the Michelson-Morley experiment. He placed a light beam emitter at one end of the lever. After switching it on, a beam of light shot out, then was split into two by a beam-splitter in the middle of the lever, aiming at two different directions. Finally, the two beams were reflected back by mirrors at the end of the lever into the detector.

You must know that the planet they were on was rotating around the Sun at an ultra-high speed of thirty kilometers per second.

If there truly were a medium for light in the universe, whether it was stationary or in uniform motion, it could not possibly synchronize with the Eternal Star as it rotated around the Sun.

This was like the float that generated the ripples moving. At this point, testing would reveal that the float and the water ripples in front of it had closed the distance, while those behind it had become even further away.

Although the speed of light was extremely fast, the velocity at which the Eternal Star orbited was only one ten-thousandth of the speed of light. The resulting deviation was tiny, but for a Wizard with atomic-level sensing precision, it was enough to detect these minute changes!

"Unfortunately, after conducting numerous tests, no matter which direction the returning light beam came from, the stripes on the detector did not change by a hair. This is enough to prove that there is no medium for light, meaning that there is no fixed reference medium..." Lynn said, shaking his head.

"If light has no medium, why would its speed be a definite value?" Steg said, filled with confusion.

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

To give an unsuitable analogy, it's like ten thousand people standing in a row, the first person slaps the second, the second slaps the third, and so on, hence the speed of force transmission is uniform.

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

Just as Lynn was about to answer, a voice preempted him.

"That is because light is an electromagnetic wave, and the speed of electromagnetic waves in a vacuum only depends on the vacuum permittivity and magnetic permeability!"

As the sound rang out, Anthony, Harrov, Aurora, and Vittorio, the four chairpersons, walked in from outside.

The one who had just spoken was Anthony!

Steg and the rest of the great Wizards turned their heads, and while greeting, they looked at Anthony with eyes full of envy and jealousy. A few months ago, the counterpart was just like them, a great Wizard, but now he had suddenly become a high and mighty legendary Wizard, a chairperson of the Wizard Council.

Only Jeffrey's gaze held no envy. On the contrary, there was a trace of admiration. To be able to successfully complete the legendary ascension ceremony while understanding the various bizarre phenomena of microscopic particles was something he found humbling.

Anthony paid no attention to those looks and continued to speak to Lynn. "The reason I was able to discover that light is a kind of electromagnetic wave was precisely based on the derivation of the electromagnetic equations suggested by Chairman Lynn!"

However, in the equations describing electromagnetic waves provided by Lynn, the oscillating electric fields and magnetic fields, their speed is related only to the non-directional scalars, the vacuum permittivity, and the vacuum permeability.

At first, he even doubted whether this might be an oversight by Lynn; after all, any speed must have a reference point, just like the example Lynn gave at the beginning. The silver coin he shot out could be said to be traveling at fifty meters per second or at thirty kilometers per second, with different reference points.

Unless, as relativity suggests, the speed of light is the same for all reference frames!

"Exactly!" Lynn nodded. "You may well understand the permittivity and permeability as the 'resistance' of space to the electromagnetic field!"

"Space resistance?" Steg and others began to ponder this concept.

"The three-dimensional space we inhabit can be seen as a membrane, heavier objects create deeper dents in the space, which is the bending of space-time, and the same is true for objects moving at high speeds..." Lynn tried to explain this in the simplest way possible.

For example, if the same thrust is applied to a one-ton object, it can only move it one centimeter, but if applied to a ten-kilogram object, it would shoot out at an extremely fast speed.

Therefore, speed and mass are necessarily related to a certain degree, and hence the concept of relative mass was derived.

"As for why the speed of light remains constant in all reference frames, my guess is that the universe must have an upper limit on speed, and that speed is the speed of light!"

"Because light is always traveling at the maximum speed 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 cannot be increased in any form!"

Lynn once again threw out an incredibly shocking viewpoint, using the insurmountable nature of light speed to explain why it is constant.

"To use a notion that clearly defies common sense to justify another phenomenon that is even more counterintuitive is utterly absurd!!" An elder wizard couldn't help but interrupt.

Steg, Jeffrey, and a few others hesitated, also not approving of Lynn's conjecture that the speed of light cannot be surpassed.

Even Anthony, Harrov, and the other chairpersons frowned.

"I think there is nothing wrong with making bold assumptions about an unknown phenomenon and then validating them with care," Lynn shrugged, explaining.

This was no longer just a bold assumption, it was nothing but gibberish... Steg rolled his eyes. If the person proposing this preposterous theory hadn't been Lynn, the star of magic, he would probably have been vehemently attacked by now.

Lynn naturally noticed the confusion and doubt in everyone's eyes,

The existence of a speed limit in space and the principle that the speed of light remains constant indeed seemed very strange, and anyone hearing this conclusion for the first time would instinctively 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 basic constants of the universe.

With this in mind, Lynn shook his head again and said, "I should have mentioned before, all theories of magical science are summaries of the laws of things; they do not need to conform to our common sense, rather it is our common sense that must conform to these laws!"

"My light deflection experiment proved that light is not reliant on a fixed medium to propagate, and wherever it is measured, the speed of light does not change at all. This sufficiently demonstrates the reasonableness of the constant speed of light."

The response from Lynn was undoubtedly succinct yet effective, much like how he demonstrated the wave-particle duality, it's about deducing the arguments based on the phenomena.

Because the facts lay right there, they could only explain them with such theories!

"Even so, I still cannot accept this conjecture. One light deflection experiment cannot fully prove the theory of constant light speed; perhaps other factors influenced the experimental result!" Steg raised his doubts.

After all, the theory of constant light speed and the notion that light speed cannot be surpassed are riddled with holes everywhere!

Dennis also spoke up, "According to your principle of the relativity of speed that you provided, Chairman Lynn, as long as I run after the light, the speed at which the light moves away from me will inevitably be less than the speed of light. Conversely, if I run in the opposite direction of the light, then naturally our distance each second would exceed the speed of light!"

The other elder wizards also nodded, similarly contemplating numerous ways to conceptualize this. The so-called constant and unsurpassable speed of light seemed as fragile as thin paper, easily punctured with a poke!

(PS: Recently, reading about relativity has been giving me a headache. I need to sort out my thoughts; I'll try to finish explaining in the next chapter quickly. The universal constants that are unaffected by observers are one of the important powers of high-dimensional entities, so I have to write about it...)