Three Body 1: Earth's Past

Chapter 3 Billiards
Pushing open the door of Ding Yi's brand new three-bedroom apartment, Wang Miao smelled a smell of alcohol, and saw Ding Yi lying on the sofa with the TV on, but his eyes were looking at the ceiling.Wang Miao looked around, and saw that the room hadn't been decorated much, and there was no furniture or furnishings. The spacious living room looked empty, and the most conspicuous thing was a pool table in the corner of the living room.

Ding Yi didn't feel disgusted by Wang Miao's uninvited visit. He obviously wanted to talk to someone.

"I bought this house three months ago," Ding Yi said, "Why did I buy the house? Could she really come into the family?" He shook his head with a drunken smile.

"You..." Wang Miao wanted to know everything about Yang Dong's life, but he didn't know how to ask.

"She is like a star, always so far away, and the light that shines on me is always cold." Ding Yi walked to the window and looked at the night sky, as if looking for the star that had passed away.

Wang Miao also fell silent.It's strange, he just wants to hear her voice now, at the moment when the sun was setting a year ago, she didn't speak at the moment when she looked into his eyes, he had never heard her voice.

Ding Yi waved his hand, as if to drive away something, to free himself from this sad thought. "Professor Wang, you are right, don't get involved with the military and the police, they are a bunch of self-righteous idiots. The suicides of those physicists have nothing to do with the 'boundary of science'. I explained it to them, but I can't explain it. clear."

"They seem to have done some research."

"Yes, and this kind of investigation is on a global scale, so they should also know that two of them have no contact with the 'Science Frontier', including - Yang Dong." Ding Yi seemed very struggling to say the name.

"Ding Yi, you know, I'm also involved in this matter now. So, I really want to know the reason why Yang Dong made this choice, and I think you must know something." Wang Miao said clumsily , trying to cover up his true feelings.

"If you know, you will only get involved more deeply. Now you are only involved in people and things. After you know, even your spirit will be involved. Then you will be in big trouble."

"I'm engaged in applied research, and I'm not as sensitive as your theoretical school."

"Okay then, have you ever played billiards?" Ding Yi walked to the pool table.

"Played casually a few times when I was in school."

"She and I like to play very much, because it reminds us of particle collisions in accelerators." Ding Yi said, picking up two black and white balls, putting the black ball next to the hole, and placing the white ball only ten centimeters away from the black ball. The left and right positions asked Wang Miao, "Can you hit the black ball in?"

"Anyone can do it this close."

"Try it."

Wang Miao took the cue stick, tapped the white ball, and knocked the black ball into the hole.

"Very well, come on, let's change the table." Ding Yi greeted the confused Wang Miao, and the two lifted the heavy table and moved it to a corner of the living room near the window.After it was stabilized, Ding Yi took out the black ball from the ball bag, put it on the side of the hole, picked up the white ball, and put it about ten centimeters away from the black ball again, "This time I can still hit the ball." go in?"

"of course."

"let's hit."

Wang Miao easily hit the black ball into the hole again.

"Move." Ding Yi waved his hand, and the two lifted the table again and moved it to the third corner of the living room. Ding Yi put the black and white balls in the same position again, "Let's play."

"I said, we..."

"let's hit."

Wang Miao smiled helplessly and hit the black ball into the hole for the third time.

They moved the pool table twice more, once to the corner of the living room near the door, and then back to where it was the last time.Ding Yi placed the black and white ball in front of the hole twice, and Wang Miao hit the black ball into the hole twice.At this time, both of them were sweating a little.

"Okay, the experiment is over, let's analyze the results." Ding Yi lit a cigarette and said, "We conducted a total of five experiments, four of which were at different spatial locations and different times, and two at the same time. The space position is different but the time is different. Aren't you shocked by the result?" He opened his arms exaggeratedly, "Five times, the results of the impact test are all the same!"

"What exactly do you want to express?" Wang Miao asked panting.

"You now explain this incredible result, in the language of physics."

"This...in the five experiments, the mass of the two balls did not change; their positions, of course, did not change with the ball table as the reference system; the velocity vector of the white ball hitting the black ball basically did not change , so there is no change in the momentum exchange between the two balls, so of course the black ball was holed in all five trials."

Ding Yi picked up a bottle of brandy left on the floor, filled two dirty glasses respectively, and handed a glass to Wang Miao, who declined. "It should be celebrated. We have discovered a great law: the laws of physics are uniform in time and space. All the physical theories in human history, from Archimedes' principle to string theory, and all the sciences of human beings so far Discoveries and thought achievements are all by-products of this great law, and compared with us, Einstein and Hawking are really ordinary people who engage in application."

"I still don't understand what you're trying to express."

"Imagine another outcome: the first time, the white ball hits the black ball into the hole; the second time, the black ball went off course; the third time, the black ball flew up to the ceiling; Frightened sparrows fly around the room and end up in your pocket; for the fifth time, the black ball flies out at nearly the speed of light, knocks a hole in the edge of the pool table, smashes through the wall, and flies out of the earth, Flying out of the solar system, as Asimov described[2]. What do you think then?"

Ding Yi stared at Wang Miao, who was silent for a long time before asking, "This really happened, didn't it?"

Ding Yi poured down the two glasses of wine in her hand, stared straight at the pool table, as if it was a devil, "Yes, it happened. In recent years, the experimental verification conditions for basic theoretical research have gradually matured. Three expensive 'pool tables' were built, one in North America, one in Europe, and one, of course, in Liangxiang, China, you know, where your Nano Center makes a lot of money."

"These high-energy accelerators have increased the energy of particle collisions in experiments by an order of magnitude, which has never been achieved by humans before. Under the new collision energy level, the same particle, the same impact energy, and all experimental conditions are the same , but the results are different. Not only are they different in different accelerators, but they are also different in the same accelerator at different times. Physicists panicked and repeated this ultra-high-energy impact test under the same conditions again and again, but The results are different every time and there is no pattern."

"What does this mean?" Wang Miao asked, seeing Ding Yi staring at him silently, he added, "Oh, I work in nanometers, and I also touch the microscopic structure of matter, but it is several levels shallower than yours. Please advise."

"This means that the laws of physics are not uniform in time and space."

"What does that mean?"

"You should be able to deduce it from now on. The general has already figured it out. He is really a smart man."

Wang Miao was thinking while looking out the window. The sea of ​​lights in the city outside was brilliant, and the stars in the night sky were so submerged that they couldn't be seen.

"This means that the universal physical laws of the universe do not exist, so physics...doesn't exist either." Wang Miao said, looking away from the window.

"'I know it's irresponsible for me to do this, but I have no choice.'" Ding Yi continued, "This is the second half of her suicide note, you just said the first half by accident, now I can somewhat understand her."

Wang Miao picked up the white ball he had hit five times from the pool table, stroked it for a while and put it down gently, "It is indeed a disaster for a frontier theory explorer."

"If you want to make achievements in the field of theoretical physics, you need a religious persistence, which can easily lead people to the abyss."

When leaving, Ding Yi gave Wang Miao an address. "If you are free, please go and see Yang Dong's mother. Yang Dong has been living with her, and her daughter is the whole of her life. She is alone now, which is very pitiful."

Wang Miao said: "Ding Yi, you obviously know more than I do, so can't you reveal a little more? Do you really believe that the laws of physics are not uniform in time and space?"

"I do not know anything……"

Ding Yi and Wang Miao looked at each other for a long time, and finally said: "This is a problem."

Wang Miao knew that he was just following the words of the British colonel: To be or not to be, that is the question.

(End of this chapter)