078. When a High School Student Encounters Hard Science Fiction

Casting a quick apologetic glance at Tomoya Aki, Jiang Yu turned around and walked over to Megumi Kato. He looked at the spot she was pointing to on the screen, thought for a moment, and said, “An observer… Hmm, I’m afraid I might not be able to explain it clearly. Let’s check Wikipedia’s explanation instead.”

As he spoke, Jiang Yu took the mouse, clicked around a bit, and brought up the Wikipedia page for “Observer.” He began to explain, “The so-called ‘Observer’—in English, ‘Observer’—in physics generally refers to an idealized or hypothetical entity, a person or instrument measuring certain physical properties.”

“Because the premise for an observer’s existence—the world line convergence theory—can neither be proven nor disproven, the observer in this proposal is just a concept I came up with based on my own understanding.”

“According to the physical definition, the only real advantage the observer has in this project is the ability to leap across timelines while retaining memories from different ones, but the world line will develop according to the observer’s impressions.”

He paused for a moment, glanced at Megumi Kato who looked utterly perplexed, sighed softly, and continued, “To put it simply, the anthropic principle of the observer is this: the world is the way it is because we observe it as such.”

“In the process of observation, there is a transformation from ‘possibility’ to ‘reality.’ If we want to describe what happens in an atomic event, we must realize that the word ‘happen’ can only be applied to observations, not to the state of affairs between two observations.”

“It applies only to the physical act of observation, not to the mental act. We can say that only when the object interacts with the measuring device, and thus with the rest of the world, does the transition from ‘possible’ to ‘real’ occur; it has nothing to do with the observer recording the result mentally.”

“In other words, no matter what effort the observer makes to change the outcome after learning it, as long as the condition for the transition from ‘possible’ to ‘real’ is met according to the world line, the event will reach the result as it exists in the observer’s impression.”

Jiang Yu finished this lengthy exposition in one breath. Even he was a little surprised by how much he’d said.

Since when did I become so articulate?

Perhaps it’s only when talking about things that interest me that I become so loquacious…

Snapping back to reality, Jiang Yu noticed both Megumi Kato and Tomoya Aki were staring at him, completely bewildered. Megumi looked overwhelmed by the torrent of information and was struggling to take it in, while Tomoya simply had no idea what Jiang Yu was talking about.

After all, Tomoya hadn’t learned much about Jiang Yu’s proposal; most of their conversations at school revolved around ACG and Jiang Yu’s light novel writing.

In fact, up until this morning, Jiang Yu hadn’t even drafted a rough outline of his proposal. He could now empathize with the helplessness editors must feel when authors miss their deadlines.

Following his usual “if you don’t understand, just ask” approach, Tomoya Aki spoke up, “Wait—! What have you been going on about since just now, Yu?”

“It’s the concept of the ‘Observer’—for the game proposal I wrote… Oh, right, you haven’t seen my proposal yet.” Jiang Yu slapped his forehead, as if suddenly realizing something.

Tomoya raised his eyebrows in surprise, “You’ve already finished the proposal?”

Jiang Yu rubbed his nose and explained, “Just a rough outline. The main character designs and plot lines aren’t finished yet. So far, I’ve only designed two main characters; I haven’t started the plot at all.”

“Wow, is it just me or did you suddenly get super professional?” Tomoya joked, grinning after hearing Jiang Yu’s explanation.

Jiang Yu shook his head, chuckling, “Come on, who do you think was the first to suggest making a game in the first place?”

“Alright, alright… Let’s not dwell on trivialities. Let me see your proposal! I’m really curious—especially after that cloud of an explanation you just gave. My curiosity’s through the roof now.”

Tomoya brushed off Jiang Yu’s question and said excitedly.

“Well… go ahead, but I can’t promise you’ll be satisfied.” Jiang Yu glanced at Megumi Kato, who was still digesting his earlier explanation with a thoughtful look, then turned the laptop to face Tomoya.

After all, from what he’d gathered, Tomoya was only really passionate about galgames; when it came to other genres, Jiang Yu had barely heard him mention them.

Tomoya then eagerly began reading Jiang Yu’s proposal for “Steins;Gate.” Meanwhile, Jiang Yu turned to Megumi Kato and asked, “Kato, have you ever heard of the ‘Grandfather Paradox’?”

Hearing this, Megumi looked up with a puzzled expression still lingering on her face and shook her head subconsciously.

Jiang Yu sighed, a touch exasperated, and said, “Let me put it this way: the ‘Grandfather Paradox’ is a famous paradox that challenges the possibility of time travel. The gist is, if a time traveler goes back to the past and kills their own grandfather or grandmother before their mother is born, would the time traveler still exist?”

“Ah—I think I’ve heard of that. Isn’t it something that can be explained using that parallel… something?” Megumi replied, surprisingly.

Jiang Yu nodded in approval, “That’s right, it can be explained using the ‘Parallel Universe’ theory. However, the ‘World Line Convergence Theory’ is fundamentally opposed to the parallel universe concept.”

He paused to give Megumi time to process, then continued, “There’s also a theory similar to the ‘observer’ in this proposal, the ‘Observer Theory,’ which tries to explain the ‘Grandfather Paradox.’”

“This theory suggests that when traveling through time, the traveler can only be an observer, unable to interact with or change anything. To people in the past, the time traveler doesn’t exist and can’t be seen. Though the time traveler can see them, they can’t make a sound anyone can hear, can’t touch anything, and can’t interact in any way—so of course they can’t kill their grandparents.”

“And that’s roughly the concept of the observer. The difference is, while the observer can foresee the outcome of events as they understand them and even try to change them, in most cases their efforts are futile, because the world line will converge. As long as you remain on this world line and your understanding of the world remains the same, then nothing can be changed.”