CHAPTER 482: CHAPTER 460: THE DISAPPEARING LEAP YEAR

After confirming gravity as the anchor point, the only problem was how to convert the gravitational digits into length.

Moreover, it would be best if the results remained unchanged, regardless of the weight of the vessels used for measurement.

The Engineering Priests gradually stopped their lively discussion. They scratched their heads and wrinkled their noses, writing and drawing on the ground, but still couldn’t figure it out.

Horn smiled and interrupted the Engineering Priests’ discussion: "In fact, there are natural phenomena that are not interfered with by measuring instruments."

"What is it?"

Horn did not speak but pointed his finger to the corner of the small office building not far in front of him.

There, on a floor paved with stone and wood, stood silently a large pendulum clock, more than one person high, leaning against the corner.

"Ah, I understand." After the confusion and contemplation, a former clockmaker suddenly slapped his head, "It’s the pendulum!"

"Hahahaha." Horn laughed heartily, he finally heard the answer he wanted, which was the conclusion he and Hilov had discussed.

Use the pendulum effect.

Though the Empire’s civilization was in decline, the El people slowly discovered the pendulum effect but had not yet summarized it.

However, Horn knew that when a pendulum makes periodic forward and backward motions, the time for one cycle of movement is related to the pendulum length and gravitational acceleration, but is independent of amplitude and pendulum ball mass.

In other words, regardless of the weight of the pendulum ball or the size of the amplitude, the swinging time is only related to pendulum length and gravity.

If the slight differences in gravity from different regions are ignored, as long as the same time for one swing is stipulated, the pendulum length must be the same.

No matter what type of pendulum ball they use, or what amplitude, as long as the time for one cycle is consistent, the pendulum length must be consistent.

Although there is still some degree of error, it is certainly much smaller than the error of the current old systems.

"Then it becomes simple." The voice of that clockmaker grew louder, but noticing Horn watching him, he quickly quieted down.

"Oh, you’re shy?" Horn waved him over, "What is your thought? Let me take a look."

Under the gaze of other Engineering Priests, the clockmaker hesitantly walked out: "My humble opinion is, you set a day to have 24 hours, 86,400 seconds.

We choose a pendulum clock, and when it swings 86,400 times exactly each day, record its pendulum length, and set it as a standard unit of length."

"We use the El Empire lexical unit, transliterate Leia to temporarily write it as Nemamite, abbreviated as meter." Horn continued along with his idea.

"But, sir, does this mean it has to swing for a full day every time?"

"That’s silly." Just as he finished speaking, nearby companions began to refute him, "Just bring a normal pendulum clock and compare it, won’t you know?"

"But what if there’s no normal pendulum clock, or the normal pendulum clock is just broken?"

"If the village doesn’t have a pendulum clock, go to the town; if the town’s pendulum clock is broken, then to the city."

These people are some of the smartest citizens, and many have even attended college, able to quickly infer and adapt.

"Why don’t we unify the time across cities, adjusting it once per month according to the work clock of Autumn Dusk Island."

"Thus, using one day of 24 hours from Autumn Dusk Island’s year to determine length, then update the standard ruler annually."

Seeing their excitement, Horn didn’t join in.

For he knew this problem was far from being as simple as imagined.

This world has a festival similar to the winter solstice called winter arrival, and there are four seasons, which certainly implies a variance in angle between the continent and the sun.

Thus, it is not entirely certain that the time between the first day’s sunrise and the second day’s sunrise is exactly 24 hours; several seconds of error are natural.

When these small errors accumulate, they become a great error, namely leap months.

Ordinary logic would say this world should have leap years and regular years.

But mysteriously, in ancient seven hills times, and even in early El Empire, records of leap years existed.

Yet by the time of the Empire’s eastward migration, leap years had mysteriously disappeared.

Even at the time, scholars ridiculed leap years as defects in the Ancient Aier Calendar, "Creating an imaginary day every four years."

As for what changes occurred in the calendar from early El Empire to the Empire’s eastward migration, Horn could not find any historical records.

Until now, no calendar has leap years set.

The most bewildering part for Horn is that despite the absence of leap years, the farming times in the calendar do not see any delays.

Without leap years, the calendar should have been in chaotic disarray after a millennium.

Yet the thousand-year calendar published by the Church still runs normally.

Considering this is a world with magic and witches, Horn reasonably suspects whether magic caused these anomalies.

Therefore, he hopes these Engineering Priests of the Research Institute can collaborate with Wizards to initiate a real scientific project.

They need to take a pendulum clock to various places to measure time, and understand whether the "missing leap year" truly vanished, or just disappeared in the calendar.

"Sir." As others discussed, the Engineering Priest who just proposed time-based length quietly approached Horn, "Once the length unit is determined, what about weight and volume?"

Horn glanced at him: "What’s your name?"

"Hawk Kempono." The Engineering Priest responded with a bowed head.

"Kempono? What is Robert to you?" This is a rare surname, and Horn immediately thought of Robert Kempono of the White Mountain Hermitage, "Speak to me upright."

"Precisely my elder brother." Hawk quickly stood straighter, "But my mana is too weak, my talent poor, usually carving and making water clocks for nobles to make a living. Last year I was reported by peers as a wizard, so I returned home to help Robert."

"Good, good lad, don’t worry, here your achievements won’t be less than Robert’s." Horn patted his back and got up, going to the group of disputing Engineering Priests.

"Silence!" The gendarmes shouted collectively, and the Priests immediately ceased their conversations.

"Once we calculate a meter with pendulum length, setting length, breadth, and height all as one meter, defining it as a cubic meter, and one cubic meter of water as one ton, this way, length, volume, and weight of measurement are all determined." Horn explained to the Priests.

"From then on, all markets must use standard measurements, marketplace Junior Officials must regularly check, to prevent cheating with weights and measures."

"That’s even more unbearable than killing those El people’s dear fathers..." Someone secretly muttered, causing the Engineering Priests to burst into a chuckle.

But Sessi rubbed his head and raised doubts: "If this is promoted, everyone will be in chaos, afraid some would profit from the confusion."

"No worries, we can run metric and old systems concurrently, anyway, the Pope’s Palace will use metric for taxes and business." Horn waved to finalize the future measurement system.

"Therefore, your task is to first go everywhere to test pendulum length and time, once tested, quickly establish a set of standard measurement molds.

The later adjustments should be completed preferably before next year’s autumn harvest, specific matters should be determined by meeting, then give me a timeline and milestone schedule.

The main responsibility for this mission will be, hmm, my secretary Monk Boned and this Hawk Priest."