Newton's Thanks

[Isaac Newton]: Everyone, why is it that the speed of sound I deduced according to Boyle's Law always shows a discrepancy that cannot be ignored when actually measured in the corridors of the Royal Society?

[Galileo Galilei]: @Isaac Newton, what about your calculation premises? Have you considered air humidity, temperature, and even wind direction? If the error isn't large, could it be caused by instrument precision?

[Isaac Newton]: No, the value I calculated is 979 feet per second, yet the measured value is 1,142 feet per second, which falls short by a full 16 percent! This absolutely cannot be explained by mere error; it seems as though God concealed some variable in the air...

Jiangcheng No. 7 Middle School, Senior Three Class 2.

Sitting in the back row of the classroom and looking at the group messages on his phone, Li Dong shook his head helplessly.

These people are way too deep into roleplay...

He shoved his phone beneath his textbook and looked once more at his math test paper, which had scored a mere 87 points.

With 90 points passing out of a total of 150, he had once again fallen at the threshold of the passing line—though defeated, he still deserved honor... my ass!

The phone beneath the textbook vibrated twice more. It belonged to a WeChat group he had joined a month ago named the Azure Dragon Study Group.

Having just advanced to senior year at the time, Li Dong had undergone a profound soul-searching, deciding he could no longer muddle along like this.

In order to test into a decent university, he searched everywhere online for study groups, hoping to find a few high-achieving students to carry him and experience that study atmosphere striving for Tsinghua and Peking.

Instead, by a blind stroke of luck, he wandered right into this sort of group.

There were only a dozen or so people in the group total, and their IDs were more resounding than the last, their profile pictures more retro than the last.

Aside from [Isaac Newton] and [Galileo Galilei] who had just spoken.

Lying within the group member list were things like [Gauss], [Faraday], and even an [Einstein] who had remained submerged for ten thousand years.

They were all bigwigs from those black-and-white photographs hanging in history books.

What kind of study group was this? It was clearly a large-scale rehabilitation center for patients with severe chūnibyō.

He had originally thought the group would discuss things like predicted directions for past gaokao exam questions.

And the result?

What they discussed all day long wasn't gaokao math problems, either, but rather things like the wave-particle duality of light, the derivation of the mass-energy equation, the 3x + 1 conjecture, and the like.

Li Dong recognized every single character, but put together they became a heavenly book.

"A bunch of pretentious pricks."

Li Dong was already in a bad mood today, and watching this bunch acting all solemn and proper there made him even more irritated.

Newton was already asking about the speed of sound here; next, would he have that fellow Faraday come out and perform touching an electric gate barehanded?

Just as he was preparing to quit the group, his gaze swept back to Newton's words.

Calculated value 979, measured 1,142...

Even though Li Dong was a academic slacker, he was still familiar with these two names.

Newton, well, the guy who sold apples together with Steve Jobs.

Galileo, the fellow who dropped objects from high places on the Leaning Tower.

They had all learned about it in textbooks.

"Since you want to act, I'll play along with your act too."

Li Dong switched out of WeChat and opened Douzhi AI.

He typed into the input box: "Why is there an error when Newton calculates the speed of sound? What is the reason the actual measured value is greater than the calculated value?"

Scarcely two seconds passed before a large chunk of text popped out.

Li Dong glanced at it; it was crammed with words he couldn't understand at all like "Thermodynamics" and "adiabatic compression," but he couldn't be bothered to care—copying and pasting it would finish the job.

[Currently Grinding Senior-Year Problems]: @Isaac Newton, did you get something wrong? The propagation of sound in air belongs to an adiabatic process rather than an isothermal process, so when calculating you need to add the adiabatic index, otherwise there will definitely be a discrepancy.

As soon as the message was sent out, the group suddenly went silent.

Galileo, who had still been discussing with Newton whether wind speed affected the measurement, also abruptly stopped talking.

One second, two seconds, ten seconds...

Li Dong felt a faint, inexplicable sense of trepidation in his heart.

What's going on? Could the AI have gotten it wrong?

Just as Li Dong was preparing to recall the message and pretend nothing had happened, that Newton finally spoke.

[Isaac Newton]: Adiabatic process? Your Excellency means that heat exchange did not occur during this process?

[Isaac Newton]: How can this be? Air is a fluid, and vibration inevitably accompanies compression and expansion; how could there be no heat conduction? Might I ask Your Excellency to explain in detail what an adiabatic index is?

Li Dong looked at the screen and raised an eyebrow.

"Yo, still keeping up the act?"

He switched back to Douzhi AI once more, inputting: "Explain in detail the adiabatic index and its application in the calculation of the speed of sound."

Yet this time, the AI, which usually responded swiftly, actually experienced a lag, finally popping up a striking red exclamation point.

[Network connection timed out, please try again]

"Damn it!"

Li Dong cursed under his breath and hurriedly tried many more times.

Although this time there was no error report, the answers that appeared were entirely complex calculus formulas and a bunch of scrambled-letter-like Greek symbols, such as gamma = C_p / C_v, along with partial differential equations and the like.

Li Dong tried several times in a row, having the AI explain it in layman's terms, but as a result the AI began babbling incoherently, rambling for a moment about quantum mechanics and the next about advanced theories of fluid mechanics.

You must know that at the beginning of 2022, AI at that time frequently experienced hallucinations.

"This artificial retard!"

Li Dong grew somewhat anxious.

At this moment, Newton in the group also seemed somewhat anxious.

[Isaac Newton]: @Currently Grinding Senior-Year Problems, Sir? Are you still there? If you can explain in detail, I will definitely thank you properly!

Li Dong had no interest in this kind of verbal gratitude, but the problem was, he had just put on this act halfway through—he couldn't just chicken out now, could he?

Li Dong gritted his teeth, his brain spinning at high speed.

He struggled to extract anything he could understand from the AI's previous responses.

Since he couldn't explain the complex principles clearly, then... he would fake profoundness!

[Currently Grinding Senior-Year Problems]: The mechanical movement speed of sound propagation is far greater than the molecular movement speed of heat transfer.

After sending this line, he felt it still lacked punch; to conceal his guilty conscience, he added another line.

[Currently Grinding Senior-Year Problems]: Ponder the rest yourself; studying must not breed laziness.

After this message was sent out, Li Dong felt he was practically an educator.

The group grew quiet once again.

Just as Li Dong was waiting for the other party's reaction.

He felt the light above his head suddenly dim.

Li Dong stiffly raised his head and caught sight of Lao Yang, the math teacher, and that face brimming with disappointment.

Lao Yang's voice wasn't loud, but the surrounding classmates could still hear it.

"Playing on your phone day in and day out, and you don't even reflect when you score this poorly in math."

Lao Yang shook his head and walked back to the podium with his hands behind his back.

A few suppressed chuckles drifted from around him.

Li Dong's face flushed crimson all at once, and the sense of superiority from having just acted cool in the group instantly vanished.

Jiangcheng No. 7 High School was, to tell the truth, a very mediocre middle school.

The students' grades here were generally not very good, and the college admission rate was somewhat shameful to speak of; last year, only a little over 100 seniors crossed the undergraduate threshold, and over 70 of those were art students.

Here, the teachers had only one demand for the students: as long as you didn't affect anyone else, it was fine.

Therefore, regarding students bringing phones, Lao Yang also turned a blind eye.

After all, a student quietly reading a novel was always much easier to manage than a student talking in class.

Li Dong looked at Lao Yang's back, feeling a trace of guilt in his heart.

Actually, Li Dong studied quite hard, staying up late every night to grind problems, but some things really relied heavily on talent.

He was the type of person who studied very hard, yet his grades stubbornly stayed mediocre.

If he were in a key high school, by pushing hard he might manage to get into an ordinary Tier 1 university.

But because he was at No. 7 High School, his ceiling was probably just an ordinary Tier 2 university, and he would have to stake his life on it to get there.

This was the issue of educational resources, and it was also fate.

"Forget it, I won't think about these things."

Li Dong sighed, preparing to put away his phone and carefully review his wrong problems.

Right at that moment, the phone vibrated twice more in the palm of his hand.

He subconsciously glanced at it.

[Isaac Newton]: @Currently Grinding Senior-Year Problems, Your Excellency, are you saying the essence of heat conduction is molecular motion? Rather than caloric?

Li Dong looked at this line of text, feeling simply that this person was far too deep into roleplay, still babbling on about caloric and non-caloric at a time like this.

Too lazy to bother with you; believe whatever you want.

He decided to ignore this group and study properly.

Just as he was about to lock the screen.

[Isaac Newton]: Your idea is novel; although it subverts my past understanding, my intuition tells me you are correct. I will go and verify it. Thank you for the perspective you provided.

Immediately following that, a red envelope suddenly appeared on the screen.

[Isaac Newton sent an exclusive red envelope]

A red envelope?

Almost the instant the red envelope was sent out, Li Dong's finger had already tapped onto it.

However, what arrived in the account wasn't a few meager cents, but...

[You have received Isaac Newton's thanks]
[Item obtained: Focus +1]
[Description: This is an expression of gratitude from a giant of science.]
[When he was deep in thought, the world stood still; he was once so absorbed that he threw a pocket watch into boiling water, mistaking it for an egg.]
[Now you will experience a level of focus capable of piercing through the truth.]
[Duration: One hour]

Li Dong froze, and before he even had time to react,

a blue countdown timer materialized out of thin air before his eyes.

59:59

58, 57, 56...

Li Dong swallowed hard and looked toward the Azure Dragon Study Group in disbelief.

[Isaac Newton]: I hope to receive your guidance once again.

A jolt of electricity surged from his tailbone straight to the crown of his head.

This...

Could this group not be a roleplay chat?

Could those people not be roleplaying as scientists, but actual scientists?

So just now, he had... lectured Newton, telling him that "studying shouldn't breed laziness"?