144 - Reference & Pi

"Lynn, you have won. It seems all our efforts over the years have been in vain," said Yulande, who was in a daze, after a long pause.

This statement drained the little remaining strength from Yulande, making him instantly appear several years older.

The rest of the divination wizards had similar expressions of shock and disbelief.

Their star charts were wrong, and the centuries of effort in the divination school had turned into a complete joke.

"No need to be so down on yourself, Mr. Yulande. In a sense, your star charts are still accurate," Lynn reassured them.

He could confirm that the law of universal gravitation still applied in this otherworldly realm. He couldn't bear to crush the dreams of these wizards who yearned for the stars too much.

"So, you finally admit that all of this was fabricated?" an excited divination wizard exclaimed.

Lynn glanced at her, somewhat speechless. When had he ever said such a thing? But before he could speak, Yulande stopped several colleagues who were still trying to argue and looked at Lynn, awaiting an answer with a puzzled expression.

Lynn paid no attention to the disoriented divination wizards and continued speaking. "Do you remember when I mentioned the carriage problem? If we use the carriage as a reference point, the people inside are stationary. But if we use the starting point as the reference, then they have indeed moved. In my opinion, both of these statements are correct."

Geocentrism and heliocentrism, in simple terms, are based on different frames of reference.

Of course, in comparison, heliocentrism is more suitable for solving practical problems, as the essence of a star system's orbital formation is the gravitational pull of the stars. Therefore, the proposal of heliocentrism was indeed a significant advancement.

As for whether these people could comprehend it, that was not his concern.

Amidst the discussion, the magical symposium that had lasted all morning quickly came to an end. However, the topic of planets, stellar orbits, and airship range measurement showed no signs of cooling down.

Some of the top scholars from various schools suddenly realized, as they walked out of the symposium, that they had come to showcase their new magical theories and spells. But in the end, not a word was said; the symposium had turned into a solo performance by Lynn.

In such a situation, there was probably no one who cared about what new magical theories they had developed. Everyone was speculating about the size and circumference of the planet beneath their feet.

Philip, still immersed in his joy, couldn't contain his excitement. Before attending the symposium, he had been worried that Lynn might not be able to handle the challenges of the divination wizards. However, Lynn had easily refuted them with a well-structured experiment and even received a nomination for the Sun Crown Medal.

The Sun Crown Medal was the highest honor in the field of magical academia. Philip had never imagined that the Iyeta Academy would one day be awarded such a prestigious honor, which had previously been the exclusive domain of legendary wizards.

Considering using a magical communication spell to summon Kevin, Theodore, and the others for the upcoming medal ceremony, Philip knew it would be a day of great glory for the Iyeta Academy.

Compared to Philip, who was still reveling in joy, Lynn was now surrounded by a crowd of inquisitive wizards with an insatiable thirst for knowledge. After providing them with a method to calculate the planet's circumference, everyone was curious about how to determine the mass of this massive celestial body.

Lynn was becoming exasperated with the questions and tried to explain that further calculations required knowing the planet's radius and gravitational constant.

Finally, after shooing away these curious minds, Lynn turned to the legendary wizard Harof, who hadn't left yet, and asked, "Lord Harof, is there anything else I can help you with?"

"I have a few questions I hope you can answer," Harof said with a humble demeanor, not displaying any arrogance just because Lynn was only a third-circle wizard.

In fact, this issue had been bothering him for a whole year.

"Please, ask your questions. I'll do my best to answer," Lynn replied.

"I have read your Three Laws of Celestial Motion, but why are you so sure that a star's orbit must be elliptical?" Harof asked, clearly puzzled. "Based on my research into gravity, it acts like ripples in water, spreading out from a central point to create orbits. It should be a perfect circle."

"On this matter, I have discussed it with some scholars within the Society of Mystical Arts, and many speculations have been put forward. But in summary, there are two main points," Lynn responded.

"Which two points?" Harof inquired eagerly.

"First, there is no perfect circle," Lynn said matter-of-factly. "Through precise mathematical calculations, pi is found to be an irrational number. So, the perfect circle we imagine may not exist in reality."

"Are you sure about that?" Harof's brow furrowed, and the alchemists in the Alchemical Association have also been researching the curvature of circles. Although they've reached a similar conclusion, he believed that everything in the world must have a pattern. They just hadn't found it yet.

"Unfortunately, it's true. I've heard that a prominent member of the Society of Mystical Arts spent decades calculating pi to over two hundred trillion decimal places, and the result still displayed no discernible pattern, able to continue indefinitely," Lynn shrugged and stated bluntly.

Two hundred trillion decimal places?

Harof was struck dumb by the horrifying number. He began to doubt whether he and Lynn were even talking about the same thing or if he had misheard something.

He vaguely remembered that the Alchemical Association had only calculated pi to a few decimal places, maybe... the ninth place?

"I don't remember much, maybe just the first two hundred digits or so," Lynn raised his hand, using magic to display the numbers before them.

[3.1415926535897932...]

As Harof stared at the string of complex and chaotic numbers in front of him, his face twitched involuntarily. The first nine digits were identical to the Alchemical Association's calculation. He had to admit that what Lynn said was probably true.

However, he couldn't help but wonder just how much free time the person had to calculate pi to two hundred trillion decimal places.

At the same time, Harof was becoming increasingly interested in the Society of Mystical Arts mentioned in the invitation. It must be a gathering of top academic researchers.