Facing the Bigwigs

When Li Qiwei said, "Everything in the world is [quantum]; the physics we have now is only an approximation," everyone was stunned.

The professor who had asked the question was so dumbfounded that he couldn't utter a word. His mind was in turmoil.

Although this answer resolved his doubts, it also filled him with a new kind of fear.

So after more than three hundred years of progress, physics still wasn't the ultimate truth. It was merely a crude weapon humanity used to describe the world.

Th-this was more outrageous than a tall tale.

Especially that last sentence—"This is the Creator's mercy toward humanity"—left the Oxford professor staring blankly into space.

Ever since Copernicus proposed the Heliocentric Theory and Galileo established the foundations of modern science, Europeans had long since escaped the shackles of theology.

Countless geniuses had devoted their lives to building a system of physics that proved people didn't need God to understand the world and change it.

And now, a genius in the field of physics had publicly declared that their theories were wrong, and that they worked only because of the Creator's mercy.

It was simply impossible to accept.

Even the bigwigs present glanced at one another, clearly shocked by Li Qiwei's remarks. Whispers rose throughout the hall.

If Li Qiwei had known what they were thinking, he would have been at a loss for words.

He simply believed that the universe's truths could never be fully understood, so there was nothing wrong with an approximation. As long as it worked, that was enough.

The West believed in God, too, so he had gone along with local customs and tossed out a line about the Creator's mercy toward humanity.

He hadn't expected it to cause such a stir.

Actually, if he'd known even a little about European history and the philosophical debate between knowability and unknowability, he wouldn't have said those things.

In the end, it came down to cultural differences between East and West.

Fortunately, Lord Kelvin's seasoned experience allowed him to take control of the room at once.

"Silence! Silence!"

"Bruce Li is from the Qing Dynasty, where people have different beliefs from ours. So please be understanding and respectful of one another."

"Today, we're here to discuss science. You may consider the Creator a physical theory at a higher level."

Sure enough, after hearing Lord Kelvin's explanation, everyone felt much better. And seeing how young Li Qiwei was, they decided not to dwell on the matter.

At that moment, Li Qiwei finally understood what had gone wrong. He cast Lord Kelvin a grateful look.

The challenge continued!

Li Qiwei had taken down several professors in succession, but he wasn't getting cocky or letting his guard down. The real bigwigs had yet to step in!

For quite a while, no one raised a hand to ask another question.

Even several Oxford University professors couldn't refute the [quantum] theory, so the people in the room couldn't help feeling uneasy.

Just as Lord Kelvin was about to prompt everyone to keep asking questions, the calm was broken.

Someone near the front of the hall raised her hand and slowly stood. Li Qiwei looked closely—and saw that it was Marie Curie.

At thirty-three, Marie Curie still had a captivating charm. Though she was a scientist, there was a lively spirit about her, nothing like the stiff stereotype people might imagine.

No wonder the entire physics community was so fond of this female scholar. She was like a flower blooming in an iron jungle, all the more precious for it.

She smiled faintly and said, "Bruce, I've wanted to meet you for a long time. It's a great honor to finally meet you in person."

Li Qiwei hurriedly thanked her and returned the compliment.

Marie Curie said, "I accept that your concept of [quantum] is correct. But what does 'mechanics' mean in the [Quantum Mechanics] you discuss in your paper?"

"As you said earlier, [quantum] is a fundamental physical property that governs only the microscopic world."

"Then is [Quantum Mechanics] the study of forces acting on microscopic particles? But isn't that force the same as the force in Newtonian mechanics?"

"Besides gravity and the Electromagnetic Force, how could there be any other forces?"

"So even if the concept of [quantum] is correct, it does seem to be of little use. These forces can be explained by classical mechanics."

"Classical mechanics can be used to study a single microscopic quantum, and it can still be used to study the whole made up of countless quanta."

Wow!

A true expert showed her mettle with a single move. Everyone was impressed by Marie Curie's question and nodded in agreement.

Even Li Qiwei shuddered. The question came from such a devilishly clever angle. As expected, the bigwigs were terrifying.

In his paper, Li Qiwei had only briefly mentioned [Quantum Mechanics], without going into detail.

That was because explaining it was extremely complicated, and he also had to take the era into account.

Historically, true [Quantum Mechanics] would not be developed until after 1927, when Dirac, Schrödinger, Heisenberg, and others worked together to complete it.

It contained three key ideas: Quantization, the Uncertainty Principle, and Wave-Particle Duality.

[Quantum Mechanics] held that microscopic particles had both wave-like and particle-like properties, and that their velocity and position could not be measured precisely at the same time. They could only be described in terms of probability.

Put simply, Newtonian mechanics studied the macroscopic world, while [Quantum Mechanics] studied the microscopic world. (Note: This is not strictly accurate.)

At present, Li Qiwei had proposed Quantization alone and had not touched on the other two concepts, so [Quantum Mechanics] seemed rather insubstantial.

More importantly, the consensus among physicists at the time was that only two forces existed in the world: gravity and the Electromagnetic Force.

The other two of the Four Fundamental Forces—the Strong Force and the Weak Force—would not be discovered for decades.

So the dilemma was that, with the knowledge available at the time, Li Qiwei couldn't perfectly answer Marie Curie's question.

For a moment, everyone in the hall saw Li Qiwei standing there in silence, thinking quietly.

Planck, standing nearby, was sweating on his student's behalf. He couldn't answer the question either and was no help at all.

The seconds ticked by. Just as Lord Kelvin was about to step in and smooth things over, Li Qiwei finally spoke. He said slowly:

"Thank you for your question, Marie Curie. It's an excellent one."

"First of all, the force I'm referring to in [Quantum Mechanics] is no different from the force in Newtonian mechanics."

"However, the two theories approach the study of force from different angles."

"Recently, I've been conducting research on electrons at the Cavendish Laboratory, and I've discovered some strange phenomena."

"Some of the ways electrons move seem impossible to explain with classical mechanics or electromagnetic theory."

"So, as you suggested, using classical mechanics to explain a single quantum won't work."

"But if we think about it using the concept of [quantum], we arrive at a very different result."

"Therefore, my [Quantum Mechanics] is primarily concerned with the behavior of microscopic particles. As for the macroscopic world, Newtonian mechanics is, for now, sufficiently complete."

"Of course, [Quantum Mechanics] is a theoretical framework that needs more findings to fill it out. The concept of [quantum] is the true core of my paper."

After Li Qiwei finished speaking, Wilson, seated below, widened his eyes until they were as round as bells. He looked over at Rutherford, who sat beside him, perfectly calm.

Wilson couldn't help wondering, I'm part of the research team too. How come I don't know about this?

It turned out that Li Qiwei had once discussed it privately with Rutherford. Both of them thought their mentor Thomson's Plum Pudding Model had problems.

Rutherford believed the model itself was flawed and that it could be fixed by switching to another classical-mechanics model. Li Qiwei, however, firmly believed that classical theory couldn't explain it.

Since their ideas were still immature, neither had reported them to Thomson yet, so Wilson knew nothing about them.

Poor old Wilson had been dealt another blow.