Tiantang Splendid

Chapter 5080 Do an experiment
Li Chunfeng's hands were steady. He gently placed the iron block into the basin, and it quickly sank to the bottom. The water in the basin overflowed into the stone trough, and there was not a ripple on the water surface.

Then he quickly moved the copper basin to one side, exerted force on his arm muscles with both hands, tilted the stone trough, and poured the water that had just overflowed from the copper basin into another small copper basin.

Lu Cai hesitated for a moment, then asked cautiously, "Why do you have to use a stone trough? A larger copper basin should also work."

Anyway, it is just used to hold overflowing water, so a large basin can be placed inside a small basin. Why do we have to use a stone trough weighing dozens of kilograms?
Fu Renjun on the side said leisurely: "There are only two copper basins in the entire Taishi Bureau."

Lu Cai widened his eyes: "..."

Then he looked around. The most mysterious government office in the entire imperial city, the Tai Shi Bureau, which was sought after by countless dignitaries and nobles, was actually so poor?

He was surprised and said, "Let's not talk about the government's funding. Whether it was Yuan Tiangang in the past or Li Chunfeng today, they would charge hundreds or even thousands of strings of cash for divination... How could they not even be able to afford a copper basin?"

You Taoists are not upright people, so there is no need to be frugal and pretend to be poor to gain reputation, right?
Fu Renjun stroked his beard and sighed, "The income of the Taishi Bureau is not small, but the expenses are also high! Not to mention other things, just to update the stargazing equipment, they bought more telescopes from the Foundry, and the cost is sky-high! Not to mention the construction of a new observatory, the whole Taishi Bureau is almost pawning their pants!"

"I have heard of telescopes. It is said that the stars in the sky seem to be right in front of you, but I have never seen them... But this is for the court. Doesn't the Ministry of Civil Affairs allocate funds?"

"Bah! Isn't it that old bastard Tang Jian?"

When talking about this, Fu Renjun was filled with anger, puffing his beard and glaring: "That old thief said that the movement of the sun and the moon and the stars are all determined by fate. They are not going to disappear even if they are there. There is no sign of the year of the zodiac. The national treasury has its own uses. How can it be wasted on such nonsense? It is simply not worthy of being a human being!"

He and Tang Jian are of the same generation, and his qualifications are no less than the other's, so he was extremely impolite in his words.

Lu Cai nodded.

The reason why Tang Jian said this was actually because of what he heard from the Censorate. Since the book "Mathematics" came out, many of the algorithms in it shocked the world, making all measurements and calculations related to it make great progress, which naturally also affected the Imperial Astronomy Bureau, which was responsible for stargazing, mapping and setting the calendar.

The Imperial Astronomical Bureau uses the latest algorithms to accurately calculate the laws of motion of many celestial bodies, and is extremely accurate in predicting solar and lunar eclipses. This is why Fu Renjun still lives in the Imperial Astronomical Bureau even though he has long since retired. The "Wuyin Calendar" he created back then contained many errors due to algorithmic errors, and now he is doing his best to correct them.

The consequence of this incident was the complete collapse of the Confucian theory of "harmony between heaven and man".

The movement of celestial bodies has its own laws, which have never changed since ancient times. Therefore, no matter whether the king is immoral or the ministers are treacherous, solar and lunar eclipses will definitely occur when they are supposed to occur. Even Li Chunfeng has observed the wind force for decades and found that rain, snow, thunder and lightning are not caused by the anger of the gods. They all have their own internal laws and can be predicted in advance...

As a result, the status of the Tai Shi Bureau plummeted.

What the Ministry of Civil Affairs said made sense: since the movement of the sun, moon and stars has its own rules, why not observe them at any time? Why waste money and huge amounts of money on useless work?

Since a solar eclipse will occur at a specified time, what’s the point even if you calculate this time a hundred years in advance?
Can you prevent a solar eclipse from happening?
……

On the other side, Li Chunfeng, who was concentrating on the experiment, paid no attention to the conversation of the two old Taoists. He placed the small copper basin filled with overflowing water on the scale pan, weighed it carefully, and then used a charcoal stick to make a record on a piece of white paper. He then poured out the water, weighed the small copper basin, calculated on the paper for a while, subtracted the weight of the small copper basin from the total, and obtained the weight of the overflowing water.

Then weigh the iron block.

Then he put down the copper scale, dried his hands, picked up a physics book with rough edges, turned to the page on "specific gravity", compared the two, and exclaimed: "It is indeed so!"

The two old Taoists were immediately attracted, and Lu Cai hurriedly asked, "Why is this happening?"

Li Chunfeng said: "Physics believes that all objects have different 'specific gravity' due to their different materials, and the most common specific gravity of water is set to 1. Based on this, the specific gravity of iron is 7.8."

Lu Cai was speechless: "Are you slandering me for being uneducated? I am not bragging about being well-read. Of course I have read Physics, and I also know the term specific gravity!"

Li Chunfeng rubbed his hands, a little embarrassed: "I didn't read it because I was afraid you didn't have time!"

He handed the paper to Lu Cai: "The weight of the iron block is two and a half pounds, and the weight of the overflowed water is three ounces. According to the 'principle of buoyancy', an object immersed in a liquid is subject to an upward buoyancy equal to the weight of the liquid displaced by the object...so the buoyancy of the iron block is two and a half pounds. If an object wants to float on the water, the buoyancy it receives must be greater than its own weight...The buoyancy of the iron block is less than its own weight, so it sinks to the bottom."

After saying this, he ignored the two people who were reading the records on the paper, scooped water into the large copper basin again, picked up another wooden block and repeated the experiment...

Most of the wood was submerged in the water, floating up and down.

Then weigh the overflowing water, weigh the wood...

I took the paper from Lü Cai and recorded: The weight of the wood block is 1.2 jin, and the weight of the overflowing water is 1.5 jin...

Conclusion: The buoyancy on the wood block is greater than its own weight, so it floats on the water and will not sink to the bottom.

Li Chunfeng exhaled and exclaimed: "Fang Erlang is truly gifted by heaven. This principle has existed in the world for millions of years, as old as the heaven and earth, and as long as the sun and the moon. However, no one from ancient times to the present has ever been able to describe such a common phenomenon with such precision!"

Lu Cai and Fu Ren were both lost in thought.

The former said after a while: "It is indeed amazing, but how can this principle be applied?"

Li Chunfeng picked up a large copper basin and placed it on the scale. After weighing it, he threw the basin into the lotus pond, knocking off a few lotus leaves, which swayed on the water.

He pointed at the floating copper basin and said, "This copper basin weighs 2.3 jin, which is almost the same as the iron block, but it floats on the water and does not sink to the bottom. Why?"

Lü Cai and Fu Renjun both pulled their beards at the same time. Both of them were extremely intelligent. After a while, they came to a conclusion and said in unison: "Because the shape is different!"

The only difference between the iron block and the copper basin is their shapes.

But it is this difference that leads to completely different results - the iron block sinks to the bottom and the copper basin floats.

According to that damn "buoyancy principle", the conclusion is that the copper basin has greater buoyancy than the iron block...

……

After that, Fu Renjun and Lu Cai also conducted experiments separately and exchanged their views on the "buoyancy principle". It was almost noon, and the young Taoist came from the back hall and invited them to have lunch. Then he washed his hands and went to the dining hall in the back to eat.

Lu Cai loved wine, and Fu Renjun and Li Chunfeng also accepted all of it. They toasted each other with a few simple but exquisite side dishes.

Li Chunfeng took a sip of wine and said with a smile: "Tai Chang is proficient in the art of yin and yang, why don't you do some divination here and calculate my fortune?"

The so-called "fortune" is a kind of yin-yang numerology, a branch of the eight-character numerology, which includes a person's wealth, fortune, career and even fate. The fortune teller can use various means to predict a person's good and bad fortune in life.

Lu Cai scoffed at this: "What is the relationship between people's fortune, misfortune, nobility, and longevity and fate? Nowadays, there are people of the same age and fortune, but with different nobility and low status; people with the same fate and the same womb, but with different life spans. If the theory of 'fortune and fate' is true, how do we explain this?"

Fu Renjun also said: "There is a saying in Lun Heng that 'one can know destiny and fortune by looking at the bones and body, and one can know the bones and body by looking at destiny and fortune', which shows that 'fortune and destiny' can be predicted and calculated."

The theory of "fortune and destiny" has a long history and has been widely spread. Most people in the world believe it to be true. Many great scholars in ancient and modern times have elaborated on it, making its influence even more widespread.

Seeing Li Chunfeng pouring wine for him, Lü Cai nodded his thanks and said with a smile, "A man who makes fortunes predicts people's fortunes to please their hearts and falsifies their fortunes to make them lose their wealth. That's all."

After taking a sip of wine, he was in a very good mood to talk, so he continued, "Most of you have read books on fortune-telling. Many books say that Qin Shihuang 'had no beginning but an end, and became more auspicious as he aged'. However, according to the records in the Records of the Grand Historian, I found that Qin Shihuang clearly 'had a beginning but no end, and became more evil as he aged', and he did not live more than fifty. I have also studied the lives of Emperor Wu of Han, Emperor Xiaowen of Wei, Emperor Gaozu of the Southern Song Dynasty, and found that the theory of fortune-telling is simply nonsense, false and deceptive."

Yin and Yang, numerology, astrology, etc. are all derived from Taoist theories. Although Fu Renjun and Li Chunfeng are not descendants of this Taoism, they have heard of it and know a thing or two. Seeing that Lu Cai discarded "Lu Ming's theory" and treated it with disdain, they were very interested.

Because from these few sentences we can see Lu Cai’s thoughts, he is an "atheist"!
Heresy!
Fu Renjun asked: "So, the so-called Yin and Yang, the Five Elements, and geomancy are all false things?"

Lu Cai shook his head: "The theory of ghosts and gods is illusory. If you believe in them, they exist. If you don't believe in them, they don't exist. But the five elements of geomancy are different. The movement of heaven and earth, the alternation of yin and yang, are visible to the naked eye and can be felt personally. How can we refute them all? Moreover, although I don't believe in ghosts and gods, fortune and fate, I believe that 'everyone has a destiny'. It's just that this 'destiny' is not something that you are born with, and it is a fixed number. Instead, it changes at any time and anywhere."

He took another sip of wine and said leisurely, "Good deeds will bring you blessings, without the blessing of Jianlu. Bad deeds will bring you disaster, without the help of robbery and murder. The Emperor has no relatives, but always favors the good. The response of disaster and fortune is still influenced by him."

A family that accumulates good deeds will bring good fortune, which does not depend on the blessing of "Jianlu"; and a family that accumulates evil deeds will bring disaster, which is not because of the fate of "robbery and killing".

"Jianlu" is a lucky star in the "Lu Ming Shu" and "Jie Sha" is an unlucky star in the "Lu Ming Shu".

The retribution for good and evil is a natural law and has nothing to do with fate.

Good deeds will bring blessings, and evil deeds will bring disasters. This is an inevitable result, not the effect of the lucky or unlucky stars described in numerology.

A family of good deeds must have Yu Qing.