Genius Club

"Now, let's watch the explosion footage provided by the military together and feel the extraordinary spectacle!"

...

Mi Country, New Jersey, Princeton, 112 Marshall Street.

Einstein sat on the sofa, watching the morning news broadcast.

The development of the hydrogen bomb had always been the highest secret in Mi Country, and like everyone else, he learned about it from the news this morning.

The principle of the hydrogen bomb is different from that of the Atomic Bomb; it is a form of nuclear fusion, much like the sun, representing the most primordial energy of stars and the universe... releasing much more energy than nuclear fission.

On the television, the host had already finished the script, and the image switched to a distant camera shot.

The distance was very far, and separated by the sea, it was impossible to see clearly what was far away.

But suddenly!

Intense white light!

Explosion!

The earth trembles!

A fireball shooting into the sky!

Only after a dozen seconds did the sound of the explosion roar in, carrying rolling air currents that shook the camera lens violently.

At the same time... there seemed to be some rays hitting the video tape, showing sporadic, dense, white snowflakes.

Gradually.

The fireball on the distant horizon slowly extinguished, transforming into rolling red smoke gathering high in the sky.

Mushroom cloud...

The gigantic mushroom cloud stood between heaven and earth!

Rolling.

Rotating.

Gathering.

Rising.

The gray-red mushroom cloud grew larger and larger, and even until this segment of the footage ended, it continued to rise steadily... like a rapidly growing tumor.

Observing this immense destructive power.

Einstein was in a daze.

He wasn't worried or fearful, nor was he concerned.

If it were before, upon seeing the hydrogen bomb explosion, hundreds of times more powerful than the Atomic Bomb, he might have sunk into despair.

But now it's different.

Yesterday, after chatting with the young man named Douglas, he thought for a long time upon returning and felt that concepts like nuclear deterrence, nuclear retaliation, and nuclear revenge were very realistic, and perhaps soon such a global situation might arise.

Einstein clearly understood.

To form nuclear deterrence, naturally, the more powerful the weapon, the better; the greater the power, the greater the deterrence, which would make initiating war more cautious.

Douglas was right.

The detonation of the hydrogen bomb... when the Soviet Union possesses hydrogen bombs later... would not be a bad thing for prolonged world peace.

And now the reason he was dazed.

Was because the scene of the hydrogen bomb explosion just gave him some unprecedented inspiration.

Especially the radiation and rays produced by the explosion hitting the camera tape, those dense, flickering white dots.

These densely packed white dots reminded him of a study he once proposed and then abandoned, which he even deemed as the biggest mistake of his life—

[Universe Constant].

In 1917, Einstein applied his gravitational field equations to examine the universe as a whole. To explain the existence of a static universe with non-zero matter density, he introduced a term proportional to the metric tensor in his field equations.

The numerical value of this proportional constant was very, very small, even negligible on the scale of the Milky Way Galaxy, so he named this constant "cosmic constant" and denoted it by the symbol Λ.

Later.

With deeper research and experiments, Einstein discovered that this cosmic constant was completely wrong, unreal... in any situation, this hypothetical constant seemed incapable of yielding correct results.

Thus, he negated the cosmic constant publicly, admitting that incorporating the cosmic constant into the general Theory of Relativity equations was the biggest mistake he made in his life.

In the ensuing years, he never researched the cosmic constant again.

Because he knew that the cosmic constant was incorrect, there was no method, no premise to make it correct.

But just now.

As the countless, layered, flickering, full-screen radiation snowflakes filled his eyes.

He suddenly started!

He had fresh inspiration!

Universe... constant...

Perhaps the point is not the constant, but the universe.

Like the nuclear fusion energy released by the hydrogen bomb, it's likewise the most primordial energy of the universe and stars.

It's merely two extremely tiny, extremely tiny atomic nuclei colliding, just a few quarks lost, yet capable of erupting such grand force, enough to burn stars, enough to destroy planets!

Small... and large.

The smaller it is, perhaps, the grander it becomes.

Is it possible...

that the Universe Constant is like this too?

"What really is the Universe Constant?"

Einstein furrowed his brow, introspecting:

"Could it be... Have I been mistaken all these years?"

"[What is the Universe Constant truly? What exactly is the value of the Universe Constant?]"

Previously, he had no clue.

But now!

He has it!

Indeed, the explosion of the hydrogen bomb and those dense white snowflakes gave him inspiration!

"Paper... pen... I must calculate now!"

Einstein's breathing was rapid.

He turned and rushed to the study, not knowing how many things he knocked down.

But he didn't care!

He needs to calculate! He needs to calculate immediately!

Perhaps the secret of the Universe Constant is about to be unraveled by him!

Swish—

He sat at the desk, unfolded a stack of draft paper, and scribbled busily with a fountain pen on the paper.

On a frigid winter morning.

Unexpected beads of sweat dripped from his cheeks.

This elder in his seventies has not been this excited for a long time.

He stared intently at the draft paper, lined with one formula after another.