The Shadow of Great Britain

Chapter 1159: Chapter 121: One Man Is a Scotland Yard

The Academic Director’s office at the University of Gottingen.

Ohm’s work ”The Calculation of Current” lies flat on the desk, while a tall stack of draft paper is piled up in front of Arthur, who is holding a quill pen, occasionally writing a few lines on the draft paper, and sometimes raising his head to scrutinize ”The Calculation of Current”.

In order to avoid being roped in by Gauss and Weber, Arthur could only find some tasks to keep himself busy.

Translating ”The Calculation of Current” into English was a reasonable excuse for this work, which not only helped him to fend off Gauss and Weber but also enhanced his academic reputation and silenced those who believed he lacked academic experience.

Although most Germans believe that dealing with professors is much easier than dealing with police, for Arthur, the latter was more manageable.

At least when he was at Scotland Yard, Arthur always had many thought processes for answering questions, and the answers were never fixed.

However, at the University of Gottingen, Arthur often spent quite a while just understanding the propositions Gauss frequently tossed his way.

For instance, a few days ago, Gauss, during his geodetic work, suddenly had a terrifying thought: Is the world we live in real? Do we truly reside in a Euclidean geometric space?

Gauss was startled by this idea, and to verify this conjecture, he designed an experiment. He attempted to test whether Euclidean geometry applies to the Earth’s surface by measuring the angles between the vertices of three hilltops.

As everyone knows, in Euclidean geometry, the sum of a triangle’s internal angles is always 180 degrees.

However, Gauss hypothesized: If the Earth’s surface space is not flat but has a curvature, then when measuring triangles over larger areas, their internal angles might not add up to 180 degrees.

Gauss’s final measurement showed that the sum of the angles between the three hills was indeed not 180 degrees, but the difference was not substantial. This somewhat assured Gauss, as he felt the discrepancy was almost negligible, falling within a tolerable range of error.

Therefore, Gauss concluded that the space we live in is indeed a standard Euclidean geometric space.

When Arthur saw this report, he felt a sense of being deeply amazed, despite not understanding it fully.

And when Gauss asked Arthur what he thought, Arthur, for the sake of his dignity, casually replied, ”Although the distance between the three hills is not short, if we amplify this distance to the Earth’s scale, it seems very insignificant. If we could measure whether the angle between two stars and Earth is 180 degrees, the experimental result should be accurate enough.”

Gauss casually asked, and Arthur casually answered.

But unexpectedly, Gauss was indeed stumped by Arthur’s casual remark.

This highly respected scholar in Europe first stroked his chin and pondered for a moment, then suddenly clapped his hands and headed straight to the University of Gottingen’s observatory.

Although Arthur didn’t know what exactly Gauss had thought of, at least since their conversation, Gauss, apart from requesting as the Observatory Director to add the most advanced telescope to the observatory, hadn’t come looking for him again.

The Academic Director was extremely satisfied with this outcome, and it seemed he accidentally discovered the secret of dealing with these great scholars—pose difficult questions to them.

By just raising a question, these scholars would disappear for several weeks or even months. Is there any more cost-effective deal in the world?

As for the acquisition of the most advanced telescope, although the project was quite costly, Arthur believed that as long as Gauss’s name and the budget request were submitted together, the Hanover Kingdom’s Department of Culture and Education would certainly consider it seriously.

After addressing the natural philosophy professors such as Gauss, dealing with humanities scholars like Herbart and Dalman was much easier.

As a constitutional reform advisor like Arthur, Professor Dalman often came to discuss constitutional issues. In terms of police reform, the former Scotland Yard senior officer Arthur had plenty to talk about.

Whether it was administrative structure, the scope of authority, judicial processes, or historical documents, Arthur could systematically itemize them for Professor Dalman, and he could even occasionally cite examples from neighboring France.

Perhaps in the field of natural philosophy, Arthur was merely feigning expertise, but in the field of police and judicial affairs, there were hardly any others across Europe more knowledgeable than this York swineherd.

After all, he genuinely participated in the creation of the ”London Police Station Police Management Regulations,” the ”Patrol and Order Maintenance Manual,” the ”Case Record and Management Guide,” the ”Arrest and Interrogation Manual,” the ”Police Close Combat Manual,” and a series of internal handbooks still in practice at Scotland Yard.

And after defeating the Paris Sword Saint Francois Bertrand in that duel, he was even invited to participate in the compilation of the latest British Army ”Bayonet Manual.”

In short, although only 24 years old, Sir Arthur Hastings was undoubtedly a genuine veteran cop.