The Shadow of Great Britain

183: Chapter 130 Arthur’s Electronic Theory 183: Chapter 130 Arthur’s Electronic Theory The sun set, the moon rose, and a breeze blew through the skies of London.

A group of ladies in long dresses and a throng of Colonels and Generals from the Royal Navy gathered around this iron cage, which, upon Arthur’s suggestion, had been improved a second time by Faraday.

Their gaze was filled with curiosity.

Of course, a cage was not enough to pique their interest.

What aroused their curiosity was why the young master of the Carter family had to be locked inside.

Eld’s face turned red, and although in the twilight, people could not discern his anxious mood, the newly installed gas lamps by the road still cast a hint of redness on his face.

“Arthur, Arthur!” Eld whispered urgently: “Damn it, this is not what we agreed upon!

Didn’t you say that you would be inside and I would be outside?”

As Arthur cranked the hand-operated generator, electricity arced from the discharge rod, causing the hair on Eld’s body to stand on end.

“Are you sure there won’t be any problems?

This thing won’t electrocute me, will it?”

“No,” Arthur replied calmly, “At most, it will just give you a numb feeling, you’ll recover after a bit.”

“Ah?” Eld’s face turned pale upon hearing this: “Didn’t you say that this thing is theoretically absolutely safe?”

Arthur replied: “Yes, it is theoretically absolutely safe.

But as you know, Eld, theory is theory, and reality is reality.

I can only tell you that there were no problems during the last experiment.

And even if there were problems, you don’t have to be too nervous; it’s nothing serious.

So, even if you do get shocked, please bear with it and don’t make a sound.”

Eld frowned: “Why can’t I make a sound?

Do you want me to prove my fearless courage?”

Arthur calmly turned the generator: “No, it’s to prove that my experiment has no problems.”

“Arthur, you…”

But Arthur had no intention of giving Eld the chance to curse him out.

He turned around, his face now bearing a confident smile.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for braving the chill of the evening to join us in the courtyard as I introduce to you yet another important breakthrough in the field of electromagnetism in Britain—the static shielding phenomenon.”

As he spoke, Arthur lifted a kerosene lamp to display a cloth in front of the assembled guests, handing the piece of cloth for each gentleman and lady to inspect.

“As you can see, this is an ordinary, unused cloth produced from the tailoring factories of Lancashire County, as sturdy and durable as other cotton products from Lancashire.

However, this cloth, which can be used in households for years or even decades, is no match for an electric current.”

Arthur took the cloth back from the guests’ hands and hung it on a clothesline that had been prepared beforehand.

He cranked the portable generator strapped to his back and in an instant, a serpentine bolt of electricity shot out from the discharge rod, striking the surface of the cloth.

A bright flash passed, and the electric current instantly penetrated the cloth, leaving a small black hole on its surface.

As the current continued to flow, it wasn’t long before sparks rose from the cloth’s surface, followed by flames that engulfed the cloth, casting it into the night’s oblivion.

The ladies all covered their mouths with their fans: “Good heavens!

So, you plan to use this device to electrocute Mr.

Carter who’s locked in the cage?”

Arthur replied with some regret: “Actually, the output power of the hand-operated generator is still a bit low.

I had originally planned to bring the giant Voltaic pile from the Royal Society over here.

That room-sized pile can produce over one hundred thousand units of voltage.

If I could use it for the demonstration, I believe I could more clearly demonstrate to everyone the formidable destructive power of electricity.

But Mr.

Faraday told me that although he agreed to lend me the Voltaic pile, if I damaged it during the transfer, I would have to fix it.

I thought it over for quite a while but eventually had to abandon the idea of borrowing the pile.”

A lady wearing white lace gloves, a silver-white satin gown with exposed shoulders, her hair arranged in a braided updo, and adorned with a pale yellow shawl, expressed her surprise.

“I…I had heard that electrical researchers are all quite mad, the more accomplished they are in the field of electricity, the more dangerous they are, and it seems this is not just a mere rumor.”

Arthur, catching sight of the lady’s braided updo, could not help but jest: “Madam, your hairstyle is equally dangerous; perhaps you might consider researching electricity as well.

But your impression of electrical researchers is indeed quite correct; it is a very dangerous field of study.

I know that the gentlemen and ladies present are somewhat versed in the realm of science, so you must surely know of the French electrical researcher, Priest Jean-Antoine Nollet.

He is not only a member of the British Royal Society but also former president of the French Academy of Sciences, as well as an early sponsor of the Leyden jar capacitor inventors.

In order to figure out just how fast electricity travels, Priest Nollet arranged a large group of Leyden jars.

He then gathered 200 priests from the monastery and had them hold iron chains to form a human electric line approximately one mile long.

In the end, when Nollet discharged the Leyden jars, to everyone’s amazement, the priests were almost simultaneously struck down within visible range.

Since then, Nollet realized that electricity travels faster than two hundred priests per second, and the speed of electricity correlates directly with the consumption rate of French priests, while the growth rate of French priests is inversely proportional to the frequency of Nollet’s experiments.

This is the well-known French Nollet’s Law of Priest Conservation.”