Chapter 14 - Fu Di Demon's Plan

　　"Then, my dear brother, since you have made such a judgment, you must have further plans, right? The revolution in France is a big deal, I can't believe you're just going to sit on the sidelines and watch, surely you must have further plans?" Napoleon asked.

　　"This is a French matter." Joseph said, "I don't want to interfere too deeply, I just plan to take advantage of the situation. Do you know what a revolution means?"

　　"A massive civil war, just like England." Napoleon said.

　　"No, it's more than that. France has much bigger problems than England, and its people are much angrier than the people of England." Joseph said, "And, France is a continental country. In a sense, it is the centerpiece of the entire continent of Europe. Any change in it will cause a chain reaction in Europe, and if the crown of the King of France falls, it will take many other crowns on the continent with it. The war would stretch on for a long time, and the flames of war might burn all over Europe.

　　Countless people, no matter how noble or humble he had been, would be crushed to pieces. Like the little bugs that stand in front of the wagon wheels, both the little beetles and the praying mantis that can eat them are equally crushed to powder - death is the great equalizer, wouldn't you say, Napoleon? As for me, I'm going to stay away from that wheel and wait for it to run over, then come back and eat the corpses of the crushed bugs, like a vulture or a hyena."

　　"Ah, O my brother, this is really you!" Napoleon said with a look of contempt, "You have the eyelashes to lift the dust of the age, and the pupils to see through the mists of society, but you have not the brave heart to ride the current of the age. I am different; I will jump into that chariot, control it, and make it go as I wish."

　　"Foolish son of Helios, O my foolish brother!" Josephus said, "You presume to fly into the sky on your father's burning sun chariot, but have you considered that you possess such power? O wretch of life and death, O son of impermanence and sorrow, you have forgotten the words of Delphi, 'Know yourself' (Delphi is the name of the Greek place where the famous temple of Apollo is located. The quotation means 'Know thyself')? Ah, how unlucky I am to have a brother as stupid as you are, and how I must always be ready so that I can catch you when you tip over the sun-carriage and fall headlong from high in the air."

　　Napoleon, on the contrary, laughed with pleasure at this remark. For Joseph, in the language he had just used, had compared him to the hero Phaethon, son of Helios, the ancient Greek god of the sun. This hero drove his father's sun car without a license causing a serious car accident and lost his own life as a result. But in any case he was an unusual and courageous hero.

　　"O my arrogant brother, you need to 'Know yourself' as well. Who do you think you are to think you can catch the sun chariot when it falls? Are you Zeus?" Napoleon laughed, "But my dear O Hyena, let's get specific about your plans."

　　"Whatever we're going to do in the future, we'll always need some material preparation. That's why I intend to make some money first when the revolution comes." Joseph said.

　　"Well, if you can judge the timing of the revolution and the war more accurately, it's true that you can make a lot of money. A lot of things become very scarce after a war breaks out." Napoleon said, "But just like Archimedes needed a long lever and a fulcrum to pry the earth apart. The more money you have in your hands before that opportunity arrives, the more you will gain. How do you propose to obtain your lever and fulcrum?"

　　"That is indeed a big question." Joseph frowned. In pre-revolutionary France, it was indeed too difficult for a poor man to save money, even if he was a traveler. Then again, if a poor person could make money on his own with just a little bit of skill, then the hell would go to the revolution. Wasn't the reason why there was a revolution because the French system today stood in the way of a better life for everyone?

　　"Also, if it was easy to get rich, no one would want a revolution." Napoleon nodded back, "So you won't have a very long lever and a very strong fulcrum anymore. You'll just have to keep eating honestly on black bread with no butter and only one mutton chop a month."

　　"That alone is still not enough." Joseph shook his head.

　　"The Academy of Sciences has been offering a reward for papers lately." Napoleon snapped, "The prize money is nice. I'm going to write one to try. Joseph you can try too."

　　The Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris was founded under the auspices of Louis XIII's Prime Minister Richelieu back then. Now located in the Louvre, it was the highest academic institution in France. It solicited papers and gave a very generous bounty of up to six hundred francs. In addition, there was great honor in winning this prize. To a man like Napoleon, the latter was perhaps the thing that moved him more. In his eyes, it was perhaps as much a sign of heroism as the laurels in the ancient Greek Olympic competitions. However, Joseph also felt that it was a good idea. As a traveler he knew a lot of scientific knowledge far beyond this era, and finding something out of it to cheat money, and in the process brush up his reputation, would be good for the future.

　　"It's just that, considering the scientific foundation of this era, what's the best way to get something out that's both explosive and doesn't require too much front-loading?" Joseph couldn't help but think, "How about I throw out the most terrifying double-slit diffraction experiment in the history of physics ahead of time and scare them to death?"

　　On the question about the nature of light, there have always been two opposing views, that is, the fluctuation theory represented by the British scientist Hooke and the particle theory represented by the British scientist Newton. Because of the influence of Sir Isaac Newton's great achievements, people were more willing to believe in his viewpoint, and therefore for quite a long time - until the "double peak diffraction", a monster that shook the whole physics more than once, was released --The particle theory was overwhelming.

　　The first to unleash this monster, the double-slit diffraction experiment, was the British scientist Thomas Young, who in 1801 used it as a weapon to challenge the particle theory, which had always been dominant. Yet he was English, and in England, although Sir Isaac Newton has been dead for more than seventy years, in those seventy years or so his prestige has grown by the day. Any challenge to Newton's theories would have been regarded as "absurd" and "illogical", and since Thomas Young had not been able to give a mathematically sound explanation, and since he had incorrectly treated light as a longitudinal wave, leading to a series of inexplicable puzzles, it was not surprising that he had been unable to find a solution to the problem of light. a series of inexplicable puzzles, so at the time the beast was just ignored by British physics.

　　It was not until more than ten years later, after the French scientist Fresnel took Huygens' principle and the principle of interference as the basis, treated light as transverse wave, established Huygens-Fresnel principle in a new quantitative form, and perfected the theory of diffraction of light, thus perfectly explaining the double-slit diffraction experiment, the fluctuation theory turned back to its master, and gained the upper hand in the battle with the particle theory. (Of course, this also has to do with the fact that Fresnel was French. Basically, as long as the British were against it, the French were always happy to support it. Although the supporters of particle theory in the French Academy of Sciences were still the majority at the time, it was not so much that Fresnel could not make his voice heard.)

　　"It's not that difficult, conditionally speaking, to realize this experiment." Josephus thought, "In fact, in later times, this experiment could have been done in the laboratory of a high school. As for Fresnel's proof, the amount of prior work required is also relatively limited. Of course, there is still some, but it's mostly all mathematical preparation, and it's not unfinishable. Even more so, I can bring out the Poisson light spot experiment along with it and make them all giggle."

　　Thinking of this, Joseph then laughed, "O my foolish brother, it's rare that you actually have a good idea. It seems that even a fool can produce a sparkling thought after a thousand times of thinking, ah."

　　"O my arrogant brother, do you know that I have been preparing for this for some time now, and I think I have a much better chance of winning the merit than you do." Napoleon replied.

　　"Well then, let's each prepare a paper and see who has the better paper." Joseph said.

　　"Could be." Napoleon said, but he quickly responded, "No Joseph, there is a trap in your language. You are talking about seeing who has the higher level of papers, not who wins the meritocracy. The level of the paper, my brother, can be completely disputed. That way, even if it is me that you win, you can totally excuse yourself by saying that it's because those old things at the Academy of Sciences have no eyes and that the level of your paper is far superior to mine, and then you can renege on the debt and you can disavow the loss. Honestly, Joseph, are you playing with such an idea?"

　　Hearing this, Joseph took a step backward, looked at Napoleon, shook his head, and said in a very sad tone, "Ah, Napoleon, how could you second-guess me like that? You grieve me too much. And ..." The tone was sad like that of Medea, abandoned by Iason. But then he suddenly changed his tone, "You know, the Academy of Sciences, or anywhere else for that matter, is full of fools. The probability of their having eyes without eyes is not low. Of course, to be honest, there are still quite a few people in the Paris Academy of Sciences who are not douchebags. My brother, therefore, the probability that they will look at your fool's article and simply fail to read mine is very high. So their judgment is not to be used as a criterion for judging.

　　But ... my brother, why don't we just leave it at that, and let you be the judge of whether or not my essay is of a higher standard than yours. Though you are a foolish fellow, you are a proud one, and you are not ashamed to speak against your will in such a matter."