chapter 23 - the experiment

　One morning, a few days later, Joseph, once again dressed in full formal attire, took Napoleon, who was in full uniform, into a lightweight two-wheeled carriage to attend an experiment in the determination of the speed of light that was to be conducted this evening at the Château de Bourdon, just outside of Paris.

　　Chateau Burton, the property of the Orleans family, was a castle built on top of a hill. The castle is said to have been built as a military fortress in the twelfth century, and today it has long since lost its military value. When the castle was first built, it was made almost completely uninhabitable in order to strengthen its defenses. So now the castle is almost in a semi-abandoned state. But used for experimentation here is very good, here away from the city, nearby residents are also less, there is almost no light pollution. And from the top of the castle, you can clearly see the firelight reflected from the mirrors about four or five furlongs (one furlong is about four kilometers) away. This was all vital for the night's experiments.

　　But the place was a bit out of the way and a bit far from Paris, and no public carriage would come to it, so Joseph rented a lightweight two-wheeled carriage to get there.

　　The moped traveled all morning until about three o'clock in the afternoon, when it reached the vicinity of Burton Castle. Below the small hill where the castle was located, there was an estate of the Orleans family, and the people who came to participate in the experiment at this time stayed in this estate. The moped stopped at the entrance of the manor. There was an attendant who came up to inquire. Joseph identified himself to the attendant, and in a short while, the manor's iron gates were pulled open, and the moped drove along the stone paved road into the manor, stopping in front of a large house with an obvious baroque style. An attendant came up and opened the door, Joseph and Napoleon stepped down from it, and a wigged messenger led them inside.

　　That attendant led them through the hall to the small garden at the back, and in that small garden was a little glass greenhouse. This was nothing in later times, but in this era, this was not something that an average family could afford to use. At this moment, several people were sitting inside while drinking tea and viewing the roses blooming inside. Joseph walked over, he noticed that Condorcet, Lavoisier, Laplace, Monge, they were all there. But there was no sign of their host, Duke Charles.

　　"Ah, Joseph, come here, come here ..." As soon as he saw Joseph, Lavoisier waved him over. Joseph came forward and greeted them one by one, again thanking Monge and Laplace in particular for their recommendation. Of course this thanks sounded to Napoleon like thanks for recommending his thesis.

　　Then Joseph introduced them to his brother, "This is my brother Napoleon. He is now at the Officers' School in Paris. He is also interested in science, so I purposely brought him here to open his eyes. By the way, why don't we see His Highness the Duke?"

　　"His Highness the Duke was originally there. But not long ago, he was summoned by His Majesty the King ... and didn't know what it was about." Lavoisier said, "But His Highness the Duke asked his butler, Mr. Will, to stay here to assist us, and now everything is actually ready for the night."

　　Over the course of the last few days, the men of the Academy of Sciences, with the cooperation of the Orleans family, had accurately determined the straight-line distance from the watchtower at Fort Burton to the tops of the two unnamed hills nearby. In order to ensure the line of sight, they also cut down all the trees on top of those two nameless hills-which were also the property of the Orleans family anyway.

　　Now that everything was ready, all that was left was darkness. There wasn't much for everyone to do at this point, so they got together and discussed various scientific issues. Monge and Laplace got together to discuss the potential function formulation of the gravitational component of a celestial body to any mass outside it. Napoleon also came along to listen, but only just. Unlike Joseph, he was still able to interject a few words now and then.

　　At that point, the Orleans family came to invite everyone to dinner. Because the experiment was about to be conducted, the dinner was actually a working meal, and according to the standards of the Orleans family, it wasn't considered sumptuous at all. But even so, there were many things that Joseph and Napoleon had eaten for the first time. For example, truffle slices sandwiched between loaves of bread smeared with foie gras, and other things that Joseph had no idea what they were even when he ate them.

　　Once the meal was over, everyone got back into the carriage and headed for the castle, which was not far away. The carriage coiled up along the curved road, and in a short while, it reached the bottom of the castle.

　　Everyone got out of the carriage, and by this time, the sun in the west had already approached the horizon, and was becoming bigger and bigger and redder and redder.

　　The servants lit the horse lamps and led those from the Academy of Sciences into the old castle.

　　Buildings like castles, in order to ensure defense, usually had very thick stone walls, as well as very small, and usually inward-facing windows. So the ventilation and light of this type of building would be very poor, not to mention that it was already evening time, it was midday, and the inside of the castle would be so dark that it would need to be lit up with lamps. Therefore, unless the war era, the nobles are still less willing to live in the castle. Nowadays, because of the advancement of artillery, these ancient castles no longer have military significance, the nobles naturally even less will not live here, and even continue to take care of their expenses are not willing to pay, so these ancient castles are naturally generally dilapidated. Eerie, even in the daytime need to light the old castle, coupled with the dilapidated no one, these old castles one after another into the stage of ghost stories. Including now they enter the old castle, in fact, also has the "castle ghost" legend.

　　Joseph led Napoleon, followed by a servant with a horse lamp up the stone masonry curved steps, the servant used the horse lamp to shine on the steps, and at the same time specially reminded: "Sir, the castle is very humid, these stone steps are covered with moss, and it is very slippery, so be careful when you walk up."

　　"Thank you, we will pay attention." Joseph lowered his head and stared at the stone steps under his feet as he replied.

　　Soon they arrived at the topmost watchtower of the castle. It was a small platform that was about twenty meters long. At one end of this small platform, there was a firewood pile with wood that had been doused with whale oil. Once this firepit was lit, it gave off a brighter firelight relative to a normal flame. The light of this fire, under dark conditions, could be clearly seen even from nine furlongs or even farther. And at the other end of the platform, a set of eight mirrors that could be rotated were set up.

　　There was also a telescope set up on the platform, and looking through it, one could see that a set of reflectors had been mounted on the top of the mountain over there.

　　"Have these reflectors been tuned?" Joseph asked.

　　"All tuned. They can accurately reflect light onto the other side of the eight-sided mirror." Monge replied in a low voice.

　　The sun was getting lower and lower, finally sinking below the horizon. Only a little lavender afterglow remained in the western sky. Star after star became visible in the darkening canopy, and before long the sky was dotted with jewel-like stars.

　　Seeing that it was dark enough around them, Lavoisier said, "Well, it should be ready to begin."

　　One of the attendants lit a large fire with a torch in his hand, and then a firework rose from the top of yonder hill. This was to indicate to them that the firelight on this side could be clearly seen from the top of that mountain over there.

　　After getting this response, everyone then focused on the other side of the eight-sided mirror. This was because according to the experimental setup, the firelight was shot from one side on the rotating eight-sided mirror to the reflecting mirror on the other hill, and then reflected back. If the eight-sided mirror happened to rotate at a mirror angle during this time, then the light, which was reflected back, could be seen from the other side of the eight-sided mirror.

　　There is nothing reflected in that direction. The eight-sided mirror turned faster and faster, but still no fire was visible.

　　"It needs to go faster, faster." Joseph said as he stared at the spinning eight-sided mirror.

　　The speed of the spinning eight-sided mirror continued to increase, and finally, flickering fire began to flicker on the side everyone was staring at.

　　"Steady, steady the RPM, okay, okay! Quick, record the RPM!" Mon Ri shouted.

　　An assistant hurriedly recorded the RPMs.

　　Once the data came out, Joseph, Laplace, and Monge immediately gathered around. By the light of the fire, they began to calculate. Laplace came up with the answer first, then Monge also figured it out, as for Joseph, when they all figured it out, Joseph's calculations were only about two-thirds complete.

　　"Haha, Joseph, your calculations aren't good enough, you're actually so slow." Monge laughed out loud.

　　Napoleon was also filled with a gloating smile. Looking at his eyes, Joseph knew that this guy was thinking, "My stupid brother ah, you also have times when you are despised by others ah."

　　"Such complex arithmetic, in my previous life back then, it was all solved by hitting an enter, who would still use the manual way? I can have this kind of speed, it's already very impressive, it's not good enough, if it were someone else, it might not even be half of what I've accomplished at this moment." Joseph thought like this, and at the same time replied with a bitter smile, "My calculations aren't that good, I can't go fast enough, and if I speed up a little bit, I have to make a mistake. I can't help it."

　　The people next to him then laughed together.

　　In the midst of the laughter, Joseph also finished his own calculations. The three men compared their calculations and they were basically the same. Joseph silently converted the number into kilometers and concluded that it was already very close to the speed of light measured by his descendants.

　　"It's actually that fast?" Laplace murmured, "If light is indeed a wave, what kind of strange properties should the Ether possess? It's unimaginable! But if light is a particle, what about double-slit interference and Bonaparte's bright spots ..."

　　"Let's be bold, what if the medium of propagation of light is not some kind of matter, as we usually think of it, but space itself?" Napoleon, who was off to the side, suddenly spoke up.

　　"Space itself? Light is actually a fluctuation of space?" Condorcet immediately spoke up when he heard that, "Ah, Napoleon, you have a talent for philosophy. But this idea as a conjecture in terms of science would obviously lack sufficient evidence. Science requires evidence, just like that conjecture of your brother's, which is at least supported by a set of mathematical models. This idea, though, is really ... unfortunate that we don't have any usable research methods for space itself."

　　And Napoleon's remark took Joseph by surprise. He knew, of course, that while light ether and all that didn't exist, light wasn't a fluctuation of space. Space could indeed have fluctuations, but those fluctuations were not light, they were gravitational waves.

　　"This guy, this guy has a bit of imagination ah. If we seriously cultivate it, can we cultivate him to be crooked and eventually crooked into the emperor of physics?" Joseph couldn't help but think this way.