Kang Woo had stayed up chatting with Choi Dae-woo until the early hours of the morning before finally falling asleep. When a sudden noise woke him, he opened his eyes in bewilderment.
It was still pitch-black outside, yet a loud song was blaring from the speakers.
- The round sun has risen. Get up out of bed.
- First, let's brush our teeth. Brush the upper teeth, then the lower teeth.
'What on earth is this song? Are we in an elementary school dormitory?'
Kang Woo rubbed his eyes and looked around.
He was in an unfamiliar place. It was neither the laboratory where he used to lie down on a cot after immersing himself in research, nor the studio apartment he had occupied after taking a position at Hanseol University, nor the country house where he had spent a few days after finding himself in Kang Woo's body.
This was... the dormitory at Goryeo Science High School for the Gifted. But what was with that bizarre children's song?
“Aaagh! Is that our wake-up song? What is this, kindergarten?”
Kang Woo's cry woke Choi Dae-woo, who also began rubbing his eyes. The clock showed six in the morning.
Kang Woo remembered the instructions they had received when moving into the dormitory the day before.
- Wake-up time is 6:00 a.m. As soon as the wake-up song plays, come straight out for morning roll call. The song will play for ten minutes. Anyone who comes out after it ends will receive demerit points. Accumulate too many demerit points, and you will be expelled from the dormitory.
Since every student at Goryeo Science High School for the Gifted was required to live in the dormitory, being expelled from it effectively meant transferring to a regular high school.
“Aaagh!”
Choi Dae-woo made a tremendous fuss as he scrambled to change his clothes. Kang Woo let out a sigh of his own.
“Haaah! It's not as though we're in the army...”
He had no choice but to get up as well.
Preventing someone from sleeping peacefully was a form of torture. And with that song playing, there was absolutely no way he could go back to sleep. Still, it was his first day, so he might as well cooperate.
For a moment, Kang Woo bitterly regretted becoming a high school student again.
By the time the two of them emerged, students were pouring out from all corners of the dormitory. Some had already washed their faces and looked perfectly presentable, while others had tangled hair and sleep crusted around their eyes.
It was their first night in the dormitory. Some looked as though they had barely slept, whether from excitement, staying up talking to new friends, or simply being unable to rest in an unfamiliar bed.
The students gathered in whatever tracksuits they had thrown on. Kang Woo watched the others and found a suitable place in line.
As he glanced around, he noticed something astonishing.
Son Cha-hee and Yoon Su-a, the two girls he recognized from his class, were standing in line with eight other girls. Surprisingly, all the girls looked immaculate, as though they had already washed their hair.
'It's probably just because it's the first day, right?'
He would wager the few tens of thousands of won he possessed that before long, they would be showing up for morning roll call with their hair in a complete mess too.
Kim Seon-ho, the dormitory supervisor, held an attendance register and shouted to the students.
“Anyone who hasn't checked in yet, hurry up! The song's almost over!”
Realizing that he had not marked his attendance, Kang Woo dashed over as fast as his legs could carry him and checked himself in.
Just as the commotion was dying down, the blaring wake-up song stopped. It felt as though peace had returned to the world.
He had the ridiculous thought that whoever had created the wake-up song must have been a villain bent on conquering the world, while whoever had turned it off was surely a champion of justice who had saved humanity.
After surveying the students, Kim Seon-ho spoke.
“I know it's hard because it's your first day, but you'll get used to it after a few days. After that, you'll actually start missing the wake-up song.”
Amid a chorus of students protesting that they certainly would not, one student asked boldly,
“Sir! What do we do now?”
“Morning exercises.”
“What? Aaagh, no!”
Groans and cries erupted from every direction. Kim Seon-ho laughed and tried to reassure them.
“Doing exercises when you get up in the morning is good for your health. They're not compulsory, but I recommend them. Anyone who's feeling unwell can go back inside. Breakfast starts at eight.”
Although he had said they could leave, not one student actually did. It was the first day, and everyone was still watching to see how the others would behave. But Kang Woo could already imagine what would happen in a few days. Some would skip the exercises, go back to bed, sleep through breakfast, and then race straight to class.
* * *
Science high schools operated on a credit-based system.
Students moved between classrooms according to their chosen subjects. First-year students, however, were not allowed to choose their subjects, so the entire class followed the same timetable and attended every lesson together. The same arrangement applied during the preparatory enrollment period.
Kang Woo was about to attend his first class.
It had been a long time since he had graduated from high school. In fact, even his university days were a distant memory. Surely returning to a classroom would feel fresh and exciting...
As if!
Everything was a nuisance. The nine o'clock first class, in particular, only made him long for his bed.
Still, he had resolved to make the most of his new life, so he forced himself to swallow his drowsiness.
According to the provisional timetable, their first class was Earth science.
He headed for the Earth science classroom. He had no idea where it was, but simply followed the other students without giving it a thought. With Choi Dae-woo beside him, he probably would not get lost.
“We're supposed to sit with our groups.”
At another student's announcement, Kang Woo, who had settled at the very back in hopes of getting some sleep, reluctantly moved.
Where were the other members of his group? Choi Dae-woo was sitting somewhere in the middle, and Son Cha-hee and Yoon Su-a were at a table right at the front.
Kang Woo silently tried to persuade his group to sit at the very back, but one fierce look from Son Cha-hee was enough to make him retreat.
'Damn it. How am I supposed to sleep if we're right at the front?'
Choi Dae-woo also recognized which way the wind was blowing and promptly gave in, moving toward the front table.
And so Kang Woo found himself sitting alongside his group members at the very front of the classroom. He did intend to work hard, but that did not mean he wanted to sit in the front row. Unfortunately, the atmosphere suggested that crossing Son Cha-hee would be tantamount to signing his own death warrant.
“Did you sleep well?”
Son Cha-hee greeted him first, looking cheerful.
“Do I look like someone who slept well?”
Kang Woo answered curtly and let out a long yawn. A hint of contempt entered Son Cha-hee's eyes.
'I'm not a model student like you.'
He grumbled inwardly.
“Yaaawn!”
When Choi Dae-woo yawned too, Son Cha-hee's gaze grew even fiercer.
As expected, Kim Seon-ho was their teacher. Kang Woo was glad to see a familiar face and greeted him warmly.
Kim Seon-ho smiled as he began the class.
“How was your first night in the dormitory?”
One look at the students' faces gave him a fairly good idea.
Most of them were probably spending the night in a dormitory for the first time in their lives. Between the unfamiliar surroundings and getting to know their roommates, they could hardly have slept well. To make matters worse, they had been called out for roll call at six in the morning. It was bound to be a difficult day.
Sure enough, the students began complaining about their lack of sleep.
“I'm sleepy.”
“I didn't get enough sleep.”
They grumbled that they had been woken up far too early.
“Please change the morning wake-up song!”
“What's wrong with the wake-up song?”
The students suddenly erupted into noisy chatter.
“This morning was unbelievable!”
“Couldn't you at least play something by BTS?”
“I thought we were in kindergarten!”
“Play the latest pop songs! The latest ones!”
“Take that up with the dormitory supervisor.”
“But you're the dormitory supervisor too!”
After the commotion subsided, Kim Seon-ho handed out printed materials.
Although it was still the preparatory enrollment period, classes proceeded much as they would during the regular semester. Science high schools used the same textbooks as ordinary high schools.
Of course, lessons were rarely taught directly from those textbooks. The handouts used in class were closer to the level of general education courses at university.
“Oh, come on, sir! Are we really having lessons on the very first day?”
“The term hasn't even started yet! We're still in the preparatory enrollment period!”
Students were the same everywhere. Since it was the first day, they wanted to spend it relaxing rather than studying.
“Tell us about your first love!”
That old request for a teacher's first-love story had apparently followed him here too. Kang Woo, of course, paid no attention. He was busy trying to work out how he could get some sleep.
“My first love? Your teacher was quite the Casanova. If I lined up everyone I've ever dated around the school field, they'd go around it several times.”
“Oh, come on! That's a lie!”
“It's true.”
“Do you play League of Legends? What about Battlegrounds?”
“I nearly competed in the world championships.”
“Wow! Play a round with us today!”
After exchanging jokes and finishing his introduction, Kim Seon-ho moved on to the main lesson.
His expression turned serious as he asked,
“You are all outstanding students. Does anyone here think they're a genius?”
Every student's attention turned to him.
“If you do, raise your hand.”
As expected, no one raised a hand.
It was not necessarily because they genuinely believed they were not geniuses. Rather, they were too embarrassed to admit it aloud. These students clearly took pride in themselves and considered themselves exceptionally capable.
Kang Woo waited to hear what Kim Seon-ho would say next.
“Today, we're going to think about genius. What is a genius? Are you geniuses? Let's try to answer those questions.”
The students' eyes lit up with interest.
One student in particular was paying close attention from the very front: Son Cha-hee. Yoon Su-a was sitting close beside her.
Kang Woo clicked his tongue at the sight of the two girls' earnest attitudes. He had been planning to occupy himself with something else, but they made him look so bad by comparison that there was nothing he could do.
“Now, throughout human history, there have been many geniuses. Who were they?”
“Einstein!”
“Newton!”
The most obvious names came first.
“Zhuge Kongming!”
Kang Woo gave an amused chuckle.
'Huh? That's actually a rather different perspective.'
Zhuge Kongming was certainly an extraordinary genius in his own right. After all, geniuses existed in all sorts of fields.
“Let's limit ourselves to scientists in science and engineering.”
As names from all kinds of disciplines began flying around, Kim Seon-ho quickly narrowed the discussion.
The students went on to name several famous scientists, one after another. Every one of them was more than worthy of being called a genius.
“Now, why was Newton a genius?”
Yoon Su-a adjusted her glasses and answered confidently.
“Because he came up with the law of universal gravitation. Countless people saw apples fall from trees, but Newton was the only one who thought of universal gravitation from that observation. That's why we can call him a genius.”
Whether Newton had actually drawn inspiration for universal gravitation from a falling apple was uncertain. Some maintained that the story had been invented to make his discovery more interesting.
Then again, a descendant of that very apple tree had been planted at this school, so perhaps the story was not entirely fabricated.
“But when I see an apple, all I can think about is eating it!”
Everyone burst out laughing at Yoon Su-a's remark.
“Yes, in that respect, Newton can certainly be called a genius. During the brief period when he returned to his hometown to escape the plague, Newton developed the foundations of three historic theories: universal gravitation, differential calculus, and the dispersion of light. He was only twenty-four years old at the time, so he was undoubtedly a genius.”
Another student raised a hand at Kim Seon-ho's explanation.
“There's Gauss too!”
“Isn't Gauss the name of that café...?”
Someone interjected from the side.
“Why was Gauss a genius?”
“When Gauss was a child, he quickly solved the problem of adding the numbers from one to a hundred by using the principle of an arithmetic progression.”
Many students were familiar with the famous anecdote about the mathematical genius Gauss.
Kim Seon-ho nodded and continued.
“That's right. It's said that Gauss was called a genius because he knew how to calculate the sum of an arithmetic progression while he was still in elementary school. But let's think a little further. Raise your hands if you knew how to add the numbers from one to a hundred when you were in elementary school.”
Most of the students raised their hands.
A significant number of those admitted to the science high school had already started working through The Fundamentals of Mathematics, a high school mathematics textbook series, while they were still in elementary school. Naturally, they had learned about arithmetic progressions and could calculate the sum of the natural numbers from one to a hundred in a second.
Kang Woo, however, did not raise his hand. He had absolutely no recollection of what he had been like in elementary school.
“Now, then, let's think about this. You could calculate that sum in elementary school, just like Gauss. Does that mean you're all geniuses on a par with him?”
The unexpected question made the students considerably more thoughtful.
Most of them considered themselves gifted students or geniuses, but none could confidently claim to be the equal of Gauss, one of the greatest geniuses in history.
“What makes the difference?”
“Isn't it the difference between someone who thought of it first and someone who didn't?”
Son Cha-hee answered.
“Exactly. Today, we're going to learn about the life of a scientist who is remembered as a genius. Have any of you heard of Bessel?”
No one had.
Kang Woo, of course, knew the name. Bessel was a famous nineteenth-century German scientist. But he was nowhere near as widely known to the public as Newton or Einstein.
In fact, most students in science and engineering would not encounter his name until their second year at university.
“I don't suppose you've heard of Bessel functions... But you've learned about annual stellar parallax, haven't you?”
“Yes! It's the phenomenon in which a star's apparent position changes as Earth revolves around the Sun.”
As expected of such bright students, they seemed to know everything within the school curriculum.
“That's right. Annual stellar parallax is evidence that Earth revolves around the Sun. After Copernicus proposed the heliocentric model, scientists worked tremendously hard to find evidence of Earth's revolution. The clearest evidence was annual stellar parallax, and the first person to discover it was Bessel. Have you heard that before?”