Лю Цысинь - Hold Up the Sky

“Brilliant!” The observatory head claps his hands a few times flatteringly. “So few leaders have such an understanding of fundamental theory. I bet even Professor Ding thinks so.” He winks again at Ding Yi.

“What she said is basically correct.” Ding Yi slowly knocks the ash from his pipe onto the carpet.

“Right, right. If Professor Ding thinks so—” The observatory head beams with happiness.

“Just enough to show her superficiality.” Ding Yi digs more tobacco out of his coat pocket.

The observatory head freezes. The scientists around him titter.

The governor smiles tolerantly. “I also majored in physics, but the last thirty years, I’ve forgotten practically all of it. Compared to you all here, my knowledge of physics and cosmology, I’m afraid, isn’t even superficial. Hell, I only remember Newton’s three laws.”

“But that’s a long way from understanding it.” Ding Yi lights his newly filled pipe.

The observatory head shakes his head, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

“Professor Ding, we live in two completely different worlds.” The governor sighs. “My world is a practical one. No poetry. Bogged down with details. We spend our days bustling around like ants, and like ants, our view is just as limited. Sometimes, when I leave my office at night, I stop to look up at the stars. A luxury that’s hard to come by. Your world is brimming with wonder and mystery. Your thoughts stretch across hundreds of light-years of space and billions of years of time. To you, the Earth is just a speck of dust in the universe. To you, this era is just an instant in time too short to measure. The entire universe seems to exist to satisfy your curiosity and fulfill your existence. To be frank, Professor Ding, I truly envy you. I dreamed of this when I was young, but to enter your world was too difficult.”

“But it’s not too difficult tonight. You can at least stay in Professor Ding’s world for a while. See the world’s greatest moment together,” the observatory head says.

“I’m not so lucky. Everyone, I’m extremely sorry. The Yangtze dykes are ready to burst. I must go right away to make sure that doesn’t happen. Before I go, though, I still have some questions I’d like to ask Professor Ding. You’ll probably find these questions childish, but I’ve thought hard about them and I still don’t understand. First question: The sign of contraction is the universe changing from redshift to blueshift. We will see light from all the galaxies shift toward blue at the same time. However, right now, the farthest galaxies we can observe are about fourteen billion light-years away. According to your calculations, the entire universe will contract at the same moment. If that’s the case, it should be about fourteen billion years before we can see the blueshift from them. Even the closest star system, Alpha Centauri, should still need four years.”

Ding Yi slowly lets out a puff of smoke. It floats in the air like a shrinking spiral galaxy.

“Very good. You can understand a little. It makes you seem like a physics student, albeit still a superficial one. Yes, we will see all the stars in the universe blueshift at the same time, not one at a time from four years to fourteen billion years from now. This is due to quantum effects over a cosmic scale. Its mathematical model is extremely complex. It’s the most difficult idea in physics and cosmology to explain. I have no hope of making you understand it. From this, though, you’ve already received the first revelation. It warns you that the effects produced from the universe contracting will be more complex than what people imagine. Do you still have questions? Oh, you don’t have to go right away. What you have to take care of is not as urgent as you think.”

“Compared to your entire universe, the flooding of the Yangtze River is obviously not worth mentioning. But while the mysterious universe admittedly has its appeal, the real world still takes priority. I have other questions, but I really must go. Thank you, Professor Ding, for the physics lesson. I hope everyone sees what they want to see tonight.”

“You don’t understand what I mean,” Ding Yi says. “There must be many workers battling the flood right now.”

“I have my responsibilities, Professor Ding. I must go.”

“You still don’t understand what I mean. I’m saying those workers must be extremely tired. You can let them go.”

Everyone is dumbstruck.

“What… let them go? To do what? Watch the universe contract?”

“If they aren’t interested, they can go home and sleep.”

“Professor Ding, surely you’re joking!”

“I’m serious. There’s no point to what they’re doing.”

“Why?”

“Because of the contraction.”

After a long silence, the governor points at the ancient star atlas plate displayed in the corner of the auditorium: “Professor Ding, the universe has been expanding all along, but from ancient times until today, the universe that we can see hasn’t changed much. Contracting is the same. The extent of humanity in space-time, compared to that of the universe, is negligible. Besides the importance to pure theory, I don’t believe the contraction will have any effect on human life. In fact, after one hundred million years, we still won’t observe even a tiny shift caused by contraction, assuming we’re still around.”

“One and a half billion years,” Ding Yi says. “Even with our most accurate instruments, it will be one and a half billion years before we can observe the shift. By then, the sun will already have gone out. We probably won’t be around.”

“And the complete contraction of the universe needs about fourteen billion years. Humanity is a dewdrop on the great tree of the universe. During its brief life span, it absolutely cannot perceive the maturing of the great tree. You surely don’t believe the ridiculous rumors from the internet that the contraction will squash the Earth flat!”

A young woman enters, her face pale and her gaze gloomy. She’s the engineer responsible for the gigantic screen.

“Miss Zhang, this is inexcusable! Do you know what time it is?” The flustered observatory head rushes to her as he shouts.

“My father just died at the hospital.”

The observatory head’s anger dissipates instantly. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. Can you take a look…”

The engineer doesn’t say any more. She just walks silently over to the computer that controls the screen and sinks herself into diagnosing the problem. Ding Yi, biting his pipe, walks over to her slowly.

“If you truly understood the meaning of the universe contracting, your father’s death wouldn’t grieve you so much.”

Ding Yi’s words infuriate everyone there. The engineer stands suddenly. Her face grows red with fury. Tears fill her eyes.

“You’re not from this world! Perhaps compared to your universe, fathers aren’t much, but mine’s important to me. They’re important to us ordinary people! And your contraction, that’s just the frequency of light that can’t possibly be weaker in the night sky changing a little. Without precise instruments to amplify it over ten thousand times, no one can see even the change, not to mention the light in the first place. What is the contraction? As far as ordinary people are concerned, it’s nothing! The universe expanding or contracting, what’s the difference? But fathers are important to us. Do you understand?”

When the engineer realizes who she lost her temper to, she masters herself, then turns back to her work.

Ding Yi sighs, shaking his head. He says to the governor, “Yes, like you said, two worlds. Our world.” He waves his hand, drawing a circle around the physicists and cosmologists in the room, then points at the physicists. “Small scale is ten-quadrillionths of a millimeter.” He points at the cosmologists. “Large scale is ten billion light-years. This is a world that you can grasp only through imagination. Your world has the floods of the Yangtze River, tight budgets, dead and living fathers… a practical world. But what’s lamentable is people always want to separate the two worlds.”