Chapter 549: Magnetic Lines of Force
This article was quickly published in the top-tier journal Magic. In just four short pages, the entire Academic City instantly exploded. People discussed the relationship between electricity and magnetism one after another. Whether rotational force conformed to magical mechanics caused widespread controversy.
Fortunately, before the dust settled, no one’s head exploded because of it.
The morning sunlight poured down. In Academic City, a city entirely composed of wizards, countless golems and animated construct creatures were still busy. The occasional two or three wizards seen were all loudly discussing topics like “magnetic effect of electric current” and “rotational force.”
In the grand auditorium where wizards routinely gathered to communicate, many wizards gathered here spontaneously. They discussed eagerly and fiercely, flushed with excitement. They didn’t look like powerful wizards at all, but more like vendors and customers in a vegetable market.
“Rotational force is also a kind of force; it might not necessarily fall outside magical mechanics.”
“That’s not certain. Lord Ace also said that magical mechanics is only a relative truth and has its scope of application. Once it surpasses that scope, truth turns into fallacy.”
“Directly assuming magical mechanics is wrong is probably a fallacy too, right?”
“It’s not assuming magical mechanics is wrong, but recognizing the concept of relative truth. I think you’re the one trapped in your own stubbornness.”
Amidst the discussions ending in discord, many wizards didn’t focus their attention on rotational force. They were more interested in the magnetic effect of electric current. Although rotational force and the magnetic effect of electric current were inseparable, the concept of electricity generating magnetism obviously left much room for imagination.
Inside Leyden’s laboratory. As the wizard who invented the “Bruce Pile,” Leyden was very sensitive to academic papers on electromagnetism. After reading Thales’s short four-page paper, his heart was greatly shocked.
“Thales is truly a genius figure, to actually be able to discover the magnetic effect of electric current with such a simple experiment. Thanks to Lord Ace’s Magic Net, otherwise electromagnetism couldn’t have developed so fast. I think rotational force should be the key to explaining magnetic phenomena. Magnetic force, electric force, gravity—I need new experiments.”
He quickly buried himself in the laboratory, constantly designing experiments. After failing dozens of times, he finally designed a successful experiment.
Place two wires parallel to each other. One is fixed, and the other is suspended and free to rotate. By changing the magnitude and direction of the current, and the length of the wire segments, measure the change in the position of the wire.
The suspended wire can twist and swing freely, and the swing angle can be calculated using a measuring gauge above.
The suspended wire is parallel to the fixed wire. When both wires are connected to a power source, they interact, and the suspended wire swings.
The experimental results were as follows:
When the current direction is the same, the two wires repel each other; when the current direction is opposite, the two wires attract each other.
The force of interaction between unit lengths of wire is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them, and directly proportional to the product of the magnitudes of the currents.
Leyden organized his experiment into a paper. The Power of Great Source also surged rapidly into Leyden’s body through the Magic Net. His power was enhanced to a certain extent. However, this level of enhancement only strengthened his strength at the Golden Wizard level; it was not yet enough to let him break through to a Legendary Wizard.
But even so, his discovery was still extremely great. This law clashed with magical mechanics once again!
Leyden inexplicably let out a long sigh and murmured: “The rotational force generated by electric force definitely applies to action at a distance. Without a doubt, we have not broken through the ruling domain of magical mechanics.”
Both regretful and rejoicing, carrying an inexplicable emotion, Leyden mailed this paper to the editorial department of Magic.
Leyden’s paper caused widespread repercussions. Many fans of magical mechanics were celebrating. This was undoubtedly another victory for magical mechanics, a manifestation of His Holiness Ace’s greatness.
At the same time, Leyden’s fame rose rapidly. He began to be equally famous as Thales in the electromagnetic field. They were collectively called the “Twin Blades of Electromagnetism” by the wizards, and the new theory began to be called “Electricity and Magnetism.”
Ace quietly observed this electromagnetic revolution sweeping through the Celestial Realm. This was a revolution about force, the naturally born result of the Wizard Civilization that Ace had cultivated for many years. He gladly accepted all this, and this revolution produced an even more profound impact on the entire Wizard World.
This world was branded with more marks of wizards, increasingly living up to its name, the Wizard World.
Research on electricity and magnetism grew more and more. Allen, as a wizard who originally loved electromagnetism very much, was also researching. He had returned to the Celestial Realm from the Blood Origin Planet. Eva and Luther stayed on the Blood Origin Planet to continue that social experiment.
Bruce and Allen hit it off immediately. The two of them established the Blue-Allen Joint Laboratory. Their first subject was attempting to explain magnetic phenomena.
Allen said to Bruce : “I believe that magnetic phenomena are essentially electric currents. According to current micro-domain research, we have not yet discovered the hypothesized atoms, but molecules can already be observed. We can hypothesize that electric currents exist in all molecules, and then use hypothetical thinking to try to explain electricity and magnetism.”
Blue also agreed: “Just like the phlogiston hypothesis back then, we can first use an approximate way to get closer to the truth. As long as we can understand the reality of the world to a certain extent, we can get positive feedback from the world, and even take the opportunity to break through to the Legendary level.”
They began discussing theoretical hypotheses all day long. Once, during a nap, Allen dreamt that he became very, very small, as small as a molecule.
Every molecule was shrouded in a circular electric current, haphazardly arranged relative to each other. Allen directed the molecules to form a queue, aligning the directions of the currents consistently, and suddenly woke up.
He climbed up with a roll, found the sleeping Bruce, shook him awake, and said: “If every molecule, every molecule composing an object, has a circular electric current, we assume it is the elementary current. This elementary current generates magnetism. The elementary currents of general objects are haphazard, so the generated magnetic forces cancel each other out, not displaying magnetism at the macro level.
“When there is strong magnetic action from outside, the directions of the molecular currents of the object become consistent, and the magnetic field direction is also consistent. From a macro perspective, the object is magnetized.”
Hearing this, Blue thought this statement was quite interesting. The two discussed all night and finally wrote a paper named Hypothesis of Molecular Elementary Current, published in Wisdom of Spells.
Because of the precedent of the phlogiston hypothesis, they emphatically noted right from the start that this was only a hypothesis. Even so, this hypothesis still explained many things to a certain extent. Based on this hypothesis, Allen also successfully constructed several magnetic spells.
Many wizards who didn’t pay attention to theory saw that the magnetic spells were powerful and directly used them.
But Allen was still unsatisfied. He tried to explain the elementary current from the perspectives of universal gravitation and action at a distance, but to no avail. Unwilling to give up, he needed experiments to provide evidence. Therefore, he and Blue designed an experiment like this.
Fix a coil and suspend a light copper ring. When a current passes through the coil, a strong magnetic field will be generated.
Allen believed that if the strong magnetic field could magnetize the copper ring—that is, the molecular currents align in the same direction—then when close to a small magnet, the copper ring would sway.
Unfortunately, things went contrary to wishes. When Bruce brought the bar magnet close, the copper ring did not change.
Allen frowned and said: “Perhaps copper is not as easily magnetized as iron.”
Bruce nodded and said: “Let’s redesign this experiment and replace the magnetic bar with a stronger horseshoe magnet.”
This experiment was very weird. At the instant the power was turned on and off, the copper ring twisted slightly, and quickly returned to its original state. When the current was continuous, the copper ring was the same as last time.
Bruce Blue and Allen noticed the situation at the instant the power was turned on and off. Blue said: “Perhaps some substances cannot be permanently magnetized very easily like iron, and might only be temporarily magnetized.”
Allen, on the other hand, thought: “Magnetic induction can generate an electric current, but this has nothing to do with the molecular elementary current hypothesis we want to verify.”
When speaking, he also forgot that this was just a hypothesis, which might have nothing to do with the factual situation. The two organized this experiment into a paper, casually mentioning the phenomenon of induced current.
Can magnetism generate electricity?
Such an answer that might change the world was handed over on a silver platter by Allen and Bruce . But when Thales saw the paper, his eyes widened. He keenly realized that the answer to magnetism generating electricity might be hidden within it.
However, after repeating Allen’s experiment, Thales gained nothing; there wasn’t even the slight rotation the two mentioned.
Extremely puzzled, Thales personally visited Allen and Blue to seek advice. After a conversation, he learned that Blue had written the experimental report wrong: he wrote ‘copper disk’ instead of ‘copper ring.’
Thales took his leave and thanked the two, then continued experimenting. After multiple failures, Thales redesigned the experiment.
His new experiment was very simple. He wound a coil on each side of an iron ring. One side was connected to a power source, and the other side was connected to a small magnetic needle monitoring the current.
When the switch was closed or opened, the magnetic needle deflected, oscillating before returning to its original position.
“No mistake, this is magnetism generating electricity! It’s just that the induced current is too fleeting; many people haven’t observed it. I am once again lucky to stand on the shoulders of giants.”
Thales was not in a hurry to publish the paper. Instead, he continued to conduct a large number of electromagnetic experiments. Finally, he confirmed that the situations producing induced current can be divided into five categories: changing current, changing magnetic force, constant current in motion, moving magnetism, and a conductor moving in magnetism.
He synthesized all the experimental results and named these five phenomena “Electromagnetic Induction.”
The Magic Net was already mobilizing Source Power to vibrate. It seemed that as soon as Thales finished the paper, the world feedback would descend under the guidance of the Dream Core.
Ever since the birth of the Magic Net, world feedback no longer caused violent natural anomalies. Transmitting through the Magic Net could save energy to the greatest extent and reduce the commotion during feedback.
Thales didn’t notice this change. He murmured: “How to explain electromagnetic induction, how to explain it?”
Throwing the half-written paper aside, Thales turned back to the laboratory. The current in the closed-loop coil completed by the “Bruce Pile” was still flowing continuously. It seemed to have some kind of inertia, so it always wanted to maintain its original state.
When the magnetism in the coil changes, the coil will be in a state somewhat akin to tension, thus generating an induced current. The induced current will in turn generate new magnetism in the coil, and the new magnetism will resist the change of external magnetism, forever wanting to keep the coil in a state of equilibrium.
Thales murmured: “Perhaps this state tending towards equilibrium can be called the electrotonic state.”
But this state was too vague. Thales accidentally placed iron filings on a piece of white paper, and placed the white paper on top of a magnet. He found that the iron filings actually distributed regularly.
He said in surprise: “This distribution seems as if there are invisible lines, which can be called magnetic lines of force. The explanatory power of the electrotonic state is not as simple and clear as these magnetic lines of force.”
Thus, a voluminous paper named Electromagnetic Induction and Magnetic Lines of Force was born. When Thales wrote down the last word, the new Source Power merged with the Source Power originally waiting here through the Magic Net. The world’s feedback entered Thales’s body and soul in an instant.
It washed and elevated his life essence, letting him advance to a Level 2 Lifeform in an instant. This advancement was so smooth that Thales felt it was somewhat unreal.
“This feedback should be a relatively important discovery, right? To advance so smoothly is truly unexpected.”
The Soul Sanctuary space naturally evolved into the mental imagery world. The phantom of a heaven-bestowed spell model shaped like magnetic lines of force was already suspended in Thales’s mental imagery world.
He was not in a hurry to establish the foundational spell model for his mental imagery world. Instead, he mailed this paper out via a Shadow Crow and lay on the bed sleeping soundly.
The next day, the editorial department of Magic worked almost overnight to add a special issue, publishing Thales’s voluminous work separately as a special issue.
People scrambled to buy it, reading Thales’s latest research results. The large amount of detailed experimental evidence, the five clear phenomena, and the proposition of the concept of magnetic lines of force convinced every reading wizard. Bruce and Allen, on the other hand, looked at each other with wry smiles.
Bruce said: “Thales is indeed a genius. He specifically thanked the two of us, modestly saying the results were discovered together with us, but we both know we overlooked it.”
Allen nodded: “Indeed. Although we gave Thales a certain amount of inspiration, these five phenomena and the concept of magnetic lines of force he summarized are absolutely genius and original.”
The two wrote a letter to the High Tower Academic Committee, declining the honor Thales wanted to share with them. Thales, who had just woken up from his sleep, heard about this matter. He specially sought out Bruce and Allen. After multiple persuasions, finally, the three shared this honor.
On this day, Ace gathered all Legendary Wizards and held a Supreme Council meeting.
A newcomer arrived at the Council: Big Hat Logan. He finally obtained enough Source Power, broke away from the planet he ruled, and ascended to the Celestial Realm.
Thus far, the Wizard World had a total of seven Legendary Wizards: Bayen, Daina, Betty, Witte, Warren, Laval, and Logan. The Supreme Council of the Magic Council also had eight members, including Ace.
After everyone arrived, Ace said: “Gathering everyone today, there is only one proposal. I propose setting up a number of outstanding academic awards to encourage and honor our wizards to devote themselves to magic research with a more focused spirit.”
The rotating chairman Dana stood up, bowed slightly, and asked gently: “Lord Ace wants to set up a series of awards specifically rewarding academic research results?”
Ace nodded and said: “This is my plan: establish the comprehensive highest award, the Ace Magic Award; and the secondary highest discipline awards: the Logan Element Award, the Bayen Astrology Award, the Warren Life Award, the Witte Soul Award, the Betty Alchemy Award, and the Daina Contract Award. A total of seven awards, not awarded every year. Only when a wizard’s academic achievements receive evaluations from the Academic Committee such as extremely historic, extremely pioneering, and extremely original, will we present the award.
“If no one meets the criteria, we cannot lower the standard, and the award will be postponed.”
The Legendary Wizards nodded. Bayen asked: “Then how do we set the prizes for our awards?”
Ace said: “My preliminary plan is that the highest discipline award rewards one top-grade Golden-level magic item and a large amount of magic stones. The comprehensive highest award rewards one top-tier Legendary-level magic item and two top-grade Golden-level magic items. The specific standards and operational details will be discussed and decided by you.”
After finishing speaking, Ace’s figure flashed and disappeared from the meeting room. The Legendary Wizards looked at each other. The rotating chairman Daina stood up and began presiding over the discussion.
In the new world, there was no original Wizard Agreement. But Ace, as the Controller of the world, still continued the agreement. So He also knew a series of spell models obtained concerning electromagnetic research.
These spell models in turn adjusted his mental imagery world and the projected demi-plane, the “Dream Realm.”
The entire Dream Realm nebula blinked continuously. Ace’s eyes flickered with white light, murmuring: “It’s really not easy for me to wait. If it weren’t for nurturing the endogenous power of the Wizard Civilization, I’d really want to overstep and accelerate all this.”
A mass of star sand gathered before him, manifesting a picture—it was Thales.
Thales looked excited. He had just confirmed through experiments that the induced current is directly proportional to the conductivity of the conductor, and inversely proportional to the resistance.
“No mistake. The current generated by the Bruce Pile and the induced current are the same thing. Since they have the same properties, then the induced current should also have electromotive force, the so-called induced electromotive force. And the induced current is precisely generated by the induced electromotive force.
“The relationship between the two is the same as the relationship between electromotive force and current. Induced electromotive force is the cause, and induced current is the effect.”
While speaking, Thales wrote furiously: “Changing magnetic force does not necessarily have an induced current, but it definitely has an induced electromotive force. Just like water flowing down from a mountain; whether there is water or not, the terrain of the mountain definitely exists.
“If there is a closed circuit, then the induced electromotive force has ‘water.’ When the magnetic force in a circuit increases, the direction of the induced magnetic force generated by the circuit’s induced current is opposite to the external magnetic force direction, just like refusing external magnetic force from entering the circuit. When the external magnetic force weakens, the direction of the induced magnetic force is the same as the external direction, just like wanting to keep the external magnetic force there. This change is the same as inertia.
“Here I propose a concept named ‘magnetic flux,’ simply understood as the strength of the magnetic lines of force passing through a unit area. The strength here refers to the number and density of the magnetic lines of force.
“Thus we can explain the condition for generating an induced current: the magnetic flux passing through a closed circuit has changed.
“This also explains the Allen-Bruce copper ring experiment. An induced current was generated precisely because the magnetic flux in the copper ring changed.”
After writing all this, Thales put down the paper, his eyes bright, and said: “Actually, when I used the copper disk initially, an induced current should also have been generated. It’s just that the moment of inertia of the copper disk was too large, making it not easy to rotate. In that case, it should be possible to make a real generator based on the principle of induced current!”
He made a base, then got a few wooden brackets, laid a U-shaped magnet flat and fixed it on the brackets. Then he placed a copper disk in the middle of the U-shaped magnet, reinforced the shaft and handle, and added corresponding wires.
Turning the handle, the copper disk rotated. From the edge of the copper disk to the center is equivalent to a conductor. When the conductor moves in the magnetic lines of force, it will cut the magnetic lines of force, thereby generating an induced current. Thus, this hand-cranked copper disk was the first generator!
Although the generated current was very weak, far inferior to magical power generation, this still held extremely important significance, because all the principles were the same.
The spell model in Thales’s mental imagery world also became clearer and clearer. And with the clarity of thought, a purely magical “generator” spell gradually came into being. The principle of electromagnetic rotation would be the application cornerstone of electromagnetic magic.
Leyden, who was sleeping, heard the sound of the Shadow Crow tapping the window. He rubbed his eyes, climbed up, and muttered in a low voice: “Why again? Is there another explosive new discovery?”
Pulling a scroll from the Shadow Crow’s mouth and skillfully stuffing a few magic stones in, Leyden opened it to look, and his sleepiness instantly dissipated. Thales, who proposed the concept of magnetic lines of force, had made new discoveries again. He actually created a generator, and the principles it was based on were even more dazzling.
“The principle of electromagnetic rotation, induced electromotive force, magnetic flux—this is simply apocalyptic wisdom. If Lord Ace laid the foundation of mechanics, then Thales is the cornerstone of electromagnetism.”
At the same time, the Supreme Council also issued Order No. 1 of this year, in the name of His Holiness Ace, establishing the highest academic award, the Ace Magic Award, and setting up category awards: the Bayen Astrology Award, the Logan Element Award, the Warren Life Award, the Witte Soul Award, the Betty Alchemy Award, and the Daina Contract Award. A total of seven awards.
Among them, Warren and Daina were not originally wizards specializing in Life Magic and Contract Summoning Magic. It was just that these two disciplines needed two Legendary Wizards to title them, so they had no choice but to lend their names and formally take charge.
Actually, speaking solely of Life Magic, the Lich Witte was very proficient in this. Driven to take on a task he wasn’t adept at, Warren began to frequently visit Witte to seek advice on the mysteries of Life Magic.
After the academic awards were established, Thales received the notification almost immediately, becoming the first winner of the Bayen Astrology Award. Bruce , Allen, Leyden, and others were arranged for the subsequent years. Thales’s contribution could actually earn more than the Bayen Astrology Award; even the Ace Magic Award was something he was qualified for.
It was just that the Supreme Council, considering the weight of the award, felt it was more appropriate to present the discipline awards first before presenting the highest award. Thus, a tradition was also formed: to obtain the Ace Magic Award, one must have won the highest awards in all six major discipline categories.
Bayen also personally sought out Thales. Having a title was not just an honor, but more of a responsibility. As the titling Legendary Wizard, Bayen had to personally make two Golden magic items for Thales.
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