Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology

A month ago, His Majesty had given him the task of recreating the Dutch sea bomb and improving it according to his requirements.

One of the improvements His Majesty suggested was to replace the firing mechanism from a crude design to a flintlock design using mercury fulminate as a primer. However, he did not have much research in mercury, so he had to start from the ground up.

He started by learning about the properties of mercury—its physical appearance, colour, size, shape, everything. In his search, he came across the peculiar property of mercury, which increases in volume with the increase in temperature. Its thermal expansion property was very unique.

Then suddenly, an inspiration jolted him. 'Can I use mercury to create a temperature-measuring device?' This idea took root in his mind like an immortal seed and sprouted crazily until he couldn't resist the urge to realize the idea.

Ever since then, if he worked on the main project during normal hours, he worked on the personal thermometer project in his off time. Eventually, a couple of researchers joined his research out of interest. With further research, he discovered that mercury was the perfect liquid for temperature sensing. He found that not only was the thermal expansion property of mercury excellent for temperature sensing, but also the thermal expansion was very uniform, which meant it wouldn't jump in volume from one temperature to another. Moreover, he discovered that mercury had a wide range of volume—it had a certain volume at 0 degrees Celsius and a certain volume at 100 degrees Celsius. He found out that the boiling point was at 356.75 degrees Celsius, but he couldn't find the freezing point as he had no technology to measure temperatures below minus 7 degrees Celsius.

However, for the range he usually used, the scale of the mercury freezing point and boiling point was perfect. What's more, he found another neat quality of mercury—it did not stick to glass, making it an amazing highlighter for measurement.

With all the research done, he got to prototyping. He and his assistants chose a glass tube uniform in shape with one of its ends closed off while the other was open.

He heated the tube to expel some air that was within it while placing the open end of the tube into a container containing mercury. As the tube cooled down, the mercury was drawn into the tube due to the pressure difference.

Then Manoj Reddy carefully heated the open end of the tube once again, making sure that no liquid was spilt or contaminants went inside. The heating took place until the glass melted, and the liquid inside was sealed, creating an airtight system.

Finally, Manoj started to roughly write down the scale for measurement. He put the thermometer in ice for a few minutes and marked zero degrees Celsius on it. After placing it in boiling water, it was marked as 100 degrees Celsius.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

Bringing the thermometer out for a few minutes, the level of mercury eventually settled at the 26-degree mark.

At this point, Manoj and his team were over the moon as they already had definitive proof that their device worked. However, as one of the top scientists of the Bharatiya Empire, rigour was in their bones, so they went on to test the thermometer for a few more weeks and polished the scale a bit more until perfection.

Finally, Manoj Reddy and his two assistants applied for a patent for a mercury thermometer on 22nd October 1659.

"Damn it, why did I not think of this? It was such a simple design."

"Where was my head when I was working on mercury, damn it."

"Tsk, lucky ****."

The chemical and medical communities in the Bharatiya Empire were in an uproar as the usefulness of the thermometer was evident. However, its construction was so simple and straightforward that it made the chemists who worked with mercury in their day-to-day lives very mad since they could already see the financial prospects of the equipment.

Mano e research institute run by the Bharatiya Academy of Military Sciences. As a result, the academy received 50% of the stake, like all other private research results obtained by researchers as a byproduct of their main research or private research utilizing the Empire's resources.

Finally, Manoj Reddy and his team of two came to a decision to sell the manufacturing rights to a manufacturing company on a royalty deal.

Bhupathi Precision Machinery, a subsidiary of Bhupathi Pharma, newly opened and specializing in medical equipment manufacturing, obtained the manufacturing rights to the Reddy mercury thermometer at a price of 5% royalty per thermometer sold to the market.

Out of the 5%, Manoj Reddy and his team of two received a total of 2.5% royalty with every thermometer sold by Bhupathi Precision Machinery. Manoj Reddy, as the leader of the team and the sole brain behind the product, took 1% of the profit, while the remaining two researchers shared 0.75% equally.

Weeks passed, and thermometers had become hot-selling items as hospitals, industries, and research labs found the device essential for many of their purposes.

General Manager Bhaskaracharya quickly picked up on this data and soon sent the manager of Raya Machinery to obtain the manufacturing license for the Reddy mercury thermometer.

Once the royal industry got involved, many manufacturing enterprises immediately followed suit. The biggest among them was Pillai Optics.

Pillai Optics used its specialization in glass to thin down the thermometer and made additional innovations to it. Experience tales at empire

Ganapatra Pillai was successful in manufacturing the thinnest glass tube in the world. He named it the capillary tube.

Ganapatra Pillai, instead of directly pouring the mercury into the thermometer glass tube, poured the mercury into the capillary tube, making it thinner than the traditional Reddy thermometer and making the whole thermometer thinner and easier to handle.

Ganapatra Pillai knew that his version of the thermometer would be a huge step forward for temperature detection devices as a whole, so he spent large amounts of money to completely buy out the patent utilization and research rights from both Manoj Reddy and his team, as well as the government.

After obtaining the patent rights, he immediately applied for a patent for his version of the thermometer and started to manufacture it on a large scale.

In such a way, the thermometer quickly became a must-have product in any scientific environment in the Empire. Be it in a clinic, a research centre, or a manufacturing plant, the shapes may differ, but the Reddy mercury thermometer improved the precision of Bharatiya industries for the best.

Bhupathi, who was quite happy with the sales of thermometers for the last few weeks, suddenly received a message from his sales manager that thermometer sales in the medical sector had dropped drastically.

Bhupathi, being a smart man and the inventor of the assembly production model, quickly figured out that something or some product might have been introduced to the market that was more competitive than the thermometer he was selling.

After a thorough investigation, he found out that Pillai Optics had come up with a thermometer that was two centimetres thinner than the one he produced. While the original Reddy mercury thermometer was 3 cm in width and 20 cm in length, the improved Pillai Reddy thermometer was only 1 cm in width and 15 cm in length, while containing all the features of the old thermometer and improving upon them for the better.

Bhupathi immediately put forward an acquisition request to the Pillai Optics company. As expected, Ganapatra Pillai, who considered Pillai Optics an ancestral property, immediately rejected the request. Bhupathi had anticipated such a response, so he counter-offered to buy the patent usage and research rights to the capillary tube technology. Pillai thought for a while, agreed to the request, and sold the capillary tube technology usage and research rights to Bhupathi Precision Machinery Company for 3 million Varaha.

After reaching the deal, Bhupathi immediately decided to correct his mistake of not buying the research rights in the first place and contacted the government and Manoj Reddy. He bought the patent research rights for the Reddy mercury thermometer at the same price that Pillai Optics had bought. Furthermore, to avoid being caught off guard again, he set up a research institute within the company to develop iterations and new products.

By the end of 1660, three giants were formed in the medical instruments industry: Pillai Optics, Bhupathi Precision Machinery, and finally Raya Machinery.

A few months later, Ganapatra Pillai made another advancement in the thermometer after being inspired by another product he was working on. He made the capillary tube even smaller, and made the outer casing glass double-layered with a hollow vacuum in between for thermal isolation, making the outside environment not affect the temperature of mercury, making it more accurate and safer. Finally, as a contact point, he pioneered a mercury bulb where a large amount of mercury was present at the bottom as a single contact point for the volume of all the mercury within the thermometer.

This was the biggest improvement in thermometers since their invention. Ganapatra Pillai, with this one invention, stepped into the ranks of one of the hundred richest people in the Bharatiya Empire. By the end of 1661, thermometers had become widespread in all cities of the Bharatiya Empire, with sales figures reaching upwards of 16 million units. 70% of the sales were occupied by the top three companies: Pillai Optics, Bhupathi Precision Machinery, and Raya Machinery, with the remaining 30% occupied by other small, newly established medical instrument companies.