Chapter 189: The Storm and the Constant

Kingdom Magic Association Headquarters.

President Samuel felt like he was about to die.

Ever since Klein and Lia overturned the aether theory and proposed the constancy of the speed of light, his office had become the busiest battlefield on the entire continent.

Countless letters and communication requests flooded in every day.

Mages from the velocity school were wailing; half of their spell models were based on the theory of velocity superposition, and now they were all useless scraps of paper.

Theoretical scholars were split into several factions, attacking each other and cursing one another as heretics.

He had just dealt with a duel application sparked by a debate over “whether photons get tired or not.”

Just when he thought he could finally have a sip of water, the teleportation array on his desk lit up.

A scroll of parchment appeared out of thin air.

Samuel’s heart sank.

He suddenly had an ominous premonition.

With trembling hands, he unrolled the parchment.

On the Spacetime Basis of Moving Bodies.

He saw the title.

Then, he saw the two declarations that were being revered as postulates.

Next, he saw a set of “Spacetime Transformation Equations” that he didn’t quite understand at first glance but felt were incredibly complex.

Finally, he saw the two conclusions marked prominently in red ink:

“One: A moving clock will run slower.”

“Two: A moving object will contract in its direction of motion.”

Samuel’s eyes widened like copper bells.

He read it over and over again.

He confirmed that he recognized every single word, but when put together, he couldn’t comprehend them at all.

Time slows down?

Rulers shorten?

What kind of madness was this?

But after he did his own secondary calculations, he discovered that the theory was surprisingly self-consistent, and he couldn’t find any loopholes!

Samuel felt as if his brain had been struck by a heavy hammer.

The cracks in his worldview spread throughout his mind.

“Someone!” he roared with all his might.

A young assistant scrambled into the room.

“President, what’s wrong?”

“Publish this… publish this immediately!”

Samuel pointed at the parchment, panting heavily.

“Also, prepare a pool of Chronos Potion for me! Maximum dosage!”

The assistant picked up the parchment, took one look, and his face instantly turned pale. His hand trembled, nearly dropping the scroll.

Samuel collapsed into his chair, feeling completely drained.

He knew that a superstorm, countless times more violent than any before, was about to sweep through the entire magic world.

He could almost hear the sound of countless mages’ brains exploding.

The publication of On the Spacetime Basis of Moving Bodies was like a blockbuster bomb, setting off a monstrous wave in a calm lake.

The entire magic world fell into unprecedented division and chaos.

A portion of the more forward-thinking young mages with solid mathematical foundations, after a brief period of shock, were immediately captivated by the mathematical beauty displayed in the paper.

They forgot to eat and sleep, studying the set of spacetime transformation equations, trying to unearth more secrets from within.

They formed various research groups, calling themselves the “Constant Light Speed Faction,” and revered Klein and Lia as the prophets of a new era.

But many more people sneered at the paper.

“Absurd! Utter nonsense!”

In a public lecture at the Royal Magic Academy, a white-haired Eighth-Circle Master slammed a copy of the paper onto the ground.

“Time is sacred, it is absolute! How can it slow down just because you run faster? Space is stable, it is solid! How can it contract just because you move a little?”

“This is a blasphemy against physics! A betrayal of the truth!”

“The person who proposed this theory is either a madman or a charlatan seeking sensationalism!”

His words were met with a chorus of agreement from the audience.

In their view, time and space were the most fundamental cornerstones of this world, absolutely unshakeable.

If even time and space were relative, what else could be trusted?

Wouldn’t the entire order of the world be on the verge of collapse?

Panic began to spread.

Some mages, while trying to understand the new theory, suffered from mental disturbances due to their inability to reconcile the conflict between the new and old concepts, and had to go into seclusion to recuperate.

Some even publicly declared that this was a precursor to the apocalypse, a lie spread by an evil god to disrupt the world’s order.

However, the clamor from the outside world did not affect Klein’s mage tower in the slightest.

Klein and Lia paid no attention to the external debates.

They were standing at a new starting point, preparing to assault the next domain.

Dynamics.

“The old kinematics is dead.”

Lia pointed to the crossed-out Galilean transformations on the blackboard. “But its ghost still haunts the realm of dynamics.”

She wrote a classic formula on the blackboard.
p = mv
Momentum equals mass times velocity.

This was the core of classical dynamics.

The law of conservation of momentum was one of the most sacred laws in physics.

‘Whether it’s tossing a stone on the ground or calculating the orbits of celestial bodies among the stars, it applies perfectly.’

“Now, we must test whether this sacred law remains sacred under the new view of spacetime.”

Klein’s gaze was as sharp as a knife.

He began to construct a new thought experiment.

A collision experiment.

In frame S’, there are two identical small balls, A and B. Their masses are both m₀.

They move towards each other along the y-axis with opposite velocities u’ and -u’, and then undergo a perfectly elastic collision.

After the collision, the velocity of ball A becomes -u’, and the velocity of ball B becomes u’.

In frame S’, the total momentum of the system is p’_before = m₀u’ + m₀(-u’) = 0 and p’_after = m₀(-u’) + m₀u’ = 0.

Momentum is conserved.

Perfect.

Now, switch perspectives.

We stand in frame S and observe this collision.

Frame S’ is moving at a high speed v along the x-axis.

We must use the spacetime transformation equations we just derived to calculate the velocities of the small balls as seen from frame S.

This was a complex problem of velocity composition.

It was no longer a simple vector addition.

Klein took a deep breath and began to derive the new velocity composition formula on the blackboard.

He started from the spacetime transformation equations, differentiating x’, y’, z’ with respect to t.

After some arduous calculations, he obtained the velocity transformation relations between frame S and frame S’.

Looking at this ugly set of formulas, Klein’s brow furrowed again.

Velocity composition in the old world was so simple.

Velocity composition in the new world was so complex.

But he didn’t stop.

He substituted the velocities of the small balls in frame S’ (u’ or -u’) into this set of formulas.

He calculated the velocity components of balls A and B as seen from frame S before the collision.

Then, he calculated the velocity components of balls A and B as seen from frame S after the collision.

Finally, he began to calculate the total momentum in frame S.

He multiplied the velocities of the balls by their masses (m₀).

He first calculated the total momentum before the collision.

Then he calculated the total momentum after the collision.

He compared the two results.

They were not equal.

Klein’s movements froze.

The result on the blackboard was like a merciless slap in the face.

In frame S, momentum was not conserved.

How could this be possible?

All physical laws should have the same form in all inertial frames.

If momentum was conserved in frame S’, then it must also be conserved in frame S.

This was one of the foundations of the new theoretical edifice and could absolutely not be shaken.

“Something’s wrong,” Klein muttered to himself.

He began to recheck his calculations repeatedly.

Every step, every symbol, he checked no less than ten times.

There were no mistakes.

The calculation process was flawless.

Then where was the problem?

Could it be that the law of conservation of momentum itself was wrong?

The moment this idea appeared, Klein immediately dismissed it.

If even conservation of momentum was to be overturned, the entire edifice of physics would completely collapse.

That would be a catastrophe even more terrifying than relative time and space.

Klein fell into deep thought.

He stared at the classical momentum formula on the blackboard, p = m₀v, as if to see through it.

To preserve the conservation of momentum, he had to make a correction to this system.

He tried introducing various complex correction terms, attempting to make the momentum before and after the collision equal.

He hypothesized that momentum was not only related to velocity but also to acceleration, and even higher-order derivatives.

But all his attempts made the formulas incredibly ugly and bloated.

This did not fit his aesthetic sense of physics.

Truth must be simple.

He felt himself hitting an invisible wall once again.

“Perhaps, what needs to be changed is not the law itself…”

Lia’s voice sounded by his ear, like a sound from heaven.

She was holding a steaming cup of coffee and handed it to him.

“…but one of the ‘constants’ in the law?”

Klein took the coffee, stunned.

‘A constant in the law?’

In the formula p = m₀v, p and v are variables, p is the result.

The only “constant” is mass, m₀.

Mass, an intrinsic, unchanging property of an object.

Could the mass of an object possibly change?

This idea was even more insane, more heretical than time slowing down or length contracting.

Lia’s words were like a bolt of lightning, splitting open the fog in Klein’s mind.

He spun around abruptly and rushed back to the blackboard.

“What if… what if mass is not a constant?”

“What if mass is a function of velocity?”

His voice trembled slightly with excitement.

He no longer regarded mass m₀ as a fixed value.

He assumed that in frame S, the mass of a ball, m, was a function of its velocity v in frame S.

He rewrote the momentum conservation equation in frame S.

This time, mass was treated as an unknown function, participating in the calculation.

The equation became even more complex.

But the light in his eyes grew brighter and brighter.

His intuition told him that he was on the right path.

📚 Also on NHV Novels

We Transmigrated Together, So Why Are YOU The Only Guy Left?

dominant MLFantasy RomanceFriendsToLovers

Read Now →
Not interested