Chapter 255 - 152: Fight, Fight

Chapter 255: Chapter 152: Fight, Fight

Li Jianming’s earlier remark, that physics was just engineering work calculating approximations, had severely crossed a line, trampling on his pride as a physicist.

The Alchemist shot out a hand and pointed right at Li Jianming’s nose.

"Don’t you stand there spouting nonsense. Do you have any idea what fluid dynamics is? Do you know anything about complex aerodynamic simulations?"

The Alchemist’s voice reverberated through the spacious office, carrying the distinct, unyielding grit of the engineering physics discipline.

"In our fluid dynamics lab, Chen Zhuo used an algebraic matrix he constructed to save a project. Do you have any idea what that project was? It was the wind tunnel model for the nation’s key high-speed rail train! The future artery of transportation that will race along the tracks at hundreds of kilometers per hour! That is a true instrument of national power!"

The Alchemist swung his arm through the air, his knuckles turning white from the force of the gesture.

"Without physics to define the boundaries of the real world, to solve tangible engineering obstacles, to transform blueprints into steel behemoths that can withstand the trials of wind resistance—what is your math? Your mathematics is nothing but a bunch of empty symbols, forever floating on paper, completely detached from reality!"

The Alchemist turned his head, glanced at Chen Zhuo standing just behind him, then locked his gaze back onto Li Jianming.

"While working on that wind tunnel model, Chen Zhuo displayed a top-tier intuition for physical modeling. He could instantly perceive the energy differential in microsecond-level aerodynamics, using a simple compensation term to pin down the work boundary between potential energy and pressure.

And what is that?

That is the mind of someone born to explain the physical laws of the universe!"

The Alchemist’s words came faster and faster, each one a step forward, cornering his opponent.

"What do you want him for in your School of Mathematics? To spend his days drawing circles on a blackboard with you? To prove some useless network conjecture that won’t see any real-world application for decades, or even centuries? You’d have him waste this supreme talent on finding the general term formulas for a few divergent series? Li Jianming, *that* is the real crime against the nation!"

The speech landed with the force of a hammer blow.

The Alchemist had just thrown the practical value of physics, the strategic weight of key national projects, and the power of science to reshape the world right in Li Jianming’s face.

Under normal circumstances, if someone at an academic conference were to attack pure theoretical mathematics on the grounds of practicality, Li Jianming might have put on his scholar’s airs, citing sources and debating the forward-looking nature and independence of mathematics as a foundational science.

But today was different.

He had just witnessed, with his own eyes, Chen Zhuo’s godlike mathematical derivations.

He had watched with his own eyes as a dead end that had baffled countless others was effortlessly bypassed by Chen Zhuo with a few words and a single homology mapping formula.

The academic fervor in Li Jianming’s mind had already burned away any semblance of reason, courtesy, or decorum.

"Instrument of national power? Explaining the laws of reality?"

After listening to the Alchemist’s tirade, Li Jianming, far from being angry, let out a string of low, cold chuckles.

His laughter was steeped in the undisguised arrogance and mockery of a pure mathematician looking down on the applied sciences.

Li Jianming took a step forward, bringing him less than half a meter from the Alchemist.

He didn’t point at the Alchemist’s nose. Instead, he gently patted the stack of scratch paper in his pocket.

"Alchemist, don’t try to browbeat me with your grandiloquent terms. In the end, your wind tunnel model is nothing but a mess—a project hobbled by insufficient computing power and a flawed theoretical framework."

The wrinkles on Li Jianming’s face deepened as he sneered.

"Without my ’ethereal’ pure mathematics serving as its foundation, your pathetic wind tunnel couldn’t even converge on the most basic air resistance! Your physics department’s junk computers could run until they smoked, and you’d still be at a dead end, wouldn’t you?"

Li Jianming’s smile vanished. His gaze turned incredibly sharp, like two daggers scraping across the Alchemist’s face.

"Physical intuition? Alchemist, what do you know about *real* intuition!"

Li Jianming suddenly shot his hand up, pointing over the Alchemist’s shoulder at Chen Zhuo, who stood behind him.

"What he saw in your lab wasn’t some aerodynamic energy differential! He saw the discrete algebraic structure behind that pile of worthless continuous data! He used nonlinear compensation, and now he’s using homology group mapping! That is not something your field of physics could ever produce. That is algebraic beauty of the highest order! It is the power of pure logic!"

Li Jianming’s voice boomed through the office, echoing off the walls.

"What does physics do? It just picks up the scraps of laws that we mathematicians leave behind and tries to force-fit them onto this broken, hole-ridden physical world. It’s nothing but patch-up work!

Mathematics *is* the foundation of all science!

It is the absolute truth that explains all of existence, independent of any physical object!"

Li Jianming surged forward again, his chest nearly pressing against the Alchemist’s.

"The fact that he can construct a high-dimensional algebraic matrix out of thin air to solve your low-dimensional problems proves that a throne in the kingdom of mathematics has always been waiting for him! And you want him to calculate wind tunnel resistance? To crunch numbers on engineering errors that possess absolutely no aesthetic beauty?"

Li Jianming gestured dismissively, as if sweeping all the Alchemist’s theories into a trash heap.

"That’s like asking a genius who can compose a timeless symphony to score the engine noise for your physics department’s tractor! You think that’s an instrument of national power? In my eyes, it’s a criminal waste of God-given talent!"

The two men stood toe-to-toe, neither willing to back down an inch.

The vice president’s office had transformed into an academic coliseum, a battlefield without smoke or gunpowder.

One was the influential vice dean of the Department of Physics, in charge of a national-level fluid dynamics project. The other was a titan of graph theory from the School of Mathematics, representing the pinnacle of the nation’s foundational mathematics. In their respective fields, both were towering figures who could command legions with a single call.