Although he is over 70 years old, he can't see much of the stability that an old man should have. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 infoWhether it's the way you walk, or the habit of looking to the right, you look like a sixteen or seventeen-year-old child.

But thinking about it, Jiang Chen asked himself, if he had been in a wheelchair for decades, maybe he would be more active than him.

Just as Jiang Chen was looking at the old man's back, Hawking turned his head, looked at him with his slightly funny face, and said in a mocking tone.

"Then Mr. Executive, if you have any questions, let's ask as soon as possible. You're a big guy with hundreds of thousands of dollars a second, so you shouldn't have much time to waste on campus. ”

Jiang Chen smiled noncommittally, and after a moment of silence, he asked.

"Thirty-seven billion years ago, you said that if there were really civilizations that existed for 3.7 billion years, what would they have become?"

"This question is very interesting, what do you think dinosaurs will develop into if they are given 100 million years?" Hawking did not directly answer Jiang Chen's question, but threw out another question.

"Are dinosaurs civilized?" Jiang Chen asked rhetorically.

"Are ants civilized? Are bees civilized? Do birds in the sky have their own society? Maybe there is, but we don't understand them, or we never take them into account. Hawking shrugged his shoulders and said, "Arrogance is one of the attributes of civilization, those who are weaker than us become slaves, and those who are weaker become food, and those who can't even be food are regarded as worms." ”

Speaking of this, Hawking suddenly grinned.

"We are fortunate that at least our civilization has caught the attention of our neighbors and has not been ignored by them as dispensable bugs. ”

"You call this lucky?" Jiang Chen smiled bitterly.

He would have preferred the bugs to treat him as a bug rather than cross a distance of 20.5 light-years to kill him.

"Luck, of course. The Indians at least had a chance to fight back against the European colonizers, and would the bugs have that chance? Stop, look, you almost trampled that little life to death. Hawking stretched out his hand and pulled Jiang Chen, and under Jiang Chen's surprised gaze, he pointed to his feet, "That's right, I mean that ant, if I hadn't reminded you, you wouldn't have even noticed." You don't talk to it, you don't care what it's thinking, and you don't care if it's a technological breakthrough in the nesting process. ”

As he spoke, Hawking grinned, squatted down, picked up a dead wood branch, and placed it in front of an ant.

The little ant was confused by the sudden obstacle, and the antennae on its head swayed back and forth, and finally it chose to bypass it......

"We have been taught a lot of common sense in our lives, but common sense is often just a synonym for prejudice. ”

Turning his head, Hawking looked at Jiang Chen.

"Do you think it thinks it's going to wonder why this branch is in front of him?"

"Do you think I should answer this question from a philosophical point of view, or from a scientific point of view?" Jiang Chen said helplessly.

I'm not an ant, how do I know if it knows this branch is going to stand in his way?

Hawking smiled, turned his head away, looked at the ant walking around the branch, and continued.

"It has nothing to do with philosophy or science, if I have to say it, it should be cosmology. ”

Jiang Chen felt the corners of his mouth twitch.

"Cosmology?"

"That's right. The definition of cosmology is the study of the universe as a whole, and by extension, the study of the place of human beings in the universe. ”

As he spoke, Hawking reached out and picked up two branches, blocking both sides of the ant and surrounding it.

"If you had come an hour earlier, you should have sat in the classroom and listened to me tell the story of the Fermi paradox and the cosmic sieve. But it's a pity that you missed that lively and interesting public elective class. But it's not too late, and if you treat me to pine cone tart, I-"

"No problem, no problem with how much you eat. Jiang Chen hurriedly said.

Hawking smiled and pointed to the triangular cage of tree branches on the ground, the "masterpiece" he had completed in three seconds.

"This branch is the cosmic sieve it faces, and if it goes around it, then it can live. If it figures it out, then it can be an ant like no other. If it's blocked......"

After a pause, Hawking stood up slowly and patted the dust on his clothes.

"It's going to starve to death here. ”

After listening to Hawking's words, Jiang Chen's brows tightened, and suddenly, a flash of inspiration flashed in his mind, and he opened and closed his lips thoughtfully.

"The Fermi Paradox, the Cosmic Sieve ......"

As if grasping something in his mind, Jiang Chen's eyes gradually brightened.

At this moment, he noticed that the ant had reached out its tentacles to the branch, and the ant, trapped in the triangular cage with no way out, began to try to find a new way of thinking, and crawled over the branch. Yet all along, it was unaware, or never thought about, who was manipulating the obstacles before it.

"Now I answer your question. If you ask me how far a civilization has grown in 3.7 billion years, I can't answer you unless you can tell me what exactly they have encountered in those 3.7 billion years. ”

"On the time scale of billions of years, there is always no end to trouble. Natural disasters, diseases, wars...... Actually, these are minor problems. It's like this branch, no matter how many more come back, it will eventually pass. ”

Looking at the ant that had successfully climbed over the branches, Hawking smiled.

"Of course, it's not always so lucky, especially when it meets a moody 'God'. ”

Hawking lifted his foot and trampled the ant and the triangular branch under his feet......

……

After chatting with Hawking for a while, Jiang Chen felt that he had figured out a lot of questions.

Not only the civilization 3.7 billion years ago, but also the extraterrestrial civilization 20 light years away, the questions that he couldn't figure out or hesitate to solve at the beginning have all found answers one by one at this moment.

After coming to the cafeteria, Jiang Chen paid for a treat as promised, and ordered two pine cone tarts for the old man.

To be honest, he really didn't know what was delicious about this sweet and greasy thing, but the old man Huo who was sitting opposite was chewing with relish, and he could only sigh at the difference between the food culture of the East and the West. In line with the principle of not wasting food, Jiang Chen had to dismember the portion on his plate with a fork, and patiently ate it one bite at a time.

What a miscalculation, I forgot that this product is from England, a pioneer in the world of dark cuisine!

"If you can't eat, you don't have to force it. With Erlang's legs crossed, Hawking held back a smile and stuffed the fork pie pieces into his mouth, and the wrinkles were twisted together.

Jiang Chen suddenly felt that the way this old man laughed was too cheap.

"I don't eat it, I don't have an appetite. ”

Jiang Chen finally gave up the plate of pies that still had more than half left, threw the fork into the plate, and after saying goodbye to Hawking, he picked up the plate and walked towards the food cart at the door.

Because the car was parked under the school building, he had to go back the way he came.

However, when he passed by the forest ** he had passed before, he found that a group of students had gathered in a circle on the lawn and set up a temporary platform, which looked very lively.

Out of curiosity, Jiang Chen took two steps over there, grabbed a passing student, and asked casually.

"What are they doing there?" (To be continued.) )