Chapter 307: The Math Needs of Soldiers (K8)

Chapter 305 The Math Needs of Soldiers (4K8)

In the streets of London, black and gray water ran between the wet tiles.

With red sparks flickering under their two large-brimmed hats, occasionally gulping out a few clouds of smoke, Arthur and Louis traveled in tandem, moving unhurriedly towards their destination, Gresham College, the seat of the Royal Society.

Louis spoke, “I have heard that the Royal Warrant of the University of London seems to have been formally reviewed and approved. Perhaps in a while, the degree certificate will be issued to you.”

Arthur, who was wearing a bandage around his neck, sipped his cigarette and said, “It doesn’t need to be a while, when I helped Alfred enroll in the University of London a while ago, the Registrar already told me that the school is currently printing the degree certificates in preparation for giving us unlucky bastards in the first batch of graduates a replacement of the academic certificates that should have been handed over to us a long time ago. He also asked me if I would be mailed the stuff when it was printed, or if I would go over and pick it up myself.”

Louis snickered, “I bet you plan on picking it up yourself. From the things I’ve observed during the time I’ve lived in London, it doesn’t seem like the postal business in London is any better than it is in Paris.”

Arthur nodded in sympathy.

Unlike the modern, efficient postal industry, the 19th century postal service was synonymous with inefficiency and disorganization.

On top of that, its exorbitant prices and acceptance of payment only on arrival were often intolerable.

If an ordinary worker wanted to send a letter from Inverness in Scotland towards a relative’s home in London, it would often cost him half a month’s wages.

However, although letterheads were very expensive to send, newspapers were sent free of charge through the postal system in order to encourage the printing industry and journalism.

So, in order to whore out Britain’s postal service, a number of people came up with a crooked idea to get around paying the high cost of postage.

They put a new newspaper in an envelope and pierce holes in specific letters of the newspaper. That way, the person receiving the newspaper could spell out the ‘encrypted message’ based on the pierced letters.

The guys who were relatively well off and didn’t want to put up with the inefficiencies of the postal system simply chose to publish their encrypted message in a newspaper with a larger circulation.

The big, nationally-selling papers like The Times and The Manchester Guardian usually had inexpensive sections for personal messages and completely free letters from readers.

The purpose of these columns is to communicate with their readers, to bring them closer together and to boost sales and influence.

However, what they didn’t expect was that many couples simply put their love letters on it, so that the public jokingly called it the ‘Love Thoughts Column’.

And in order to put an end to this wool-gathering phenomenon, the newspaper naturally began to make efforts to rectify the situation.

However, after the rectification, it didn’t take long for the couples to master the basic skills of encrypted communication, and began to express their lovesickness in the column using a more subtle language.

Originally, it was none of Arthur’s business for couples to vent their booming hormones to the point of overflowing, but coincidentally, a supernumerary employee of the Police Intelligence Bureau was very fond of delving into such nonsense.

Since initially achieving wealth freedom, Mr. Wheatstone, a deep social phobe, has been letting himself go.

For two months in a row, he did no scientific research at all, and every day, after dinner, he locked himself in his bedroom with a pile of newspapers.

After two months, Charles Wheatstone proudly announced at a Police Intelligence Bureau conference that he had successfully deciphered the encrypted language of at least nine couples. To prove the accuracy of his decipherment, Wheatstone even read the unashamed love letters that resulted from those translations aloud in front of Arthur, and successfully inspired Arthur to include the key element of deciphering the love letters in the new installment of the Hastings Mysteries.

And Wheatstone was out of his depth after getting a taste of it. Nowadays, he’s not just content with deciphering the love letters in those columns. He even pays out of his own pocket to intervene in the love-hate relationship of these young couples. This four-eyed boy, who usually doesn’t talk much to women, now often poses as an emotional expert in the ‘love columns’ of major newspapers, providing unprofessional and obnoxious counseling services for free.

–You should break up with that bitch, she doesn’t deserve you. If I were you, I would have shot her dead.

–Eloping isn’t going to solve the problem, and even if it did you’d have to graduate from Oxford first. And if you do get an Oxford education, are you sure you really like girls?

–That man is lying to you, a tactic I’m almost too familiar with because I have such an asshole among my friends who is a cop at Scotland Yard. But I don’t think your boyfriend is even as good as that friend of mine, at least that friend of mine offers me a little house with free accommodation. And you, girl, that boyfriend of yours can’t even afford to pay the rent on his own house.

And after the usual bombardment of Wheatstone’s social terrorist services, couples in Britain have been noticeably more at peace lately, even if those still clinging to the Acacia column have been making massive upgrades to their password books.

And having had his fill of the addiction, Wheatstone soon found himself in a big mess.

A while ago when Arthur was in a hurry to prepare for the duel, he also took the time to appoint Wheatstone as the Commissioner of Cryptography of the Police Intelligence Bureau, and authorized him to take full responsibility for organizing the preparation of a reliable set of special encryption terms for the Police Intelligence Bureau’s internal use – the Wheatstone Language.

This time, however, Wheatstone was not so resistant, partly because he was really interested in cryptographic languages, and partly because he had recently met a new friend who had retired from the British Army in India.

This new friend was also very interested in crypto, and they thought they could use the Police Intelligence Bureau’s special grant for crypto to do something to add to the list.

Although Arthur repeatedly asked Wheatstone what kind of big news they were planning to make, Wheatstone kept his mouth shut and was never willing to disclose any information in this regard.

Since Wheatstone did not want to say, Arthur certainly can not be forced, people familiar with him know that Arthur this person fully respect the personal privacy of friends.

That’s why today Arthur chose to leave the warm and cozy secret contact room, and together with Louis went to the laboratory of the Royal Society, to launch a secret, more between friends, routine polite blitz on Wheatstone, who has been soaking there recently.

Of course, this blitz was certainly not comparable to the one code-named ‘Barbarossa’; after all, Arthur was not accompanied by a motorized infantryman, but merely the Police Secretary of the Greater London Police and Emperor of the Second French Empire.

Arthur chatted with Louis, and when the black riding boots were covered with mud spots, they knew they were in front of Gresham College. It wasn’t a great day, and the early winter temperatures were dropping low, but that didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of the middle and upper class ladies to learn about science.

Today in front of the Gray-Sham Academy, there was still a lot of traffic, and from afar, the horse-drawn carriages were parked all over the boulevard outside the academy.

The coachmen responsible for driving for the ladies rubbed their hands vigorously and occasionally took two puffs of their pipes to try to warm up their bodies from the rain.

Those who thought to rely on sweeping off the road in exchange for a few bounties of the scavengers can not stop shaking their heads, they are freezing and trembling lips, and occasionally have to squeeze out a few obscenities from their mouths. They cursed that this damn weather not only froze them stiff, but even took their work of clearing the road together.

Arthur took a deep breath, the rain not only washed the road clean, even the strong smell of perfume in the air was washed away a little.

Louis looked down at Arthur and his own mud-covered boots, pointing to the shoeshine man sitting under the corner waiting for customers to come to him, “Should we clean it first? Wouldn’t it seem disrespectful to meet Mr. Faraday in this posture?”

Arthur twisted his head to look at the lookout board placed in front of the academy’s door and nodded slightly, “It’s really not coincidental that it’s Mr. Faraday’s lecture again today. According to past practice, most of his lectures can’t end on time. Instead of going to the lab early to be questioned, a shoe shine seems to be good.”

The duo arrived in front of the shoe stall, and the few bootblacks who were originally complaining about the ghostly weather suddenly changed into a smiling face.

They enthusiastically took the canes from Arthur and Louis and placed them on the stool beside them to find a clean cloth to cover them.

Louis sat on the long footstool and opened his mouth to ask, “Do the apprentices in the lab ask questions of you? I don’t think it should be so. If this is in France, then I think it’s quite normal to ask questions and make tall tales, after all, it’s a way for us to express our concern. The French consider eloquence to be an outstanding talent, and humor to be a noble trait, and anyone who is short of words will be despised by the group.

But this is Britain, after all, and from what I’ve seen in the time I’ve lived there, you Brits keep a considerable distance socially. Embraces are considered rude, tapping a guest on the shoulder is not allowed, and all sorts of strange taboos abound like the raindrops in London. Were none of the Royal Society’s apprentices native to the city? Otherwise, how could they not understand these basic manners of Britannia?”

Arthur sat down on the stool and took the sweat-wiping towel from the shoeshine man’s hand and wiped it off, and after a brief thank you, he returned.

“Apprentices of the Royal Society know social etiquette, of course, but in addition to being British, they are usually very fond of learning. Not coincidentally, they identify me as another authority on electromagnetism in Britain since Mr. Faraday, so they often ask me questions about things I don’t understand.

If I answered those questions in a haphazard way, I would be neither honest nor rigorous in my approach to my studies. And if I tell them that I don’t know, the apprentices will think that I am hiding something, and that I am perfunctory. That is why, after considering the implications of all aspects, I have chosen to minimize the frequency of my trips to the Royal Society.”

Louis was filled with disbelief when he heard this, “Come on, Arthur. There may be others in the field of electromagnetism in Britain besides Mr. Faraday who are better than you, but I can guarantee that there is no way to count them on one hand. I’m not as well versed in math, astronomy, or any other field of science as my uncle, and I don’t think I’ll ever be elected to the French Academy of Sciences like he was.

But I have always been concerned about the new progress in the field of science, you and Mr. Faraday jointly published the paper in the field of electromagnetism is absolutely very gold, I can even say that, if Faraday’s “On the Phenomenon of Electromagnetic Induction” is the publication of electromagnetism as a sign of the opening of the curtain of this new discipline. Then your “On Faraday’s Concept of Lines of Force” and “On the Three Laws of Electromagnetism” were the first two exhibits presented after the curtain was raised.

Nowadays, when researchers in electromagnetism cite the three rules, they directly label the three rules as: Ampere’s rule, Faraday’s rule, and Hastings’ rule. Although there is no way to compare your research results with the first two for the time being, being able to put your name together with both of theirs, for this reason alone, it is perfectly fine for you to be called an authority on electromagnetism.

At the very least, I don’t think you should be overwhelmed by the apprentice’s question. If you really aren’t hiding anything from the apprentice, then I can only assume that you’re being modest.”

“Humble?”

When Arthur heard this word, he couldn’t help but take a sip of his cigarette and tried to end his black-rimmed glasses, but he touched them for half a day before realizing that he didn’t have such an accessory, so he could only gently shake his head and say, “I think that the apprentices should just hire someone else. I’m really not being modest either, what brings me to the Royal Society as a history graduate of the University of London?”

No matter what Arthur said, Louis just didn’t believe his words, more than that, he even wanted to ask Arthur a few questions about electromagnetism.

Arthur saw that he was holding on to him, so he could only divert his attention with a topic that Louis was more interested in.

Arthur asked, “Did you just say that Napoleon was once elected to the French Academy of Sciences? Was that academician of his the real deal, or did the academicians force him to be elected due to political pressure?”

Louis threw electromagnetism out the window as soon as he heard this, and the Scotland Yard police secretary and Swiss military academy-graduated French artillery commander immediately established a position where he was and began to argue for his uncle as if he were a man of honor.

“I know there are many who have had their suspicions in this regard. But I must emphasize that most of what my uncle has accomplished, he has fought his way to the top. It’s only that his achievements in the military were too dazzling, and that’s why they overshadowed his talents in other areas. In fact, my uncle’s talent for mathematics was already evident when he was a student at the Military School of Brennerbourg in 1784, where he was ranked among the best in the entire school in math exams.

At that time he was also tested in mathematics by Laplace, and his talent was even praised by Laplace himself. Later, my uncle went on to study artillery command at the Paris Military Academy. As we all know, if you can’t learn math, you can’t figure out the range and angle, and you can’t correct the trajectory, so naturally you can’t be a good artillery commander. I don’t need to go into the details of how good my uncle was in artillery command.

Back then, when he was on an expedition to Egypt, he even personally participated in the measurement of the Egyptian pyramids while he was busy with the war effort and discovered that the ratio of the height to the circumference of the pyramids was equal to an approximation of the circumference of the circle. Later he was also interested in the periodic flooding of the Nile and tried to find out the pattern. But as he returned to his country not long afterward, the work was discontinued.

And like you, he also had formula laws named after himself, Napoleon functions, Napoleon equations, and Napoleon theorems. That said, I can also tell you a secret. Do you know why my uncle always liked to bring a bunch of scientists along with him when he went off to war?”

Arthur smoothly asked, “I do wonder about that, do you know why?”

Louis mysteriously lowered his voice and said, “It’s because he’s always trying to use mathematics to analyze the possible outcomes of war. He wanted to build a complex mathematical model based on his and the enemy’s troop strength, equipment, supplies, terrain, climate, and other factors, and use probability theory to calculate his chances of winning. Unfortunately, though, he was ultimately unsuccessful. The bitter fruits of his failure eventually reacted in the expedition against Russia, where he failed to take into account the scorched-earth tactics of the Russian army and the harshness of the Russian winter, which led to the eventual failure of his unbeatable calculations and heavy losses.”

Hearing this, Arthur thoughtfully spoke, “When you say that, I seem to suddenly understand why the Duke of Wellington was so unstinting with his monetary investment in Mr. Babbage’s differential machine before. Now it seems that famous generals seem to have a crazy need to improve their math calculations. The Duke of Wellington might be doing the same thing as Napoleon.”

Louis was stunned, “Babbage’s differential machine? What’s that?”

Arthur shook his head slightly, “Don’t mention it, it’s a black hole that sucks up money, and Mr. Babbage could have been victimized by it. With his talent, if he hadn’t had his heart set on the Differential Machine, he might have made many world-shattering achievements by now.”

Just as Arthur’s words were spoken, he suddenly heard the customer sitting beside him at the shoe-shine stall speak up, “This gentleman, you are too pessimistic. Although it’s true that Mr. Babbage’s research is in trouble, I think that as long as the cabinet is willing to continue investing in him, he will succeed sooner or later. And once that thing is made, it will definitely be an exponential increase in the army’s ability to replenish supplies, deploy munitions, and provide logistical support. The cabinet should just keep injecting money, they’re just too petty right now.”

(End of chapter)