episode_0010

Episode 10: Counseling (1)

Quantum computer revolution and all that, for now, I’m a middle schooler.

I have to go to school first.

No matter how much I’ve regressed.

I’m just a 14-year-old squirt lacking economic ability, physical ability, and legal self-independence.

So, I can only be faithful to my duty as a student: academics.

Of course, I don’t mean to redo middle school studies that are useless even if I learn them.

“Uh… Gyeongjun, what are you doing?”

The boy in the seat next to mine, about to go to other friends during break time, looks at the book on my desk and asks.

“Studying.”

I was really studying like a student, just like in my monologue earlier.

However, the book title is a bit strange.

[Quantum Physics – By Kang Jusun -]

Quantum mechanics, which can be called the flower of physics.

When it comes to authors, Gasiorowicz, Liboff, Shankar, Griffiths, Sakurai, etc.

There are indeed many different quantum mechanics textbooks.

I specifically chose a book by a Korean author published in 2007, just last year.

This book is really good, you see.

It’s not undergraduate or graduate level, but it’s right in the middle and well-explained in Korean, which I really like.

When reviewing, there’s truly nothing better than this.

As such, starting as a middle schooler isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

That’s because I’m given plenty of time to study and review again from the beginning like this.

When you get older later, you’re busy doing new things; you don’t have time to look back on what you did before.

“Oh, you’re looking at something difficult…”

“It’s not as difficult as you might think. There are just a lot of details.”

“Ah… I see. Study hard…”

The kid who just leaves immediately.

Brat, I was going to preach about the beauty of quantum mechanics and the cuteness of Schrödinger’s cat together if he showed some interest.

He just left immediately, weakly.

Well, it’s the same as the scene I’m seeing now.

Being a middle schooler still, what I can do while my activities are restricted is.

Because it was truly, literally, just studying.

Other things would be something like acting like an ‘insider’ to earn life points and raise intelligence stats.

Things like this, living life, there are always plenty of opportunities.

Actually, the status window gives me quests on its own when I’m about to forget, and so on.

There’s no particular need to rush.

It was indeed my first life where I suffered because I wasn’t an ‘insider’ but an ‘outsider’ who only studied and was a ‘jjintta’.

But I didn’t regress to become an ‘insider’.

As long as I’m not a ‘jjintta’, I don’t see what’s wrong with being an ‘outsider’.

“Since I have the time anyway, besides quantum, I should thoroughly master the basics of the other four major mechanics too.”

The four major mechanics of physics refer to these four things.

① Classical Mechanics

② Electromagnetism

③ Thermal and Statistical Physics

④ Quantum Mechanics

As for how important these four are.

What you learn for 4 years in undergraduate studies is all these.

And when you go to graduate school, you learn these four major mechanics again from the beginning through more advanced courses.

It has to be that way, just like combining game items.

Based on these four, detailed fields expand.

Combining Electromagnetism from ② and Quantum Mechanics from ④ becomes my main major, ‘Quantum Optics’.

If you combine Thermal and Statistical Physics from ③ instead of Electromagnetism with Quantum Mechanics from ④, it becomes ‘Solid State Physics’, which is the basis of all semiconductors.

And if you start mixing in ‘Theory of Relativity’, an advanced form of Classical Mechanics from ①, it can be expanded into nuclear and particle physics or cosmology.

Besides this, plasma physics, which is the basis of nuclear fusion, can be said to be a fusion of ② and ③.

Is it truly just this?

Let me inject a little bit of ‘physics high’ that perhaps not everyone knows.

The internet that we commonly use.

The fact is that the basis of network theory came from intensely studying statistics in ③ Thermal and Statistical Physics.

If people knew that Professor Kim Ha-woong, a KAIST professor, virtually established the proper foundation of network theory for the first time.

Everyone would surely be filled with tremendous national pride.

Besides this, physics is related to biology and chemistry.

And combined with various fields such as the stock market and economics, it can virtually be called the foundation of all academic disciplines.

I think everyone is probably sufficiently high on physics by now.

What?

You’re saying it’s garbage compared to doctors, judges, or prosecutors?

You’re saying even if you create something like that, you’ll still work for a low salary in the future compared to kids who code anyway?

Shut up.

Before I blind you with a 405nm blue diode laser.

By the way, my ‘outsider power’ is fine~

I just talked to that seatmate boy next to me just now~

[Insider middle schoolers do not study quantum mechanics.]

[Outsider power increases by 1.]

Hey you damn status window.

“First, I’ll tackle one chapter of quantum mechanics every day, and while doing that, I’ll also study math that I’ve wanted to do during my spare time…”

But I don’t close the book.

Even if my ‘outsider power’ increased, it’s still just 1 anyway.

Just because my lifespan decreased by one day, it can’t make me give up my dream of a quantum computer.

Anyway, the start is always from the basics.

Since I’ve regressed to a middle schooler, I’m rebuilding from the foundation.

* * *

Just when I was engrossed in studying quantum mechanics during break time and lunch time.

“Um… excuse me…”

A girl’s voice broke my concentration.

Looking, it was our class’s reluctant vice-class president, Han Somi.

She was standing next to me in an awkward posture.

“Ah… sorry for interrupting…”

Perhaps seeing that my expression wasn’t very good, she immediately apologized.

Hesitating like that, she soon spotted the quantum mechanics book on my desk.

It was clear she was interested, so I casually showed her the book cover.

“Koo-an-tum Phee-sik-seu…?”

She reads it out loud, following along.

Oh, there’s someone in our Sinnong Middle School who can read the alphabet.

Is it because she’s the vice-class president?

Putting that aside.

“You know quantum mechanics.”

“Uh, huh? Hey, quantum mechanics…?”

Han Somi is momentarily flustered.

“Are you interested?”

“Uh, it’s not that…”

“You’re interested, huh.”

Uh-huh, you should be interested.

This is an opportunity, you see.

An opportunity to lower the ‘outsider power’ that just increased!

“Just in case you don’t know, let me explain: quantum mechanics is said to be really, really difficult, the final boss among the four great mechanics of physics. It’s a field that adds concepts completely opposite to common sense to the already abstract and difficult linear algebra. That’s why it has a fatal weakness, the paradox of Schrödinger’s cat…”

I cleverly explained the overview section of Chapter 1 of quantum mechanics that I had just read to Han Somi.

Explaining and speaking like this is actually more helpful for my own studying.

There’s a saying like this.

If you can’t explain it simply enough for an elementary school student to understand, you don’t truly know it.

How much more so for a middle schooler.

“It’s roughly this kind of field. What do you think, isn’t it interesting?”

“Uwaah…”

Han Somi, who had listened to it all, was spinning her eyes around, and soon, barely coming to her senses, said, “U-uh, it seems… interesting…?”

But separate from having found it interesting.

“Did you understand?”

“U-uh?”

“It’s okay if you didn’t understand, you can just tell me your general impression.”

I need to check if I explained it well.

Only then can I paradoxically check if I myself truly understand it properly.

“W-well… This person called Schrödinger… seems to like cats… But isn’t locking it in that box animal abuse…? Radiation… I don’t know much… but isn’t it bad for our bodies?”

Okay.

I didn’t understand at all.

Seeing Han Somi say that makes it certain.

“It’s okay, it’s a thought experiment.”

“Thought experiment…?”

While thinking about how to explain it more easily.

Analogy.

I decide to mix in a comparison.

“It would be easier to think of it like this. Even if you think in your head, ‘That Han Gyeongjun is just saying things he understands on his own and is totally a jjintta,’ as long as you don’t say it out loud, it’s not a sin. It’s not an actual experiment; Schrödinger experimented with a cat in his imagination, so it’s okay.”

“I-I never thought that…! If you thought I did, I’m really sorry…!”

No, it’s just a comparison and an example.

There’s really no need to be so flustered…

[Achievement complete!]

[Achievement: 『Torturing a Middle School Girl with Quantum』]

[You have acquired 1 Life Point as a reward for completing the achievement.]

It’s a bit different from what I was thinking, and my ‘outsider power’ didn’t decrease.

But I got better points, so that’s totally awesome, right?

Let’s dig deeper.

“So, what is quantum mechanics…? First, it starts from blackbody radiation, oh, come to think of it, I didn’t explain blackbody radiation. No, it’s better to explain the wave-particle duality of light first. First, imagine this. There’s something called a double slit…”

“Wa-wait!!”

At that moment, the timid Han Somi yelled at me.

Surprisingly, perhaps due to good lung capacity, it was loud enough for all the other kids nearby to look over.

“No, it’s just… it’s not that I don’t want to listen at all…”

However, she quickly became timid again, hesitated, and finally managed to speak.

“Um… the homeroom teacher asked me to come to the teachers’ office…”

“What?”

Homeroom teacher?

Didn’t I get our homeroom teacher transferred, so they’re not here now?

* * *

Mi Sujin.

With the rare surname Mi (米) meaning ‘rice’, she.

Became the new homeroom teacher for 1st year Class 10, replacing the sexually harassing ‘kkondae’ teacher who transferred.

“Hmm…”

She was calling students into the teachers’ office one by one to get acquainted with their names and faces and conduct counseling.

Of course, she had just finished counseling with the previous student.

And was looking at the student record to refer to during the next student’s counseling session.

Of course, since they are little 1st years who just entered only a month ago, there isn’t much to refer to in their middle school student records.

So, she was even looking at the elementary school student record she received, showing the enthusiastic appearance of a newly appointed teacher.

“Haa…”

But no matter what, this student is completely useless for reference.

“First off, the picture looks completely different from now…”

『Sinsung Elementary School Student Record

-Han Gyeongjun-』

The picture in the elementary school student record.

And Gyeongjun’s face that she confirmed with her own eyes did not match at all.

“I know it’s the same person…”

Yet, the reason she said it didn’t match was.

Because the atmosphere was completely different.

First of all, his elementary school picture had severely curly hair.

I know I shouldn’t say this as a teacher, but.

An child who somehow looked like they picked their nose a lot.

But now?

“…Surely his older brother didn’t enroll instead, right?”

Han Gyeongjun’s appearance that she saw herself was first of all much taller.

She knew their faces were similar, but it was as if an older brother three years apart, who inherited the same blood, had come.

No, that doesn’t even fully explain it.

It was as if he had cosmetic surgery before entering school; his features were perfectly defined.

“Kids really do grow up fast…”

Both his height and face grew so quickly it was almost frightening.

As for his appearance, it’s just appearance anyway, so putting that aside.

“His grades are… not that bad either.”

His elementary school grades were relatively high.

But that’s just elementary school grades.

“It’s written that he concentrates hard in class and always studies during break time…”

Considering he was an elementary school student whose main purpose in life is playing.

The fact that he studied as an elementary school student is itself a huge bonus point.

In addition, in the overall evaluation by his 6th-grade elementary school homeroom teacher, it’s written like this.

『Timid and weak in asserting himself, but considerate of others and kind.』

“That’s strange… He doesn’t seem like that at all…”

In particular, the record did not match the appearance she saw in person at all.

“I definitely heard he was a problematic child who… even broke a teacher’s wrist after sending one away…”

When she was first assigned to the middle school and became the homeroom teacher for 1st year Class 10, she heard that.

Of course, the previous homeroom teacher wasn’t that good of a teacher.

Even her mentor teacher jokingly said it served that sexually harassing chubby-faced ‘kkondae’ right for transferring, and that it was all thanks to that student.

“Ugh, I did hear that Sinnong Middle School is that kind of school…”

Honestly, from the perspective of a homeroom teacher.

The fact that a child who caused such a problem was her student was not exactly welcome.

“No matter what, making me the homeroom teacher when I’m newly appointed is too much…”

Especially when it’s her first year after appointment.

At first, after getting appointed, she was on standby.

She thought she might have to wait another half a year or a year until the new semester after the current one passed.

When she suddenly heard she was assigned a month later, she was really excited and happy.

It turned out to be a school with a lot of delinquents.

To be the homeroom teacher of a class where such a problem occurred just a week after school started…

“W-well, they’re only middle schoolers! I’m an adult!”

But perhaps thanks to the passion of a newly appointed teacher.

Teacher Mi kept muttering to herself, “Aja aja, let’s go,” and decided to think positively.

“But when did I call him, why isn’t he here yet?”

It had definitely been several minutes since she finished counseling the previous student, Han Somi, and asked her to call him.

He still hasn’t come.

Could it be that he just ignored it, saying he didn’t need counseling or something?

“It’s completely possible…”

Grrrk.

Just then, the teachers’ office door suddenly opened.

Bang! Crack!

It didn’t just open, it completely fell off.