Gazing at the star-filled sky, the scientists all fell silent, deep in tense thought.
“I have an idea,” a scientist from Species Number Seventy Five stood up and spoke nervously. “According to our existing theoretical frawork, our great universe is finite but boundless. So… could we assu that this small universe, torn from the great universe, has the sa structure, finite, but without boundaries?”
“What does that imply?” Xiao Yu asked in return, signaling encouragent with his gaze.
In truth, Xiao Yu knew exactly what this scientist was going to say, his own thinking was the sa. However, he had chosen not to voice his idea. At appropriate monts, cultivating the scientists’ ways of reasoning was important as well. In any case, Xiao Yu cared nothing for empty accolades. He was quite willing to let the honor go to these scientists, so they would devote themselves even more earnestly to serving him.
Receiving Xiao Yu’s encouragent, the scientist seed to gain much more confidence. It bowed to Xiao Yu and then continued, “First, we know that light propagates through space, and that the bending of space will also bend the path of light. Once light reaches the edge of the universe, it will return along its original path. Therefore, I have a hypothesis: in this small universe, all of the stars are actually the sa star.”
Xiao Yu nodded slightly. This scientist’s line of reasoning was identical to his own.
The conference hall erupted in discussion. So scientists voiced support; others voiced objections.
“Let’s discuss the plausibility of this hypothesis,” Xiao Yu said. As he spoke, he lifted his projected arms and waved them, sending a command. Between his hands, the three-dinsional projection device projected the image of two mirrors.
These two mirrors were perfectly ordinary, no different from mirrors made by humans during the Earth era. The two mirrors faced each other, and imdiately, each mirror displayed endless reflections, stretching into an invisible infinity, countless and unending.
This phenonon was quite common. It was easy to reproduce even in human society during the Earth era. When Xiao Yu was young, he had deliberately perford such an experint: taking two mirrors and having them face one another. Each mirror would then show an endlessly extending image. This occurred because light bounced back and forth between the two mirrors. Mirror A first reflected Mirror B, so in Mirror A appeared an image of Mirror B. Then Mirror B reflected the image of Mirror A as well as the image of itself seen by Mirror A. Then Mirror A reflected that image again… Each ti the light was reflected, the number of these phantom images increased by one, more and more, until they beca infinite.
“This scientist’s idea is just like how two mirrors facing each other produce infinite reflections,” Xiao Yu said, pointing at the phenonon in the mirrors. “This phenonon can roughly explain why, in this small universe we are in, there are so many stars identical in spectrum, volu, mass, density, and every other asure. The reason is simple: originally, there was only one star. But its light has been reflected an infinite number of tis at the boundary of the universe, so it appears as if countless identical stars exist.”
All the scientists showed expressions of sudden comprehension. As scientists of a preliminary Level 5 Civilization, they could easily understand every reaction in this process.
Because in Xiao Yu’s current theoretical frawork, the universe was finite but boundless. For example, take a two-dinsional planar universe, if it were curved into a three-dinsional sphere, the creatures of the two-dinsional universe would live on the surface of that sphere. This made the phrase ‘finite but boundless’ very easy to understand. Obviously, for those two-dinsional beings, no matter from which point or in which direction they traveled, no matter how far they went, they would never find the boundary of the universe. At most, they would simply return to their starting point.
Similarly, a three-dinsional world, when seen from a Four-Dinsional perspective, was also a sphere, only a Four-Dinsional sphere. It remained finite but without any edges. Light propagating through three-dinsional space also could never break out of this three-dinsional universe. At most, it would simply return to its point of origin.
This made it easy to explain everything. A white dwarf star emitted light that traveled through the three-dinsional world. Perhaps because of differences between the fourth dinsion and the third dinsion, when the light returned, it did not reappear at the origin but rather appeared in another position. So to creatures within this universe, it looked as if there were an extra star in the cosmic sky. Then the light continued to propagate and once again returned, making it look as if there was yet another star… After countless refractions and deflections, it produced the scene they were witnessing now: an apparent universe filled with countless identical stars.
Just like the infinite reflections created when two mirrors faced each other.
At the sa ti, it was also easy to explain why such phenona did not occur in the real, great universe. Because in the process of light propagation, it constantly weakened. By the ti it traveled from one side of the universe to the other, it would likely have decayed to such a faint level that it was undetectable. And there was another factor: the scale of the great universe was simply too vast, even light would take over ten billion years to reach its edge, and the universe itself had only existed for about 13.7 billion years.
Therefore, such a situation could never occur in the great universe. Only in such a miniature universe could this phenonon arise.
“But there is one point that must be made clear, this is just our hypothesis,” Xiao Yu said. “We have only found an explanation, but we have no way to verify it. And Intelligent Program One was very clear: we only have one chance. If we make a mistake, there will be no way to correct it. So now, I need a thod to validate this hypothesis. And there’s another point, even if we confirm our hypothesis is correct, how do we eliminate the illusions and identify the real star? That remains a very thorny problem.”
Because it was obvious: if among all these stars only one was real and the rest were reflections, then Intelligent Program One must be hidden within the true star. But… how could they locate that single real star among the countless surrounding images?
“We have the ans to verify this hypothesis, and we can also find the real star,” Luka Three said. “Actually, Master, there was sothing in your statent that was not quite accurate. These countless stars, none of them are illusions. Every single one is real. Yet they are still all the sa star.”
This statent seed contradictory. In this cosmic expanse, there were already over a billion observed stars. If each was an actual physical object, then that was a billion stars. Yet they were all one and the sa. The gulf between one billion and one was so vast, it seed impossible to reconcile the two numbers.
All the scientists stared at Luka Three, waiting for it to continue.
“It’s actually quite easy to explain,” Luka Three said. “No matter which star we choose to approach, in the end, within this three-dinsional world curved into a Four-Dinsional sphere, we will be transported to the sa place, beside that real star. So in reality, this trial is not difficult at all. Among these billion stars, whichever one we pick and approach, we will arrive at the true target location. I think when Intelligent Program One said we only had one chance and must choose carefully, it was only applying psychological pressure to keep us from making a hasty decision.”
After Luka Three finished speaking, the conference hall again fell silent. All the scientists were lost in thought, and Xiao Yu, too, was considering it carefully.
After a while, Xiao Yu spoke. “That makes a lot of sense. Our current theoretical frawork strongly supports this idea. It can perfectly explain everything we are witnessing. But… there is still one point: how do we validate this hypothesis? Hmm… very good, very good, this hypothesis is actually very easy to test.”
Luka Three looked at Xiao Yu’s projection with a broad smile and nodded. “Indeed, it’s quite easy to verify.”
At this mont, a few scientists who still hadn’t figured it out looked completely bewildered, staring at the two of them in confusion. Xiao Yu explained. “Since the three-dinsional universe is a closed sphere within the fourth dinsion, no matter which way we travel, in the end, we will return to our starting point. So, why not simply make a long voyage to test it, see if we co back to where we began. Before we see the results of that test, we will not approach any star, so it will not count as violating the rules.”
“That’s exactly it,” Luka Three continued. “Actually, if all we wanted was to confirm the bending of light and explain why there appear to be so many stars, we could just launch a powerful artificial sun and observe whether more images of it show up in the universe. But to confirm that each star is indeed a physical object, it would be best to make the voyage ourselves. The data will be far more complete and convincing.”
“Very well. One artificial sun has already been launched. It can last for half a month. Hmm… if our calculations are correct, the diater of this small universe is only about thirty to forty billion kiloters. At light speed, in no more than three days, we should see another image of the artificial sun appear in the universe. If a duplicate does appear, we will navigate toward it and see if, in the end, we arrive beside the artificial sun itself…”
“That is my entire plan,” Xiao Yu said. “If we can truly arrive there, then the first trial will be easy to pass. If we cannot, it will prove that we were wrong, and we will have to think of another solution.”
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