Chapter 217: The Opening of the Great Debate

On the day of the debate, the sky over the Royal Capital was as gloomy as a huge, lead-gray curtain.

Before the morning mist had dissipated, the road leading to the Royal Academy of Sciences was already completely blocked.

Countless mages, apprentices, nobles, and even merchants and citizens who had caught wind of the event all wanted to witness this duel that would determine the direction of the era.

The City Guard had to dispatch three battalions just to barely maintain order at the scene.

At nine o’clock in the morning, sharp.

The heavy doors of the Royal Academy of Sciences slowly opened.

The members of the Particle Faction, led by Henry, were the first to enter the venue.

They were uniformly dressed in dark mage robes, their expressions solemn, their eyes resolute, like a group of soldiers preparing to die for a cause.

Inside the venue, a sparse round of applause sounded.

It was encouragement from the supporters of the Particle Faction.

A moment later, outside the venue, a tsunami of cheers erupted.

Victor had arrived.

He was dressed in a brilliant white, magnificent gown, a confident and calm smile on his face. Surrounded by the core members of the Wave Faction, he walked into the grand auditorium like a triumphant monarch.

His supporters frantically waved their arms, shouting his name.

“Victor! Victor! The wave is the truth!”

The two factions sat on opposite sides of the central aisle of the auditorium, clearly distinct.

The air was filled with the invisible smell of gunpowder.

Gazes mixed with hostility and scrutiny collided back and forth between the two camps.

In a box on the second floor of the auditorium with an excellent view, Lia and Klein sat together.

Klein was holding a cup of steaming black tea.

“It’s quite lively,” Lia said softly, looking at the dense crowd below.

Her gaze swept across the main stage.

Horace, Samuel, Laplace… almost all the top figures in the magic world were present.

Inside the venue, the thousands of seats were all taken.

Even the aisles and corners were crowded with people standing.

Everyone held their breath, waiting for the decisive moment to arrive.

Finally, the Ninth-Circle Archmage Horace ascended to the stage.

His loud and majestic voice was transmitted to every corner of the auditorium through the amplification array.

“Silence!”

The entire grand auditorium fell silent in an instant.

“Today, we are gathered here not for a factional dispute, nor for personal honor or disgrace.”

“We are here for a more noble goal—truth.”

Horace’s gaze was like lightning, sweeping over everyone below.

“I hereby announce the rules of the debate. First, both sides of the debate must use experimental facts and mathematical logic as their sole basis. Second, no personal attacks are allowed. Third, and most importantly…”

His tone suddenly became severe.

“…any form of mental attack or interference is strictly prohibited! Anyone found doing so will be immediately stripped of their mage status and imprisoned in the Black Tower for life!”

This warning instantly made some of the more restless individuals abandon their crooked thoughts.

“I hope everyone can remember,” Horace’s voice softened a little, “our purpose today is not to destroy our opponents, but to get closer to the essence of the world through the collision of ideas.”

“May the light of truth guide our way.”

With that, he signaled an assistant to bring up a crystal ball.

Inside the crystal ball, two pieces of parchment, with “Particle” and “Wave” written on them respectively, were slowly rotating.

“For the sake of fairness, a magic draw will decide which side speaks first.”

Horace stretched out his hand and tapped it lightly.

The rotation inside the crystal ball stopped abruptly.

One of the pieces of parchment floated to the top.

Two words were clearly written on it—Wave.

In the venue, the camp of the Wave Faction burst into an irrepressible cheer.

And on the side of the Particle Faction, there was a dead silence.

Victor stood up and adjusted his collar.

With a smile of certain victory on his face, amidst a round of applause and cheers, he calmly walked onto the lectern in the center of the auditorium.

He cleared his throat.

The entire world seemed to fall silent at this moment.

The Debate of Truth, which would determine the future direction of physics and possibly rewrite the basic rules of the world, had officially begun.

…

Victor stood at the center of the lectern, enjoying the feeling of being the center of attention.

He looked around the entire venue, his gaze finally landing on the pale-faced Henry opposite him.

A contemptuous smile flashed across his lips.

“Ladies, gentlemen, my dear colleagues.”

Victor’s voice, through the amplification array, clearly echoed in the auditorium.

“Today, standing here, I feel extremely honored.”

“Because we will witness together the end of a great era, and the beginning of a more brilliant one.”

He paused for a moment, as if waiting for applause.

The camp of the Wave Faction immediately responded with a thunderous roar.

“For a long time, a ghost, a ghost named ‘particle,’ has haunted the skies of physics.”

“It made us think that the world is composed of hard, independent, and unrelated small balls.”

“What a crude, what a simple, what a unaesthetic model of the universe.”

“And today, I will use irrefutable facts to completely dispel this ghost, and let the light of truth shine on this temple once more.”

Victor snapped his fingers.

On the huge fluorescent screen behind him, a clear image immediately appeared.

It was a concentric circle of interwoven light and dark patterns.

“Behold!” Victor pointed to the screen, his voice impassioned. “This is the great achievement of the experiment conducted by the Fifth-Circle Mage, Mr. Davisson!”

“When a beam of electrons, which we have long mistaken for ‘particles,’ passes through a perfect crystal, what does it show?”

“It is diffraction! It is interference! It is the most fundamental and core characteristic that only waves possess!”

“This image is the verdict drawn by nature itself!”

A sound of gasps filled the auditorium.

Even the supporters of the Particle Faction could not deny the huge impact of this image.

“Perhaps some will say that this is just an isolated case,” a confident smile appeared on Victor’s lips.

“Then, allow me to quote the argument of another great scholar.”

He waved his hand again, and the image on the fluorescent screen changed to a projection of a page from a paper.

The title of the paper was, shockingly, On the Diffraction of Electrons and the Proof of their Wave Nature.

The author was the Ninth-Circle Archmage Horace von Eisenberg, who was currently sitting on the main stage.

“Master Horace, our most respected vice-president of the Council of Truth, has personally endorsed the wave nature of the electron.”

“Now, who else dares to question that the electron is not a wave?”

Henry’s face turned a little ugly.

Victor’s move was too sinister.

He had cleverly turned the arbitrator, Horace, into his own argument, directly occupying the high ground of both theory and authority.

“I know my friend, Mr. Henry, must be very unconvinced.”

Victor turned his gaze to Henry, a hint of mockery in his tone.

“He will surely bring out his precious V-shaped trajectory to tell me that this is evidence of two particles colliding.”

On the fluorescent screen, a cloud chamber photograph of Compton scattering appeared at the right time.

The classic V-shaped fork was once the most proud banner of the Particle Faction.

“What a clear trajectory, what a perfect collision,” Victor said with feigned admiration.

“But, is this really a particle collision?”

His tone suddenly changed.

“I ask everyone to think differently.”

“Imagine, on a calm lake, two highly concentrated waves of energy converge at a point from different directions.”

“At the moment they collide, a drastic exchange of energy will occur, and then, two new waves will be formed, rushing in different directions.”

“From a distance, how is this different from the collision of two small balls?”

“The so-called V-shaped trajectory is just an illusion created by two high-energy ‘wave packets’ on a macroscopic scale!”

“There are no particles! From beginning to end, there is only the propagation of energy! The fluctuation and transmission of waves!”

This “wave packet” theory caused a buzz of discussion in the audience.

Many scholars frowned.

This explanation, even after hearing it a second time, still felt too much like a sophism.

It lacked a rigorous mathematical model and was more like a story concocted to make his argument sound plausible.

In the box on the second floor, Lia picked up a small cookie and put it in her mouth.

“He’s twisting the concept,” she said softly to Klein.

“No.”

Klein shook his head.

“He’s not twisting the concept. He’s gambling.”

“Gambling on what?”

“Gambling that Henry won’t be able to find the evidence to expose this story,” Klein said.

On the lectern, Victor sensed the doubt from the audience.

But he didn’t care.

He didn’t need everyone to be convinced.

He just needed to destroy the foundation of his opponent.

“Now, let’s move on to another question.”

“The photoelectric effect, the phenomenon revered as a cornerstone by the Particle Faction.”

“One photon, knocks out one electron.”

“How simple, how seductive.”

“But have you ever thought that this can also be explained by waves?”

“When a beam of electromagnetic waves shines on a metal surface, its energy is transmitted to the countless electrons inside the metal like a ripple.”

“When a certain electron happens to absorb enough energy to break free from the constraints of the nucleus, it will be ‘excited’ out.”

“What does this have to do with a single photon?”

“As for why the higher the frequency of the light, the greater the energy of the excited electron… isn’t that obvious?”

“A wave with a higher frequency naturally carries more energy! Isn’t that common sense?”

Victor’s voice carried a strong, indisputable tone.

He deconstructed all the evidence of the Particle Faction with wave models that seemed reasonable but could not withstand deep scrutiny.

Finally, Victor spread his arms, as if embracing the entire world.

“Give up, my friends.”

“Admit it, this world is far more elegant, far more harmonious than you imagined.”

“It is not a pile of cold, disorderly marbles.”

“It is a magnificent, never-ending symphony!”

“And the only note that composes this symphony is—the wave!”

As his voice fell, the camp of the Wave Faction completely erupted.

Applause, cheers, and stomping feet merged into a huge wave of sound that almost lifted the dome of the auditorium.

Victor stood on the lectern, smiling, and waved to his supporters.

He was like a king who had conquered the world.

And Henry and his companions, in this sea of fanaticism, were like a few lonely boats about to be swallowed.

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