Chapter 1114: Chapter 1051: Leonardo and His
Leonardo looked at this middle-aged student, only feeling the frequency of his heartbeat increasing continuously.
He could almost hear his heart beating faster than the flames dancing in the nearby furnace.
"Your theory has been rejected by the review board twice, oh no, five times!"
"There were indeed minor errors before, but this time it’s different. I improved it after reading His Excellency’s ’Proverbs’!"
"Even if you bring out His Excellency’s banner, it won’t work!" Leonardo was even more disappointed. "Do you think no one has tried that before? It will actually leave a bad impression on the scholars of the review board."
Horn repeatedly stated not to let politics invade academia, as politics cannot prove the correctness of scientific achievements.
"I’m just speaking the truth, this is my conclusion, my position."
"Don’t you realize how absurd your theory is?" Leonardo picked up a glass of water from the table. "For example, can this glass of water be both ice and water at the same time?
Don’t tell me about ice water, that’s half ice and half water, I want both ice and water simultaneously!"
The disheveled Lowdon remained silent, merely supporting his knees with his hands, without saying a word.
Leonardo slowed his speech, and his tone became gentler: "I know your talent very well, as long as you want, it wouldn’t be hard to secure a university lecturer position, why insist on this duality theory?"
"Because it is correct!"
"How do you define correctness, you can’t even answer that ice water question!"
"... Just because I can’t answer it doesn’t mean it’s incorrect."
"You’re just being stubborn, unwilling to admit you’re wrong." Leonardo rarely got red-faced and flustered.
He has always believed that you can be unskilled, but you can’t just show off, especially if someone clearly talented chooses to do so.
If Lowdon’s talent could materialize, could be brought to fruition, how much time could be saved in the ether clock remote transmission issue with Lowdon’s help?
If this scene happened to the senior brother just now, Leonardo would just remain calm because that’s just his level.
If the senior brother came up with such a theory, Leonardo wouldn’t say much, he’d just strongly command him to switch topics.
But when it comes to Lowdon, he was determined to persuade this fool.
This is clearly an unwillingness to admit mistakes, and forcibly using the ’Ether Duality Conjecture’ as a guise, just to show off.
Efforts in the wrong direction are equivalent to futile efforts.
Saying this, Lowdon finally burst out with some emotion from his dumbfounded state.
His hands resting on his knees began to tremble: "Have you read my paper? On what basis do you say it’s wrong?"
"I have read it, I’ve read it hundreds of times, I also wish it was correct." Leonardo’s eyes widened.
Lowdon abruptly raised his head, his whole body trembling with anger and frustration: "Which logical aspect of mine has a problem? Which assumption is wrong?"
"It’s not the logic that’s the issue, the result is obviously unconvincing." Leonardo shouted more in despair, "Even if your 1+1 reasoning is perfect, it could never equal 1!"
Lowdon took a few heavy breaths, he walked to a corner of the office and dragged over a large blackboard.
Wiping away the densely packed drafts of the senior brother’s calculation of star card drop rate and price expectation formula on the blackboard, he grabbed a piece of chalk and began to derive in front of Leonardo.
"I have read your theory countless times."
"No, I made improvements this time!"
Gritting his teeth, Leonardo didn’t say much, only deciding to thoroughly point out Lowdon’s errors later.
Actually, Lowdon’s paper seemed very complex, but its core was not difficult.
Simply put, after the appearance of ether, it did not resolve the previous debate between mana and magic power, but instead intensified the contradiction between the two sides.
Now people all know the essence of mana and magic power is ether, but that’s just a change of casing.
The mana school still believes ether is spiritual, not occupying material space, and has no mass.
The magic power school still believes ether is material, occupies space, and has mass.
No matter the mana or magic power school, they all agree on Hilov’s five properties of ether.
According to the three laws of alchemy, the Wolf Woman summarized five properties for ether.
Firstly, the conservation of ether, ether only transforms and does not increase or decrease out of thin air.
Secondly, the manifestation of ether, the inherent properties of material and spell effects are shared, must be some kind of underlying existence, which is ether endowing them with properties.
Thirdly, the mediation of ether, ether is a necessary condition for casting and alchemy.
Fourthly, the uniqueness of ether, ether is the sole medium of the supernatural.
Fifthly, it is the core source of division between mana and magic power schools, and the issue Lowdon has always been entangled with—the singularity of ether.
Singularity is an unspoken axiom, an embodiment of the law of excluded middle, that is, the absolute dichotomy of "existence" and "non-existence."
Just as Leonardo said, judging from intuition and experience, one thing cannot simultaneously exist in two states.
A glass of ice water cannot be both solid and liquid.
Even if it exists, it should be some kind of third state, rather than being both.
In the same space-time, it can only be either ice or water.
Roton originally wanted to reason out whether ether is mental or physical.
His way of deduction is indirect proof.
First, assume "ether is both mental and physical," and then reason based on the remaining four properties.
If ether presents contradictions on the physical level, then it indicates that ether is mental.
Conversely, it proves that ether is physical.
Whether it’s proven to be physical or mental, it would make a great paper.
But the terrifying point is that, after Roton’s meticulous reasoning, he was surprised to find—there was no contradiction at all.
If ether has a dual nature, then all the previous paradoxes and contradictions are easily resolved.
Exclude all other possibilities, and the final answer can’t be entirely true.
Hilov was wrong; ether doesn’t possess singularity; it can be both mental and physical.
But this conclusion is so counterintuitive, counter-logical.
Each time Roton submitted his paper, it was returned with comments like "not falsifiable," "weak correlation to the point of insignificance," "beautiful reasoning, foolish conclusion," "why is this on my desk? Throw it out!"...and thus rejected.
This was also Leonardo’s point of frustration and anger; if this road doesn’t work, why not try another path?
Why insist on submitting this paper?
But each time Leonardo asked Roton, he would stubbornly and inflexibly repeat, "Because it is correct."
"I’ve read all of these, start talking from where you’ve improved!" Leonardo waved his hand.
Roton paused, then pushed the content of the paper to the latest page: "Lately, I was originally following your thoughts, designing a new dredging boat to facilitate river dredging.
But I saw your article on rationalism in the Truth Journal, "Confessions of Spring Castle."
I was deeply inspired by it; perhaps ether isn’t what we intuitively think.
It should exist in a perfectly reasonable rational model, no matter how unimaginable that model is.
At this time, you happened to call me to assist in the ether clock project, so I went.
You personally told me, when the Ethereal Tower uses starlight to extract and store ether, the star-cast gear creates a resonance, causing the loose mountain copper spring to tighten again.
This resonance is very weak, yet it can penetrate a vast distance, causing all clocks to bear the same seconds error.
Ether seemingly gives different mountain copper springs a fixed proportion of energy out of thin air, can physical properties achieve such precision?
The mountain copper spring needs ether input to coil; input usually requires sticking to metal.
But our phenomenon?
It requires no sticking; relying only on that weak star-cast gear resonance, it can penetrate space, causing distant mountain copper springs to synchronize as if squeezed by an invisible hand.
So I believe there must be some condition that allows ether’s mental aspect to be transmitted across space, only transforming into mountain copper’s potential energy upon contact.
This must be that during transmission, ether breaks space obstacles in mental form, then upon reaching the mountain copper, transforms into physical form to bestow it with potential energy.
Otherwise, it can’t explain why, during the ether clock project, phenomena are so uncontrollable and unrepeatable!
For the first time, after Roton finished explaining his new conclusion, Leonardo was so conflicted.
He opened his mouth wanting to refute, yet found it reasonable.
But if he doesn’t refute, it’s akin to proving "1+1=1," which made him quite uncomfortable.
Regarding Horn’s rationalism article, he hadn’t read it.
Even just at the first class of the semester, he spoke to everyone about it.
But until now, Roton for the first time, practiced rationalism before him.
Gazing at the characters on the draft on the blackboard, Leonardo was silent for a long while before speaking: "Put down this article for now, continue working on the ether clock project for me.
I will apply your direction to the project.
When that day comes to prove it, I’ll personally take your paper to slap the review committee’s face, how about that?
Meanwhile, finish that dredging boat.
In a month, you can fully achieve the same level of paper with Kapen (senior brother).
What do you think of this proposal?"
"I really appreciate you, but I can’t..."
"Why are you so stubborn?" Leonardo frowned again.
"Mentor, I really appreciate your care, but I’ve already submitted that paper just now..."
"What?!"
