Chapter 169: "Redundant" Physics

Chapter 169 -71: “Redundant” Physics

You caused that person’s death with your own hands.

“Could it be… that in Su Mingyuan’s eyes, he was just pulling the lever at the switch for all of humanity?” Shi Zuozhou said, stunned.

“Yes,” Yu Xian sighed, his gaze drifting to the endless curtain of rain outside the window.

“Perhaps in his logic, the ‘five people’ are all of humanity, and the ‘one person’ is the physicist. He doesn’t see himself as a murderer. Instead, he’s just solving a multiple-choice problem he has no choice but to answer—a necessary ‘sacrifice’ and ‘Subtraction.'”

He tried to put himself in Su Mingyuan’s shoes, to understand the logic behind his madness.

“He must see himself as a surgeon, scalpel in hand, ruthlessly excising the ‘diseased tissue’ to save the patient’s life…”

Yu Xian frowned, thoroughly confused.

‘But… why does the ‘tumor’ that must be excised have to be physics?’

A brief silence fell over the lounge, broken only by the sound of the rain outside and the whir of the laptop’s cooling fan.

“Tell me,” Wen Xiao, who had been silent until now, suddenly said, “if physics truly is a ‘redundancy,’ then what exactly is it taking up?”

“If you think of Earth as a closed resource pool, the existence of anything requires the consumption of resources. Physicists conduct experiments, especially high-energy physics experiments. The biggest thing they consume is surely… energy?”

“Energy?” Shi Zuozhou thought for a moment, then said:

“It’s true, when you fire up something like the Large Hadron Collider, it’s a massive power hog. The energy consumption is astonishing. But that’s not enough to cause a global flood, is it? Could it be because the excessive power consumption accelerated global warming and melted the glaciers?”

“Global warming is a long-term process. It can’t trigger global, anomalous torrential rain in such a short time,” Yu Xian said, shaking his head and dismissing the idea.

“Besides, no matter how much power they use, compared to global industrial consumption, a few labs are just a drop in the bucket. And on top of that, the collider construction project has already been rejected…”

“The collider…” Yu Xian murmured to himself. Suddenly, a thought struck him, and he spoke up urgently.

“Old Shi, do you think the rejection of that hadron collider project could be connected to Su Mingyuan and his people?”

Shi Zuozhou slapped his thigh.

“Now that you mention it, I’d almost forgotten! It’s obviously connected! Look at the timeline: the collider vote, Professor Gao’s suicide, Su Mingyuan’s visit to Professor Ning, and then the urgent suspension of the collider project. It’s one thing after another. Who would believe that’s just a coincidence?”

The more he spoke, the more sense it made. He continued his analysis.

“And that includes the ‘man-made torrential rain’ rumor and the blowback it caused for physics labs everywhere. For it to stay on the trending topics list for that long without being taken down… I’m telling you, that group of people was definitely behind it!”

“That level of administrative intervention… The social resources and costs involved would be astronomical,” Yu Xian said with a frown.

“Then it’s even more unlikely it’s just about the electricity… That’s like buying an entire power plant just to save a few bucks on your utility bill.”

“This ‘energy’ you’re talking about… it doesn’t sound like a ‘redundancy.’ It sounds more like ‘consumption,’ doesn’t it?” Shao Yiyi chimed in. She was hugging a throw pillow, her chin resting on the collar of her dinosaur pajamas.

“If it’s a ‘redundancy,’ Brother Cos, could it be… the particles you physicists study?”

“Particles?” Wen Xiao glanced at Shao Yiyi, her brow furrowed.

“Yeah! Didn’t you guys just say that physicists use colliders to smash particles? What happens after they’re smashed? Could that create some new, ‘redundant’ things?”