Chapter 638: Shaken Cognition

Augustus was a holdover from history. In the early days of the Wizard Multiverse, a batch of gods had been canonized. Although there were only a dozen or so, they had persisted until now. As part of the Wizard World, they were naturally separated from the enslaved gods.

This was also the basis for Thales’s belief that gods could be united.

When Daina saw Ace’s incarnation, she, as a Legendary Immortal Wizard, naturally recognized it as such, and furthermore, felt an inexplicable familiarity.

This incarnation was born from the longing of Ace’s very first projection. That projection had returned to the true body during the battle with Ace’s first formidable enemy, Hercules, but the longing had remained.

Ace took the opportunity to expel this stray thought, transforming it into this incarnation.

After finishing all this, Ace returned to the Magic Sanctuary. Sitting on the main throne, he pressed his hand against the hexagram crest. Following the Wizard Multiverse’s ascension to the Level 4 Astral Plane layer, the first plenary session of the Supreme Council convened.

The Senior Members of the Supreme Council: 441 Tenth Ring Legendary Immortal Wizards. The Formal Members: 10,023 Ninth Ring Legendary Immortal Wizards.

With everyone assembled, Ace announced the new plan.

“We have finally returned here, back to the Level 4 Astral Plane layer. This is where we began. We fled from our homeland in a sorry state, and now, we shall take everything back.

“But our strength is still insufficient to oppose the Kaya World. Even more troublesome is that the Kaya World has undergone a mutation. Considering the worst-case scenario, perhaps terrifying Overlimit Power has been born in the Kaya World.

“To this day, we still haven’t figured out what that emerald green was, nor what secrets the World Tree hides.

“For now, our plan requires us to accomplish three things: First, mapping the space-time curvature of the Level 4 Astral Plane layer and gathering natural Level 6 space-time runes. Second, probing the reality of the Kaya World. Third, further sharing resources among Immortal Legends—Level 6 runes will be shared unconditionally!”

Ace’s words were brief, but their implications were profound. The third point, in particular, ignited excitement in all the Legendary Immortal Wizards. The Wizard World had yet to birth an Eleventh Ring Wizard; not even Ace was one.

Ace had actually walked the Path of Laws first, becoming a Titan Main God before anything else. If anyone could become an Eleventh Ring Wizard, it would mean not only supreme power but also unparalleled glory.

The Legendary Immortal Wizards quickly began to act. The Tenth Ring Immortal Legendary Lich, Witte, was the very first to sign up to head to Kaya to scout the surrounding situation.

While the wizards were busy, the Mythical Wizard Daru—a student of the Legendary Immortal Wizard Bruce—was conducting seemingly dull and tedious research.

“There is nothing truer than experimental data. Since the Wizard World has normalized, it is time to draw conclusions from experimental data. Teacher Bruce’s model is certainly good, but magical research should start from direct, measurable data and observed phenomena, rather than assuming a model and forcing the interpretation of data to fit the hypothesis.

“This is very dangerous. We shouldn’t hypothesize a model of a well to explain a phenomenon, only to find out its true face is a chimney.”

After writing a lengthy introduction, Daru continued: “Quantum orbits have never been seen, but the intensities and frequencies of dark lines in atomic spectra are clear at a glance. We must start from this aspect to explore the mysteries within the atom.”

These values were completely discrete. Daru simply drew them in a table. However, the operational rules for mere tables were imperfect, so the clever Daru further developed the table’s operations.

In just one month, he compiled a thick stack of drafts and handed them to his teacher, Legendary Immortal Wizard Bruce.

Bruce took one look at the table and didn’t understand it. But he was won over by the profound mathematical foundation displayed in his student’s table. After repeated explanations from Daru, Bruce finally understood and gave this table a nice-sounding name: Matrix.

Matrix operations were very complex and counter-intuitive. Even with the aid of state-of-the-art Spirit Computers, they required massive amounts of time and energy, and were prone to errors.

After discussing it, Bruce and Daru simply sought out the leading figure in quantum mechanics, Alexander.

Alexander hit it off immediately with the master and apprentice. Ultimately, the four of them—Alexander, Bru, Daru, and Donna—formed a joint research institute. Because it was located on Planet Gelto, it was also called the Gelto Institute.

The four collaborated to write a lengthy masterpiece titled On Quantum Mechanics. They spent a massive amount of time introducing matrix operations and calculated the range of the difference between two products after swapping the order of multiplication (non-commutativity).

Three months later, the premier journal Magic published a special supplement of On Quantum Mechanics, winning widespread acclaim. Bayen even praised it for perfectly expressing the discrete nature of quanta.

In the academic hall of the Central High Tower in the Celestial Realm, Bayen, as a supporter, interpreted On Quantum Mechanics for the wizards present, concluding with:

“The On Quantum Mechanics proposed by the Gelto School… I believe we can also call it Matrix Mechanics, because the foundation of this system is the matrix. Of course, matrices have a small problem: they do not obey the commutative law of multiplication. One could say this is determined by the rules of matrix operations, and an inevitable result of defining those rules.

“But in actual operation, this causes a major problem. For example, measuring an object’s velocity first and then its time yields the object’s displacement. However, this is different from the displacement obtained by measuring time first and then velocity. No matter how you calculate it, there is always a difference, and it is greater than a certain specific value.

“This problem is worth everyone’s thought, because every single value in magic has its special significance.”

After his speech, Bayen returned to his Wizard Tower. His student—and also his descendant—Thomson, also lived in Bayen’s Wizard Tower. He was casually flipping through academic journals in his residence.

Thomson was a proud and talented young man. As a Mythical Wizard, he was only a few hundred years old. To mortals, he would be incredibly old, but to wizards, he was still a mere youth.

A paper titled Ether Waves caught Thomson’s attention. Because the ether was so ancient, seeing the word made Thomson chuckle. Piqued, he began to read it.

This paper argued that the vibration of electrons produced a wave in the ether around the atomic nucleus. Because these produced waves interfered with each other, a standing wave circling the nucleus could only form if the electron’s orbital radius was suitable. Therefore, the orbital radius was quantized.

Thomson’s attention focused. He read earnestly, thinking.

“If this is true, then after an electron jumps, no one needs to tell it where to stay or at what speed to move. More importantly, there’s no need to worry about the electron radiating energy due to its motion.”

This paper was only published in an obscure academic journal. Had Thomson not been incredibly bored lately, he probably wouldn’t have even opened it.

He folded the page open, lay back on the sofa, deeply engrossed, and murmured: “This viewpoint is actually very inspiring. It’s just that the ether is truly too decayed. After relativity resolved the invariance of the speed of light, the ether was long ago kicked out of the ranks of fundamental magical theory.

“Moreover, since light is both a wave and an electrical phenomenon, possessing wave-particle duality, then could an electron be a wave? And how would it be a wave?”

Thomson jumped up from the sofa, went to his desk, bent over, and wrote: “According to special relativity, a stationary electron with mass m should have rest energy (E=mc²). Energy and mass are actually two forms of matter. If the mass of an electron is viewed as energy, then the energy can be viewed as an intrinsic periodic phenomenon with frequency f, i.e., E=hf. Therefore, E=mc²=hf!”

His expression grew increasingly excited. The process of gradually approaching the truth was so intoxicating to a wizard.

“Assume the electron is moving at velocity v. According to relativity, the mass of the electron increases, so the intrinsic frequency f of the electron also increases to f1. But relativity also tells us that for an observer in a stationary state, time in the moving reference frame dilates, the period lengthens, and the intrinsic frequency decreases to f2.

“Do different frequencies mean different waves?”

Writing up to here, Thomson stopped. He fell into confusion. What kind of two waves were these?

He closed his eyes to think. After a while, Thomson opened his eyes, a brilliant light shooting from them.

“Hypothesis: When a particle moves, it is accompanied by a wave combined with the particle, and the frequency of the wave is exactly f1.”

Through calculation, this wave’s speed obviously exceeded the speed of light, leaving Thomson confused for a time.

He took his confusion to his teacher, Bayen. After reading it, Bayen laughed heartily and praised his student: “Your whimsical ideas are truly valuable. This wave exceeding the speed of light does not violate relativity, because this wave does not carry energy!”

Thomson finally saw the light. At this moment, the electron still existed in the form of mass, not energy. Since it didn’t possess energy, faster-than-light speed and relativity did not conflict.

In the following months, Thomson published a series of papers proposing the concept of Matter Waves, which people called Thomson Waves. He demonstrated that matter waves have the same phase as the intrinsic wave of the particle, hence calling them phase waves, and mathematically proved that the group velocity of the phase wave equals the velocity of the particle.

The original intention of this paper was to explain the electron orbit problem proposed by Bruce. Simply put, for an electron moving in a certain orbit, its accompanying matter wave must have a specific phase to produce a standing wave.

Initially, the paper did not receive much attention from wizards. Later, Bayen personally took the paper to Ace for review. Ace praised it highly, saying Thomson had lifted a corner of the grand curtain.

As the saying goes, the words of the lowly carry little weight, but the spit of the mighty can pierce a planet.

Ace’s approval caused many wizards who had previously dismissed the paper to look at it seriously.

The leading figure of the Gelto School, Mythical Wizard Alexander, mentioned phase waves during speeches in many places and gave an example.

“We can explain the so-called phase wave like this: for instance, when we use a drill bit to drill a hole in a wall. On the surface, the drill bit constantly enters the wall, but in reality, it isn’t that fast.

“The rotation of the drill bit is like a wave. What appears to be constantly moving forward is the phase velocity of the wave, while the actual forward speed of the drill bit is the group velocity of the wave.

“The group velocity cannot exceed the speed of light, but the phase velocity can, because the phase velocity does not represent the actual speed of the object’s movement, and naturally carries no information.”

Alexander not only deeply understood Thomson’s paper but saw new possibilities from a prediction within it.

The exceptionally talented and untamed Thomson had proposed a shocking prediction: “Interference and diffraction are also suitable for particles. If the size of a small hole is the same as the wavelength of the particle’s matter wave, then interference and diffraction phenomena can also occur when the particle passes through.”

Alexander’s capacity for action was incredibly strong. He immediately realized this was a verification worthy of a Bayen Gold Medal. So, he instantly designed an experiment: bombarding metallic nickel with electrons, he discovered concentric rings of alternating light and dark on the observation screen.

This directly proved that electrons also possess wave properties, thereby verifying Thomson’s viewpoint.

Regrettably, Alexander was a step too slow. When his paper was mailed to the Magic editorial department, a similar experimental paper had already arrived.

According to the principle of “first to arrive, first to publish,” the Bayen Gold Medal slipped through Alexander’s fingers.

However, Alexander was not anxious. He continued his experiments, using a particle accelerator to accelerate electrons and recording and calculating the electrons’ behavior. He successfully confirmed the wavelength of matter waves, thereby proving the wave-particle duality of electrons, earning him a nomination for the Bayen Gold Medal.

But the matter did not end there. People’s understanding of light had elements of guesswork from the beginning, but when electrons entered the wizards’ field of vision, the electron was a living, breathing particle. In Alexander’s cathode ray experiment, the electron beam hit the screen in a randomly distributed state; there was no reason for anyone not to believe it was a particle.

Alexander conducted an experiment here. He added a double-slit grating between the particle accelerator and the screen. In the pitch-black laboratory, he somewhat tremblingly activated the particle accelerator.

The particle accelerator was very stable. A fleeting glimmer of light—a clear interference phenomenon. The dream-like interference ripples made one have to believe it was a wave.

“This goes against common sense. A single particle can act on two slits simultaneously. What exactly is going on?” Alexander looked grimly at the two interference ripples on the screen, doubts spreading in his heart.

It wasn’t just doubt; his Mental Image World was shaking violently. Wave-particle duality couldn’t fully explain it either. Even if it was a matter wave, what was emitted was clearly a particle; how could it pass through two slits at the same time?

The doubt in Alexander’s heart almost shook his cognition of the world.

He forcefully endured the discomfort and the turmoil in his Mental Image World, continuing the experiment.

This time, Alexander removed the grating and fired electrons continuously, watching the marked dot matrix pattern. Without the grating, the points left by continuously fired electrons also showed a randomly distributed state, and this randomly distributed image looked very much like an interference image.

A single electron could pass through two slits simultaneously, proving it was also a wave. But when there was no grating, it was a point.

No matter how accurately it was fired, the distribution of the points was random.

Based on empirical summary and mathematical calculation, Alexander could roughly predict the probability density of a particle arriving at any position on the detection screen.

However, it was impossible to predict when and where on the detection screen a particle would arrive.

This indisputable result was obtained through multiple repeated experiments.

This result gave Alexander immense confusion, because being unable to predict the particle’s arrival position meant the particle’s arrival event happened without any cause.

In other words, a definite cause led to an uncertain result. Alexander’s Mental Image World shuddered violently, almost like the arrival of a violent storm, leaving behind only scattered feathers. All his spell models shattered, and his mapped demi-plane actually fragmented directly, creating a massive spatial vortex that exploded with a boom.

And within it, Alexander fell unconscious, floating in the pitch-black void of space, passing out completely.

(Chapter finished)

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