January 1, 1923, about six o'clock in the afternoon.
Sima Road, Luhai City, the Ministry of Industry and Industry Building in the Public Concession.
The lecture hall of the Youth League Training Department of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce was packed with seats, and a unique seminar was being held here.
There were about 300 to 400 people in the audience. In addition to many members of the organizers "Young People's Hebrew Association" and "Academic Research Association", there were also many prominent figures in the concession: Directors of the Public Settlement Industry Bureau, The general director of the French Concession Public Affairs Bureau and even consular officials from various countries stationed in Shanghai came to visit.
Reporter Zhao Junhao of Shenbao was sitting in the auditorium, his brows gradually knitted together.
As a reporter for a major newspaper in Shanghai, Zhao Junhao witnessed with his own eyes the grand occasion when the great American and British philosophers Dewey and Russell visited China a few years ago.
What he saw and heard on the court today was completely different from what he saw then.
Among the more than 300 audience members present, including Zhao Junhao himself, there were only three Chinese.
Although this discussion is nominally open to invitees only, it is actually quite easy to get an invitation.
Zhao Junhao was able to sit in the venue today without even making an official appearance through the "Declaration" Hall.
Because "Shen Shen" did not want to send reporters to participate in this discussion at all, they planned to buy news from the foreign "Mainland Daily" or "Zilinxi Daily" from the beginning.
Zhao Junhao is a graduate of Nanyang University and is already interested in scientific topics, so he tried to call a foreign professor at his alma mater. Unexpectedly, he got an invitation letter easily.
Qin Hui still has three friends, not to mention those celebrities who hang out in the upper class all day long?
It’s not that they couldn’t get tickets, they just didn’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 height, well-dressed, with fluffy gray hair, a thick mustache, and piercing brown eyes stepped onto the podium.
Considering the large number of people at the scene and the difficulty of giving a lecture, Chatterley, the chairman of the Problem Research Association and the host of this discussion, suggested that the participants should ask questions directly to the speaker and ask him to clarify their doubts one by one.
At first, the audience was still a little reluctant to let go, until finally someone asked the first question: "Doctor, do you think that the Michelson-Morley experiment is accurate enough, and based on this experiment, we can assume that the vacuum The speed of light in is a constant quantity?"
The speaker on the stage smiled and nodded. While drawing a schematic diagram on the blackboard, he explained Fizo's basic experiments, light aberration, Maxwell-Lorentz's electromagnetic theory and other theories in simple and easy-to-understand German. Finally, a positive answer was given to this question.
Next to the speaker stood Deqiong, an engineer from the Ministry of Industry and Engineering Bureau, who was responsible for translating the explanation into English.
After the first question, the second question and the third question followed, and the atmosphere in the venue quickly became lively.
The host Chatterley also asked a question: "Not long ago, the American astronomer Professor Campbell led the Clark expedition to Wallar, Australia to observe the solar eclipse, hoping to use the results to refute the theory of relativity. Doctor, what is the observation of this solar eclipse? What is the result?"
"The results have not yet been announced, because it is a very difficult task to measure the subtle deviations of one hundredth of a millimeter of a star on a photographic film and calculate the deviation rate from it. It may take several more months. time."
"Doctor, can you use the occultation phenomenon of Jupiter to prove the correctness of the theory of relativity?" This time the question came from Anthony, an engineer from the Electrical Department of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.
"Of course, not only is it possible, but as far as I know, someone is already doing calculations on this issue, and the results may be available soon."
…
Probably only half of the people in the audience really loved science.
The rest are arty people who want to catch a glimpse of the most popular scientist in the world. Their enthusiasm for science is always short-lived.
The frequency of on-site questions gradually decreased until finally no foreigners raised their hands to ask questions.
So a round-faced Chinese young man with a slight build and small round glasses finally had the opportunity to ask his question.
He put down his hand that had been raised for a long time, stood up from the back row of the auditorium and asked: "Doctor, what do you think of Sir Oliver Lodge's spiritualist research in England?"
Two natural and man-made disasters, World War I and the Spanish Flu, took away hundreds of millions of lives, most of which were young and middle-aged people. They also left many elderly people in Europe and the United States who had to bear the pain of losing children in their old age. .
As a result, spiritualism gradually emerged during this period, and people all wanted to use this so-called "spiritual communication" method to learn about the lives of their relatives who had been separated from each other.
The two most influential representatives among its followers are the above-mentioned former president of the University of Birmingham, Lodge, and the other is Sir Conan Doyle, who wrote the famous "Sherlock Holmes".
Rocky lost his son in the First World War, while Doyle lost his son and brother to the First World War and the flu.
While the two were "on the phone" with their deceased relatives and friends, they also did not forget to show compassion and try to help more people who were suffering from the same disease as them.
So Lodge and Doyle went to various parts of the United States to give extensive lectures, and spiritualism also became popular.
Upon hearing this question, the speaker's face darkened. He changed his previous good temper and said a French sentence with disdain: "Ce n'est pas sérieux!"
Deqiong felt embarrassed. After waiting for a while, he found that the speaker had no intention of speaking any more, so he slowly said in English: "The doctor said that this question is unreasonable."
Such an episode did not lead to a renewed enthusiasm in the venue.
Seeing that the audience was all disinterested, Chatterley decided to end the discussion early: "If no one asks any more questions, we will...well, sir, what questions do you have?"
A tall young man stood up in the corner of the back row. He cleared his throat and said in less fluent German: "Hello, doctor, there was a philosopher in ancient my country named Hui Shi. He once proposed a The point of view is called 'today is better than the past', which means that we just set out for Yue today and arrived there yesterday. This point of view contains an interesting question, that is, can people go back to the past, or can people go back to the past, or like the British? As the writer Wells said in his novel "The Time Machine", take a trip through time and space."
After setting the stage, Chen Muwu paused briefly and then asked his question: "Mr. Einstein, do you think time travel to the past or to the future exists?"
