Shepherd Tantra

Chapter 931 A cross-era invention
...Difference Engine?

Aiwass was stunned for a moment.

It’s not because he doesn’t know…quite the opposite, it’s because he knows too much.

The knowledge from the two worlds overlapped, making Aiwas's brain a little confused for a moment.

In another world, Charles Babbage is a British inventor. He invented a machine that can be used to process and calculate complex data. The calculation results can be printed directly. The name of this machine is called the Difference Engine.

The so-called "difference" refers to converting the complex calculation of the function table into a difference calculation, using addition to replace square calculation. He even designed another more complex machine - a programmable general-purpose computer called the Analytical Engine. This idea can be said to be the predecessor of modern computers.

At that time, the prototype of the difference engine had been completed, but the large-scale version could not be completed due to technological limitations... Because of this, the British government believed that this machine was a pure waste of money and stopped funding it.

As a result, a hundred years later, when the technological precision had improved, people discovered that Babbage's drawings were actually correct.

In Avalon of this world, there was a person with the same name at about the same time, but they took completely different paths.

Charles Babbage, the alchemist of Avalon, was born in 1791. At that time, Queen Sophia had not yet ascended the throne, and Avalon was still in the era of the Hanged King Tudor III.

Charles grew up in an atmosphere of terror and witnessed how extraordinary people from other paths were caught by those iron gloves.

The school Charles later attended was the Royal Law University, and old Moriarty was a contemporary of him, probably only a few years apart.

Because when he went to study in the Church, he learned mathematics and astronomy from Cardinal Rocky, which were not taught in Avalon, and met Professor Moriarty, who was still a student. But unlike James, he was not kept by Cardinal Rocky, and returned to Avalon after the study period ended.

Since then, Charles and James have maintained a long-term friendship. Julia once found Charles's manuscript in the study, which was also an opportunity for Aiwas to get to know this person.

During the reign of Queen Sophia, Avalon revived the path of balance and issued a standard product that combined the paths of balance and authority - credit banknotes.

For this reason, in addition to the "white coin" symbolizing the Silver Crown Dragon and the "red coin" symbolizing the candlestick, the currency of Avalon also has the "copper coin" symbolizing the sand clock.

It was also because Avalon revived alchemy and tried to train its own alchemists... Babbage also came into contact with alchemy at that time.

But, speaking of it...

"…the alchemy of the path of balance and the astrology of the path of adaptation?"

Aiwass murmured softly, and suddenly thought of something.

Avalon did not have its own alchemy heritage, and the Theocracy attached too much importance to the rules of inheritance, so they were unwilling to teach Avalon's giant tree alchemy. So they could only buy a lot of books from the Theocracy and Star Antimony, and then develop from scratch.

Babbage was the first generation alchemist in Avalon.

Better than Dai Ying in another world, Avalon did not cut his funding. Babbage always had sufficient funding to study "alchemy". But he obviously gradually went in the wrong direction...

At that time, the knight class of Avalon wanted to obtain alchemical pharmaceutical technology that was close to "chemistry". At that time, dyes, fuels and various practical alchemical mixtures were completely dependent on imports, which was very dangerous.

As for machinery, these country knights’ understanding of machinery is mainly “mechanical horses” and “guns”, with an “elevator” at most. Because of this, these things are not taken seriously.

Although he had enough funds, Babbage also encountered a similar problem - insufficient process precision. Fortunately, there is another solution in this world... that is to directly purchase a large number of parts with sufficient precision from Xingti.

Later, Xingti learned about this and invited Babbage to settle down or study in Xingti, but Babbage refused after fortune-telling.

Later, Babbage received many invitations from the Alchemy Association in private. He did not accept them and handed the letters to the Round Table Hall, warning them that the Star Antimony people were stealing Avalon's scholars - but the Round Table Hall had already had people infiltrated by the Star Antimony.

Later, Babbage suddenly died at home for no apparent reason.

Because traces of the Way of Transcendence were detected at the scene, it was eventually determined that it was the work of the folk curse society "The Scaleless Hand" during the Hanged King era, which later became "The Noble Red".

At that time, Queen Sophia also wanted to arrange someone to take over Babbage's work.

But because Babbage had gone so far down this path, there was no one left to take over.

Later, because Xingti agreed in a negotiation meeting and was willing to export more advanced automatic tabulating machines to Avalon, the research on this technology was abandoned.

This new machine from Star Antimony was not only cheaper and more efficient, but also much smaller in size. Even the noise, error and vibration during operation were much smaller... so much so that people subconsciously thought that this was a more advanced version of the machine that Babbage was studying.

After all, Mr. Babbage was only a second-level alchemist at that time.

——The opponent is the Star Antimony Royal Alchemy Association which has a fifth-level alchemist!
Isn't that surely better than the beggar's version we invented ourselves?

That's what the Avalonians thought at the time.

"But when I found an abandoned automatic tabulating machine and planned to dismantle it to study it, I suddenly realized that something was wrong."

Yulia said seriously: "Because this machine is actually driven by magic! There are obvious traces of enchantment of the path of wisdom inside..."

This girl, who was as delicate and transparent as a snow elf, now had full of vitality.

Her pupils were bright and her eyes were sparkling.

"And I clearly remember... the 'Difference Engine' drawings I saw at home when I was a child did not depict any magic arrays. It was purely machine-driven - a more 'demystified' mode than this machine!"

The fundamental power of the balanced path comes from disenchantment.

The more things you can do without using the power of the Tao, and the more extraordinary powers of other Taos you can simulate, the more power of balance you can get.

“Did you realize at that time that this machine could change the times?” Aiwass asked.

"...No." Julia shook her head slightly, turned back and lovingly touched the machine she had built herself: "In fact, I am still not sure until now. I only know...if this machine, which has been completed for more than half, is not completed, Mr. Babbage's achievements will be lost in history from then on, and no one will know about it.

“I’m the only person who’s aware of this right now, so this is my mission.”

"……Did you make it?"

"nature."

Yulia smiled and said, "The technology nowadays is completely different from what it was decades ago... The third-level alchemists are also different from the second-level alchemists."

She said, picking up a part at random.

The part changed its shape and texture at will in her hands.

"I have received complete instruction in Star Antimony Alchemy, and among all the alchemy traditions, Star Antimony Alchemy is the most proficient in metal transformation. Now I have reached the point where I can do whatever I want...

"Whether it's mixing alloys of different proportions as required, drawing metal wires as fine as millimeters, or manufacturing parts of different models, it only takes a thought and doesn't even require much mana."

Yulia said with some sadness: "If Mr. Babbage could do this back then, instead of learning alchemy by himself from books... perhaps this epoch-making invention would have been completed long ago, and there would be no need to purchase parts from Xingti.

"Then Avalon might have one more pioneer, and even the entire history might be changed...

"The Star Antimony people must kill him because they are jealous of his talent. They also immediately exported more advanced machines to Avalon just to prevent us from restarting this research."

“…Maybe not.”

Aiwass said softly, "They hope that we can't figure out the truth. But the one who did it may not be the Star Antimony people... Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to get the manuscript at all."

"Then why..."

"...Or maybe it's because the entire history will be changed because of it, so he can't do it."

Alchemy - This art belongs to Huantiansi.

Therefore, he was able to understand all the developments in alchemy and strictly control the development of this era through this means. All this was to make the world move in the direction he expected.

Because Huan Tiansi wanted to escape from this world at the end of this reincarnation, if nothing unexpected happened... this reincarnation should be the last one. In the past reincarnations, perhaps he would increase the variables as much as possible, but this time he would reduce the variables as much as possible.

……snort.

You may not be able to fit in with the source of the easier river...

This thought popped into Aiwas' mind.

His grandfather Jacob was suspected to be an apostle of the Ring of Heaven... and if this belief had been formed since early on, perhaps the official investigation results of Avalon were not wrong.

The person who killed Babbage was really the "Scaleless Hand"!
And the person who took action at that time might have been Jacob.

Aiwass shook his head slightly to dispel the distracting thoughts in his mind.

He looked at Yulia and changed the subject: "So... Yuli, what optimization did you make?"

"I am optimizing it based on the principle of the 'Analytical Engine' in another manuscript of Mr. Babbage. But I encountered many problems..."

When Yulia said this, she immediately let go of the question of "Who killed Babbage?" and her eyes lit up immediately: "There are several problems that need to be solved, one is the problem of computing efficiency, and the other is the problem of output efficiency. And the most critical problem, I think, is 'input'.

"The griffin gave me inspiration on this issue - the speed of electricity is very fast, and Star Antimony already has mature electricity transportation and storage technology. The electric lights that have been popularized in Avalon are a good example.

"Look, pulling the switch open means connecting, and closing the switch means disconnecting. This actually sends out a signal... Um, brother, you may not understand..."

"It's okay. I understand."

Aiwass interrupted: "Go on."

When he heard half of it, he was already shocked.

He vaguely realized what Yulia was tinkering with - if she really figured this thing out, then he would really get the spot as a pioneer.

Each of these pioneers is a world-renowned inventor, and is also the spokesperson and agent of Sand Timepieces. Their existence represents that Sand Timepieces is taking action to promote the development of the times.

Sure enough, everything happened just as Aiwass expected...

Yulia continued, "At the same time, I also paid attention to another thing - in the research of mathematicians, there are some meaningless things that are purely for the purpose of flattering the sand clock. Or... to show respect for the sand clock.

“That includes ‘binary’.

"It originally came from the worship of the sand clock, so I invented the calculation model that uses 'black and white', 'yes and no', 'up and down', 'yin and yang' to govern everything. Its meaning represents 'everything is two', and the whole world is constructed from the flow of yes and no.

"And this 'yes or no' can be accomplished with electric current. This creates a high-speed current pulse... which can quickly input a string of complex numbers."

Yulia looked at the huge, terrifying machine with electricity flowing through it: "I hope that it can eventually become a machine that 'calculates the answers to all questions'... It would be best if it could be accomplished using only the power of the Path of Balance.

"If that's the case, many people won't have to work so hard in the future."

(End of this chapter)