Chapter 9 Chapter nine

Arthur 77 squinted his eyes, examining the several pages of printed paper on the table in front of him in detail, as if looking at a map of a continent that no one knew until now. He was very calm, so calm that he was very surprised. "Very interesting, Beanie," he said slowly, "very...very...interesting." "Of course, sir, not only may I make a mistake in the basic setting, but Yermot and Fano may also make..." "Are all three of you wrong in your assumption? No, Beanie, I don't think so." "I just wanted to show that the possibility exists."

"Please let me think," said Arthur. It was around ten o'clock in the morning.Onas was shining high in the sky, and he could see it clearly from the tall windows of the observatory director's office.Dovim was barely visible as a small, blinding red point of light orbiting north, high in the sky. Arthur flipped the printouts on the table back and forth with his fingers, turning them over and over again.It's incredible that he tolerated their approach so easily.It seemed, he thought, that Beanie had become the one who was restless, and that he himself had barely reacted.

Maybe I'm stunned.Arthur thought so. "Here, sir, I have calculated the orbit of Kargash according to the generally accepted almanac algorithm. At this point in the material we have a new computer calculated future orbit..." "Please don't talk, Beanie. I said I needed to think." Benny nodded timidly.Arthur smiled at him, which was no easy task for him.The formidable head of the observatory was tall, lanky, with a shockingly thick head of white hair and a commanding presence.For a long time, he has been devoted to the scientific research of the gravitational effect of non-luminous celestial bodies. It is really too difficult for him to condescend and react like ordinary people.At least in the observatory, where people regard him as a demigod, it is even more difficult.If it's at home, with the wife and children and those noisy grandchildren, that's another matter.

So gravitation is not quite right, is it? No no, impossible!Every cell of his common sense was against him thinking so.The concept of universal gravitation was fundamental to understanding the structure of the universe, Arthur was convinced and knew it well.It is so clear, so logical, so perfect that there can be no error. Without gravity, the well-ordered universe would be chaotic. Incredible.It's hard to imagine. But these numbers... this damn... "I can see you're angry, sir," Beanie began babbling again, "I just wanted to tell you that I totally understand how you feel...I know it's hurting you...in this situation, Everyone is likely to be angry, after all, it endangers the hard work of a lifetime..."

"Benny..." "Sir, please let me finish. I should not be so rash and trouble you. I know it will make you angry to bring this information, but I want to say that I have thought long and hard before coming here. ...I wanted to burn it all down and forget about it all. Knowing what I had done, I was scared out of my wits. Knowing I was the one..." "Benny," said Arthur, with foreboding in his voice. "what?" "You're right. I'm really angry with you, but not for the reasons you said." "What is it?" "First, I'm tired of you nagging me in front of me. You're always nagging at me when I want to sit down and find out what's wrong. Second, and this is more important, I Very outraged that you hesitated for so long before sending your results. Why did you wait so long?"

"I only confirmed the results yesterday." "Yesterday! Should have been here yesterday! Beanie, you said you'd seriously considered hiding it all, did you mean it? Could you really throw it away without saying a word?" "No, sir," said Beanie bitterly, "indeed, I never thought of it that way." "Well, that's good. Come on, tell me, do you think I admire my perfect theory so much that I hope my most talented assistant doesn't tell me the bad news that my theory is flawed?" "No, sir, I certainly don't think so."

"So why didn't you come running here and tell me the news at the moment you thought it was right?" "Because...because...sir..." Benny felt ashamed, wishing to dive under the carpet, "because I know how disturbed you will be, and I think you may...may be too disturbed, and your body will be affected, so I kept it from you. I talked with a few friends, and I thought about this matter seriously from my standpoint, and gradually realized that there is really no other choice, I must tell you the theory of universal gravitation..." "You really think, then, that I love my theory more than the truth?"

"Oh, no, no, sir." Arthur smiled again, but this time it was much more natural. "But it's true, you know, I'm a mortal like everyone else, believe it or not, the theory of gravity has brought me all the glory on this planet, it's my pass to eternity, Beanie, you know that .knowing that this theory could be wrong...well, it makes me terribly shocked and numb. Is it wrong...Of course, I still think my theory is correct." "Sir," Beanie said, apparently petrified by his words, "I've been checked over and over again! And..." "Oh, your results are also correct, I have no doubts about this. Could it be that Fano, Yermott and you are all willing to make mistakes... No, no, as I said, this possibility is very small. But your results It may not be able to overthrow the theory of universal gravitation."

Benny blinked several times in a row. "Can't you?" "Of course not." Arthur said, the atmosphere had eased, almost briskly.The false, dead silence at first becomes a very different calm, one that feels like a search for truth. "What exactly does gravitation mean? It means that every celestial body in the universe exerts a force on the celestial bodies around it. This force is exactly equal to the mass and distance. What is the purpose of using the theory of universal gravitation to calculate the orbit of Kargash ? Looking for the influence of the forces exerted by different celestial bodies on our planet when Kargash revolves around Onus, is this the case?"

"Yes, sir." "Well, that said, there's no need to throw away the theory of gravity, at least not right now. What we need to do, my friend, is to rethink our understanding of the universe and see if we've overlooked something that should be included in our calculations...that is, some A mysterious, unknown factor. Something that is constantly exerting power on Kargash, and we don't take it into account." Beanie raised his eyebrows in horror, stared at Arthur dumbfounded, and then began to laugh.At first he bit his cheeks tightly to keep from laughing out loud, but he couldn't help laughing, and all the laughter was backlogged in his throat, so he had no choice but to shrug his shoulders, cough and pant to release his breath.Then he had to cover his mouth with both hands to keep the laughter from bursting out.

Arthur looked at him in such a way that he was speechless in astonishment. "An unknown factor!" After a while, Benny blurted out, "A dragon! Or an invisible behemoth!" "Draco? Behemoth? Hey, what are you talking about?" "Last night... Serimon 762... Oh, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..." Benny tried his best to control himself, and the muscles on his face kept beating.He blinked furiously to calm his breath.He turned around for a moment, waited until he had almost regained his composure, and then turned back.He said with shame on his face: "Last night, I had a drink with Serimon 762... that newspaper columnist you know... During the dinner, I told him about my discovery and the result, How difficult it is for me." "Have you gone to see the news reporter?" "A trustworthy man, a great friend." "Benny, believe me, they're scumbags." "This man is not. Sir, I know him well, and I know he wouldn't do anything to hurt me, or make me angry. He actually gave me some really good advice, and by advice, I mean he made me Must come to you, so here I come. At the same time, he also tried to find grounds for my hope, you know, some comfort... He said the same as you said, there may be some kind of 'unknown' factor', his wording, is exactly the same as yours... This factor confuses our understanding of the orbit of Kargash. I am amused, and it is useless to tell him that some unknown factors are brought alive. It is A very easy problem to solve... Of course, I am speaking ironically... If such a hypothesis is allowed, then we can say to ourselves that there is an invisible behemoth that pushed Kargash out of orbit, or that there is A giant dragon is making waves. But what a coincidence, now you are hearing the same line of analysis... not from an outsider like Theremon, but from the mouth of one of the greatest astronomers in the world! You Know how silly I feel, sir?" "I think I feel that way too," Arthur said.All of this is turning into something of an experiment.He ran his hands back and forth through his thick white hair, making Beanie look both annoyed and sympathetic. "Telling your friends to solve problems by imagining it won't help, and you're quite right, but the occasional layman's advice is not always unreasonable. Because we all know that there must be some unknown factor at work on the Kalgesh orbit. At least in overturning this Before theory, at least consider its possibility. I think the thing to do now is to use the Sword of Tagora. Do you know what that is, Beanie?" "Of course, sir. It's imputational ellipsis. It was first proposed by the medieval philosopher Tagora14. He said: 'We should all give a sword to those loose assumptions', One sentence expresses his attitude towards assumptions." "Very well, Beanie. We are taught that 'if several hypotheses are offered to us, we should consider the most complicated one first.' Now our hypothesis is that gravitation is wrong, and Another assumption related to this is that some unknown or unknowable factor has been neglected in the calculation of Kalgesh's orbital data. If we agree with the first assumption, we will think that the structure of the universe will become a mess; If we accept the second hypothesis, all we have to do is look for the unknown factor, and the basic laws of the operation of things are preserved. Rather than looking for some new general laws governing the motion of celestial bodies, it is better to look for some neglected Therefore, there is no market for saying that the theory of universal gravitation is a wrong assumption in front of the sword of Tagora. And we can start our research with a simple explanation of this problem. In this way, you can see Beanie?" Beanie was beaming and beaming. "So, I didn't overthrow the theory of universal gravitation after all!" "Anyway, no. You may make a place for yourself in the history of science, but we never know whether as false critics or, hopefully, innovators. Now, young man, let's do something Thinking hard." Arthur77 closed his eyes and massaged his sore forehead with his hands.He realized that it had been a long time since he had engaged in scientific research.He'd spent almost all of his time the past eight or ten years on the observatory's administrative affairs, but the brain that had created the theory of gravity still had to care.He secretly told himself... "First, I want to take a closer look at this part of your calculation," he said, "and then take a closer look at my theory."