Chapter 589: Hyperwebster

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

There were no other customers in the restaurant. Sighing in despair, Uncle Li and his wife were sitting opposite each other and discussing the restaurant’s revenues. They were very confident when buying the diner, but they never expected that the business wouldn’t improve much since then, because it was difficult to attract customers from the other restaurants around them.

Seeing Zhang Zian and another customer walk in, Uncle Li and his wife quickly greeted them.

Since it wasn’t meal time yet, Zhang Zian only ordered two cups of orange juice.

After the orange juice was served, Uncle Li and his wife left them alone.

If Zhang Zian had never ran into Meng Li at the library and received help from him that day, it would have been impossible for Zhang Zian to ever locate the untitled book. Meng Li had left the library before Zhang Zian, who had been wondering about this question ever since that time. Today, he’d ran into Meng Li again. He wouldn’t miss another opportunity to find out the answer.

Meng Li didn’t have a deep impression of that day. When Zhang Zian reminded him, he remembered and said, “Oh, that was the subject you were referring to. Manager Zhang, are you really studying mathematics?”

“I’m slightly interested in it,” Zhang Zian said vaguely. “How did you know that the book was hidden in the reference book section?”

“Hidden in the reference book section?” Stunned, Meng Li corrected him. “No, no, you’re misunderstood. I mean, assuming that there was such a book about life, the universe, and everything, it should be placed in the reference book section. It was merely my assumption. A book like that doesn’t truly exist, right? Or have you really found such a book?”

“No, I haven’t. It was just the slip of the tongue.” Zhang Zian tried to cover up his previous question. “Is there anything special about the origin of the book? How did you decide that it would be in the reference section?”

Meng Li smiled confidently. “Assuming there is such a book, not only could I conclude that it would be in the reference book section, but I could also determine that it would be placed on a bookshelf with various dictionaries.”

Holy crap! Zhang Zian was shocked.

That was f**king amazing!

Meng Li obviously had left the library before Zhang Zian that day, but it seemed like he had witnessed Zhang Zian finding the untitled book next to a pile of English dictionaries.

Zhang Zian became increasingly curious. Knowing that Meng Li was holding him in suspense, Zhang Zian said calmly, “Mr. Meng, are you able to know things without fortune telling?”

“No, I don’t have that kind of ability.” Meng Li stopped smiling and said seriously, “Have you heard of Hyperwebster?”

“What?” Startled, Zhang Zian racked his brain to search for the term in his memory, but nothing came up.

Meng Li explained, “Hyperwebster is a thought experiment proposed by the famous mathematician and science fiction novelist Dr. Ian Stewart. This thought experiment means that, assuming that such a dictionary exists, and that the dictionary consists of 26 English letters, starting with A, ending with an infinite number of Z, like this—”

To demonstrate, Meng Li pulled out a napkin, laid it out on the table, and wrote on it with a pen he had:

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 Zian was perplexed, but he saw that the sequence of these letters seemed to be similar to what he’d seen previously in that untitled book.

Meng Li pushed the napkin to Zhang Zian and put the pen down. He asked, “You know what this means? This means that the Hyperwebster contains all the possible combinations of English letters. Whether they’re English words that exist now, or new words that will be coined in the next hundred or thousand years later, they’re already included in the Hyperwebster. For example, ‘zidecuz’. This isn’t a word, and it isn’t currently included in any dictionary. If someone were to write this word, it would definitely be thought of as a misspelling. But maybe a year in the future, the word will be given some sort of meaning from people. At that time, people would be surprised to find that this word has already been included in the Hyperwebster, assuming that such a dictionary does exist.”

Meng Li drank a few mouthfuls of orange juice to wet his throat, giving Zhang Zian time to process what he’d said.

Zhang Zian stared at the strange letter combinations on the napkin and tried to keep up with Meng Li’s explanation.

Meng Li added, “Not only that, but because this dictionary includes all possible English words, these words may also constitute all possible entries. Theoretically, the answers to all the unsolved mysteries in history, and everyone and everything in this world, can be found in this dictionary. These entries may further form all possible passages, from the first poorly-written composition by an English writer from just a corner of the world, to The Declaration of Independence, the English version of Dream of the Red Chamber, the complete works of Shakespeare, the Encyclopedia Britannica, all the English books collected in the US Library of Congress, and all of the great articles written by an unborn writer. All of this is inside of this dictionary.”

At this, Meng Li changed his tone and smiled relaxingly. “Well, at this point, you should be able to understand that the content of this dictionary is infinite. It has a beginning, but no end. The number of the letters inside the dictionary is more than all the atoms in the universe, because the total number of atoms in the universe is limited, while the letters in the dictionary are infinite. This book can only stay in people’s imagination, it can never appear in the real world. Even if you exhausted all the time and atoms in the universe, you wouldn’t be able to finish writing this dictionary.”

“My life is finite, but the book is infinite.” Zhang Zian whispered to himself.

“What?”

Zhang Zian’s voice was so low that Meng Li didn’t hear him clearly.

“No, nothing.” Zhang Zian waved his hand. “I’m just a bit shocked.”

Meng Li nodded and picked up his cup of orange juice, “It’s normal. The Hyperwebster is a thought experiment that few people know about except for those in the mathematics community. It is not as well-known as the Schrodinger’s cat, which the public takes great pleasure in talking about. So, when you told me then that you were looking for a book about life, the universe, and everything, I immediately thought of the Hyperwebster. In fact, I was joking with you back then. Afterwards, I worried that I had committed a huge sin by misleading you to find the wrong book. By the way, what on earth was the book you wanted to find that day?”

Zhang Zian smiled. “It was actually a science fiction novel—the third installment of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy written by Douglas Adams, and the title of the book was called Life, the Universe, and Everything.”

“I see,” Meng Li realized. “I rarely read science fiction. No wonder I hadn’t heard about it. What a shame!”