Morbledainen raises one finger in the air, and a light is born upon its tip, accompanied by magic. A flick of his other hand's finger sets a second orb of light to orbit the first.
"You asked for a children's exercise. This moving mana-bundle, circling the mana-source on my finger, is attracted to that mana-source with a force that varies as the inverse square of its distance from that mana-source."
"I don't make that be true by thinking math at it. It's just always been the case that the moving type of magic is attracted in that exact way, well-described by math, to the magic I'm radiating from my finger."
"Since I know this, I can figure out how fast I need to flick the magic, at what distance, to make it orbit in a rough circle. I also know that since I didn't flick it perfectly to make a perfect circle, the actual orbit will be an ellipse."
Though Morbledainen is trying to use simple words, Opalyn's senses will provide her with additional and more complicated information. She can see that there's a Type A of mana flowing out of his finger, constantly radiating and losing its energy, and a type B of mana he's also emitting from his finger that just immediately turns into visible light. The orb is made up of a different type C of mana that's orbiting the A-attractor and not losing energy; along with a bundle of type-B energy that's closely bound to the C-type mana and gradually losing energy as it turns into light.
(In other words: The two simple kinds of mana here, type A at the center and type C orbiting it, might by default be invisible to ordinary eyes, if mere Baron-level sorcerers had weaker senses especially when collared. But Morbledainen is helpfully tacking on B-type mana to both the central A-mana and the orbiting C-mana, so that they'll be visible to the naked eye.)
