A Thousand Ancient Cheaters

Outside the Garden House.

As Little Ox appeared, Xu Yun seemed to 'sense' something.

His face showed three parts shame, three parts surprise, and four parts panic. He hastily put away his glasses:

"I'm sorry, Mr. Newton, I accidentally lost track of time. I'll just..."

Before he could finish, Little Ox interrupted him:

"What is that?"

"Huh?"

Xu Yun blinked and waved his glasses, playing dumb:

"As you can see, these are a pair of glasses."

Little Ox shook his head at him and said:

"Of course I know these are glasses, a masterpiece by Sir Bacon in the mid-13th century. My tutor, Mr. Rowan, even has a custom-made pair of lenses at a high price.

What I'm asking is, what is that seven-colored light on the wall?"

Upon hearing this, a look of relief appeared on Xu Yun's face, his acting skills far surpassing those of certain young idols:

"Oh, you mean that seven-colored light? That's a phenomenon called dispersion."

"Dispersion?"

Xu Yun nodded and explained:

"In a distant Eastern country, there was a highly gifted gentleman named Han Li.

He discovered that when sunlight passes through a prism and refracts, it disperses into seven main colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. He called this phenomenon dispersion."

As soon as Xu Yun finished speaking, Little Ox was stunned for a moment, and then his pupils constricted sharply!

Anyone familiar with Optics would know that for a long time, people believed white was the purest color, and white light was the purest light. It wasn't until the 17th century, when someone used a prism to disperse sunlight, that the secret of colors was revealed. And that person was Newton!

And coincidentally, Little Ox's prism experiment took place on January 14, 1666, just three months ago!

According to Little Ox's description in his book Optics, his curiosity about light began in mid-June 1665. While examining a telescope lent to him by Stoke, he suddenly noticed the colors appearing in the distorted images, which sparked his research into light.

Over the past period, Little Ox had experimented with various convex lenses of different sizes, but he still hadn't uncovered the mystery of natural light. Furthermore, due to the issue of binomial simplification, he had temporarily set aside this idea, planning to research it thoroughly when he had free time.

He never expected that... through Xu Yun, a visitor from the East, he would so dramatically witness the dispersion of light, or rather... the truth of light?

He then took a deep breath and said to Xu Yun, "Fat Fish, demonstrate it again. Hmm, I'll waive your meal expenses for the day."

Seeing that the fish had taken the bait, a faint smile played on Xu Yun's lips as he obediently complied. He held the thickest edge of his glasses towards the sun, adjusting them to a rather delicate angle.

A moment later.

A small cluster of the seven-colored spectrum was once again projected onto the shaded area.

Normally, there are two main ways to perform a dispersion experiment: one using a mirror and water, and the other using a prism. However, if your eyeglass prescription is high enough, the edges of the lenses can also temporarily achieve a dispersion effect. This is because nearsighted lenses are concave, thicker on the sides, especially high-prescription lenses. At this point, their optical properties exhibit prismatic behavior. When light hits the lens, different colors of light refract at different angles, dispersing the various colors from the light source before entering your eyes. This is what creates a rainbow. This is also why some people see color separation at the edges or contours of objects in the peripheral areas of their lenses—the theoretical basis for this is the dispersion of light. What, you ask about the technical factors? Of course, it's the poor skill of the optician.

"Red, orange, yellow, green, blue... is that cyan? Cyan, violet, my God..."

Watching the sunlight refract through the lenses and produce a seven-colored dispersion, Little Ox's lips trembled with excitement.

As previously mentioned, Little Ox was a devout believer, thus he firmly believed that within all things in the world, there must be certain codes left by the Creator, reflecting the truth of the world.

And the seven colors of light after dispersion clearly fit this condition.

Then he suddenly turned his head, staring intently at Xu Yun:

"Fat Fish, did that Sir Han Li offer an explanation for this phenomenon?"

Xu Yun opened his mouth, about to explain the cause and effect of light dispersion, but found that he couldn't make a sound no matter how hard he tried.

At the same time, a prompt box suddenly reappeared before his eyes.

The prompt box had no text, only a flashing yellow exclamation mark.

It was obvious.

Due to some 'rule,' Xu Yun's spoilers to Little Ox could only be limited to a certain extent, or rather, had to be introduced gradually.

However, upon closer thought, this was quite normal.

Otherwise, wouldn't Xu Yun just tell Little Ox the vector form of F=-(GMm/r^3)r and be done with it?

So Xu Yun pondered for a moment and said:

"Mr. Newton, Sir Han Li only discovered the phenomenon of light dispersion but did not provide much explanation for its principle.

After all, this was merely an insignificant discovery in his magnificent life.

Later, Sir Han Li went missing during an adventure and has been unheard of since.

However, before his disappearance, Sir Han Li did mention something related to light dispersion."

Little Ox immediately became interested and asked:

"What did he say?"

Xu Yun paused for a few seconds and said tentatively:

"He said that, according to his guess, the main reason sunlight disperses might be that the inherent qualities of each color of light are different.

It's like a school of fish made up of countless fish. To the naked eye, it looks like a massive swarm, with an immeasurable number.

But if you filter it with nets of different mesh sizes, you can separate the big fish from the small ones.

If you use several more nets, you can separate even more fish of different sizes, or even fry.

Light dispersion might be similar.

Perhaps their 'sizes' are inherently different, which is why they reveal seven colors of light after passing through some unknown filter."

Little Ox nodded thoughtfully, pondered for tens of seconds, and said:

"I think I understand, but Fat Fish, I have a question for you."

"What question?"

Little Ox raised his eyelids and glanced at him, saying:

"According to you, there might be big fish and fry in a school of fish. This is a matter of classification within the framework of fish.

But for a school of fish to survive, don't they need a suitable external aquatic environment?

For example, in the sea, lakes, rivers, etc., but not on land or in the sky.

Doesn't that mean...

that the propagation of light also requires a certain environment, or conditions?"

Xu Yun: "..."

Police, I want to report someone for cheating!