Pet King

Chapter 591 Hyperwebster

There are no other guests in the snack bar. The uncle Li and his wife are sitting in a chat and sighing and discussing the revenue problem. At the beginning, they were very upset in the store, but did not expect the business has not improved, it is difficult to attract customers from other restaurants around.

They saw Zhang Zi An coming in with another guest and greeted him quickly.

Not yet eating time, Zhang Zi An only had two glasses of orange juice.

After the orange juice was on, they retreated.

If it wasn’t for the time when he was in the library, if it wasn’t for the prompt of Meng’s departure, Zhang Zi An could not find the anonymous book from the sea of ​​books in time. After Meng left, he always worried about this question. Today, he meets Meng Yi again, and he must not miss this opportunity to find out.

Meng Li’s impression of the day was not deep. After reminding Zhang Zi An, he remembered it. “It’s the same thing… Manager Zhang is really studying math?”

“Slightly interested.” Zhang Zi An said vaguely, “Mr. Meng, how did you know that the book was hidden in the tool book area?”

“Hidden in the tool book area?” Meng divorced a different place and corrected: “No, no, you misunderstood. I mean, suppose there is such a book about life, the universe, and everything, it should be placed. Tool book area – assuming that a book like this can certainly not exist in reality, right? Is it true that you really found such a book?”

The accent of his speech is placed on the words “hypothesis” and “should”.

“There is really no, just a slip of the tongue.” Zhang Zi An tried to hide the past. “Mr. Meng, is this book any source or source? How do you conclude that it will be in the tool book area?”

Meng smiled with a smile. “Assuming there is such a book, I can not only conclude that it will be in the tool book area, but also that it should be placed on a shelf with various dictionaries.”

Lying in the trough!

Zhang Zi An was shocked!

It’s a god!

Meng was not on the scene that day, but it was like witnessing Zhang Zi An’s process of finding an anonymous book from a pile of English-language dictionaries.

Zhang Zi An became more and more curious. He knew that Meng was interested in selling the goods. He said with a match: “Mr. Meng, can you count and count the prophets?”

“Where, I have that kind of skill.” Meng diverted a smile, and said: “Manager Zhang, I wonder if you heard about Hyperwebster?”

“what?”

Zhang Zi An listened to it, and he couldn’t find the word from his memory.

Meng Li explained: “Hyperwebster, translated into Chinese is the “Super Webster Dictionary”, is a thought experiment proposed by famous mathematician and science fiction writer Dr. Ian Stewart. This thought test means that this book exists. Dictionary, the content of the dictionary consists of 26 English letters, starting with A, ending with an infinite number of Z, like this -“

For ease of understanding, he pulled out a napkin and laid it on the table. He wrote on the paper with a pen with a carry:

A, AA, AAA, AAAA…

AB, ABA, ABAA, ABAAA…

AC, ACA, ACAA, ACAAA…

……

Z, ZA, ZAA, ZAAA…

ZB, ZBA, ZBAA, ZBAAA…

……

ZZ, ZZZ, ZZZZ, ZZZZZ…

Zhang Zi An looked awkward, but he found that the order of the letters seemed to resemble what he saw in the anonymous book.

Meng Di pushed the napkin to him and put down the pen and said: “Do you know what it means? This means that the Super Webster Dictionary contains all possible combinations of letters, and it contains all the English words, whether it is already The English words that appear, or new words that will appear in the next few hundred years, are all in the Super Web Dictionary. For example, zidecuz, this is not a word, it is not currently included in any dictionary. If anyone writes this word, it will definitely be considered a misspelling, but maybe in the next year, the word will be given a certain meaning, and people will be surprised to find that the word has already been included in Super Wei. In the Dictionary… It is assumed that there is such a dictionary.”

Meng left a few mouthfuls of orange juice to moisten his throat, and let Zhang Zi An digest his words.

Zhang Zi An stared at the weird combination of letters on the napkin and tried to keep up with Meng’s thinking.

After a while, Meng said again: “Not only that, because this dictionary contains all possible English words, these words may also constitute all possible terms – the answer to all unsolved mysteries in history, the world’s Everyone and everything can be found theoretically in this dictionary. These terms may further constitute all possible paragraphs, from the first essay written by an English beginner in a corner of the world, to “Independence Declaration”, to the English version of “Dream of Red Mansions”, 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 big writer who has not yet been born in the future. , all in this dictionary…”

Having said that, Meng turned away and became very relaxed. He smiled and said: “But… I can understand now that the content of this dictionary is infinite, there is no beginning, no end, the letters inside. More than all the atoms in the universe, because the total number of atoms in the universe is limited, and the letters in the dictionary are infinite… This book can only stay in people’s imaginary, never appear in the real world. Even if you exhaust all the time in the universe and exhaust all the atoms in the universe, you can’t finish this dictionary.”

“My life is endless, and the book is boundless…” Zhang Zi An whispered.

“what?”

Zhang Zi An’s voice was very low, and Meng did not hear clearly.

“No, nothing.” Zhang Zi An waved his hand. “I just have a little brain.”

Meng’s nodded orange juice. “It’s normal. It’s a thought experiment that few people know except mathematics. It’s not as well known as Schröding’s cat. It’s been talked about by the public… So, you were with me. Say, you are looking for a book about life, the universe, and everything. I immediately thought of the “Super Webster Dictionary.” Actually, I was joking with you. Afterwards, I was worried about misleading you. I was afraid that you believed it and found the result. Wrong book, then my sin can be big… Yes, which book are you looking for?”

Zhang Zi An smiled. “It’s actually a science fiction, the third part of the “Galaxy Roaming Guide” written by Douglas Adams. The book is called “Life, Universe, and Everything.”

“It turns out that.” Meng Li stunned, “I rarely read science fiction, no wonder I haven’t heard it… it’s awkward!”

(End of this chapter)