In September, Marvel announced an in-universe book titled The Wakanda Files that is currently available and is described as "...a collection of papers, articles, blueprints, and notes amassed throughout history by Wakanda’s War Dogs." It features additional commentary and notes from Shuri.
Thus far, many of the revelations in the book have spanned from how many calories Steve Rogers burnt in a day to Natasha having a lethal setting for her wrist-mounted weapon Widow's Bite. The book even delves into Shuri's own research on sciences shown previously in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, such as seeing the potential in Dr. Maya Hansen's work on Extremis.
Throughout the book, Shuri easily understands the science behind each piece of technology or breakthrough but seems stumped by one facet of Hank Pym's equipment and the Quantum Realm.
NEWS
As Shuri transcribes into her book The Wakanda Files: A Technological Exploration of the Avengers and Beyond (via ScreenRant), she cannot help but express her excitement and envy of Scott Lang and Hank Pym traversing the Quantum Realm.
"There are no words to express the envy I feel toward Lang and Pym for their time in the Quantum Realm. Pym's quantum mechanics research is exciting. The possibilities for transportation improvement..."
In researching the material and blueprints brought to her by Wakanda's War Dogs, Shuri is finally puzzled by one scientific anomaly regarding the Quantum Realm: whether or not it can act as a vacuum chamber.
"How did Pym get his hands on an EM-drive that works outside of a vacuum chamber? We have been attempted to create a Mach-effect thrust without a reactionary force for months, maybe years. It defies the laws of physics. Unless the Quantum Realm acts as a vacuum chamber? That would prove Heisenberg's principle of a quantum vacuum. So many questions. We must talk with Pym. Immediately."
WHAT THIS MEANS
Shuri's primary question is how Hank Pym could have a functioning EM-drive outside of a vacuum chamber, and she might have even answered her own question by theorizing that the Quantum Realm itself acts as the vacuum chamber.
Regardless, it's nice to see Shuri not knowing everything at a glance, as seemed to be the case in Avengers: Infinity War, and she does need to do her own research from time to time like Tony Stark did on thermonuclear astrophysics in The Avengers.
In fact, one of Tony's lines from that movie is very reminiscent of what Shuri herself is doing in this book.
"The packet, Selvig's notes, the Extraction Theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?"
This means that just because Shuri isn't an expert on how the Quantum Realm works (yet), this isn't stopping her from still being the smartest person in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It's doubtful that Hank Pym is an expert in any of Shuri's many other fields of science.
