I Pioneered Scientific Magic -
Chapter 74: A Step Closer to the Truth
Amidst the gaze of the crowd, the airship began to descend slowly and soon hovered about forty meters above the square.
All the wizards on the square and the sharp-eyed townsfolk could see two round balls hanging beneath the airship.
The first had a diameter of about half a meter, made entirely of metal and tethered by a thick leather rope, which appeared taut and on the verge of breaking at any moment.
The other ball was only about one-third the size of the first, and even to the naked eye, the enormous difference in their mass was evident.
Lynn waited until the sea breeze that had been blowing gradually subsided, and at the moment when the airship truly stabilized in mid-air, he picked up a red flag and waved it.
Inside the airship, Lydia, who was crouched on the edge, on a stool, also waved the flag in response.
"It's begun!" Lynn announced.
The attention of everyone present was now focused on the two suspended balls beneath the airship.
As another lever was pulled by Lydia, the two ropes were instantly released, and both iron balls fell at the same moment.
"The big one is faster! The big one is faster!" A young wizard exclaimed with excitement. Thanks to farsight magic, he could clearly and accurately see that the larger iron ball had descended first when the ropes broke.
However, the excitement on the wizard's face was short-lived, as the large iron ball did not outpace the smaller one in speed as he had anticipated. Instead, it maintained a very close distance to the small iron ball.
It wasn't so much that the larger iron ball fell faster as it was that the ropes restraining the larger ball had snapped more tightly, causing it to drop a split second earlier.
Lynn had never been concerned because he had carefully calculated the data for both iron balls. While the larger ball had greater mass, its windward surface was also larger, which meant it experienced more air resistance.
As expected, in the second second of their descent, the heights of the two iron balls remained almost identical.
"This can't be, this isn't right!" The wizards who witnessed this scene wore expressions of disbelief, with some even speculating whether Lynn had secretly cast a Slow Fall spell on the larger iron ball, causing this astonishing result.
But before they could finish that thought, the massive iron ball, weighing over half a ton, crashed straight onto the square.
In an instant, the entire square seemed to tremble. The tremendous impact caused the large iron ball to embed deeply into the sandy ground as the surrounding sand erupted like a stone rain, scattering in all directions.
An invisible magical barrier surrounded the central part of the square, and the sand and stones striking it produced a continuous crackling sound.
Due to their trust in the Grand Wizard, not many people paid attention to the flying sand and were fixedly gazing at the two round balls in the center of the square.
The heavy iron ball had already sunken deeply into the center of the square, and the scattered sand had formed a pit about three meters in diameter, with fine sand still accumulating around it.
Underneath the smaller iron ball, the pit was even smaller, barely a few tens of centimeters in size, quickly filling with sand.
Just as Lynn had stated earlier, the two spheres, despite their vastly different masses, had crossed a distance of forty meters almost simultaneously, reaching the ground.
But how could this be? Wasn't the heavier one supposed to land first?
"Professor Herlram, can I confirm this?" the young wizard eagerly inquired.
The Grand Wizard did not answer but turned to Lynn. Seeing Lynn nod, he removed the magic barrier.
The young wizard immediately ran over, unconcerned that his ankle sank into the sand, and picked up the small iron ball, which was only palm-sized. He also gave it a toss.
"It's indeed very light!" The wizard pondered, estimating the weight of the small ball to be around twenty kilograms, with no traces of magic.
Could it be that there's an issue with the larger iron ball?
Unconvinced, the young wizard placed the small ball on the ground and attempted to lift the larger iron ball, which was about half a meter in diameter. However, no matter how much effort he exerted, he couldn't budge the thing from the sandy ground.
How heavy is this thing?
The young wizard was astonished, confirming that Lynn hadn't cut any corners.
"If anyone still has doubts, feel free to come and check," Lynn said nonchalantly, getting approval from the skeptics among the wizards and even the townsfolk. They stepped into the sand and used their hands to verify the weight difference between the two spheres.
Just as they saw with their eyes, the difference was significant, with only a few shape-shifting wizards capable of lifting the large ball.
In the end, Herlram used Mage Hand to pull the large ball out of the sand and weighed it in his hands.
"Approximately half a ton!" Herlram pondered for a moment and made a relatively accurate judgment.
Philip, Kevin, Theodore, and others exchanged glances, unable to hide their amazement. Lynn's statement that the two balls had a weight difference of tens of times was too conservative; the actual difference was twenty-five times!
"But it's so strange, why is it like this?" Rorl looked at Lynn, puzzled. He didn't care about the three gold coins he lost but was greatly perplexed by this phenomenon that contradicted common sense.
He had personally witnessed the horrifying destruction caused by the large iron ball when it landed, indicating its tremendous weight. Yet both iron balls had descended at the same speed.
And this had nothing to do with magic!
"We can figure it out with a simple hypothesis," Lynn said, addressing the confused and doubtful gazes in the square, emphasizing his words. "According to Master Yad's theory, an object's falling speed is directly proportional to its weight. Is that right?"
Rorl and the others nodded. Lynn then pointed to the two spheres.
"So, if I were to tie this small iron ball to the large iron ball with a rope and drop them from a height, do you think the falling speed would be faster or slower?"
"Of course, it would be faster because the total weight increases," Rorl replied without hesitation. However, a few wizards immediately countered, "No, it should be slower! The small ball's mass is much lower than the large ball, so its descent should be much slower and thus should slow down the large iron ball's fall."
"If the large iron ball takes four seconds to fall, and the small ball takes nine seconds, then when they're tied together and fall simultaneously, the landing time should be between four and nine seconds."
Lynn hadn't even had a chance to respond, and the two groups of wizards were already arguing. Jonny, Elok, and the others listened, feeling that both sides had reasonable arguments, yet they were contradicting each other.
"The answer is... almost no change!" Lynn interrupted the quarrel.
"How is that possible?" Philip frowned, rebuking. But as soon as he spoke, he froze, realizing that the experiment they had just witnessed proved that an object's falling speed had nothing to do with its weight, or at least not as much as they had expected.
"Mr. Rorl, can you give me a blank piece of paper?" Lynn was aware that many people present still had doubts. He turned to Rorl and asked.
"Of course." Rorl took out a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Lynn, curious about what Lynn wanted to do.
Lynn turned to the townsfolk, raising the paper. "Who can provide me with a book that's slightly wider than this piece of paper?"
In the midst of the commotion, a child contributed his storybook.
Lynn used Mage Hand to raise both the paper and the storybook two meters into the air, then let them fall together.
The paper slowly drifted down and took about four seconds to land, while the storybook, which was much heavier, crashed to the ground within a second.
"What are you doing?" Philip asked, puzzled. Wasn't this phenomenon contradicting his theory?
Lynn didn't answer but gently placed the paper on top of the storybook's cover and sent them back into the air, jokingly saying, "Come on, guess what will happen when they fall simultaneously now."
"There's no need to guess. Without a doubt, the paper will stay in the air, and the book will hit the ground first!" Philip declared confidently.
This time, both sides agreed with Philip because Lynn hadn't tied the two objects together; they couldn't be considered a single entity.
So, the result would undoubtedly be that the paper was slower, and the book was faster!
"Next, you need to pay close attention!" Lynn shook his head and dispelled the magic.
In the next moment, to the astonishment of everyone present, the paper did not float as they had imagined. Instead, it stuck to the cover of the book and fell down together with it.
The whole process took just one second, with the thin paper and the heavy book landing simultaneously.
The entire square fell into a deathly silence. They couldn't fathom why this had happened.
Reality had undoubtedly shattered their intuition once again!
Unless... it was indeed as Lynn had said, and the falling speed had little to do with weight.
"Is it because of the elimination of air resistance?" Herlram pondered. He could see that since Lynn had stuck the paper onto the book, the thin paper didn't have to contend with air resistance and would naturally fall alongside the book.
Unconvinced, Rorl repeated the experiment using Lynn's method, but the result remained unchanged.
Even the wizards who had been most opposed to it earlier had to consider that Master Yad's theory might indeed be flawed.
"Your wisdom is admirable, Master Herlram! It was because the book took on the role of air resistance instead of the paper that they fell together!" Lynn first praised Herlram naturally, then turned to the wizards who still hadn't recovered from the two surprising experiments.
"When I was with the Society of Mystical Arts, I once heard a great master say that this world is incredibly magical. Sometimes, certain phenomena surpass even our understanding. The process of wizards seeking the truth is like a group of blind men trying to touch an enormous dragon and replicate its form in their minds."
"The person who touches the dragon's leg believes the dragon looks like a cylinder, the one who touches the wing thinks it's like a disc, and the one who touches its elongated side... but undoubtedly, all these conclusions are partial!"
"Perhaps one day, another wizard will stand on this square and, through a rigorous experiment that no one can dispute, challenge this law of free fall. I will not be angry at all. On the contrary, I welcome anyone to question and repeatedly test this law!"
"Because every correction of an error means that we are one step closer to the truth!"
Lynn's resounding voice echoed throughout the square. After a brief moment of silence, thunderous applause filled the air.
Titik, Philip, and the others were both awestruck by the two experiments that had defied their expectations and deeply impressed by Lynn's magnanimity.
One had to understand that the debate over ideologies in the land of wizards was no laughing matter. Sometimes, the two schools of thought would even come to blows in their attempts to prove whose theory was correct.
But Lynn had taken a different approach, welcoming everyone to challenge his theory through experiments, which displayed a level of magnanimity worthy of admiration.
The townsfolk present joined in the applause. Those who were knowledgeable were genuinely convinced, while others found the whole discussion incomprehensible. A short, stout halfling looked at Darren, whose palms had turned red from applauding, and asked in a low voice.
"Did you understand what they were talking about, Darren?"
"Isn't it obvious? Master Yad's theory is wrong, and Lord Lynn's theory is correct!" Darren wore a contemptuous expression on his face, but in reality, he had no clue.
Air resistance, gravity, whatever; he could roughly follow these concepts, but when it came to explaining why a piece of paper could fall alongside a book, he was entirely clueless. But since those wizardly grown-ups were applauding, he was just following suit, so he couldn't be wrong!
Amid the enthusiastic applause, a massive airship slowly descended onto the sand. An agile halfling girl climbed down from the airship using a ladder, and when she saw everyone applauding her, her eyes squinted with joy.
"Voyager One's maiden flight was a success! All systems inside the airship are functioning normally. Captain Lydia requests further instructions!" Lydia rushed to Lynn, jogging up to him and performing an exaggerated salute. She said proudly, "There are no further instructions for now. Let's call it a day."
Lydia immediately transitioned from her role as captain. She was elated to share her experiences in the sky, recounting how she had steered the airship into a pristine white cloud, the distant towering mountains, and an endless sea that stretched as far as the eye could see.
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