If Louis was the epitome of beauty, almost as if the golden apple had been handed to Prince Paris of Greek mythology by the goddess Aphrodite, or like the Archangel sounding the trumpet of the Last Judgment descended with fire and thunder from the clouds, then the next friend introduced to Joseph by Armand was the complete opposite in terms of appearance.
He was a short, skinny man with a waxen-yellow face. His eyes were of unequal size, and his nose was large but flat, as if someone had slapped it forcefully, flattening it. His forehead was also flat, but his jaw was strong and protruding, making his mouth appear unusually large and to some, like a toad. With his skinny frame, slightly protruding finger joints, and dry, flaky, black-yellow skin due to some skin condition, he looked like a creature that had escaped from a nightmare.
"Joseph, this is my friend Mr. Mara," Armand introduced.
"Pleasure to meet you," Joseph nodded, extending his hand.
Mara also extended his hand but with a light, almost imperceptible grip on Joseph's fingers. Joseph noticed that Mara's hand was quite cold.
"Mr. Bonaparte, I've read your paper. You believe that light is a wave?" Mara said calmly, his voice as cold as his handshake.
"It's not just my belief; the existing evidence leans toward that conclusion. I don't have a bias toward whether light is a particle or a wave. I rely on experimental evidence and mathematical explanations," Joseph replied.
"Why don't you confidently support your own view instead of using such a weak statement to hide your position? Is it because you lack confidence in your judgment?" Mara said with a mocking tone.
Joseph couldn't help but furrow his brows, a thought crossed his mind, "Ugly people often act peculiarly." Indeed, ugly individuals often faced discrimination, which could make them angry and prone to hostility. Joseph saw Mara as a typical example of this.
However, Joseph didn't want to offend Mara at this moment, as he appeared to be quite dangerous. Although Joseph wasn't very knowledgeable about the history of the French Revolution (after all, wasn't this foreign history before his time travel?), he knew that Mara might be responsible for many horrifying acts during the revolution, some of which might be motivated by personal vendettas. Joseph didn't want to provoke such a madman.
"Anyway, this guy won't live for long. Let's just give in for now," Joseph suppressed the urge to retort and told himself that.
"I have no strong opinion on whether light is a wave or a particle. My viewpoint is that it depends on experimental phenomena and mathematical explanations. If we can explain interference phenomena from a particle perspective, I would be equally pleased. In a world so complex, the only reliable thing is mathematics," Joseph explained.
"Ah, Joseph, your view has a touch of Pythagoras, doesn't it? 'All is number,' isn't it?" Danton chimed in.
Pythagoras was a famous ancient Greek mathematician who founded the Pythagorean school. A fundamental belief of the school was that "all is number." They believed that mathematics was the only way to describe the essence of the world and that everything could be explained using numbers.
"I'm not as enthusiastic as they were," Joseph smiled slightly, "I wouldn't throw someone into the sea just because they discovered irrational numbers. But, my friend, perhaps you should consider this as well. Is our vision reliable? Not necessarily. For instance, some people claim to see colors differently from others."
"Wait... What did you just say? You said some people see colors differently from others? Are you sure such people exist?" Mara interrupted.
"Yes, what's the matter?" Joseph asked.
"This might be a new disease that people haven't noticed before," Mara said. "Can you tell me how you discovered this?"
"When I was a child, a friend of mine came running to tell me that the hibiscus flowers in my garden appeared different colors during the day and evening. In the daytime, they were sky blue, but in the evening, they turned bright red. However, to me, those hibiscus flowers were always pink. When I told him, he was astonished and even suspected that my eyes were the problem. So, we asked a few more people, and everyone, except his brother, agreed that the hibiscus flowers were pink. Later, we found that his uncle also believed the hibiscus flowers were blue during the day and bright red in the evening. But I was envious of them because they could see two different colors in the same flower."
"Can your friend bring them for me to see?" Mara asked.
"He's from Corsica, and it's not easy for him to come here now," Joseph said with an open hand.
"Ah..." Mara sneered sarcastically, "Mr. Bonaparte, do you know I have a friend with extraordinary jumping ability? He can jump directly to the moon."
Joseph quickly told himself not to engage in a verbal battle with this guy and held back the urge to retort. However, at that moment, Danton spoke up:
"Could it be that hibiscus flowers don't change colors during the day and evening? Is it just my eyes? Is my vision the problem?"
Everyone's attention turned to Danton.
"Why are you all staring at me?" Danton asked.
"Danton, do you see the hibiscus flowers change color during the day and evening?" Mara fixed his gaze on Danton, as if observing a precious specimen.
"Yes... Isn't that what you see?" Danton replied.
"What color do you see?" Mara asked again.
Danton widened his eyes, stared at Armand's hat for a while, and said, "It's green, of course."
"Take another look," Mara said.
Danton looked intently at Armand's hat and then said, "It's definitely green."
"My God! There really are people whose eyes see colors differently from others! Armand's hat is obviously a light red!" Mara clapped his hands and then turned to Joseph. "Mr. Bonaparte, do you realize how dull you are? Don't you know this is a significant medical discovery?"
"I'm not a doctor after all. I'm almost illiterate when it comes to medicine," Joseph smiled. "Let's go back to our original topic. I believe our vision is unreliable, just like our hearing. Some people claim they can hear sounds that others can't..."
"That's just a trick used by charlatans," Mara interrupted.
"Even ordinary people experience this at times," Joseph said. "For example, when we dream, we can hear many sounds that don't exist, see things that aren't there. Our vision can deceive us, our hearing can deceive us, and even our imagination can deceive us, such as 0.9999... equaling one. But mathematics doesn't lie. I remember a certain priest once said, 'When the world is turned upside down, the cross still stands.' Whether the 'cross' stands is debatable, but I'm sure that even if the entire solar system is in chaos, two points can still define a straight line. So, when everything else is unreliable, I can rely on mathematics