Chapter 1217: Belief in Physics

This was probably the closest Lu Zhou had gotten to death.

Rather… This was the closest he had been to someone who had passed away.

ILHCRC No.1 apartment building.

The entrance was full of police cars.

An old man in plain clothes stood outside the fenced-off area. He had a look of self-blame and sadness on his face. He sobbed in a quiet voice.

“This is all my fault… I signed the paper…”

Professor Witten patted Professor Wilczek’s shoulder and spoke comfortingly.

“This is not your fault. A person’s path is destined; they will eventually go where they are supposed to go. I hope he can get the answer he wants on the other side of the world.

“As for us, we have to continue.”

Beside the two of them stood many ILHCRC researchers and interns.

Many of them had heard of Professor Miro’s story and the “spirit of the universe”.

Even though most people disagreed with the theory, there were still a few people who thought that this theory seemed to be reasonable.

Unlike the normal concept of “God”, Professor Miro’s theory was more like a science concept. Similar to the concept that “the universe is unreasonable” and “a disordered higher consciousness dominates the laws of nature”.

However, these theories sounded scary.

If all of this was true, then physics would be like studying the laws of a long list of irrational numbers that didn’t make any sense.

People looked at the window upstairs with the curtains closed.

“That’s so scary…”

“Oh yeah.”

“Professor Miro was such an excellent physicist. I don’t understand why he chose to end his life. If we have discovered a new area of physics, it would have been a happy ending.”

“It’s not totally happy. My supervisor doesn’t seem to be in the best mood.”

“What does your supervisor research?”

“Quantum lattice calculation methods.”

“Nutty.”

“Is there a possibility that Professor Miro saw something terrible?”

“Hey, don’t say that. This is the ILHCRC, not the haunted house at the amusement park. The collider is more than 300,000 kilometers away from us, so there is no way he was exposed to high-energy rays.”

Suddenly…

The commotion and whispers stopped.

A young man in a trench coat walked through the crowd, to the edge of the police tapes.

The policeman standing behind the tapes noticed him and quickly walked over to him. The policeman said respectfully, “Hello, Academician Lu.”

Lu Zhou nodded and looked upward at the apartment with the closed curtains.

He wasn’t very close to Professor Miro. They only exchanged a few words over coffee. He heard that the professor seemed to have won some physics awards that he didn’t care much about and that Professor Miro was considered an outstanding young scholar.

This story would undoubtedly have a negative impact on ILHCRC.

Rumors were already circulating on the Internet. People claimed that Professor Miro died under the academic authority of the ILHCRC committee because he was squeezed out by mainstream physicists.

His followers even threatened to avenge his death on the ILHCRC…

Lu Zhou looked at the policeman and spoke.

“Can you briefly explain the situation inside?”

The police officer hesitated for a moment, as if he was considering whether this was a good idea or not.

However, he realized that Professor Lu’s status was higher than his superior’s superior, so he spoke.

“It was a suicide.

“He took an overdose of cephalosporins… and alcohol.

“We are still investigating the details. The US Embassy has been notified. They will be responsible for contacting the family of the deceased…”

Lu Zhou nodded.

He then asked, “Can I go in?”

Compared to the previous request, this request was more difficult to accept.

The policeman hesitated for a moment.

However, Wang Peng took out a certificate and handed it to him.

“The Ministry of State Security is taking over this case.”

After the police officer saw this document, he was startled. He spoke with a solemn look on his face.

“I need to ask my superiors for instructions.”

Wang Peng nodded.

“Go.”

…

Soon after, Lu Zhou was allowed to cross the police tapes and walk into Professor Miro’s room.

Unlike what Lu Zhou had imagined, the living space of this physics professor was very tidy. It was obvious that the apartment was cleaned regularly.

“This is probably the most bizarre case that I have ever dealt with in the past two years…”

An old police officer looked at the white lines drawn on the ground with a complex expression. He said, “From his living conditions, it is obvious he is much healthier than the average person.”

Lu Zhou didn’t make any comments, he just walked into the study room and opened a drawer.

A scholar who had a regular schedule of work and rest usually abided by a code of conduct. Which was that they always kept their research materials nearby.

Sure enough, Lu Zhou found something like a research notebook from his drawer.

He flipped open the page and followed the neat handwriting and calculations. He continued to read, and he gradually had a surprised look on his face.

He wasn’t surprised at Professor Miro’s academic achievements. After all, he wasn’t amazed by anyone’s academic achievements.

What surprised Lu Zhou was that he originally thought Professor Miro was just falling into a wild fantasy about the “spirit of the universe”. He did not expect that this guy actually established a complete theoretical system for this conjecture…

Basically, in Miro’s theoretical system, the “spirit of the universe” was the core of the whole theoretical system. Miro derived that “the universe is the projection of a certain higher consciousness’ subjective behavior”, and that “everything is determined”, and “this kind of cosmic consciousness is possible”.

It seemed like he was saying that humans could communicate with the “spirit of the universe” in an abstract sense.

This sounded like idealism.

This was consciousness determinism, superimposed on the basis of God’s creation theory and cosmic animism.

Lu Zhou, as a materialist, thought this was nonsense.

However, it was worth noting that Professor Miro had undergone a rigorous theoretical argument for the spirit of the universe. Even though Miro used a lot of psychological terminology and self-made words that only he could understand, at least he had tried to analyze this theory using scientific thinking.

However, when it came to the part of the determinism of consciousness, the part where “we can communicate with the spirit of the universe”, Miro seemed to give up on trying to find an explanation. He wrote down his theories as if it were a theorem.

There was no doubt that this was not rigorous science.

At the very least, Miro should add words like “maybe” and “perhaps” to the discussion.

After about twenty minutes, Lu Zhou took a deep breath after flipping the notes from beginning to end. He closed the notebook and looked at the police officer behind him.

“Can I take this notebook?”

“I’m afraid not.” The policeman had an awkward look on his face. He said, “This is the property of the deceased and part of the evidence related to the case. I am afraid that you will have to wait until the case is closed. After that, you can negotiate with the family of the deceased.”

Lu Zhou didn’t say anything. He nodded before taking out his phone from his pocket and recording a video. He flipped through the notes, recording all of the content inside.

Strictly speaking, this was also not allowed. However, all of the police officers turned a blind eye.

After he was done with the recording, Lu Zhou put away his phone and looked at Wang Peng.

“Let’s go back.”

Wang Peng hesitated slightly and asked, “Are we done?”

“Yeah.” Lu Zhou nodded and said, “I think… I probably already found the answer.”

Lu Zhou and Wang Peng walked out of Professor Miro’s apartment and went straight to the parking lot.

Witten saw Lu Zhou appear out of the building. He quickly squeezed through the crowd and greeted him.

“Did you find anything inside? Why on earth did Professor Miro—”

Lu Zhou shook his head.

“There is nothing particularly noteworthy inside. Professor Miro did not leave a lot of research materials in his apartment. He didn’t seem like a person who would take his work back home.”

Lu Zhou looked at Witten and said, “However, I found a notebook in his drawer.”

Witten quickly continued to ask, “What is written inside?”

“Some of his analysis of the latest ILHCRC experimental data. His conjectures about the spirit of the universe and the theoretical system he built around this conjecture… It seemed like this was what he spent his vacation time doing.”

Witten took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“That is…”

Lu Zhou: “A shame, right?”

“Yeah… Not just a shame, but also disturbing.”

This disturbance permeated through the ILHCRC headquarters, as well as every physicist on Earth. The vast majority of people did not believe in animism, nor the spirit of the universe.

Was there no such thing as faith in physics?

In fact, that was wrong.

This was like the storm that was caused by the neutrino faster than light experiment.

Even though it was impossible to find out what went wrong with the OPERA experiment, most people attributed it to an “experimental error”.

ILHCRC was facing a similar situation.

Before the second experiment began, most people were praying that all of this was a mistake. They hoped that the new experimental results could cover the past “errors”. This way, the building of physics would return to the framework of the standard model, and all would be well…

Lu Zhou looked at the silent Professor Witten and spoke.

“I know you have a lot of questions… Maybe I can answer part of it.”

“What about the extra-dimensional theory?”

Lu Zhou nodded and said, “I need more time before giving you an explanation.

“You don’t have to wait for long, at most one week… I will soon find an answer that is not perfect but can probably satisfy most people.

“This will change the future of physics.”