Chapter 1220: The Collapse of the Superposition

The lecture hall was crowded with people; there were around 800 people inside.

Almost all of the top minds and the most authoritative scholars in high energy physics gathered here.

Not only were there researchers at the ILHCRC, but there were also physicists, who came from other countries far away.

Everyone had the same purpose.

That was, to find out about the mass energy increase experimental results, which might subvert the standard model…

In the front row of the lecture hall, an old man in a gray jacket sat next to Professor Witten.

He leaned his cane against the corner of the table, unscrewed the bottle of mineral water on the table, and took a sip. He then looked at the stage platform.

“Thank you for reserving the seat for me. There are so many people here… I almost got lost outside.”

Professor Witten glanced at the old man sitting next to him and raised his eyebrows.

“I didn’t expect you to actually come.”

The old man chuckled and looked at the stage platform.

“How could I miss such an interesting talk? Maybe today, the rules of physics will be rewritten, and our horizon will widen to a whole new dimension; a dimension we can’t perceive… Is there anything more exciting than this?”

Most people would be surprised to hear the old man saying this.

Not because of the sentence itself, but because of who the old man was.

Sitting next to Professor Witten was none other than Professor Saul Perlmutter from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

People who don’t know much about physics might not have heard of this name, but he was, in fact, one of the greatest living physicists.

As the winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics and the person that proved the theory of the “accelerated expansion of the universe”, he was well-known both in the field of astrophysics and high-energy physics.

Witten glanced at him and said, “It seems like you really believe in the theory of extra dimensions.”

“The question is not whether I believe it. It is whether he can give a logically self-consistent proof for his conclusion. Didn’t we also dismiss string theory in the beginning? But look at where we are now…”

Professor Perlmutter saw Witten’s unhappy face and smiled, quickly leaving the topic aside.

“Speaking of which, I kinda want to know how you think about this matter. You haven’t expressed your opinion so far. It’s really… unlike you.”

“Shh.”

Professor Witten interrupted Professor Perlmutter’s words and then pointed his index finger in the direction of the stage.

“The answers you want are there.

“It’s starting.”

…

When the hour hand went past ten o’clock…

The originally noisy lecture hall instantly became quiet.

Fernando was sitting nervously at the front of the lecture hall. He looked at Lu Zhou standing on the stage. Fernando had a displeased look on his face, and he wanted to stand up to his religion.

However, he then saw the scary police officer standing nearby, with handcuffs pinned to his waist. He didn’t dare to step out of line.

Lu Zhou, who was standing on stage, looked around the lecture hall and spoke in a calm voice.

“I’d like to give my condolences to Professor Miro.

“We lost an outstanding scholar and a great man.

“I know his death touched a lot of people… including me.”

Lu Zhou looked around the venue. He then flipped through the pile of draft papers on the multimedia lecture table. He spent about ten seconds organizing his thoughts before he spoke.

“Perhaps the way he impacted me is different from many of you.

“What moved me was not his wisdom. It’s being vulnerable in the face of the vast universe. Our determination might be weaker than we had imagined.

“Perhaps I shouldn’t even use the word ‘determination’. Because all of us know that, the tower of physics we have spent centuries building, is on the verge of collapsing. Perhaps that brings a sense of meaninglessness into the determination by countless great physicists.”

Lu Zhou paused for a second. He then faced the whiteboard and wrote down a line of calculations.

[MN=m0-4c1Mπ2+O(Mπ3)]

Lu Zhou stopped and heard whispers.

“This is where the trouble begins.

“This is also the source of all contradictions.

“Usually we find the nucleus mass by using chiral extrapolation and the quantum dot calculation method. With the help of supercomputers, we can explain the source of mass in most nuclei.

“However, as of today, we still have a lot of unexplainable things… 7% of the mass is still unaccounted for.”

After writing this number on the whiteboard, Lu Zhou continued to look at the venue and said, “Now, because of the 5 TeV collision experiment, this number has increased to 53% and even 71%, swallowing our understanding of physics, as if it is a because.

“In order to explain this phenomenon, we must introduce a new physics concept.”

Lu Zhou reached out and wrote a letter on the whiteboard—n.

Then, he wrote down “+1” next to it.

“N is the number of dimensions that make up our current universe. Some say it is 11, others say it is 13. Maybe in the distant future, this number will be broadened to infinity as our horizons expand, but that is not important for now…

“What we are going to discuss now is the n+1 dimension.

“There is an axis that runs through the universe from the beginning to the end. It’s like a lake reflected by itself. It is outside the horizon in which we can observe. All of the observable dimensions end at this point.

“In some sense, its existence does not affect us under normal circumstances unless… something outside the box touches this string…

“More specifically, they reached out, opened the box, and observed us.”

Lu Zhou looked at the surprised audience. Witten and his other friends were thinking quietly. Fernando was boiling with rage. Lu Zhou looked back at the calculations on the whiteboard.

He paused for a second and continued, “Because of the observations from the Void, the superposition collapsed.”

There was a bigger commotion in the crowd.

All of this sounded outrageous.

Finally, someone couldn’t help but ask.

“Why at 5 TeV?”

“Good question.”

Lu Zhou looked at the young scholar who stood up to ask the question. He snapped his fingers and gave an encouraging look at him. He then motioned the scholar to sit down.

Lu Zhou looked around the lecture hall and slightly raised his voice.

“How do we identify whether artificial intelligence is intelligent in the true sense? This is an abstract concept, thus came the Turing test, which defines that if an artificial intelligence program can pass the Turing test, it is intelligent in the true sense. Otherwise, it is merely a machine.

“Similarly, how do we select the smartest ant from a group of ants?

“The method is very simple. Just set up simple physical obstacles for them.

“I know this might sound crazy, but what I want to say is that the collision experiment at the 5 TeV energy level is like a filter. It filters the collection of all civilizations in this universe.

“The mass never increased. Instead, it moved from the n+1 dimension to the n dimension. By using this simple method, they can differentiate between smart and foolish ants.

“Also, this filter…

“Is their declaration to us of their existence.”