Mei Ling loved books. She loved the feel of the paper against her fingers as she turned the pages and she loved the smell of the glue that was used to bind the books together. Though with the advent of e-readers, it was more convenient for her to carry a fair amount of her books in electronic form.
Except for the times she needed to multiple books at one time to work something out. Then it was straight back to the paper books for her.
So there she was, in the library, pulling book after book after book looking for the right ones. Mei Ling was in a haze as the titles swam past her.
"Theoretical Mechanics of Particles..." she murmured as she pulled books and put them back in the shelves if they weren't the ones she needed. "Computational Physics... Vector Calculus... Analytical Mechanics..."
"Don't bother," came a harsh voice from the end of the row. "That one is rife with errors and a complete lack of respect for those it ought to be educating."
Cyrus grabbed a book from the top shelf, the title in a foreign language. "This...this is what I sought. Those theorems, these formulae...one could build all creation from this.
She tilted her head to look at the book. It was in... German? The title was in German. It looked like it anyway.
"Well, Biology is Chemistry and Chemistry is Physics so all the world is built upon physical reactions. Given the right combinations and the right time, you could build a world. I guess?"
Mei Ling placed her stack of books on the conveniently located cart near her. She picked up one of them and held it up.
But then it almost seemed to dawn on him that she had asked him something. He thumped the other book with the back of his hand. "It contains many errors, mostly print in nature although there are many factual falsehoods."
"I see... okay." Mei Ling placed the book back into the shelf. She might as well trust Cyrus' word for it rather than waste her time going through an inaccurate book.
"But why your interest in physics? I thought you were the Ethics professor, Cyrus. The choice seems... arbitrary."
"I take an interest in all the world. No..." he corrected himself a moment later, "a responsbility for all the world. Tell me..."
He couldn't remember if he'd met this woman before. If so, likely it was online. "...they say that the universe was begun by an explosion of immeasureable proportions. What do you believe formed that matter?"
"The origin of the big bang?" Mei Ling paused for a second as she mulled over the question. She was an engineer and mathematician, not a theoretical physicist. But she had studied some of this while she was in university so she had some sort of knowledge on the subject.
"So there's... four fundamental forces." she began tentatively as she got a piece of paper out from her pocket and began scribbling as she talked. "Electromagnetism, gravity, the weak and strong nuclear forces. All of them, were equal prior to the creation of the universe."
She stopped herself and looked at the paper again as if she were checking for errors. This was like being in university again.
"General relativity and quantum mechanics does not permit singularity between all four forces. So the origin of the universe comes from inequality and chaos, if you want to put it that way."
"Prior to the creation of the universe..." he mused for a moment. "How peaceful that must have been. Provided, of course, that assertation is correct. And yet consider that those forces were unbalanced by something. Some...outside force, perhaps their origin as well. Are you familiar with the cyclic model of the universe? That we have come from nothing, return to nothing, and in an instant, in a Planck epoch, everything begins again." Cyrus paused only for a brief second before concluding "In death is rebirth. While this truth varies for us as mortal beings, for the universe itself...yes, things are quite different."
Mei Ling nodded and listened to Cyrus. Yes, let's move aside all the moral and mortal worries and return back to science. "Total unity is just... unsustainable by the laws of quantum mechanics. It can exist, but only to a point. Then it will collapse upon itself. That's how I think the origin of the big bang is but, it's not my specialty."
She pulled out a book entitled Mathematical Methods of Engineering Analysis from the shelf and made sure that he was able to see the title.
"I'm an engineer and a mathematician. Theory isn't so much my place."
"It is unsustainable," he told her, "yet that is not what I speak of. The endless death and rebirth of the universe, that cycle. That which lives does so because what came before has died. We are formed from what came before."
Except for the times she needed to multiple books at one time to work something out. Then it was straight back to the paper books for her.
So there she was, in the library, pulling book after book after book looking for the right ones. Mei Ling was in a haze as the titles swam past her.
"Theoretical Mechanics of Particles..." she murmured as she pulled books and put them back in the shelves if they weren't the ones she needed. "Computational Physics... Vector Calculus... Analytical Mechanics..."
Reply
Cyrus grabbed a book from the top shelf, the title in a foreign language. "This...this is what I sought. Those theorems, these formulae...one could build all creation from this.
Reply
"Well, Biology is Chemistry and Chemistry is Physics so all the world is built upon physical reactions. Given the right combinations and the right time, you could build a world. I guess?"
Mei Ling placed her stack of books on the conveniently located cart near her. She picked up one of them and held it up.
"You said this one was wrong?"
Reply
But then it almost seemed to dawn on him that she had asked him something. He thumped the other book with the back of his hand. "It contains many errors, mostly print in nature although there are many factual falsehoods."
Reply
"But why your interest in physics? I thought you were the Ethics professor, Cyrus. The choice seems... arbitrary."
Reply
He couldn't remember if he'd met this woman before. If so, likely it was online. "...they say that the universe was begun by an explosion of immeasureable proportions. What do you believe formed that matter?"
Reply
"So there's... four fundamental forces." she began tentatively as she got a piece of paper out from her pocket and began scribbling as she talked. "Electromagnetism, gravity, the weak and strong nuclear forces. All of them, were equal prior to the creation of the universe."
She stopped herself and looked at the paper again as if she were checking for errors. This was like being in university again.
"General relativity and quantum mechanics does not permit singularity between all four forces. So the origin of the universe comes from inequality and chaos, if you want to put it that way."
Reply
Reply
She pulled out a book entitled Mathematical Methods of Engineering Analysis from the shelf and made sure that he was able to see the title.
"I'm an engineer and a mathematician. Theory isn't so much my place."
Reply
Reply
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