“T agree,” said the king.
“As do I,” added Gelahel.
“Okay. Now, your Majesty, this is your world line, as you
are at rest. Your line moves straight up with time. Now,
you clocked Gelahel at 5 clicks, so we will mark 5 on the
time axis. Now, pay attention carefully. We will call the
ratio of Gelahel’s speed to the
speed of light B.
So he got beneath the There is
another
beast, and with all his quantity,
strength lifted it from which
we will
the earth call" ay,
Now, y_ will
show us two things.
One, Y is the ratio at which your
time, your Majesty, moves in relation to Gelahel’s. y also
represents what we call the stretch factor. You see, your
Majesty, you and Gelahel are in different frames when he
is running. You do not see the fish at its normal length, but
shorter than it actually is. You will see the fish at its length
divided by y. At the same time, because Gelahel is moving
so fast compared to you, time appears to move slower for
him than for you . That explains why the clocks show dif-
ferent times. Does everyone see that on the diagram?”
“I can see what you have drawn, Dan,” said the king,
“and I do not wish to doubt you, but I still don’t believe
that this liar is telling the truth.”
“Tam no liar!” shouted Gelahel.
“Please, let me finish,” said Dan. “Your Majesty, I will show you
through math why this diagram is true. We have yet to find y. Now,
it is well known that ‘is equal to 1 divided by the square root of 1-
(B’). In this case, B is 8, or 4/5. Therefore, 1-(B°) is 9/25, the square
root of which is 3/5. 1 divided by 3/5 is 5/3. Therefore, your time,
Besalumuel, moves at 5/3 Gelahel’s time. And so, when 1 click
passes for him, 1.67 clicks has passed for you. When 2 clicks have
passed for him, 3.33 clicks have passed for you. When 3 clicks have
passed for Gelahel, 5 clicks have passed for you. Therefore your
clock reads 5 clicks while his reads 3. Do you understand”
“I do,” said Besalumuel reluctantly.
“Now, remember that 7 is also the stretch factor, which means
that you see the fish at its actual length divided by 1.66. Could we
bring the fish and have it measured?”
“Very well,” said Besalumuel, and he ordered the guards to fetch
it. When they returned, Dan measured the fish with his tape mea-
sure,
“100 meters,” he reported. “Now, 100 meters divided by 1.66 is
60 meters. So, your majesty, you saw the fish at 60 meters, but it is
indeed 100 meters long.”
With that, Besalumuel said, “Dan, you have shown me that I
was wrong. Gelahel, | am sorry that I questioned you. Indeed, you
were right to state your time at 3 clicks, just as I was right. You also
did catch a fish of 100 meters long. And so, I hand over the crown
to you, King Gelahel.”
Besalumuel crowned Gelahel to the cheers of all the citizens.
Dan was named a Knight. Fillovia once again became a happen-
ing place, with the best parties in all the world. And at the ban-
quets, where meat was eaten again, Gelahel always made sure that
there were vegetarian dishes for Besalumuel and Dan.