"Then, my dear brother, since you've made this judgment, you must have a more detailed plan, right? The French Revolution will be a major event. I don't believe you intend to sit by and watch. You must have a plan, don't you?" Napoleon asked.
"This is France's business," Joseph said. "I don't want to interfere too much. I only intend to take advantage of the situation and make a little profit. Do you know what a revolution means?"
"A large-scale civil war, like the one in Britain," Napoleon said.
"No, it means more than that. France's problems are far greater than Britain's, and its people are much angrier than the British," Joseph said. "Besides, France is a continental power. In a sense, it is the heart of the entire European continent. Any change there will set off a chain reaction across Europe. If the French king's crown falls, many other crowns on the continent will fall with it. The war will drag on for a long time, and the flames may spread across all of Europe.
Countless people, no matter how noble or lowly they once were, will be crushed to pieces. Like tiny insects caught beneath a carriage wheel, beetles and even the praying mantises that prey on them will be ground equally into dust—death is the great equalizer. Don't you agree, Napoleon? As for me, I'll keep well away from that wheel. Once it's rolled past, I'll feast on the carcasses of the insects it crushed, like a vulture or a hyena."
"Ah, my dear brother, that is so like you!" Napoleon said with a look of scorn. "You have eyelashes that brush aside the dust of the age and eyes that see through society's haze, yet you lack the brave heart to ride the tide of history. I'm different. I'll climb aboard that chariot and steer it, making it go wherever I please."
"Phaethon's foolish son, my foolish brother!" Joseph said. "You dream of flying into the sky in your father's sun chariot, ablaze with fire. But have you considered whether you have the strength to do it? Poor mayfly, born at dawn and dead by dusk, child of misfortune and hardship, have you forgotten Delphi's 'Know yourself'? Delphi is a place in Greece, home to the famous Temple of Apollo. The phrase means 'Know yourself.' Ah, how unlucky I am to have a foolish brother like you. I must always be ready to catch you when you overturn the sun chariot and come tumbling headfirst from the sky."
Hearing this, Napoleon laughed instead. In Joseph's words, he had been compared to the ancient Greek sun god Helios's son, the hero Phaethon. This hero had driven his father's sun chariot without a license and caused a terrible crash, losing his life in the process. But no matter what, he had been an extraordinary, daring hero who had strived to achieve great things.
"My arrogant brother, you need to 'Know yourself' too. When the sun chariot falls, you actually think you can catch it? Who do you think you are, Zeus?" Napoleon laughed. "But, my dear hyena, let's hear the details of your plan."
"Whatever we want to do in the future, we'll need some material resources. So when the revolution comes, I plan to make a fortune first," Joseph said.
"Hmm. If you can judge the timing of the revolution and war with reasonable accuracy, you could indeed make a lot of money. Many things will become extremely scarce once war breaks out," Napoleon said. "But just as Archimedes needed a long lever and a fulcrum to move the Earth, the more money you have before the opportunity comes, the more you'll make. How do you plan to get your lever and fulcrum?"
"That really is a big problem." Joseph furrowed his brow. In pre-revolutionary France, it was truly difficult for a poor man to save money, even if he was a time traveler. Then again, if a poor man could make money through his own abilities as long as he had some talent, who would ever bother making a revolution? Wasn't the reason people wanted a revolution that France's current system stood in the way of their living better lives?
"True. If getting rich were easy, nobody would want a revolution," Napoleon said with a nod. "So you won't have a long lever or a sturdy fulcrum. You'll just have to keep eating black bread without butter and make do with one lamb chop a month."
"That alone still won't be enough," Joseph said, shaking his head.
"The Academy of Sciences has recently announced a prize for an essay," Napoleon said suddenly. "The reward is quite generous. I'm thinking of writing one and giving it a try. You could try too, Joseph."
The Paris Royal Academy of Sciences had been founded under the direction of Louis XIII's chief minister, Richelieu. It was now located inside the Louvre and was France's highest academic institution. The essays it solicited came with a very generous prize of six hundred francs. Winning would also bring immense prestige. For someone like Napoleon, the latter might have been what appealed to him more. In his eyes, the prize might be like the laurel wreath in the ancient Greek Olympic Games—a mark of a hero. Joseph also thought it was a good idea. As a time traveler, he knew a great deal of science far beyond this era's understanding. Picking something from that knowledge to fool them into paying him, while boosting his reputation, would be useful for the future.
"But given the scientific foundations of this era, what could I come up with that would be groundbreaking without requiring too much preliminary work?" Joseph wondered. "Maybe I should unveil the most terrifying experiment in the history of physics, the double-slit diffraction experiment, and scare them half to death?"
There had long been two opposing views about the nature of light: the wave theory, represented by the British scientist Hooke, and the particle theory, represented by the British scientist Newton. Thanks to Sir Isaac Newton's great achievements, people were more inclined to believe his ideas. As a result, for a long time, the particle theory held an overwhelming advantage—until the monster known as "double-slit diffraction," which shook all of physics more than once, was unleashed.
The first person to unleash this monster and perform the double-slit diffraction experiment was the British scientist Thomas Young. In 1801, he used the experiment to challenge the particle theory, which had long held sway. But he was British, and in Britain, though Sir Isaac Newton had been dead for more than seventy years, his prestige had only grown during that time. Any challenge to Newton's theories was dismissed as "absurd" and "illogical." On top of that, Thomas Young had failed to provide a complete mathematical explanation, and his mistaken treatment of light as a longitudinal wave led to a series of problems he couldn't explain. So the British physics community simply ignored the monster.
It was only more than a decade later, when the French scientist Fresnel used Huygens' principle and the principle of interference as his foundation, treating light as a transverse wave and formulating the Huygens–Fresnel principle in a new quantitative form, that he perfected the theory of light diffraction and provided a flawless explanation for the double-slit experiment. Only then did the wave theory turn the tables and gain the upper hand in its battle with the particle theory. (Of course, it also helped that Fresnel was French. Basically, whenever the British opposed something, the French were always happy to support it. Although most members of the French Academy of Sciences still supported the particle theory at the time, at least Fresnel wasn't silenced. )
"From a practical standpoint, this experiment shouldn't be difficult to carry out," Joseph thought. "In fact, in later generations, it can be done in a high school lab. Fresnel's proof also requires relatively little groundwork. There is some, of course, but most of it is mathematical preparation, and it's not impossible to complete. I could even present the Poisson spot experiment at the same time and leave them all dumbfounded."
At this thought, Joseph smiled. "My foolish brother, it's rare for you to have a good idea. It seems that even a fool can produce a flash of brilliance after a thousand attempts at thinking."
"My arrogant brother, you know, I've already been preparing for this for a while. I think my chances of winning are much better than yours," Napoleon replied.
"Fine. We'll each prepare an essay, then see whose is better," Joseph said.
"Agreed." Napoleon spoke, but soon caught on. "Wait, Joseph. There's a trap in your wording. You said we'd see whose essay was better, not who won the prize. The quality of an essay is entirely debatable. That way, even if I win the prize, you can claim it's because those old fools at the Academy of Sciences are blind, and that your essay is far better than mine. Then you can weasel out and refuse to admit defeat. Be honest, Joseph—were you planning something like that?"
Joseph took a step back, looked at Napoleon, shook his head, and said in a deeply wounded tone, "Ah, Napoleon, how could you suspect me like that? You've hurt me so much. Besides..." His voice was as sorrowful as Medea's after Jason abandoned her. But then he abruptly changed his tone. "You know, the Academy of Sciences—or anywhere else—is full of idiots. There's a good chance they're blind. Of course, to be honest, there are plenty of people in the Paris Academy who aren't idiots. My brother, there's a very good chance they'll like your foolish essay and fail to understand mine. So their judgment can't be the standard.
"But... my brother, how about this? You can decide whether my essay is better than yours. Though you're a foolish fellow, you're also a proud one, and you wouldn't stoop to lying about something like this."
Before you continue