Chapter 47 Fountain Pen_1

Wang Miao felt rather embarrassed and shot a fierce glare at the gloating Da Shi beside him.

What was more awkward was that Yang Dong and Ding Yi both took their seats next to Wang Miao, as it was the only spot available. Ding Yi sat between Yang Dong and Wang Miao, separating the two.

Everyone present looked at them in the corner of the meeting table with an air of watching a drama unfold.

"Hello, I am Yang Dong's boyfriend, Ding Yi." As soon as he sat down, Ding Yi reached out his hand to Wang Miao with a smile on his face, but his eyes were full of warning.

Wang Miao remembered who the man in front of him was; they had met once at the Liang Xiang construction site. He was in charge of the nanocomponents for high-energy accelerators, and this man was a member of the theory group.

Wang Miao shook his hand, managing a smile: "Wang Miao."

Commander Chang Weisi walked to the front of the podium, first glancing at Yang Dong and Wang Miao, and then sweeping his gaze over everyone else, he said:

"Comrades, the meeting is starting."

"Among all global battle zones, our location has now become the focus. Let me first update the comrades here on the current situation."

Before even starting, Da Shi, eager to learn more, argued with Chang Weisi but was countered by his even sharper words.

"I brought you here because I value your experience in urban policing. You should cherish this opportunity."

Da Shi said in a rough voice: "So am I here to make amends for my crimes? Didn't you say all that was just crooked experience?"

"But it's useful," Chang Weisi nodded at Shi Qiang, "That's enough, we can't afford to be picky right now; this is wartime."

Commander Chang continued: "Recently, the enemy's attacks have intensified, still targeting the upper echelons of the scientific community. Please take a look at the list in the document."

The documents were laid out at the front of the table, with a set for everyone. Yang Dong pulled out the top sheet from the document folder; it was printed in large font. The list was clearly compiled in haste, with both Chinese and English names.

"For the two professors here, upon seeing this list, what are your impressions?" Chang Weisi asked both Ding Yi and Wang Miao.

"I know three of them; they're all famous scholars at the forefront of physics," Wang Miao was the first to speak, and Ding Yi then added:

"One of them is even a member of the Macro-Atomic Research Group I lead."

"These physicists on the list have committed suicide one after another within less than two months," Chang Weisi said.

If it weren't for Bai Tan, he might have already become one of those on the list.

Yang Dong was slightly lost in thought, looking at the serious Ding Yi beside her, wondering, if I have died, what kind of reaction would he have? Would he still say one of them was my fiancée, just like now?

She didn't know the answer, because she was still alive, even attending this meeting.

"Why?" Ding Yi asked.

Chang Weisi answered: "The only thing we can be sure of so far is that the reason they committed suicide is the same. But the reason itself is hard to explain here, and it might be impossible to make it clear to us non-professionals. Some excerpts from their suicide notes are attached in the document, which you can review in detail after the meeting."

Wang Miao leafed through the photocopies of the suicide notes, which were verbose. As an applied physics researcher, he wasn't as sensitive to these matters.

But Ding Yi, a basic physics researcher, had an answer: "Because physics doesn't exist."

"Physics... doesn't exist?"

Wang Miao looked bewilderedly at Ding Yi beside him.

Chang Weisi asked: "Doctor Ding, you're a specialist in theoretical physics, could you explain this in layman's terms?"

Standing up to face everyone's eyes, Ding Yi picked up a pen from the table in front of him.

"Everyone, please watch carefully."

After speaking, he simply let go, and the pen fell onto the table with a click, following a trajectory dictated by gravity. He picked up the pen again and handed it to Wang Miao: "You try."

Wang Miao, completely puzzled about what Ding Yi was trying to demonstrate, still did as instructed.

He picked up the pen and then let go; the pen again fell onto the conference table in front of him, following a vertical trajectory due to gravity.

"Yang Dong, you try too."

Yang Dong picked up the pen and let go; it fell in a straight line just the same.

"Okay, the experiment is over. Let's analyze the results," Ding Yi tapped the table, "We performed three experiments in total, each time in different locations, at different times, but the end results were the same. The pen always fell onto the table following a vertical path."

"Thus, we realize that the laws of physics are universally valid at any time and in any space."

"What are you trying to say?" Wang Miao didn't understand.

"Imagine there were different results: the first time the pen falls vertically on the table, the second time it falls bent to the ground, and the third time it flies straight to the moon and becomes Chang'e."

Da Shi at the side cracked a smile:

"So, Doctor Ding is trying to tell us that Chang'e is actually transformed from a pen?"

"It's just an example," Ding Yi glanced at him, a layperson wouldn't share their language, "Now it has happened!"

"This is related to the experimental results obtained after the construction of three new high-energy accelerators in the world. The particle collision results from the past two years are chaotic and disordered; each experiment ends up differently, with no patterns at all."

"Noether's Theorem has been disproved, the central theorem of theoretical physics is wrong!"

"To illustrate, the invariance of time translation corresponds to the law of conservation of energy, the invariance of space translation corresponds to the law of conservation of momentum, and the invariance of space rotation corresponds to the law of conservation of angular momentum. Both macroscopic celestial bodies and microscopic particles adhere to certain conservation laws."

"Now, these laws have been broken, meaning that momentum can fail to conserve, that energy can fail to conserve. Our edifice of physics is fundamentally wrong, and this error is fundamentally uncorrectable because the motion of objects is based on no laws, everything is unordered chaos!"

"Einstein was wrong; he thought God does not play dice, but our world is made up of dice, entirely random, with no law to speak of!"

Ding Yi spoke with some agitation, releasing the pressure that had been building up inside him recently.

He took a deep breath and turned to look through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the hall, seeing the cityscape beyond the compound; under the spring sunshine, the streets were bustling with traffic; on the lawns, people walked their dogs, and a few children were at play...

The ordinary people of the world continued with their nine-to-five lives, unaware of what had happened in the past two years, but as a scientist engaged in frontier physics, he was well aware of the recent upheaval in the field of basic physics.

After listening to Ding Yi's explanation, everyone present fell into a state of skepticism and shock; they couldn't imagine what a world without laws would look like.

Yang Dong remained as calm as ever; she had long been aware of this result and had thought further ahead. The reality, she deduced, was far more brutal than what Ding Yi had described.