172: Chapter 172: The First Observer in the Universe...

"Alright, it's almost midnight, a bit late."

Jiang Zhe just stood up and stretched, preparing to end tonight's tutoring session.

As Xiao Yu caught her breath from the series of brainstorms, a meteor flashed across the night sky outside the floor-to-ceiling window.

Xiao Yu and Jiang Zhe looked up together; the sudden meteor streaked across, lighting up the entire inky night sky.

It's a fireball!

The meteor was hurtling straight toward Jiang Zhe's home.

Before anyone could react, the fireball turned into a final burst of brilliant sparks at a low altitude of a thousand meters, illuminating the entire night sky as if it were daylight.

It was breathtaking!

Watching the footage of the fireball falling through Xiao Yu's pinhole camera, the viewers in the chat couldn't help but lose all sleepiness.

"A fireball? How beautiful!"

"It lit up the whole night sky like daylight; first time I've seen this in my life!"

"By the way, that meteor was heading straight for Brother's house, right?"

"Judging by the trajectory, yes, it was heading for that villa area. Could it be that Brother revealed too much, and even Heaven couldn't stand it anymore?"

"Hahahaha, the comments from the viewers are even more explosive than Brother!"

"Time to go, time to go, off to sleep!"

"..."

"Brother," Xiao Yu opened her beautiful eyes after making a wish, "Guess what I wished for?"

"Hmm?"

"Guess, what did I wish for?"

Jiang Zhe picked up a bottle of chilled sugar-free drink from the table and took a sip. "I guess you want to get into the University of Cambridge!"

"Brother..." Xiao Yu rolled her eyes at Jiang Zhe. "You overestimate my IQ. Although I've become smarter, I still can't even get into Huaqing University, let alone the University of Cambridge or Harvard."

"Just guess!" Xiao Yu continued to shake Jiang Zhe's arm persistently.

Jiang Zhe put down his drink, looked at his sister's bright, beautiful eyes, and smiled helplessly. "Alright then, I guess you wished that you could guess all the multiple-choice questions correctly on tomorrow's physics exam?"

"Wrong!" Xiao Yu gave Jiang Zhe a 'figure it out yourself' puppy-dog look. "Besides, I, Steel Rain, don't have a physics exam tomorrow."

"Then, did you wish for me to cook more delicious food?"

"Actually, that's very close!" Xiao Yu's eyes lit up, her body leaning forward slightly on the sofa unconsciously. "The wish I actually made was—I hope you, Brother, can always be like this, and keep telling me these cool things!"

She paused for a few seconds, her voice gradually softening. "Even if others say you're overthinking or talking nonsense, even if these might really just be wild fantasies."

Jiang Zhe narrowed his eyes, momentarily stunned.

At this moment, the living room lights cast shadows on his profile, and the expression on his face appeared somewhat complex.

Outside the window, the afterglow of the fireball had dissipated, and the night sky returned to tranquility.

"Why make this wish?" Jiang Zhe's voice softened.

"Because!" Xiao Yu let go, sat back on the sofa, and hugged her knees. "If everything you, Brother, say is just wild fantasy, then the universe would be too... boring!"

"It would just be a bunch of cold formulas: either an explosion, or expansion, then cooling down into dead silence; or gravity is just gravity, the sun is just nuclear fusion, black holes are just infinite mass. Everything has a standard answer, all printed in textbooks."

She slowly raised her head, her beautiful eyes shimmering with infinite earnestness.

"But I don't want that kind of universe!"

"I want a universe like the one you described, Brother, where time is a flowing energy, the inside of the sun can be as warm as spring; and that thing that first [observed] the universe—no matter what it is, no matter where it is now, every time we observe the night sky, it feels like we are greeting the [First Observer]."

Xiao Yu's voice became softer, but also increasingly firm!

"That kind of universe is interesting, isn't it?"

Jiang Zhe stared at his sister quietly, as if rediscovering this side of Xiao Yu.

At this moment, time seemed to freeze, with only the occasional splashing sound of the little goldfish in the tank.

After a long while, Jiang Zhe suddenly smiled. It wasn't his usual appreciation or helplessness, but gratification.

Suddenly, Jiang Zhe broke into a hearty smile. "Xiao Yu, you are truly..."

His expression then composed itself. "Yes, you are absolutely right. The most fascinating part of science has never been the standard answers printed in textbooks, but the possibilities that don't have answers yet!"

He stood up, walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, and looked up at the inky night sky with his back to the living room.

"Just like that fireball earlier."

"Before it streaked across the sky, it was just an ordinary space rock, following a predetermined orbit; but just now, the moment we saw it—"

He turned around, his gaze falling back on Xiao Yu.

"It became a [Fireball], a miracle illuminating the night sky, a scene that millions of people in Su City looked up at and made wishes upon simultaneously!"

Xiao Yu blinked her beautiful eyes, seeming to understand but not quite.

"Brother, are you saying—that it's because we saw the meteorite, that it became special: a meteor?"

"Not bad, in a sense, yes." Jiang Zhe walked back to the sofa and sat down. "In the world of Quantum Mechanics, there is a concept that gives all physicists a headache called the Observer Effect—simply put, some things only turn from possibility into reality when they are observed."

He paused for a moment, letting the idea sink into Xiao Yu's mind.

Xiao Yu nodded. Even if she hadn't listened to her brother's tutoring, as a high school student, she was aware of it.

"Of course, a meteor is a macroscopic object; it doesn't follow quantum laws. But!" As he changed the subject, Jiang Zhe's eyes became stern. "What if we scale this concept up to the scale of the entire universe?"

Xiao Yu held her breath.

"What if the entire universe, at the very beginning, was also in a state where [all possibilities were in superposition]?"

"Then wouldn't the [glance] of the first [person] or [thing] to [look at it] be just like the look we gave the meteor earlier, making the meteor more meaningful, turning a cold [meteorite] into a warm [meteor]?"

"Isn't it precisely that [glance] at the beginning of the universe that caused the universe to collapse from [possibility] into the [reality] we see?"

"Isn't it what turned an [insignificant universe] into a [meaningful universe]?"

As the series of words fell, the living room suddenly fell into dead silence.

After a long while, Xiao Yu wanted to say something but hesitated...

She and countless viewers were lost in these philosophical words.

But the viewers, teachers, and experts all knew—this is physics, this is fact!

Without the First Observer, the universe could not exist, or rather, the universe could not have become what it looks like within human vision today!

Jiang Zhe looked at Xiao Yu, who was lost in thought, and suddenly chuckled, breaking the silence.

"Regarding this topic, Brother will tell you all about who the first [Observer] in the universe actually is tomorrow!"

As his voice fell, the live stream fell into a brief silence before erupting again.

"Holy crap??"

"Brother, you know?"

"He knows who the First Observer is? Impossible, right?"

"This is the ultimate puzzle in physics and philosophy; even Hawking didn't dare to draw a conclusion!"

"But how can Brother be so certain?"

Countless viewers were stirred back to life by this sentence, completely unable to sleep!

On the big screen, Jiang Zhe stood up and stretched.

"Alright, it's too late." Jiang Zhe ruffled Xiao Yu's hair. "Go to sleep, you have school tomorrow."

Xiao Yu, however, didn't move an inch.

She stared intently at Jiang Zhe, her expression very serious.

"Brother, if, if the universe really needs to be observed to become meaningful and to exist, then where is the first person who looked at it?"

After she finished speaking, Jiang Zhe was silent for a moment, then grinned slightly.

"Then you should get a good night's sleep. Because if there really is a First Observer, then the best way to find It is—"

His gaze swept across the night sky outside the window, then across every corner of the living room, and finally landed back on Xiao Yu.

"It is always to remain curious, keep observing, and then..."

After a two-and-a-half-second pause, he said the final four words: "Keep observing!"

Having said that, Jiang Zhe got up and left, turning off the main lights in the living room and leaving only a dim wall lamp on.

"Good night, Xiao Yu."

"Tomorrow is New Year's Eve, you're on holiday tomorrow, so we'll resume tutoring the night after."