Yang and Lee's New Pact (Part Two)

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About a minute passed.

Yang Ning suddenly thought of something. He turned to Lee and asked:

"What topic are you planning to bet on?"

Lee rubbed his chin. Rather than answer directly, he said:

"There's no rush to settle on a specific topic. Let me ask you something first: what do you think of the Proto-hadron Model?"

If anyone else had been present, they would have found their conversation quite interesting:

Neither of them used names like Old Yang or Old Lee when they spoke. They addressed each other directly, saying "you" this and "you" that, yet neither found it the least bit awkward.

Hearing Lee's question, Yang replied quickly this time:

"It's remarkably elegant. It can basically explain all the particle states we've observed so far."

Lee asked another question:

"Have you worked out how many fundamental particles might exist?"

Yang nodded again.

He really had calculated it.

For the past two months, he had spent most of his time studying the Proto-hadron Model. He had even spoken with Gell-Mann, Heisenberg, and others about it.

His answer largely reflected the consensus among theoretical physicists: the Proto-hadron Model was an unprecedented new model, capable of explaining every particle-related phenomenon discovered so far.

The model had even predicted some undiscovered fundamental particles, including signs of neutrino oscillation.

And with the framework already established, Yang could hardly avoid working out how many particles it contained.

It was like fencing off a pond to go fishing. You wouldn't feel at ease until you'd drained it and counted every fish, would you?

Yang blinked, then quickly realized something:

"You're asking this because you've worked it out too, aren't you?"

Lee gave a quiet "Mm" in reply.

Then he took a fountain pen from his sleeve and waved it at Yang:

"In Romance of