January 1, 1923, around 6 p.m.

Four Horse Road, Chenghai City, Public Concession Ministry of Industry Bureau Building.

The lecture hall of the Youth League Training Department of the Ministry of Industry and Bureau was full, and a unique discussion meeting was being held here.

In addition to the many members of the two committees of the "Hebrew Association for Young People" and the "Academic Research Association," there were also many big names in the concession: the director of the Ministry of Industry of the Public Concession, the general director of the Public Concession Public Board of Directors, and even consular officials from various countries in Shanghai.

"Declaration" reporter Zhao Junhao sat in the audience, his brows gradually twisted together.

As a reporter for a major newspaper in Shanghai, Zhao Junhao witnessed the grand occasion of the visit to China of the great philosophers Dewey and Russell in the United States and Britain a few years ago.

What he saw and heard in the stadium today was completely different from what he saw and heard at the time.

Among the more than 300 people in the audience, including Zhao Junhao himself, there were only three Chinese.

Although the symposium was nominally open to invitees only, it was actually quite easy to get an invitation.

Zhao Junhao was able to sit in the venue today, and he didn't even come forward through the official "Declaration" hall.

Because the "Declaration" did not want to send reporters to participate in this discussion at all, they planned to buy news from the foreigners' "Mainland Daily" or "Zilinxi Daily" from the beginning.

Zhao Junhao is a graduate of Nanyang University and has always been interested in scientific topics, so he tried to call a foreign professor at his alma mater, but he didn't expect to get an invitation letter easily.

Qin Hui still has three friends, not to mention the celebrities who are in the upper class all day long?

It's not that they can't get tickets, they just don't want to come in the first place.

The long-lasting warm applause in the lecture hall interrupted Zhao Junhao's thinking.

A middle-aged man of medium stature, well-dressed, with fluffy gray hair, a thick mustache, and bright brown eyes, ascended the podium.

Considering the large number of people at the scene and the difficulty of giving a lecture, the chairman of the Problem Study Society, who is also the moderator of the seminar, Chatterley, suggested that it would be better for the participants to ask questions directly to the speaker and ask him to solve their doubts one by one.

At first, the audience was a little at a loss until someone finally asked the first question: "Doctor, do you think that the Michelson-Morey experiment is accurate enough to assume that the speed of light in a vacuum is a constant quantity?" ”

The presenter on the stage smiled and nodded, and while drawing a diagram on the blackboard, he explained in simple German the theories of Fizo's basic experiments, optical travel difference, and Maxwell-Lorenz's electromagnetic theory, and finally gave an affirmative answer to this question.

Next to the speaker stood an engineer from the Ministry of Industry Bureau, De Qiong, who was in charge of translating the content of the lecture into English.

The first question was followed by the second question, followed by the third question, and the atmosphere in the stadium quickly became lively.

The host Chatterley also asked a question: "Not long ago, the American astronomer Professor Campbell led a Clark expedition to Vallar, Australia, to observe the solar eclipse, hoping to refute the theory of relativity with the results. Doctor, what are the results of this eclipse observation? ”

"The results have not yet been published, because it is very difficult to measure the slightest deviation of a hundredth of a millimeter from a star on a photographic disc and calculate the rate of deviation from it, and it may take several more months."

"Doctor, can you use the phenomenon of Ganymede occultation to prove the correctness of the theory of relativity?" This time the problem came from Anthony, an engineer in the electrical department of the Ministry of Industry.

"Of course, not only yes, but as far as I know, there are already calculations being made on this issue, and the results may be available soon."

……

Probably only half of the congregation members were genuinely passionate about science.

The rest are vassals and gentlemen who want to catch a glimpse of the world's most popular scientist, and their passion for science is always short-lived.

The frequency of on-site questions gradually decreased, until finally no foreigner raised his hand to ask questions.

So a young man with a round face who was slightly chubby and wore small round glasses finally had the opportunity to ask his question.

He put down his hand, which had been raised for a long time, stood up from the back row of the audience and asked, "Doctor, what do you think of Sir Oliver Lodge's spiritualist research?" ”

The First World War and the Spanish flu, two natural and man-made disasters, took hundreds of millions of lives, most of whom were young and middle-aged, and at the same time left many elderly people in Europe and the United States who had to bear the pain of losing their children in their twilight years.

As a result, spiritualism gradually emerged during this period, and people wanted to use this so-called "heart-to-heart communication" method to get the news of their relatives who had been separated from each other.

Two of the most influential representatives of its followers are the former vice-chancellor of the University of Birmingham mentioned above, Rocky, and Sir Conan Doyle, who wrote the famous Sherlock Holmes Detective Book.

Rocky lost his son in World War I, while Doyle lost his son and brother in World War I and the flu.

While the two were "talking" with their deceased relatives and friends, they did not forget to show compassion and try to help more people who were suffering from the same illness as them.

As a result, Lodge and Doyle traveled extensively throughout the United States, and spiritualism became popular.

Hearing this question, the presenter on the stage turned pale and changed his previous good temper, and said a French sentence with great disdain: "Ce n'est pas sérieux!" ”

Deqiong was embarrassed for a while, waited for a while, and found that the speaker did not mean to say any more, so he said slowly in English: "The doctor said that this question is not a big deal. ”

Such a small episode did not lead to a resurgence of enthusiasm in the field.

Seeing that the audience was full of excitement, Chatelier decided to end the discussion early: "If no more questions are asked, we will ...... Well, sir, what's your problem? ”

In the corner of the back row stood a tall young man, who cleared his throat and spoke in German that he was not very fluent in: "Hello Doctor, there was a philosopher in ancient China, whose name was Hui Shi. He once put forward a point of view, which is called 'Today is the right time to go to Vietnam, and the past is coming', which means that he only set out for Yue Di today, and he has already arrived there yesterday. Implicit in this view is the question of whether one can go back in time or, as the British writer Wells puts it, in his novel The Time Machine, to take a trip through time. ”

After some foreshadowing, Chen Muwu paused slightly, and then threw out his own question: "Mr. Einstein, do you think that time travel back to the past or to the future exists?" ”