Records: the leap of the RANP

Barely a month old, the Royal Academy of Natural Philosophies was both a focus and a valve for the hidden primal human impulse: *the drive to discover*. In late January of 1377, the time and gold entrusted to the Royal Academy had already returned the investment.

## **From Four Forces to Five**

The human world in general wasn't yet aware of four fundamental forces, but they were hyper-aware of what didn't fit. At this point, tying in the fifth arcane force wasn't that much of a stretch. The critical aspect was separating magic to account for its rare interaction with the mundane forces – then parsing four together, and the interaction of the other against it.

With that critical perspective, now that the ROM had a grasp of magic, they could turn it back as a mirror, lens and laboratory to isolate and test the mundane forces faster and farther than science ever could without it. With careful documentation, actual or suppositional, they created a chain of discovery that history would need to validate and credential human capacity – one of the key points of contention between *Foreign interested parties*.

What the Order of Merlin brought to the Royal Academy was a mode of thinking (the *Naturalist Method*), a revolution in mathematics and numeric expression, an evolutionary leap of physics and chemistry, and a toehold on optics and mechanical engineering.

## **The formulation of the Naturalist Method**

The *Naturalist Method* wasn't any particular data, rather it was a system of analysis – and was originally created in the pursuit of "mundane" knowledge.

In fact, the emphasis on naturalism would’ve been near-heretical if the Plantagenets hadn’t already kept the Church at arm’s length in England. The profoundly pro-Lollardy movement – and general approach to religious tolerance and freedom – was rare among world leadership.

Avignon, or Rome (now), saw England as a threat, and much to the delight of the English, Edward III reveled in rebelling from religious authority. This was a contributor to the rise in English renaissance humanism.

Richard kicked off open discussions by sharing his most recent influences: Grosseteste's *De lineis, angulis et figuris* and Bacon's *scientia experimentalis* as empirical methods of study. Most of this boiled down to a critique in the method of thinking; ergo, what had led John Wycliffe to his positions, and how far did his polarization reach?

*Worth noting:* this wasn’t just local academics and clergy, there were two Arabian scholars in the RANP, a Russian, two Bohemians, a collection of Germans, Italians, Spaniards and a contingent of French. Word had gotten out.

The current-day politics was was part of a gentle indoctrination that ***analyzed the roots of critical thinking***, giving credit where it was due in a world sense, which helped ease the cognitive dissonance when they made the leap forward – to thinking that wouldn't have otherwise been formulated for a hundred (or few hundred) years.

Ultimately, the method was a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry is commonly based on empirical or measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning. The *Oxford English Dictionary* defines the scientific method as “a method or procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.”

### **The Forward Progress of the RANP was Phenomenal**

The rate of experimentation was as fast as they could form hypothesis, predict results, conduct experiments and observe/record results. They would publish, add to the library, and take the next step.

There were REFEREE EYES ONLY ***reasons behind this***, of course. And the careful methodology was as important as the results.

Secondary teams, either in Cambridge or Oxford (and sometimes both for really fundamental inquiries) would then echo the experiment, conduct it themselves, and record the results. They were creating a body of work of *modern science*, even if the tools were primitive.

They recreated experiments where the results were a given, but also did plenty where they predicted experiments would fail because of a faulty premise. But they still followed through, objectively – and the published it all. It was creating a foundation, forming a template, setting precedents and establishing expectations.

They were creating a *culture* of science as much as they were producing science itself.

## **The Language of the Universe**

Or, more fully, ***The Language of the Universe is Written in Mathematics*.** It was a Royal Academy book, but the primary author was Prince Richard. This recreated Alt-U contributions from great men that now would never be born, in this case Galileo Galilee, Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz. It was more than just ahead of it’s time, it was capturing the essence of development over hundreds of years from the original timeline.

In the book, Richard writes of math and the observation of natural law, and ties them together in a logical, comprehensible way. Fortunately, he wasn’t operating in an utter vacuum – and here, the world library provided precedents for him to build on, especially as he essentially created and tied together the History of calculus.

The ancient period introduced some of the ideas that led to integral calculus, but does not seem to have developed these ideas in a rigorous and systematic way. Calculations of volume and area, one goal of integral calculus, can be found in the Egyptian Moscow papyrus (c. 1820 BC), but the formulas are simple instructions, with no indication as to method, and some of them lack major components. From the age of Greek mathematics, Eudoxus (c. 408−355 BC) used the method of exhaustion, which foreshadows the concept of the limit, to calculate areas and volumes, while Archimedes (c. 287−212 BC) developed this idea further, inventing heuristics which resemble the methods of integral calculus. The method of exhaustion was later reinvented in China by Liu Hui in the 3rd century AD in order to find the area of a circle. In the 5th century AD, Zu Chongzhi established a method that would later be called Cavalieri's principle to find the volume of a sphere.

More recently, toward the medieval period, Alexander the Great's invasion of northern India brought Greek Trigonometry, using the chord, to India where the sine, cosine, and tangent were conceived. Indian mathematicians gave a semi-rigorous method of differentiation of some trigonometric functions. In the Middle East, Alhazen derived a formula for the sum of fourth powers. He used the results to carry out what would now be called an integration, where the formulas for the sums of integral squares and fourth powers allowed him to calculate the volume of a paraboloid. In the 14th century, Indian mathematician Madhava of Sangamagrama and the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics stated components of calculus such as the Taylor series and infinite series approximations. However, they were not able to "combine many differing ideas under the two unifying themes of the derivative and the integral, show the connection between the two, and turn calculus into the great problem-solving tool we have today".

All of this was richly illustrated – so much so that the book had to be released in 5 volumes and half the pages were in pictures. The end result, though, was a magnificent learning tool. In the Rev-U, Richard was the first modern thinkers to clearly state that the laws of nature are mathematical. Cherry-picking the writing of Galileo’s *The Assayer*, Richard wrote "Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe ... It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures;...."

His mathematical analyses are a further development of a tradition employed by late scholastic natural philosophers, which Galileo learned when he studied philosophy. His work marked another step towards the eventual separation of science from both philosophy and religion; a major development in human thought. He was often willing to change his views in accordance with observation. In order to perform his experiments, Galileo had to set up standards of length and time, so that measurements made on different days and in different laboratories could be compared in a reproducible fashion. This provided a reliable foundation on which to confirm mathematical laws using inductive reasoning.

But that wasn't all...

### **Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica**

Like the title suggests, this RANP tome carried the essentials of Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica.

## The Numbers They Used

1377 Europe, including England, was using the foundation of Roman numerals for mathematics. As a system of notation, it accomplished the job, but as a tool for calculation, it was cumbersome. These guides pointed out not only the systems of mathematics (which worked regardless of notation), but also alternatives to the notation itself.

Newton's laws of motion are three physical laws that together laid the foundation for classical mechanics. They describe the relationship between a body and the forces acting upon it, and its motion in response to said forces. They have been expressed in several different ways over nearly three centuries, and can be summarised as follows.

Modern calculus was developed in the 17th century Europe by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, but there were other contemporaries, collaborators and competitors that both influenced the original and derived from it. Within the context, this version detailed the works of more than 20 brilliant minds of another time.

Finally, elements of calculus had appeared in ancient Greece, China, across medieval Europe, India, and the Middle East. This version expanded on the original, containing almost as much history as mathematics, sampling around the world and filling in pieces of the puzzle.

With the math and physics laying the groundwork, they introducted the work on Chemistry...

### ***The Indivisible Universe***

This was another Royal Academy book, and again, the primary author (and in the eyes of the Church, agent provacateur) was Richard. This work established and promoted the idea of Atomism over the substance theory of Aristotle that world was composed of the four classical elements – and going against Aristotle was considered some pretty daring natural philosophy at this point…

Atomism (from Greek ἄτομον, *atomon*, i.e. "uncuttable", "indivisible") is a natural philosophy that developed in several ancient traditions. The atomists theorized that nature consists of two fundamental principles: *atom* and *void*. Unlike their modern scientific namesake in atomic theory, philosophical atoms come in an infinite variety of shapes and sizes, each indestructible, immutable and surrounded by a void where they collide with the others or hook together forming a cluster. Clusters of different shapes, arrangements, and positions give rise to the various macroscopic substances in the world.

References to the concept of atomism and its atoms are found in ancient India and ancient Greece. In India the Jain, Ajivika and Carvaka schools of atomism may date back to the 4th century BCE. The Nyaya and Vaisheshika schools later developed theories on how atoms combined into more complex objects. In the West, atomism emerged in the 5th century BCE with Leucippus and Democritus. Whether Indian culture influenced Greek or vice versa or whether both evolved independently is a matter of dispute.

The particles of chemical matter for which chemists and other natural philosophers of the Royal Academy were finding experimental evidence for were thought to be indivisible, and therefore were given the name "atom", long used by the atomist philosophy.

This, of course, brought Richard into a deeper level of conflict with much of the established religious orthodoxy of the world. There were already limited observations and experiments to back it up, but the majority of the work was philosophical. The reasoning was that there was little context in the world for actually understanding the math – which was why there was some in there (that worked), but the greater bulk was doctrinal and observational.

Given the all-but-confirmed rumors of alchemy, the "Naturalist Method," the *The Language of the Universe***,** the *Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica*and*The Indivisible Universe* were required reading for aspiring alchemists around the world. It didn't get them much closer to actual alchemy, but it shed light on common, natural phenomena that formed the foundation of an early Age of Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution.

## **Engineering Leaps**

With *The Method*, and three books to back it up, the hunger for more simply grew. First, the reading itself was taking its toll on the scholars and academics. With Glow Stones made reading at night possible, and the Natural Philosophy culture made reading at night mandatory, it also meant their eyes never had the rest nature intended.

### **Optics**

Addressing a real-world problem, and one experienced around the world (not just in the Royal Academy), was deteriorating eyesight. ***Richard and the Order took the opportunity to dip into the science of optics*** – while also giving an opportunity to the *Royal Company* to realize optics in engineering.

This went well beyond eye glasses, and because it did, was also opening the next set of observations that would bring the RANP at odds with the teaching of the Church.

### **Miniaturization**

This wasn't just applied novelty in a toy-store, this was a *magic toy store* where the shop keepers just happen to be magically-touched teachers, too. This started with Prince Richard, but he'd spread the information-infusing wealth that it wasn't *too* obvious.

Few places was that more apparent than in the sudden laboratories of the Royal Academy. Where optics created the telescope and magnifying glass, it was the natural extension to want to do things at the tiny scale that a giant magnifying glass could enable.

In the space of weeks, RA engineers made themselves famous creating a *pocket watch*. First making it with a stackfreed, they abandoned that idea and invented a fusee (horology) to increase average accuracy.

It was remarkable engineering, something simple and elegant to solve a problem. Within a month, the Royal Academy had licensed the design to be produced in London.

It should also be noted that the burgeoning mechanical engineering had the Royal Academy tinkers looking for lubricants to keep the pieces moving smoothly. It just so happened there were already available formulas that could such a thing, though right now, those few places thought of this chemical bath more as *soap*...

### **Pressure**

Or, more grounded, *steam*.

Wind and water mills already existed, but they weren't wide-spread. Sustainable, yes, but their efficiency couldn't outpace the devastation of factors like the plague. This brought people back to the concept of steam engines. Work had been done here, too – and the RANP already had the groundwork done.

The first recorded rudimentary steam engine was the aeolipile described by Greek mathematician Hero of Alexandria, in roughly the first century AD. Since then, the few steam-powered "engines" known were, like the aeolipile, essentially experimental devices used by inventors to demonstrate the properties of steam. While it made motion, not unlike wind or water mills, steam had never been harnessed. In Richard’s hands, the idea seemed more realistic.

There was plenty of precedent available already in England regarding the historic engines, giving RANP members the window of opportunity to build an aeolipile himself as a demonstration and a plea to make it work. Richard agreed, while laying out his vision for and creating a steam turbine proof-of-concept in front of their very eyes, almost as an after thought.

In fact, Richard's plan was to save coal seams and forests alike, leapfrogging steam and going directly to magically-driven motors. The mundane magic behind steam, though, was the science of pressure and the relationships to temperature and so on. *Humanity HAD to have a mastery of applied thermodynamics .* To make that happen, **the RANP soon learned the necessary questions to ask regarding steam, and how to answer them: *with a thermometer***.