That night, Schiller met Reed at the bar again. Reed looked extremely excited. "The United Nations approved my proposal. Even Tony Stark, the hardest person to deal with, acknowledged my technical expertise. I have to drink to celebrate. Hahahahaha!"
Schiller poured him a drink and said, "I spoke with Tony. In fact, he still has doubts. That is what I wanted to ask you about."
"Go ahead," Reed said. "I answered all of Stark's technical questions. There's no way he can find any more faults."
"It's not about the technical side." Schiller poured himself a drink as well, sat across from Reed, and said, "I'm more concerned about the social and ethical issues."
"Oh, right, you're a psychologist." Reed shrugged.
"Aren't you worried someone might steal the technology?"
The question left Reed baffled. He blinked and looked at Schiller. "What do you mean, steal it? You mean, like theft?"
"You should study grammar more," Schiller said helplessly. "Yes, I mean theft."
Reed's expression changed wonderfully. He gestured in the air for quite a while before finally saying, "Why aren't you worried about someone stealing 1+1=2?"
"What?"
"You've studied mathematics, right?"
"In front of you, I wouldn't dare claim I've studied mathematics." Schiller shook his head. "I can only say I've heard a little about it."
"All right, but you know mathematics has many theorems, right? Many formulas. You know trigonometric functions, don't you?"
"I know a little about those."
"Do you know the applications of trigonometric functions?"
"Uh, in what field?"
"In every field." Reed said, "In essence, those formulas are manifestations of universal constants. Trigonometric functions can exist because 1+1=2. If 1+1 stopped equaling 2, all our existing mathematics would collapse completely."
Schiller nodded. That, at least, he could understand.
Reed was clearly racking his brains to explain the