Chapter 123: Chapter 122: Flame Color Reaction and Electron Transition
Stars filled the sky, twinkling brilliantly.
Gro sat on the bed in his bedroom, having chased away all the maids and guards from the room, staring intently at an hourglass on the table next to him, looking as if he was bewitched.
“Swish, swish, swish…”
The sand flowed quickly, and Gro’s eyes stayed open without blinking for several minutes, red with bloodshot veins.
“Swish… swish-swish…”, all the sand in the upper part of the hourglass shone brightly, signaling the most suitable time for meditation had arrived.
“Hu,” Gro took a deep breath, calming his excited emotions, then picked up the Mysterious Potion dihydrogen monoxide Richard had given him, took a small sip, and drank about one-third of it. Afterward, he opened the bottle of ether and took a deep sniff.
Having done all this, he sealed the two potion bottles tightly and set them aside securely. Gro relaxed his body and lay down on the soft velvet bedding, closed his eyes, and started to meditate. Of course, to the outside world, it looked more like he was lying in state.
One minute, two minutes, three minutes…
Gro felt his body begin to vibrate, his consciousness separating, trying to leave the body, but the physical bonds were strong and difficult to break free from.
Just as Gro was becoming anxious inside, he felt some force from the outside world coming near. Before he could react, he felt his consciousness being seized by this external force and rapidly pulled away from his body.
With a “pop,” Gro felt as though he heard something, and his consciousness successfully detached from his body, suddenly feeling light and extremely comfortable.
Gro tried to look around him, but could see nothing – which was normal. In reality, apart from distant energy elements, he could hardly sense anything else. Besides returning to the body, he could hardly control his consciousness to do anything more than shake within a very limited area. Generally speaking, the closer the shake brought him to the free energy elements, the easier it was to absorb them.
Today, perhaps because of the potion, the range of shaking was noticeably greater than yesterday, meaning he could absorb more free energy elements.
It seemed the dihydrogen monoxide potion was indeed magical.
Thinking this, Gro started to meditate with all his might while another consciousness lightly shook its head and swiftly left the room.
In the study of Richard’s residence in Cuijin City.
Richard sitting on the chair opened his eyes.
“Hu,” Richard exhaled a breath of turbid air and stood up. He moved his body, turned, and walked out of the study toward the adjacent experiment lab to start preparations for detecting the so-called free energy elements, to prove whether his previous conjecture was correct.
Inside the laboratory, there was a black long table in the center with numerous instruments on it. Around the table, tight against the walls, stood several wooden racks and cabinets filled with many potion bottles and various experimental materials.
Richard walked over to the experiment table, first taking out the cobalt blue glass and placing it properly, then he found the salt acid, deionized water, and platinum wire coil, with the last item being a flame alcohol lamp.
Generally, a Bunsen lamp is best for flame tests, its temperature reaching 1500 degrees Celsius and giving clear results. However, the Bunsen lamp, invented by German scientist “Bunsen” in the 19th century on Earth, needed petroleum gas or coal gas as fuel, which was a bit troublesome; Richard eventually chose an alcohol spray lamp made by modifying an alcohol lamp.
The flames from the alcohol spray lamp were significantly hotter than those from an ordinary alcohol lamp at around 400 degrees Celsius, reaching approximately 1000 degrees Celsius. Although lower than the Bunsen lamp, it was still sufficient.
With all the experimental apparatuses ready, Richard began the actual experiment.
Holding the platinum wire coil, he immersed it in salt acid, watching bubbles form on the surface of the coil until they disappeared, Richard knew that any impurities on the platinum wire had been cleared.
Richard picked up the alcohol lamp and lit it, then removed the platinum wire from the hydrochloric acid and sent it into the high-temperature flames of the alcohol lamp.
The platinum wire, just taken out and still smeared with hydrochloric acid, immediately made a “sizzling” sound upon touching the flames of the alcohol lamp. The liquid swiftly evaporated, followed by a faint acrid smell. Richard, however, paid no attention to this and just stared closely at the flame, waiting until there were no color changes. Then, he took down the wire coil, rinsed it with deionized water, and left it to dry naturally.
At this point, the first step of the experiment was complete, and what followed was the most important, yet simplest step.
Holding the platinum wire, Richard extended it back into the flames of the alcohol lamp. At the same time, he controlled a free energy element from within his body that had not been used in melting before. It surged out from his fingertips, following the handle of the wire into the part of the coil that was in the flames.
Visibly, the color of the alcohol lamp began to change. It was no longer the color of the alcohol lamp’s flame, but the flame color of the free energy element.
This was precisely a flame color reaction.
Flames are colored. Partly, this is due to the temperature, hence the saying “a pure and azure flame,” but part of it is also due to the presence of elements.
The reason why fireworks have a multitude of vibrant colors is that many different metallic elements are added to them: adding metal potassium yields a pale violet; adding metal sodium, a golden yellow; adding metal lead, a bluish-white…
The principle behind the flame color reaction is known as electron transition.
This is because when certain elements burn in a flame, the electrons outside their atomic nuclei absorb a certain amount of energy and transition from their ground state to a more energetic excited state. After the transition, when the excited electrons return to the ground state, they release the excess energy in the form of spectral lines of a specific wavelength, causing the flame to display a specific color.
The flame colors seen in flame color reaction experiments are the colors of these spectral lines, and each element has its own unique set of spectral lines and therefore emits a distinctive color. For example, a magenta flame indicates the presence of the strontium element, an emerald green flame indicates copper, and a yellow flame indicates sodium.
Through this experiment, if a new element is found to exist with flame colors and spectral lines that are different from all known elements, then it is naturally classified as a new element.
Richard was uncertain whether the flame color experiment would work on the superheavy nuclear stable island elements he hypothesized, but it was still worth a try. After all, according to theory, the superheavy nuclear stable island elements already had electrons exceeding the speed of light, showing relativistic effects. Furthermore, it turned the Dirac ground state wave function into a fluctuating state, producing a series of magical effects.
If that was the case, then what was not possible?
Thinking this way, Richard gazed into the flames of the alcohol lamp.
The next moment, what appeared in Richard’s line of sight was a group of deep red, blood-like flames, a color not known to any element. It resembled the color of the free energy element light points he had absorbed initially.
Red, high energy reaction — could this be the so-called Fire Magic’s Fire Element?
Richard thought to himself.
His eyes flashing, Richard then picked up the cobalt blue glass he had spent nearly a whole day creating, ready for use.
The cobalt blue glass was mainly used to filter out any potential interference from impurity elements’ flame colors, like the gold of sodium ions, which could easily overwhelm the colors of other elements and lead to false conclusions.
Looking at the alcohol lamp’s flame through the cobalt blue glass, Richard now saw a much paler deep red color, but it was still a unique color never seen before for any element.
“Could it be…” Richard murmured to himself.
Undoubtedly, just this one experimental study could not prove much.
Because it was impossible to store too many of the different types of free energy elements within the Magic Origin, it would require many flame color experiments to complete the testing of the hypothesis. In addition, to ensure accuracy, aside from the flame tests, other methods would be used to detect the elements’ properties.
It was a long-term task.
Nevertheless, Richard felt that at least he had made a promising start, at least it meant that the direction of the research was not wrong.
Everything else after that was just a matter of time.
“Time…” Richard murmured to himself again.