Chapter 36 Theory of Relativity
It’s only a little over a month away from May 13th.
It will be soon.
Chu Wang carefully placed the piece of paper together with the letters he had received in the past, put them in a beech wood box, and stuffed it under the bed.
After the spring equinox, the weather became increasingly humid, with frequent fog. The heavy humidity made me sleepy every other day. After washing up, I felt slick and shiny. Freshly bought fruit started to mold the next day. Mrs. Qiao complained a lot about this.
Chu Wang, who is about to enter the University of Hong Kong, can no longer wear the sailor uniforms she wore at the girls' school, so she worries about her clothes. Meanwhile, Yun Yan and Zhen Zhen, who have already turned fifteen, have received the best gift of their age: the cheongsam.
Yunyan is a typical oriental girl, with very small features in every part of her body, but she has an outstanding temperament; Zhenzhen is very well developed at her age, and the slightly loose cheongsam on her body can faintly outline her body shape with the slightest movement.
Both of her elder sisters were old enough to wear cheongsams, but Chu Wang couldn't enjoy this privilege yet. Although she was almost as tall as Yun Yan, her body was still in the early stages of growth, and she was only just slender and childish. Even if she wore a cheongsam, she would probably only be able to tie two buns on her head to look younger.
On the morning the tailor delivered the cheongsams, Yunyan and Zhenzhen tried on all of them, competing with each other for a while in the Qiao Mansion. Chu Wang woke up late, even skipping breakfast. With a piece of bread in his mouth, he walked between two of Hong Kong's emerging socialites. Zhenzhen caught him red-handed and insisted she decide which one she liked best, the lotus-colored fine tweed cheongsam or the rose-purple lace organdy cheongsam.
Chu Wang grumbled something indistinctly, holding a piece of bread between her lips. No one could make out what she was saying. Zhenzhen looked her up and down at her gray sweater, the round, plain glasses she had fitted herself, and said, "You don't look like a lady from a wealthy family in that outfit. Are you going to work as a typist at a newspaper?"
"These two-colored cheongsams naturally look best on those with smaller frames. Stuffing them full of material won't make them look good." Yun Yan had been holding a grudge against Chu Wang for a long time because of the tennis incident. Seeing Zhen Zhen scolding Chu Wang, she naturally didn't miss the opportunity to ridicule the two of them. She glanced at Chu Wang lightly and said, "She's going to start school soon. Why not wear a pair of glasses? It will make it easy for people to recognize who specially recruited her."
Zhenzhen was really excited. She pushed Chu Wang out the door and said, "Don't be late on your first day of school." She turned around and was ready to have a fierce battle with Yun Yan. She sneered and said, "Miss Lin, you have such weak arms and legs. The tailor will have to make you an extra string and have one end tied to a pillar - otherwise the wind will blow you up like a kite."
Chu Wang found it funny, but he didn't want to be the last one to arrive at the start of the school year, so he had to leave in a hurry, leaving the battlefield of Qiao Mansion to Zhenzhen alone, which was very unfair.
Taking the bus from Sham Shui Po to the Central and Western District, many students boarded the bus. Amidst the laughter and clamor of the arrival bell, Chu Wang, somewhat bewildered, disembarked. From afar, he spotted Ye Wenyu standing at the tram stop, a towering figure. He was dressed in a classic Chinese silk shirt, but spoke in a rather unconventional Nanyang-style Chinese accent: "Linzy! Here!"
Ye Wenyu quickly pushed his way through the crowd and approached Chu Wang, seeming to breathe a sigh of relief. "Professor Xu asked me to wait for you at the door early this morning. He said it was your first time here and asked me to take you to class selection... Whew. Why are you dressed like a female version of Professor Xu today? What's with those glasses?"
It's not that she's really nearsighted. It's just that in her previous life, Lin Zhi, who was nearsighted by 200 degrees, had a lot of large classes after entering university, so if she didn't wear glasses, her vision would often be a problem. Now that she's about to go to school and take large classes, she simply got a pair of plain glasses, which makes her feel more secure when listening to the lectures - in fact, it's a psychological problem. The first time she wore these glasses was two weeks ago when she had a coat dress turned into a jumpsuit at the tailor shop. When Mr. Somir came back from outside, he took an extra look at her and gave her a rare compliment: "Nice glasses."
Mr. Saumier was known for his discerning taste in fashion. To receive his praise meant these glasses were indeed good, at least at the forefront of fashion at the moment. Chu Wang was delighted. So, the day before, he'd made a point of wearing them to school. Unexpectedly, he was twice accused of "imitating Professor Xu."
She also looked Ye Wenyu up and down and said, "You are a Nanyang person, why are you wearing a gown?"
Ye Wenyu smoothed his clothes and said, "I see my uncle often dressed like this. This is the first time I know that a Chinese-style gown can have such a slightly depressed style."
"It's a pity that the gown is also picky about who wears it. It looks so decadent and elegant on him," Chu Wang shook his head and said with regret, "When you wear it..."
Ye Wenyu touched his head and was stunned for a while. "What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"
The two of them went to the supervisor's office together. A long line stretched out into the corridor. Chu Wang had already joined the line for him. Ye Wenyu brought over the courses he was supposed to choose and the course list, and the two of them began to study the course schedule right there.
There were already three course options on Chu Wang's course selection list, which were the words "Mathematics", "English" and "Chinese" written in Xu Shaoqian's vigorous "Slender Gold" script.
Ye Wenyu came over to take a look and said, "Hey, you also have pre-selected courses."
Chu Wang also leaned over to look at his course selection list. There were seven large characters written on it: "History of Ancient Chinese Literature," followed by two large, scarlet characters written in cinnabar: "Retake." She looked up at Ye Wenyu, her expression a mixture of suspicion and admiration.
Ye Wenyu was completely oblivious and kindly advised, "Many Hong Kong students' Chinese is very worrying. Chinese students find it very easy to take this course, and the credits are high, so many of them choose this course."
"You didn't grow up memorizing the Four Books and Five Classics or writing essays, so why did you choose this?"
“I found this class very interesting.”
"As interesting as my sister?"
Ye Wenyu chuckled, "Why don't you choose the history of ancient literature as well? At least you can help me."
“…”
The course schedule was still filled with general mechanics, structural mechanics, and complex circuits. At the very end, she saw a course called "Relativity," which would last for a year and a half and carry twice the credits of the History of Ancient Literature course.
Without a second thought, she picked up her pen and filled in the name of the course on the form. Ye Wenyu had no time to stop her. After she finished filling it out, he asked with a strange look on his face, "Are you sure you want to choose it?"
Chu Wang nodded.
"Did you know that this course is tested once every year and a half? If you fail, you have to study for another year and a half, and the pass rate is less than one in five?"
She shook her head, but admitted that it was understandable: the two theories had only been proposed for twenty and ten years, respectively. In this era of scarce physicists, these were considered the newest theories in a brand-new discipline.
"Do you know who will teach this class?"
"who?"
"My uncle."
She took all the courses whose exams didn't conflict. She flipped through the textbooks for the current school year: Mathematics is about solving polynomial equations and calculating the angles of intersecting geometric figures; circuits is about simplifying complex mixed circuits into clear and easy-to-understand series and parallel connections... In later times, after a century of inductive reasoning, these courses could be taught clearly and concisely in two weeks in high school textbooks, but now they take a year. Chu Wang couldn't help but sigh: No matter what subject, it's all evolved through human ingenuity and experience.
The only lectures she could muster the energy to listen to were those by Xu Shaoqian. He offered a unique approach to relativity, a perspective bordering on paranoia. This subject, so old she had long recollected, felt like a timeless story told in Xu Shaoqian's mouth.
The first sentence he spoke during the first class of the semester gave Chu Wang a chill. He asked, "Is it possible for humans to travel faster than the passage of time, from ancient times to the present, or from the distant future to this moment in time, before you and me?"
She had thought about this question before. When she first learned the mass-energy equation, she wondered: If time were faster than time, would I still be myself when I moved from one time dimension to another?
Am I the incomplete me, or am I already someone else?
For a moment, she almost doubted that Xu Shaoqian's opening remarks seemed to be a question to her.
She was stunned for a moment until she heard Xu Shaoqian ask, "Logically speaking, is time travel possible? Does anyone have any advice?"
When Chu Wang came back to his senses, he saw Xu Shaoqian looking at him from a distance, smiling slightly: "Linzy, are you interested in answering?"
She thought for a moment, then stood up and said, "Suppose time travel is possible. If I go back in time and kill my grandmother before my mother was born, this would create a paradox: my grandmother existed first, then I did. My existence proves my grandmother's immortality. Therefore, I cannot kill my grandmother, which negates the existence of time travel."
Xu Shaoqian smiled and asked, "So when you returned to that time dimension, a change had already occurred the moment you arrived. This change caused a chain reaction, making it impossible for you to kill your grandmother no matter what."
Chu Wang narrowed his eyes slightly: "The past and the future are relative. The past can cause changes in the future, but it is only 'a certain event'."
Xu Shaoqian shook his head and said, "No. The moment you landed, the entire future of this world was changed."
She raised her head slightly. "Change what? Less oxygen and more carbon dioxide every second? This change is insignificant. All major events in this world will not be changed by me alone: for example, the environmental disasters caused by industrial development, the extinction of species, and war. Since the changes I bring are insignificant, why would there be a chain reaction to prevent me from killing my grandmother? If it is important, how will the world repair the tiny changes brought about by my existence?"
The bell rang, and Xu Shaoqian stopped talking. Both of them knew their hastily arranged conversation was riddled with holes. Further on, there would be questions like, "Is this world still the same, or is it already a different world?" Many students stood up and complained, saying they couldn't understand the first lesson. After such a rude awakening, how could they learn in the future?
Xu Shaoqian was stopped at the door by a group of confused students, while Chu Wang, also preparing to leave the classroom, books under his arm. A student, who hadn't been following the two's train of thought, suddenly said, "A war that could be considered a major event has already occurred."
Chu Wang just smiled at the classmate and hurried out.
Her knowledge of physics did not tell her how she could do her best to change a specific period of history.
The author has something to say: This chapter should be considered a transition.
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I'm sorry for missing a chapter yesterday, I'll make it up later.
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When I wrote this chapter, there were still 2 hours before I left for the airport.
I may start v tomorrow and get home on the afternoon of October 1st. I will try my best to write 10,000 words when I get home.
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This chapter... I'm not sure if it's well-written, or if it's appropriate for a farming novel like this, but I think the conversation between Chu Wang and Xu Shaoqian in class should be like this, and it can only be like this. If you didn't like it, there wouldn't be many plots like this.
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Meet Si in the next chapter.
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University mathematics examination papers during the Republic of China period
The English translation is very powerful. It is said that he will translate vernacular texts such as "The Memorial to the Emperor on Leaving the Capital" and "The Peach Blossom Spring".
Chu Wang is probably going to fail his English translation class.
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