There were no other customers in the snack bar at the moment. Uncle Li and his wife were sitting and chatting, sighing as they discussed the problem of revenue. Initially, they were very ambitious when they bought this restaurant, but they didn't expect that the business wouldn't pick up. It was very difficult to attract customers from other restaurants in the area.
When they saw Zhang Zian coming in with another guest, they quickly stood up to greet them.
It was not time to eat yet, so Zhang Zian only asked for two glasses of orange juice.
After serving the orange juice, they left.
If he hadn't met Meng Li by chance in the library that day, if he hadn't received Meng Li's prompt, he wouldn't have been able to find the nameless book in time in the vast sea of books. After that, Meng Li left first, and Zhang Zian had been brooding over this question. Today, he met Meng Li again, and he would not miss this opportunity to find out what was going on.
Meng Li didn't have a deep impression of what happened that day. After Zhang Zian reminded him, he remembered and said, "Oh, so it's that thing … Is Store Manager Zhang really studying mathematics?"
"I'm a little interested." Zhang Zian said vaguely, "Professor Meng, how did you know that the book was hidden in the reference book section?"
"Hidden in the reference book section?" Meng Li was surprised and corrected, "No, no, you misunderstood. I mean, if there were such a book about life and the universe and everything, it would be in the reference section — hypothetically, of course, a book like that couldn't exist in reality, could it? Could it be that you really found that book? "
He spoke with stress on the words "suppose" and "should."
"No, I didn't. It was just a slip of the tongue." Zhang Zian said perfunctorily, trying to cover up. "Professor Meng, does this book have any history or origin? How did you know it would be in the reference section? "
Meng Li smiled confidently. "If such a book exists, not only can I conclude that it will be in the reference book section, but I can also conclude that it should be on the bookshelf with all kinds of dictionaries."
Holy sh * t!
Zhang Zian was shocked!
That was f * cking amazing!
Meng Li was not there that day, but he seemed to have witnessed the process of Zhang Zian finding the untitled book from a pile of English dictionaries.
Zhang Zian became more and more curious. He knew that Meng Li was deliberately keeping him in suspense, so he cooperated and said, "Mr. Meng, can you predict the future?"
"No, I don't have that kind of ability." Meng Li stopped smiling and said seriously, "Manager Zhang, have you heard of Hyperwebster?"
"What?"
Zhang Zian was stunned. No matter how hard he tried, he could not find this word in his memory.
Meng Li explained, "Hyperwebster, translated into Chinese as Hyperwebster Dictionary, is a thought experiment proposed by the famous mathematician and science fiction writer Dr. Ian Stewart. The meaning of this thought experiment is, suppose there is a dictionary, and the contents of the dictionary are composed of 26 English letters, starting with A and ending with an infinite number of Z's, like this — "
To make it easier to understand, he took out a napkin, flattened it on the table, and wrote on it with the marker he had brought with him:
A, AA, AAA, AAAA …
AB, ABA, ABAA, ABAAA …
AC, ACA, ACAA, ACAAA …
…
Z, ZA, ZAA, ZAAA …
ZB, ZBA, ZBAA, ZBAAA …
…
ZZ, ZZZ, ZZZZ, ZZZZ, ZZZZZ …
Zhang Zian was confused, but he found that the order of the letters seemed to be very similar to what he had seen in the untitled book.
Meng Li pushed the napkin to him and put down the marker. "Do you know what this means? This meant that the Hyperwebster Dictionary contained all possible letter combinations, which meant that it contained all English words. Whether it was English words that had already appeared or new words that would only appear in the next few hundred or thousand years, they were all in the Hyperwebster Dictionary. For example, zidecuz, this is not a word, and it is not recorded in any dictionary. If someone writes this word, it will definitely be considered a spelling error, but maybe one year in the future, this word will be given some kind of meaning, and people will be surprised to find that this word has already been recorded in Hyperwebster Dictionary … assuming such a dictionary really exists. "
Meng Li drank a few mouthfuls of orange juice to moisten his throat and let Zhang Zian digest his words.
Zhang Zian stared at the strange letter combinations on the napkin, trying hard to keep up with Meng Li's thoughts.
After a moment, Meng Li said, "Not only that, because this dictionary contains all possible English words, these words can also form all possible entries — the answers to all the unsolved mysteries in history, all the people and everything in the world, can theoretically be found in this dictionary. These entries can further form all possible paragraphs, from the first clumsy composition written by an English beginner in some corner of the world, to the Declaration of Independence, to the English version of Dream of the Red Chamber, to the complete works of Shakespeare, to the Encyclopedia Britannica, to all the English books collected in the Library of Congress, to all the beautiful articles written by a future great writer who has not yet been born — all of them are recorded in this dictionary … "
Speaking of this, Meng Li's tone changed and became very relaxed. He smiled and said, "But … after hearing this, you should understand that the content of this dictionary is infinite. There is a beginning but no end. The letters in it are more than all the atoms in the universe, because the total number of atoms in the universe is limited, but the letters in the dictionary are infinite … This book can only stay in people's imagination, and will never appear in the real world. Even if all the time in the universe is used up, all the atoms in the universe will not be able to finish writing this dictionary."
"My life has limits, but books have no limits …" Zhang Zian murmured.
"What?"
Zhang Zian's voice was very low, so Meng Li did not hear him clearly.
"No, it's nothing." Zhang Zian waved his hand. "I'm just a little confused."
Meng Li nodded and picked up the orange juice. "It's normal. This is a thought experiment that few people except those who do mathematics know about. It's not as well-known as Schrodinger's cat … So, when you told me that you were looking for a book about life, the universe, and everything, I immediately thought of the Hyperwebster Dictionary. In fact, I was just joking with you. After thinking about it, I was worried that I had misled you. I was afraid that you would believe it and find the wrong book. Then I would have committed a great sin … By the way, which book were you looking for at that time? "
Zhang Zian smiled. "It's actually a science fiction novel, the third volume of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy written by Douglas Adams. The title is Life, the Universe, and Everything."
"I see." Meng Li suddenly understood. "I rarely read science fiction, no wonder I've never heard of it … I'm so ashamed!"
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