Free Web NovelChapter 16: Chapter 16: Unknown Rules
"Did you hear? Li Dong apparently signed up for the physics competition."
"Huh? Isn’t he just going to be another warm body? What a waste of time."
During the break, a few boys huddled together in the hallway, glancing toward the classroom from time to time.
"If he’d just focused on reviewing, he could’ve gotten into a decent second-tier university, no problem. Now he’s messing around with some competition... I think his chances are shot."
The students were all surprised by Li Dong’s decision. After all, they were a pragmatic bunch. Don’t take on a difficult job if you don’t have the skills.
"Hmph. He gets a couple of questions right by pure luck and suddenly thinks he’s some kind of academic genius? Don’t you agree, Misha?"
Jiang Yizhou said resentfully to Misha in the front row, twirling a pen in his hand.
Ever since he’d made a fool of himself in class last time, his animosity toward Li Dong had grown.
He refused to believe that Li Dong, who had always been an average student, could suddenly become a top student. He must have gotten lucky and seen the original questions beforehand.
However, Misha had no time for him. She was still trying to verify the solution to that "chain problem" in her draft notebook.
’It’s still not working. This chain problem can’t be solved with high school physics,’ she muttered to herself, her brow furrowed.
Two days had passed since Li Dong went to the office to take the test.
None of the students in the class knew how he did. Even the physics teacher, Jiang Yang, hadn’t mentioned it in class these past two days.
Everyone just assumed Li Dong had bombed it, and the teacher didn’t announce the results to save his pride.
After all, they heard he was working on Ossai-level problems. It was only normal that he couldn’t solve them.
At that moment, Li Dong was completely ignoring the gossip in the classroom.
He was sitting at his desk, looking at the messages in the "Cyan Dragon Study Group."
Another long-dormant big shot had appeared in the group, and it seemed they didn’t come in peace.
[Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier]: @Cramming for Senior Year, Sir, regarding your data on the precession of Mercury, I have repeatedly checked the observational accuracy and the calculation Logic, and I find it quite difficult to believe.
[Levay]: With current astronomical observation methods, even with the meridian circle at the Greenwich Observatory, a single observation is affected by atmospheric disturbances, with errors fluctuating around a tenth of an arcsecond. How could you possibly isolate such a precise cumulative residual of ’43 arcseconds per century’ from such chaotic data?
Furthermore, this dataset has no annotations for observational span, instrument parameters, or epoch correction coefficients. It looks more like a "result" given directly, rather than a conclusion derived from actual measurements and calculations.
[Levay]: Sir, you might as well be direct. Where exactly did this data of yours come from? Which observatory’s records is it from, and what was the method of derivation?
The thing Li Dong had worried about most had finally happened.
The big shots in the group were starting to doubt his identity. After all, the knowledge he possessed was a product of the "future" to these people from the past.
Who was Levay? He was the god of celestial mechanics who had calculated the existence of Neptune on paper!
An expert of this caliber had a sensitivity to data that was simply terrifying. He had quickly discovered numerous questionable points in the data and was now raising his doubts.
Just as Li Dong was hesitating, wondering if he should come clean...
His phone suddenly vibrated, and a group notification popped up.
[Warning: Group member "Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier" is attempting to investigate the causal origin of a non-native timeline.]
[Activating the study group’s defense mechanism.]
[This member has been muted for 10 seconds.]
[Reminder: As the Group Leader (Intern), please guide the group discussion back to purely academic topics. Do not reveal any specific historical processes or technological origins from the future.]
Li Dong’s pupils contracted sharply.
’This group actually has hidden rules!’
Levay’s question was actually related to academic discussion, but because it touched upon the "source of the data"—that is, future observation technology—he was still muted.
’Prohibit discussions on topics outside of academia...’
A chill ran down Li Dong’s spine.
’Does this mean I can’t reveal that I’m from the future?’ he thought to himself.
’If I expose myself, will the group be disbanded? Or will I face an even more severe punishment?’
He didn’t dare to think about it, nor did he want to test it.
After all, this group was his only chance to change his destiny.
About 10 seconds later, another message from Levay popped up in the group.
[Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier]: @Cramming for Senior Year, Sir, your data on the precession of Mercury... is quite difficult to believe.
[Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier]: This dataset has no annotations for observational span or epoch correction coefficients. Sir, you might as well be direct. What was the method of derivation for this data?
Li Dong looked at the two nearly identical messages. The only thing missing was the sentence, "Where exactly did this data of yours come from?"
It was as if those last few seconds had been erased by God.
Phew...
Li Dong’s palms were now slick with sweat.
What he needed to do now was steer the conversation back to purely academic territory.
Fortunately, his core attributes had improved over the past few days, and he had also read quite a few books on University Physics.
In particular, to understand General Relativity, he had forced himself to read several papers on astrophysics, which happened to include content on correcting astronomical observation errors.
Although his understanding wasn’t very deep, with scientific conclusions from a later era to back him up, bluffing these "ancients" in the group wouldn’t be a problem.
[Cramming for Senior Year]: Mr. Levay, your doubts about the observational accuracy are precisely the core basis for my optimization of this data.
It is true that traditional meridian circle observations are subject to larger errors due to atmospheric refraction and the thermal expansion and contraction of instruments.
However, I made two corrections when integrating this data.
First, I used back-calculation from the high-tier terms of stellar proper motion and introduced a multi-body perturbation stripping model to eliminate the gravitational interference from Venus and Jupiter on Mercury’s orbit.
I imagine you are more familiar with this than I am, as this should be your area of greatest expertise, correct?
Second, I also implemented a correction based on the edge of the sun’s apparent disk to counteract the optical distortion of the perihelion observation angle caused by the solar atmosphere.
Therefore, this data is not a direct observational result, but rather a theoretical limit value derived after stripping the errors from existing observational data.
[Cramming for Senior Year]: If you are interested, Sir, you could try calculating the high-tier perturbation terms of Jupiter on Mercury yourself and then see what happens when you substitute them into this correction model.
He threw out a combination punch, all packed with professional jargon.
That "perturbation stripping," in particular, was like scratching an itch Levay didn’t know he had.
After sending the message, Li Dong quietly waited for the other party’s reaction.
And while Li Dong and Levay were facing off in the group chat, a discussion about him was also taking place in the real world.
「The Principal’s Office.」
"Principal Wang! Do you have any idea what a score of 360 on the Ossai preliminary paper means?!"
At this moment, Zheng Hua couldn’t be bothered with formalities between superior and subordinate. His face was an unnatural shade of red as he clutched Li Dong’s test paper.
Principal Wang sighed and stubbed out his cigarette.
"Old Zheng, calm down. Sit down and speak clearly."
"You’ve been rambling in here all morning, going on about how Seventh Middle School has produced a genius. What on earth is going on?"
"Principal Wang, this time... Seventh Middle School has produced a true dragon."
