After dismissing Zhuzi and the others back to their camps, Fang Er and Wang Xuance headed towards the research institute.
The pile of spoils of war in the warehouse needed to be quickly converted into productivity; that was the way forward.
"Let's go check out the research institute!"
As they reached the institute's plaza, Fang Er noticed a tall platform, at least twenty to thirty meters high, that had been erected at some point.
A group of Newtons, with different patterns tattooed on their foreheads, stood on it, while a dense crowd of people surrounded the base.
"What are they planning to do here?"
Seeing Xie Zong standing at the edge of the crowd, Fang Er walked up and patted him on the shoulder.
Xie Zong turned to see him and immediately saluted.
"Ah, Your Highness!"
"To answer Your Highness, they're throwing things again. They've been doing it for several days."
"Where's Li Tai then?" Fang Er asked, pointing towards the platform.
Among that group of Galileos, he also spotted Li Tai.
Of course, it wasn't the real Li Tai, but the ball-Li Tai that he had brought back from another parallel world.
Xie Zong scratched the back of his head and said, "They're arguing!"
"Newton says it's gravity, but Ball Ball says gravity is wrong, it should be magnetism."
Fang Er: ..........
Magnetism?
What the hell!
Thinking about it, it seemed Li Tai had indeed said something similar before.
Taking out a notebook from his pocket, he quickly wrote down a number and handed it to Wang Xuance, who was accompanying him.
"Go there. Wei Wang and Hao Daniu are in the Jianbing military district. Bring them back."
"If anyone asks, just say the matter is temporarily resolved."
"Yes, Your Highness!"
Wang Xuance took the number and left. Fang Er, happily standing outside the crowd, began to watch.
Such a scene of debate was not common.
Thinking he was missing something, he sent someone to fetch a table and chairs, and set out melon seeds and soda.
It felt proper to sit and watch while eating.
"Every two point masses have a force of mutual attraction along the line connecting their centers."
"The magnitude of this gravitational force is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of their distance, and it is independent of the chemical composition of the two objects and the type of medium in between!"
Ball-Li Tai stood on the high platform, facing three hundred Newtons alone, without any sign of backing down.
"According to your theory, universal gravitation, I'll assume it's correct for now."
"But there's a problem that needs your explanation."
"In universal gravitation, objects attract each other, and objects with smaller mass eventually approach objects with larger mass."
"So, why isn't the moon pulled by the Earth, but instead keeps orbiting the Earth in a circular motion?"
"Also, compared to the Earth, isn't hydrogen atom small enough? But why does it float upwards instead of being absorbed into the soil?"
"Furthermore, the Earth has existed for countless years, so why hasn't it been compressed into a perfectly round sphere by gravity?"
"Mount Everest and the Mariana Trench differ by nearly twenty thousand meters..."
The conversation between the two, amplified by the speakers, ensured that everyone present could hear.
Ball-Li Tai's statement even stunned Fang Er.
Holy cow??
And this was just a replica, having learned from the real one for only a few days, and now he could speak so eloquently.
What a surprise!
He didn't intend to intervene. Let these guys do as they pleased. It didn't matter what theories they had; as long as they produced useful things in the end, that was enough.
Newton and Li Tai were arguing so fiercely that their faces turned red and their spitting was like rain.
Shen Kuo, Song Yingxing, Galileo, Gauss, and other great minds gathered below instinctively stepped back.
"Make way, make way!"
A voice came from outside the crowd. Fang Er turned to see Fang Yizhi pushing his way through, holding an oil-paper umbrella.
"Hahahaha, to eat melon seeds, you must be in the front row. I knew yesterday they'd have another scene like this, so I'm glad I brought my umbrella!"
The guy walked along, showing off.
"Hey, hey, hey, you're not being a good fellow!"
"Don't you know about respecting the old and caring for the young?"
An old man with an axe tattooed on his forehead moved towards him from the crowd, reaching out to snatch the oil-paper umbrella.
"Who is this old man?"
Fang Er asked Xie Zong.
Xie Zong grinned and said, "Who else could it be? It's Master Luban, Old Man Lu."
"Others tattoo the sun, moon, stars, birds, flowers, fish, and insects, but they like to tattoo axes, hammers, and saws on their foreheads."
"I heard someone wanted to tattoo a plumb line, but Old Man Mozi pinned him down and hammered him."
Fang Er: ..........
"Doesn't anyone want wrenches and pliers?"
Xie Zong replied, "How could no one want them? There aren't enough to go around!"
"Now, there are over three hundred people in the institute, including Luban and Mozi, and they've even made flowers out of nails."
"With teeth, with threads, with barbs..."
"The barbs are also divided into straight barbs and backward-facing barbs..."
"I heard that the day before yesterday they came up with something called a 'mother-daughter linked nail'..."
"Oh, right, and there are forked ones too!"
Fang Er was utterly bewildered. The person who came up with the forked nail must have had prostate problems, right?
The weather in Australia was still very hot at this time.
Li Tai and the Newtons on the high platform didn't seem to care about the scorching sun overhead. They had been arguing from two in the afternoon until sunset.
"Damn it, who dares to bully my little brother, step out and let me see!"
The voice of the real Li Tai came from behind.
Fang Er's lips curved into a smile. The show was about to begin...
Ball-Li Tai was merely a disciple taught by the real Li Tai, and he hadn't been with him for long. Some things that transcended the understanding of the era, even if poured into his mind, still needed time to digest.
But the real Li Tai was different. He had been exposed to these things for several years and had even experienced the future.
When Li Tai saw Fang Er, he merely nodded slightly and cupped his hands in greeting.
"Chairman, please sit and watch me debate that bunch of cows..."
"What cows? ..."
"Never mind, whether it's cow A or cow C, I'm going to feast on him today!"
With that, he forcefully pushed his way through the crowd, roughly shoving aside anyone who blocked his path.
He stepped onto the platform, lit a cigar himself, and pointed at the Newtons.
"Gravity is awesome, right?"
"Come on, tell me, why doesn't this smoke fall?"
Saying that, he exhaled a puff of thick smoke.
Newton: ..........
Damn it, here comes another unreasonable one!
Before he could formulate a response, Li Tai took two magnets from his pocket.
He placed one flat and brought the other up to it with the same poles facing each other.
He adjusted it for a moment, and the upper magnet remained steadily suspended.
"Gravity is awesome! Explaining why smoke doesn't fall is bullying you!"
"You go ahead and explain to me where gravity is, and why the one above doesn't fall..."
Apple Newton stepped forward. "Hmph! This is the effect of a magnetic field; like poles repel, so it definitely won't fall. If you flip the one above, it will fall!"
Li Tai rolled his eyes and exhaled another puff of thick smoke.
"Don't give me that nonsense. Magnetism is what I, Faraday, and Maxwell talk about. You can only use gravity to explain this phenomenon to me!"