Chapter 568 [Three Updates] 568
Gongshuchuan and Mojiu studied the blueprint for a long time. Gongshuchuan gestured and said, "There's glass and a long tube. Your Highness, are you going to make a toy?"
Mo Jiu pondered for a moment after hearing this and said, "Isn't it too thick? Look at the width marked here... Oh, Your Highness, this is called the diameter. How much is this?"
Gongshu Chuan looked at Mojiu in confusion: "What's wrong with it being wider? Isn't there a narrow part?"
Mo Jiu looked at him seriously and said, "You have a point, but I suggest you ask His Highness."
Gongshu Chuan nodded, and the two of them ran to see Liu Tan together.
After hearing their questions, Liu Tan tilted his head, thought for a moment, and said, "It's true that it's a toy, but it actually has a more important purpose, so it must be made with great care."
Mo Jiu felt something was wrong. "A more...important purpose? Your Highness, could you please reveal it?"
Liu Tan said, "I'm not sure about this. Perhaps it will be useful in military matters, but it depends on what the emperor thinks. What's the matter?"
Mo Jiu suddenly smiled awkwardly: "Really? It's nothing, nothing..."
Liu Tan knew something was wrong when he saw his smile, so he asked cautiously, "If you have any questions, please tell me now, or you'll make the same mistake later."
Mo Jiu immediately said, "We need to make a sample first to find out."
Liu Tan looked at him suspiciously and waved his hand: "Go ahead."
Mo Jiu immediately pulled Gong Shuchuan out of Liu Tan's study and breathed a sigh of relief after leaving. "Luckily, His Highness didn't notice, otherwise we'd be finished."
Gongshu Chuan was a little surprised: "What do you mean it's over?"
Mo Jiu looked at Gong Shuchuan: "Didn't you say this thing is a toy?"
What happened to the toys?
Gongshu Chuan understood Mojiu's meaning before he even asked the question, and his expression suddenly turned wooden. "I mean, this might have been made by His Highness for the Seventh Prince to play with. How much do you understand?"
Mo Jiu blinked and looked up at the sky: "That's not important. Now let's study that lens group first..."
Gongshuchuan:......
Although Mojiu has a bit of a wild imagination, he has very solid knowledge. It's just that his skills are a little lacking, and Gongshu Chuan can perfectly complement him in this respect.
Gongshuchuan's basic knowledge is okay, but he has almost no knowledge of more advanced things because he has never been exposed to them. However, he is very dexterous.
Originally Gongshu Chuan thought that he was just here to help and be Mojiu's laborer, but he didn't expect that Mojiu was actually willing to discuss with him. He was open about many things. Of course, as was unique to the Mohist school, the other party still wouldn't say it too clearly, but this already surprised Gongshu Chuan.
Mo Jiu was quite open-minded. It would definitely not be possible for him to directly take out all the knowledge of the Mo family, but what he was talking about now was what Mo Shi used when he taught in the Northern Border Country, and his family also agreed, so it was okay to spread it out.
If you have been in the Northern Kingdom for so long and still cannot understand the Northern King's intentions, it is impossible for you to be valued. The Northern King obviously wants to integrate the world's methods of studying things. If you go against him, he will kill you.
As for the hatred between Gongshujia and Mojia... To be honest, after so many years, the younger generation doesn't feel it particularly deeply. What's more, Mojia has always been on the side of victory. So the so-called hostility among the younger generation is more about Gongshujia's unwillingness and Mojia's fear of being replaced by the other side.
Now His Royal Highness the King of the North has a first-rate ability to keep things balanced, and everyone has seen it. Either you behave yourself and make a name for yourself with this ability, or get out.
Gongshuchuan and Mojiu worked well together and directly made the simplest monocular telescope.
After Liu Tan took a look at it, he found that the imaging effect was indeed a bit rough, but not unwatchable. Then he waited until night to try to see the stars in the sky, but the result was not much better than seeing the naked eye.
But there was progress after all, so the next step was the lens assembly of the objective lens and eyepiece.
These two things are not easy to study, because the alignment and parfocality of the lens group are difficult. More importantly, how to combine multiple lenses together is a very troublesome task, and they cannot find any adhesive that can be used.
So in the end, Liu Tan had to regretfully give up the idea of using a lens group to make the telescope smaller, and simply let them enlarge it.
After all, the larger the aperture of the telescope, the better the angular resolution, and angular resolution is the ability to distinguish the minimum distance between two adjacent objects. Simply put, the larger the aperture, the clearer it is.
However, even in later generations, it is difficult to smelt large-aperture lenses. Even if Liu Tan forces the current craftsmen to death, he can only make the diameter of the telescope about two feet, and the length reaches three meters.
The finished product is really good, and the stars can be seen clearly, but it is a bit too heavy and too big.
Mo Jiu and Gongshu Chuan were quite satisfied. Although their greatest contribution in making this thing was the difficulty they encountered in converting the blueprint into a real object, and this thing was not invented by them, as long as they really made it, they would be able to leave a record.
Liu Tan even said that the first finished telescope could be engraved with their names, which led to the two of them working so hard that they finished the telescope in almost half a month.
However, their pride instantly extinguished after seeing Liu Tan's somewhat dissatisfied expression. Not only did they lose their pride, they even asked cautiously: "Your Highness, did we do anything wrong?"
Liu Tan shook his head: "No, it has nothing to do with you. I just didn't expect it to be so big."
Such a behemoth would be a real hindrance in wartime, just like the Sinan chariot of old. Liu Tan actually wanted to make binoculars. If the monoculars were this big, how big would the binoculars be? Not only would they be large, but they'd also be heavy. The casings of current telescopes are typically made of copper-tin alloy. Iron could be used, but it's too expensive and its ductility isn't as good as copper-tin alloy.
What’s more important is that the telescope is more precious than the Si Nan car - it is easy to break!
The enemy knows it, but doesn't calculate it. They aim at the telescope and launch a long-range attack. If the telescope is destroyed, won't both sides be in the same situation?
The telescope is so heavy that it is basically impossible to move it at will.
Liu Tan walked around the telescope and said, "No, we need to make it smaller."
Mo Jiu scratched his head worriedly and said, "But, Your Highness, if you want to reduce the size of the telescope, you have to reduce the size of the lens as well. Then... you might not be able to see far enough."
Liu Tan touched his chin and said, "It's not impossible. Just add a prism system."
Mo Jiu and Gongshu Chuan looked at each other and saw confusion in each other's eyes: What is the prism system?
Simply put, the prism system separates light for focusing, framing, and distance measurement, and can form a neat image when framing.
Prism systems generally do not cause loss of light energy and can replace multiple plane mirrors at the same time.
Liu Tan didn't plan to let Mo Jiu and Gong Shuchuan play freely with this thing. This thing was not complicated, but it would be too tiring to let them do it and explain to them why it was added.
The most important thing is that Liu Tan understands what is involved here, but the problem is that he cannot describe it, or he cannot describe it in particularly precise language. Once there is an error in the description, it can easily lead to misleading.
It would be better for him to create the thing and let Mohism and Gongshujia study how to translate it into words written in books, and then he can check it when the time comes.
As for the setting of the prism system, Liu Tan used an isosceles right triangle made of two pieces of glass to allow the light to be totally reflected. Although the light penetrates multiple times, it does not produce any dispersion because it enters and exits in a normal state.
The prism system actually increases the cost of the telescope in disguise. After all, high-transmittance glass is too difficult to find. Liu Tan even had someone make a crystal telescope for comparison.
The final result is... there's actually not much difference between the two.
However, after adding the prism system, the size of the telescope was indeed reduced a lot, which really confused Mo Jiu and Gongshu Chuan.
Liu Tan's patience in lecturing was only directed at Liu Che and Liu Ju; the rest of the people depended on his mood.
Optics was too complicated, and he didn't want to talk about it even if he was in a good mood. He simply wrote down the experimental steps of the pinhole imaging principle and threw them to them, letting them do it for fun.
After Mo Jiu and Gongshu Chuan got the experimental steps, they were completely immersed in it and didn't bother Liu Tan anymore.
Liu Tan asked his craftsmen to make a more exquisite pair of binoculars. The surface was painted with a layer of gold, the edge of the barrel was inlaid with a circle of small pearls, and two dragons were painted on the barrel. The dragon's eyes were made of red broken evil gold. By the way, the number one was engraved in the middle of the telescope. The telescope was then equipped with a gold chain. The length of the chain can be adjusted, and the ends are inlaid with pearls.
Frankly speaking, Liu Tan had already spent a lot of money on having the glass used in the telescope made, but now this set of decorations cost him more than the money he spent on smelting the glass.
It’s just that vulgarity is elegance. The craftsmen who have been making things for the royal family for many years still have a good aesthetic sense. Even if so many fancy things are used together, they don’t look particularly nouveau riche. Instead, they make people feel dazzled at a glance.
The value of the telescope itself is already very high, so the box for placing the telescope is naturally not bad either. Liu Tan directly chose a mahogany box, and he didn't need to customize it specially.
Because he would come up with some new things from time to time, Liu Tan had customized a batch of boxes of different sizes and placed them in the warehouse. He would take them out when needed and only need to decorate the facades.
After all this was done, Liu Che took his men to visit the palace in Mount Li.
On the first night there, Liu Tan tested the telescope he had made earlier. It turned out that the stars were indeed clearer in the mountains.
So the next day after dark, Liu Tan ran to Liu Che's place and had a dinner. He said happily, "Father, I will take you to see the stars today."
Liu Che: ???
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
