When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

Chapter 1051 Leonardo and His Graduate Student (Part 2)

Leonardo stared at the middle-aged student, feeling his heart pounding faster and faster.

He could almost hear his heart beating faster than the flames in the stove next to him.

"Your theories have been rejected by the review committee twice, no, five times!"

"There were indeed some minor mistakes before, but this time it's different. I've improved upon them after reading Your Majesty's Book of Proverbs!"

“Even if you wave Your Majesty’s banner, it won’t work!” Leonardo was even more disappointed. “Do you think no one has tried? It would only leave a very bad impression on the scholars on the review committee.”

Horn repeatedly argued that politics should not intrude into academia, as politics cannot prove the correctness of scientific findings.

"I'm just telling the truth, that's my conclusion, that's 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?”
Don't give me that ice water nonsense; that's half ice and half water. I want something that's both ice and water!

Lorton, his hair disheveled, fell silent, resting his hands on his knees without uttering a word.

Leonardo slowed his pace and softened his tone: "I know your talent very well. If you wanted to, it wouldn't be difficult to get a university lecturer position. Why do you have to get hung up on this bipolar theory?"

"Because it is correct!"

"How exactly do you define 'correct'? You can't even answer that question about ice water!"

"...Just because I can't answer it doesn't mean it's wrong."

"You're just arguing for the sake of arguing; you're unwilling to admit you're wrong." Leonard's face turned red and his neck became thick with anger, which was quite unusual for him.

He has always believed that you can be bad at something, but you can't be pretentious, especially if you are a talented person and you want to be pretentious.

If Lorton's talent could be put to practical use, how much time could he save on the problem of remote transmission of the ether clock with Lorton's help?

If this had happened to the senior student just now, Leonardo would have remained calm, because that's just how he is.

If the senior brother comes up with such a theory, Leonardo won't say much; he'll just forcefully order him to change his research topic.

But he was determined to persuade that bastard, Lorton.

This is clearly an attempt to avoid admitting mistakes and instead forcefully use the "Bipolarity Conjecture of Ether" as a pretext to launch a full-scale attack.

Efforts made in the wrong direction are a waste of time.

At this point, Lorton finally broke out of his daze and showed a hint of emotion.

His hands, which were supporting him on his knees, trembled: "Have you read my paper? What makes you say it's wrong?"

“I’ve read it, I’ve read it hundreds of times, and I so wish it were right.” Leonardo’s eyes widened.

Lorton abruptly raised his head, trembling with anger and grievance: "Which part of my logic is flawed? Which assumption is wrong?"

"It's not that there's a problem with the logic, it's that the result just doesn't make sense at all!" Leonardo yelled in exasperation. "No matter how perfectly you reason with 1+1, it can't possibly equal 1!"

Lorton took a few heavy breaths, walked to a corner of the office, and dragged over a large blackboard.

He erased the draft of the formula for calculating the drop rate and expected price of sports cards that his senior brother had written on the blackboard, and took out the chalk to start deriving it in front of Leonardo.

"I've read your theory countless times."

"No, I've made improvements this time!"

Gritting his teeth, Leonardo didn't say much, but decided to expose Lorton's mistakes later.

Actually, while Lorton's paper looks complicated, the core is not difficult.

Simply put, the appearance of ether did not resolve the original conflict between magic and power; instead, it deepened the contradictions between the two sides.

People now know that the essence of magic and power is ether, but that's just a different shell.

The Law Mechanics school still believes that ether is spiritual, does not occupy physical space, and has no mass.

The magical school of thought still believes that ether is material, occupies space, and has mass.

Regardless of whether one is a prophet or a magician, they all agree on Sylph's five etheric properties.

Based on her experience with the three laws of alchemy, the wolf girl summarized five properties of aether.

First, there is the conservation of ether; ether can only be transformed, it cannot be increased or decreased out of thin air.

Secondly, the manifestation of ether means that the inherent properties of matter and the effects of magic are common, and must be some kind of underlying existence, that is, the properties are given to them by ether.

Thirdly, the mediating nature of ether, which is a necessary condition for spellcasting and alchemy.

Fourth, the uniqueness of ether: ether is the only supernatural medium.

Fifthly, it is the core source of the divergence between the schools of magic and sorcery, and also the problem that Lorton has been grappling with—the singularity of ether.

Unity is a self-evident axiom, a manifestation of the law of excluded middle in logic, which is the absolute dichotomy between "existence" and "non-existence".

As Leonardo DiCaprio said, intuitively and experientially, it is impossible for something to exist in two states at the same time.

A glass of ice water cannot be both solid and liquid at the same time.

Even if it exists, it should be some kind of third state, not both. Within the same spacetime, it can only be either ice or water.

Lorton originally wanted to deduce whether ether was spiritual or material.

His method of deduction is proof by contradiction.

First, assume that "ether is both spiritual and material," and then reason based on the remaining four properties.

If there are contradictions in the material realm, then it means that the ether is spiritual.

Conversely, this proves that ether is material.

Whether it proves to be material or spiritual, it will be a very good paper.

But the scary thing is that after Lorton's meticulous reasoning, he was surprised to find that there were no contradictions.

If ether has duality, then all the paradoxes and contradictions will be resolved.

After eliminating all other possibilities, the final answer can no longer be true.

Sylph is wrong; ether does not possess singularity at all; it can be both spirit and matter.

But this conclusion is so counterintuitive, intuition-defying, and illogical.

Every time Lorton submitted a paper, it would be rejected with labels like "not falsifiable," "relevance too weak to be negligible," "beautiful reasoning, stupid conclusion," and "why is this thing on my desk? Throw it away!"

This is what makes Leonardo both frustrated and angry: if one path is blocked, can't we try another?
Why bother submitting this paper-like document?

But every time Leonard asked Lorton, he would stubbornly stick to his guns like a block of marble, only repeating, "Because it's right."

“I’ve seen all of this. Let’s start with the parts you’ve improved!” Leonardo waved his hand and said.

Lorton paused for a moment, then pushed the paper to the latest page: "Recently, I was designing a brand new river dredging vessel, following your ideas, to facilitate river dredging."

However, I saw His Majesty's article on rationalism in Pravda, "Confession of Springspring Fortress".

I was deeply inspired by this; perhaps ether is not what we intuitively think it is.

It should have a perfectly rational model, no matter how unimaginable that model may be.

At that time, you asked me to assist with the Ethereum clock project, so I went.

You told me personally that when the Ether Spire borrows starlight to draw and store ether, the star-cast gears resonate, causing the previously loosened orogen springs to tighten again.

This resonance is very weak, yet it can penetrate extremely long distances, causing all the clocks to show the same second-count error.

Is it possible for ether to deliver a fixed proportion of energy to different orthoclase springs out of thin air? Can the properties of matter be made so precise?
Orichalco springs require ether input to be wound, which often necessitates contact with metal during the input process.

And what about our phenomenon?
However, without any need for any fitting, the faint resonance of the star-forged gears alone is enough to penetrate space, causing the distant orogen springs to tighten synchronously as if gripped by an invisible hand.

Therefore, I believe there must be some condition that allows the ethereal spiritual energy to be transmitted remotely and then transformed into the potential energy of orchard after coming into contact with it.

This must be because the ether broke through the spatial barrier in the spiritual form during transmission, and only after arriving at the orchard did it transform into the material form and acquire potential energy.

Otherwise, it's impossible to explain why the phenomena were so unreproducible and uncontrollable during the Ethereum clock project!

For the first time, Leonardo was so conflicted after Lorton finished explaining his new conclusions.

He opened his mouth to refute, but then realized that it made sense.

But if he didn't refute it, it would be equivalent to proving "1+1=1", which made him quite uncomfortable.

He had read Horn's articles on rationalism.

He even mentioned it in front of everyone during the first class of the new semester.

But only now was Lorton putting rationalism into practice in front of him for the first time.

Looking at the draft characters on the blackboard, Leonardo remained silent for a long time before speaking: "Put this article aside for now, and continue working on the Ether Clock project for me."

I will apply your approach to the project.

When the day comes that it's confirmed, I'll personally take your paper to the review committee and slap them in the face, okay?
In the meantime, you should focus on getting that sand dredging vessel ready.

In a month, you can definitely complete a paper of the same level as Capone (the senior).

What do you think of this suggestion?

"I am very grateful to you, but I cannot..."

"Why are you so stubborn?" Leonardo frowned again.

"Professor, I'm very grateful for your concern, but I've already submitted that paper..."

"what?!"

　P.S. I'm sorry, this chapter was a bit difficult to write. It involves some abstract reasoning based on etheric science. My academic ability has deteriorated drastically since graduation, and I'm now on par with a middle school student. It took me a long time to finish it.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)