Chapter 578 – Thermos
Chapter 578 – Thermos Bottle
Looking at the heavily guarded gates of the lord’s mansion, former Alchemist Wells wandered around the clearing in front of him, so much so that the guards standing on guard threw him a skeptical look.
In the end, he straightened his clothes and walked towards the gate with a stern face.
The current Wells was already wearing two identities, the professor of chemistry (a title invented by Lord Gleiman) and the head of the chemistry laboratory of the Weiss Academy (the other one was Hoffman, who was a little older than him, and was also an alchemist from Jingyao), and according to Count Gleiman’s past performance, he belonged to the kind of “high-level talents” who were given special courtesy and treatment by the Count, and was usually respected. According to Count Greiman’s past behavior, he was one of those “high-level talents” who were given special treatment by the Count, and he was usually respected. And Wells’ character is also the type that says what he has to say, in front of the lord has always been outspoken.
But this time, although he came with determination, he hesitated at the last moment, hesitated, and was even afraid.
The matter that Wells was looking for Paul to speak about had to do with the rebellion in Arda not too long ago. Needless to say, this was a very sensitive matter, although Paul Greiman was usually cheeky with everyone, and a harmless joke with him wouldn’t do any good, but he was, after all, a lord, a ruler, and when it really came to the core of things for these kinds of people – power – it was likely that he would instantly change to a different face, and That rebellion was aimed at taking away his power, and even and that included his life.
Wells knew that his request might offend the lord.
Wells was happy that Paul was able to put down the rebellion, because he had never met a lord who was so supportive of alchemy, or chemistry for that matter, and when the rebels in Lakewood spread rumors that the lord had been killed, he was sad, partly for Paul, who had rewarded him, and partly because he didn’t know if the next lord would still be willing to shell out the money for the chemistry lab.
But there are things that need to be done, even if they offend the lord.
Wells handed his pass – a new measure after the rebellion – to the guards who came up to inspect him, and after some frisking entered the castle gates.
……
“Ah, my dear Wells, you’ve come just in time.”
A familiar voice rang out as Wells pushed his way in, from none other than Paul.
Instead of meeting Paul in the lord’s office, Wells was led to the lord’s workshop, or laboratory. This did not surprise Wells, everyone knew that Earl Paul Greiman was an inventor, besides performing his daily duties as a lord, he often tinkered with strange contraptions in his so-called workshop, and whenever someone visited at this time of the year, Paul would call the person into the workshop to show off his new invention.
And it was no surprise that Wither saw another man in the workshop – Guy Burns, the head of the machine shop, a regular visitor to this workshop, with whom the laird often mingled to discuss machinery-related issues.
When it came to this man, Wither had a somewhat complicated mindset; on the one hand, both men were leaders in their respective fields and rather admired each other, on the other hand, both the machine shop and the chemistry lab were big money gobblers and fierce competitors for funding.
After saluting Paul, Wells and Burns greeted each other.
“Lord Graiman, I have come …… this time,” Wells said apprehensively, trying to voice his request.
“Oh, please listen to me first …… or rather, watch me do it first.” Paul interrupted, a look of excitement coming over his face at that moment.
Lord Wells looked at the table in front of him, which held a large glass bottle, which, unlike ordinary glass bottles, seemed to be made of two layers of glass.
Wells: “Is this ……?”
Paul: “Ho ho ho, it’s my new thermos design.”
Wells: “Thermos?” “Yes, the Thermos.” Paul explains to him, “You see, after a couple of years of hard work, the New Life Movement we started has popularized the new way of drinking water – drinking boiled water – in all the major towns, but not every family has plenty of money to buy fuel during the non-winter months, so we’ve set up in all the major towns The first thing that we did was to pay a few coins to buy boiled water to go back and drink, but it was a great pity that the boiled water would get cold very quickly, and the current technology of keeping it warm – wrapping cotton or fur around the containers – had a very limited effect. So, I have designed a new insulation technology, which is this thermos.”
Paul gestured with his hand to the glass jug with the double-walled body.
Wells stared at it for a moment and asked suspiciously, “What is the reason for making the bottle like this, and out of what mechanism is it able to retain heat?”
“We know from our daily life experience that [heat] is able to be transferred, you see, when you get close to a flame, you will feel the heat, furthermore, when you take a step of ice water and a glass of boiled water and lean against it for some time, the ice water becomes warmer, while the boiled water is not so hot, what does this mean? I hypothesize that what is called [heat] is like water, which flows from a high place to a low place, and [heat] passes from a high place to a low place – without any other intervention, of course.”
Without elaborating too much on “without other intervention,” Paul continued, “So [heat] in boiling water …… Let’s rephrase that – heat – where is it transferred to?”
Wells: “To the vessel that holds the boiling water?”
“Oh! That’s a given.” Paul said, “But eventually the vessel got cooler too, ah, so the heat didn’t end up there.”
Wells looked over at Burns, who just looked at him with a smirk.
Wells thought again, “The air? Because the space near the boiling water got hot.”
“Haha! Just what I thought!” Paul exclaimed happily, “Yes, air. The air near the boiling water receives the heat and then proceeds to pass it on to the cooler air farther away, and eventually both the water and the air near it get cooler, and it all works out so well.”
“So, I wonder, if there was no medium near the boiling water – that is, everything to which heat could attach for transfer, including air – wouldn’t the boiling water get cooler?”
“In that …… way,” said Wells, looking at the strange water bottle, consisting of two layers of glass, with a small hole in the outer glass, but which led into the space between the two layers, he kind of understood what the leader was trying to do.
“Yes, I’m going to evacuate the air between these two layers of glass to create a …… create a vacuum compartment.”
Wells: “A vacuum?”
Paul nodded, “A space where not even air exists, where nothing exists, uh …… at least not anything that we can see and perceive right now.”
The Lords always added a few puzzling additions when elaborating on something, something Wells had gotten used to.
“Without a transfer medium, the heat stays in the water inside the bottle and on the inner glass walls-that’s what I’m reasoning. Of course, there’s still a little bit of medium – we can’t keep the two layers of glass from touching each other at all, after all – but I guess it’s like thick pipes running fast and thin pipes running slow – as long as there’s less medium, the heat will dissipate slower, and the meeting will cool slower. So ……”
Paul pointed to another thing on the workbench, a piece of machinery that Wells had never seen before.
“I commissioned Guy to build an apparatus – an extractor, or as it could be called – a vacuum pump.”
Aside, Guy Burns puffed out his chest proudly.
(End of chapter)