The Shadow of Great Britain

Chapter 1801 - 102: No Need to Invite Gauss and Weber to London!

Simply inviting Gauss and Weber to work at the England Electromagnetic Telegraph Company is no big deal, but a while ago they both went out of their way to write to Arthur, chatting about this year’s latest developments in the European Natural Philosophy circles.

Especially Gauss, who praised Arthur’s suggestion from years ago in his letter: to determine whether we live in a standard Euclidean geometric space by measuring whether the angle between two stars and the Earth is 180 degrees.

After multiple measurements and calculations over 2 years, Gauss finally reached a shocking conclusion—the angle between the two stars and Earth is not 180 degrees, suggesting that the world we live in is a non-Euclidean geometric space.

However, because this conclusion was so astonishing, Gauss initially suspected the observational precision of the Gottingen Observatory.

Although the observed result was not 180 degrees, the deviation was not far off, so Gauss’s final conclusion was: with current observational precision, I cannot prove that Euclidean geometry is invalid, but neither can I prove it absolutely correct.

He wrote specifically to inquire Arthur’s opinion, mainly to ask this young genius for his thoughts.

Aware that he might have caused a big stir, Arthur naturally read the letter without replying, and if he were to see Gauss in the future, he planned to blame the inefficiency and frequent mail losses of the Royal Post for the "Missing Gauss Letter."

Arthur coughed lightly to cover up his distraction from Gauss’s letter.

"You’re right, Charles." He suddenly changed his tone, as if the previous "I order you" hadn’t come from his mouth: "Since you value efficiency and quality equally, why not carefully disassemble your telegraph machine again. Let’s start... from the number of wires."

Wheatstone immediately became alert: "Wires? What do you mean? Are you planning to transmit five sets of signals with only three wires? Do you think I haven’t tried that before? It would greatly reduce communication efficiency, and translation errors would be easy. Such cutbacks would ruin our reputation; who would hire us to set up telegraph lines in the future?"

"The Wheatstone-Cook Five-Needle Telegraph Machine"

"I’m not talking about three wires." Arthur said slowly, "I’m talking about one wire."

Wheatstone nearly spit out his tea, and even Great Dumas’s snores took a pause.

He stared at Arthur in disbelief: "One wire? Are you crazy? How would the telegraph machine operate like that?"

Arthur smirked slightly, seemingly predicting Wheatstone’s reaction: "Charles, your telegraph machine has twenty-six letters, correct?"

"Of course." Wheatstone nodded, "Twenty-six letters corresponding to five-needle combinations. Though not intuitive, we have trained a batch of operators; proficiency can be developed."

"Exactly. But the problem is... have you ever considered that Belgians don’t speak English?" Arthur put down the teacup, "Walloons speak French, Flemings speak Dutch, and some speak German. Your twenty-six English letters of the five-needle telegraph machine can’t be used normally in Belgium."

Wheatstone paused; he had considered language issues before, but their business had never truly expanded beyond Britain. Who would have thought the first major venture of the England Electromagnetic Telegraph Company would be in a tri-lingual country like Belgium?

"So you’re saying we need to create a telegraph machine for French letters?"

"Making just one French telegraph machine is pointless. We can’t make a machine for each language—French, German, Dutch, Italian... The telegraph machine isn’t a steam press that can switch molds easily." Arthur said, "Taking the first order in Belgium is certainly a wake-up call for us. I believe we shouldn’t be thinking of changing from five needles to four, but rather how to completely abandon the five-needle design."

Wheatstone thought Arthur was teasing him again, rolling his eyes: "Easy to say? Do you have an idea?"

Louis also found the idea absurd: "Are you planning to invent a new language?"

"Exactly." Arthur nodded, "I don’t need to make another letter-based machine; I want a machine that doesn’t rely on letters. A machine that can transmit any information using a single signal, a magnetic needle, and even just one wire."

Wheatstone scoffed: "Without letters, how will the operator understand the message content?"

Upon hearing this, Arthur simply raised a finger to his lips, signaling Wheatstone and Louis to stay silent.

The two thought something was happening, so they quietly looked around, suspiciously.

Unlikely, after looking around, they found nothing except Great Dumas’s rising and falling snores, which were their only annoyance.

One long, one short, one light, one heavy.

"Blimey, what’s going on?"

They both looked at Arthur.

To their surprise, Arthur just smiled and pointed at Great Dumas: "Did you hear that? That’s exactly what I need."

"You mean Alexander?" Louis looked towards the direction Arthur pointed, still confused: "I know he’s snoring, but what’s that got to do with the telegraph machine? Are you planning to stuff him into that iron box?"

Arthur chuckled softly: "You asked me earlier how to convey the message to the operator without relying on letters, wasn’t I demonstrating that to you?"

"Demonstrating?" Louis frowned, "But he didn’t say anything; he just... hmm..."

Just then, Great Dumas suddenly sneezed hard and mumbled something in French, "Vive la Révolution (Long live the revolution)..."

Although his words were mumbled, Louis immediately followed up, "Mais oui, c’est le peuple qui gagne toujours (Exactly, the people are the ones who always win)."

As soon as he spoke, even Louis found it amusing; these days, he and Great Dumas endlessly discussed the fate of France, leading to reflexive responses.

"See." Arthur spread his hands, "Did you hear his voice? He didn’t even finish the sentence, but you instinctively followed his meaning. Why? Because you understood the rhythm, tone, pause—not letters, but rhythm. Just like we can sing a tune without needing sheet music when we listen to music."

"Are you saying..." Wheatstone pondered, "It’s unnecessary to point needles at letters, for example, using a needle to flash once, pause, flash twice, pause again... to represent letters and information? This way, we indeed needn’t lay five wires..."

Before Wheatstone finished speaking, Eld, who had napped sweetly while Arthur and the others chatted, woke up and yawned.

Eld smacked his lips, as if savoring the taste of beef tea and charcoal in his throat, and said, "What were you guys talking about just now? One wire? Rhythm? Dancing electric needle? Truly some bizarre stuff from University of London, sounds just like Lord Elphinstone bragging to me last night."

Arthur initially thought this drunkard was rambling nonsense again, but Eld’s next words suddenly made his heart leap: "That bastard actually said he received a handwritten letter from Princess Victoria."