Chapter 132: The Shape of the Universe

At this moment, inside Professor's dormitory room 808 at Tsinghua University.

Professor Zhuang, having heard the entire answer, could not help but nod in approval.

"His assumed answer shares the same underlying principle as the tao te ching and Buddhist doctrines."

"One gives birth to all things, and all things return to one."

"In Buddhism: A flower is a world, a leaf is a bodhi."

"Mr. Jiang used scientific and philosophical definitions to explain the mysteries of the universe."

"He used the false macro and the micro of individual humans to decipher my dream, which leaves me unable to refute it."

Professor Zhuang has always stood at the pinnacle of philosophy.

Science is merely one of the tools that assists his philosophy.

Until the appearance of Jiang Zhe, his perspective had been changed.

Science, philosophy, and theology have never been separated at this fundamental level.

These disciplines are all gathering the strengths of many schools of thought into one; the final truth points directly to the origin.

The two women behind him were already so shocked they couldn't speak.

Originally, they thought Jiang Zhe would have to spend a lot of effort to convince Professor Zhuang.

Unexpectedly, only one hour had passed, and Professor Zhuang was already looking at him with new eyes.

The older sister, Zhou Qing, asked: "Teacher, his answer does indeed assume a truth and then provides relevant experimental evidence based on that assumed answer; this may not necessarily be the truth of your dream."

The younger sister, Zhou Qingqing, echoed: "That's right, Teacher. In essence, Jiang Zhe is still avoiding the question; he even said himself that without using an assumed answer, it might be very difficult to provide the actual truth."

Upon hearing this, Professor Zhuang Zhou remained expressionless and did not respond.

To him, whether Jiang Zhe assumes or does not assume has never been the correct definition.

Regardless, today, he had already heard the answer he wanted to hear.

...

Inside the leadership conference room.

Station Manager Zhao and the Broadcasting Department Head, Old Wang, remained unable to calm down for a long time.

The two of them had burning gazes, clapping repeatedly in amazement.

"The world has shattered, and the person who created the world should wake up."

"This sentence is so philosophical; it's captivating."

Wang Lin also excitedly echoed: "As expected of Brother Jiang, he has simplified the Great Dao; using scientific definitions and evidence to educate many people, allowing more people to understand the mysteries of the world and the universe."

Xiao Shiyi couldn't help but ask: "Didn't Jiang Zhe himself say that this is an assumed answer? It shouldn't be taken as truth!"

Wang Lin shook his head repeatedly, "No, look at the ratings and you'll know. Whether it's true or not is no longer important; at the very least, it has been recognized, which means these words of his have won the hearts of the people."

Xiao Shiyi quickly picked up the walkie-talkie to ask Old Wang in the monitoring department.

"Uncle Wang, how are the ratings?"

An excited voice came from the other side, "Little Xiao, the Television Station's online viewership has exceeded 7 million, and the livestream room viewership has exceeded 5.5 million, breaking many previous records."

"Then, are there more reactions of skepticism or recognition from the audience?"

"Of course, there is more recognition. You can tell from the ratings—many people have accepted this assumed answer."

"I've lived for more than half my life, and I never thought that one day I would be able to hear the truth of the universe."

"Moreover, many experts and graduate students in the livestream room are discussing it non-stop."

"They are all saying that Quantum Mechanics is the only discipline that can penetrate the mysteries of the universe."

Upon hearing this, Xiao Shiyi couldn't help but be dumbfounded, "That exaggerated..."

...

At this moment, inside the livestream room, Jiang Zhe's words sparked intense discussion.

"No, this is impossible; he first assumed the answer and then gave the truth based on the assumed answer. I do not accept this."

"It's useless if you don't accept it; after all, this is truly a truth of the universe derived from Quantum Mechanics."

"That's right, even if the first consciousness was assumed by Jiang Zhe; in the bible of the Microscopic World, Quantum Mechanics, it is indeed interpreted this way."

"Jiang Zhe used Quantum Mechanics to tell us that there is no macro world, only an assumed macro world; if you apply Quantum Mechanics, the final answer is exactly as Teacher Jiang said; trust me, it's correct."

"No, this is still impossible; an assumption is just an assumption; unless he can decipher what is outside the universe; for example, why the universe is always expanding faster than the speed of light, and whether it is truly dark energy pushing it or some other situation; his assumed truth has many loopholes, and I, as a practitioner of traditional physics, do not accept him!"

"I am also a traditional physicist. Everything he said is derived from Quantum Mechanics, but it hasn't convinced us yet; I do not accept it."

"..."

Clearly!

Traditional physicists and Quantum Mechanics experts, as well as graduate students, have developed serious disagreements.

In the eyes of traditional physics practitioners—the universe is simply not alive.

Even if the universe is expanding faster than the speed of light, that is dark energy pushing it to expand.

If Jiang Zhe could explain why the universe expands faster than the speed of light, then we would know that the universe is actually not a mysterious brain, but a true product of nature.

The inner universe and the dream state have absolutely no connection whatsoever!

Just as the two factions of scholars were having serious disagreements and arguing about it.

Inside the big screen.

Jiang Zhe smiled and spoke.

"I see that this answer has polarized people."

"However, everyone, don't be anxious. I have a simple little survey now: what shape do you think the universe is? State your reasons!"

As soon as the question was asked, the audience's eyes lit up.

Discerning people knew that Jiang Zhe was preparing to interpret Zhuang Zhou Dreams of a Butterfly without assuming the first intelligent consciousness of the universe, so people participated one after another.

"A sphere, the universe is a sphere, because the curvature is positive, which proves it is a sphere!"

"The curvature is not positive, but negative; it should be a flat surface, similar to the shape of a saddle."

"Wait, referring to the Big Bang model, a universe exploded, and the aftermath of its explosion must be in all directions—looking from all directions, what is finally formed must be a shape similar to a sphere; it might not be an exact sphere, it is very likely an elliptical sphere; there is theoretical support—if we are now flying a spaceship and accelerating infinitely outwards, even if we eventually find the cosmic wall, as long as we keep flying forward, one day we will return to our starting point: Earth; this is the same principle as ancient people thinking the sky was round and the earth was square. The Earth has curvature, and the universe also has positive curvature!"

"Yes, yes, yes, I support that the universe is a sphere, but—all our superclusters and galaxies exist attached to the inside of the sphere; just like a ping-pong ball, if you cut a slit in the ping-pong ball and then unfold this ball, you will get a fan-shaped ping-pong diagram. We live on a point on this fan-shaped diagram inside the ping-pong ball, and then if you overlap the fan shape, we live inside this sphere, opposite to how we live on the Earth's surface; we live on the inner surface of the cosmic sphere."

"Why can't it be a plane?"

"Actually, I think it is a plane—a long time ago, scientists discovered that on a large-scale macro level, the light initially emitted by the universe did not bend, which means that the two parallel rays of light at that time always maintained a parallel state. This shows that the overall structure of the universe is flat, and it also means that the total mass of the universe is exactly equal to the critical mass, and the universe will continue to expand like this!"

"I think the universe is an oblate spheroid: because some large-mass celestial bodies and galaxies exhibit this shape."

"No, no, no, I think the universe is spiral-shaped."

"..."

Many of the barrage comments were talking about the eight major shapes of the universe.

And every professional audience member provided corresponding evidence and sources.

This made many viewers who had not learned about this feel confused and bewildered—the shape of the universe seems difficult to distinguish.

In the end, no one could figure it out!

Listening to the constant arguments from the audience in his earpiece, Jiang Zhe finally revealed a smile and asked a rhetorical question.