That night, the BBS of Coro University was flooded by the inexplicable public elective course – "Cosmology".
Many curious students filmed the class and uploaded it to the school forum, personal space, and even to internationally renowned video websites such as YouTube. For a time, it became a hot topic on major social media platforms such as Future 1.0, Weibo, and WeChat.
"Cosmology? What the fu * k, this is perfect! "
"Future Group is going to go to the sky!"
"Side by side with the sun!"
"Extraterrestrial civilization? This topic was too f * cking easy! It must be that … Dark Forest! Give me ten thousand US dollars! "
"It seems that the space colonization plan announced by Celestial Trade is not fooling people. Even something as mysterious as extraterrestrial civilization exploration has been used to set up a topic. If it wasn't for a 'one-way ticket', I would like to give it a try … "
Compared to the heated discussion on the Internet, many news outlets and media outlets also made similar headlines full of gimmicks and reported on this matter with different focuses.
[Rich professor drives a Lamborghini to class, who made the university a profit-seeking place for capital?]
[Class paper, reward of ten thousand US dollars! The most expensive homework in history!]
[Extraterrestrial civilization research has become a Celestial Trade project topic? Is it the fantasy of an idiot, or the ambition to conquer the sea of stars?]
[Shocking information revealed in class, more details of Celestial Trade's space colonization plan exposed …]
"As of noon, the number of space volunteer immigration applications has doubled compared to last month. If we don't expand the space training base, I'm afraid there won't be enough training space. Why don't we temporarily close it to the public? "Calvin proposed to Jiang Chen.
"No need," Jiang Chen shook his head. "If you don't have enough money, go to the finance department to apply. The early stage of aerospace is a money-losing project. Don't worry too much about this. As long as every penny is spent where it should be spent, you don't have to be polite with me. "
"Yes." Calvin breathed a sigh of relief and nodded.
To be honest, only the project department in charge of the entire group had been losing money, and the losses were particularly severe. They were all burning money in the tens of billions of US dollars! Although Jiang Chen had always told him not to worry about money and to focus on building the space elevator, it was absolutely impossible to say that there was no psychological burden.
After Calvin left, Jiang Chen put the documents aside, opened his watch, opened his email, and browsed through the homework submitted by his students.
Perhaps it was because of the 10,000 USD prize money, all the students handed in their homework seriously! This was especially so for the Chinese students who had inherited the fine tradition of education in the Great Celestial Empire. They wrote a thesis of more than a hundred thousand words and cited dozens of references. In the end, they wrote down their conclusions neatly and attached the words "Thank you for your hard work, teacher."
While Jiang Chen was touched, he was also ashamed.
It was his negligence. He should have told these students that they only needed to submit a conjecture. There was no need to write a bunch of proofs. This was because this kind of problem had never happened before. No matter how many documents were cited, it was impossible to get an absolute answer.
He just wanted to take this opportunity to understand what the majority of people thought about contacting aliens.
He ordered Jane to search through all the papers, list out the main ideas of each paper, and sort them according to certain rules.
With a total of 1173 papers, Jiang Chen unexpectedly received 87 different viewpoints.
Perhaps due to years of political correctness, many students from the West, especially students from Western Europe, generally put forward views that were more saintly.
Some people proposed to set up a special ecological protection zone on Earth to accept these extraterrestrial visitors. Or to set up an embassy to resolve possible differences between the two sides through dialogue. Some people also said that it might be inappropriate to set up an extraterrestrial civilization protection zone on Earth. After all, it was not certain whether the other side was suitable for the atmospheric environment. Maybe the oxygen they relied on for survival was poison to them. They should be placed on the Moon or Mars …
As for the students from the Asian region, their answers were more inclined towards the conservative side.
That was, before believing that the other side had good intentions, first suspect whether the other side was hostile.
This may be related to being on the invaded side in modern wars. In the face of foreign civilizations, Asian civilizations were more vigilant and more inclined to show their weapons before extending an olive branch.
Some people proposed that no matter what the other side's purpose was, they could first "shoot" them from afar. If they were still alive, then we should consider contacting them. Some people also proposed that communication and dialogue were necessary, but the premise was that the force of Earth civilization must be shown to the other side. That was, send out the fleet of Earth civilization to confront them with military might.
But there were also pessimists who proposed that if they could not resist, they should build their own colonial ships to escape, at least let some people escape and leave the solar system to find a new home …
Some interesting viewpoints pointed out that since the other side could conduct interstellar travel, it already proved that the other side's technology level was above theirs. Instead of trying to contact or confront them, it was better to think about how to act cute to please the aliens. Being a pet was much better than being a livestock …
There were also some female students who didn't even bother to respond properly. Instead, they just attached photos of themselves that didn't have any traces of Photoshop, and asked in a roundabout way, "Are you free this weekend?", "Can you take me for a ride?", and so on …
Looking at these viewpoints, Jiang Chen just smiled and shook his head helplessly.
Excluding the boring stuff, the viewpoints could be divided into three categories.
Support for peace, support for war, and support for surrender.
Then he eliminated the papers that obviously didn't plan to answer the questions. Jiang Chen found that among these students, the support for surrender accounted for 50%, and the support for peace accounted for 30%. Only those who supported armed resistance accounted for only 20%.
And among these 20%, the viewpoints were also a bit shaky.
After all, not to mention spaceships, even the "dry dock" of spaceships, the space elevator, had not been built yet.
Although many people were optimistic when they wrote that when Earth civilization made contact with extraterrestrial civilization, there would definitely be spaceships, giant ships, and cannons. However, they didn't know how to get their hands on these weapons either …
"Is it still too early?" Jiang Chen muttered to himself and looked at the world map hanging on the wall of the office.
If this issue was thrown to the United Nations to decide, what would their final conclusion be?
Would they welcome destruction with hope, abandon unrealistic fantasies, or fight with their own people first?
Everything was unknown.
He had a way to prove that the space colonization ship was on the way. All he needed was an astronomical telescope since he even knew the coordinates. But he had no way to prove its aggressiveness, nor did he have the confidence to convince everyone that the space colonization ship was hostile.
He randomly selected ten papers that were more representative and gave them a passing evaluation. He then transferred ten thousand USD to the accounts of these ten lucky people.
For these students, the money may be a lot, but it was nothing to him.
Although it was a pity, it was not the best time to disclose the coordinates of Harmony and the space colonization ship.
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