Yu Leshui was not convinced, and turned his head to look at Chu Tianle, "He is three years younger than me." ”

He Lao shook his head, didn't answer the sentence, just waved his hand secretly. "Come in, it's a small retreat today. The attendees have arrived. Oh, girl, are you going to take off your binoculars? ”

Yu Leshui knew that he had good intentions, and it would be too ostentatious to bring this thing into the venue, so he did so with a red face.

The conference room is on the third floor, the area is not large, and there are more than a dozen people sitting in front of the oval table, most of whom are intellectuals with delicate temperament. There are more than a dozen people in the back row, and their momentum is obviously more "high-spirited", and they should be princes from all walks of life in the political and military circles. There is a screen hanging on the front wall, and the projector is typing a few words: a report on "Chu Yima's Discovery". The service staff was pulling the curtains, and Yu Leshui saw the big persimmon tree outside the courtyard at a glance, and couldn't help laughing, and whispered to Tianle:

"Oh, I was caught hiding in that tree for reconnaissance."

Tianle also smiled, his expression clearly appreciative. The two middle-aged people in the front row saw Chu Ma and the two and hurriedly greeted them and shook hands. The one in front was wearing a suit, not tall, with a round face and a calm expression. He said:

"Mr. Ma, Mr. Chu, hello. I'm Zhan Xiang from the National Astronomical Observatories. This is Xu Yifan of the Purple Mountain Observatory, we have been friends for a long time, but this is the first time we have met. We just learned that you two are a little inconvenient, so we are very admirable, very admirable. He intensified his handshake, and then turned back to introduce to the participants, "These two are the discoverers of the 'Chu Ma Discovery', Mr. Chu Tianle and Mr. Ma Shiqi. ”

Everyone smiled at them, they had just read the information sent by the organizers of the meeting, and they had a rough idea of what the "Chuma Discovery" was. Yu Leshui was shocked in his heart again, since these two were astronomers, it meant that "that incident" could be an astronomical catastrophe. There don't seem to be many cases in the history of astronomy that have been crowned with such and such a "discovery", and from this point of view, this must be an extremely significant discovery - but combined with He Lao's words just now, the more "significant" it is, the more ominous.

There were two vacant seats in the middle of the front row for Chu Ma and the two of them, and the staff added a chair at this time to let Yu Leshui sit next to Chu Tianle. He Lao began to speak, very concisely:

"Please turn off your mobile phones, except for Zhan Xiang and Xu Yifan, who have to keep in touch with the world's observatories." The participants immediately turned off their mobile phones. "Today's meeting in this mountain hotel is for the sake of secrecy, and the second is to pay tribute to the two of them. The two of them have limited mobility, so the venue is as close to their home as possible, and they live in the nearby Jade Emperor Summit. We are now in a meeting. ”

At this moment, a mobile phone ringtone, Zhan Xiang quickly took out his mobile phone and made an apologetic gesture to everyone. He Lao stopped and waited for him. Zhan Xiang listened to the phone and replied simply in English: "Got it, thank you for notifying you at the first time." ”

After pressing off the phone, he said to He Lao with a wry smile, "He Lao, I said that I can't hide this." It's not a hard thing to observe, as long as someone thinks of pointing the telescope and spectrograph there, and doing some simple calculations. Just now, the Sydney Observatory in Australia reported that a middle school astronomical team in the country has repeated the discovery of Chuma, and according to international practice, it has to be renamed Chu Yima and Green Discovery - Green is the student who made the discovery. However," he explained back to everyone, "Fortunately, Mr. He had a good idea before, and we followed Mr. He's instructions to send a notice of inquiry to all the observatories in the world, and at the same time made an agreement with the other party: all those who know must keep it strictly confidential until all the observatories have verified it and released it at the same time." This is a strategy to tie the observatories together, otherwise it is certain that one of the observatories would have announced the news long ago. But there was another agreement at the time: the secrecy period should not exceed one month at most," he calculated, "and it will be twenty-one days from today." Then we will have to—" he smiled wryly, "to be a raven of vengeance to the world." ”

He Lao said calmly: "Got it." We are now in a meeting. ”

The staff reissued the documents for the three new arrivals. Chu Ma and the others didn't look at it, but Yu Leshui buried his head and looked at it at a glance. Her heart sank deeper and deeper.

4

"Let's have a meeting. Today is a mini-retreat in preparation for the upcoming summit meeting. He Lao said, "Let me introduce the participants first. Chu, Ma, Zhan, and Xu have already been introduced just now. The people in the back row are observers, and today I only have ears and no mouths, so I don't need to introduce them. I'll only introduce the people in the front row. He introduced according to a list: astrophysicist Li Tianxiang, cosmologist Chen Qi, quantum physicist Hong Liping, climatological scientist Zhu Tianwen, astronaut Zhang Mingxian, paleontologist Wang Qingyin, anthropologist Ji Ruhai, mathematician Yan Bolai, psychologist Dong Yuexia, crisis management expert Wu Zheng, and science fiction writer Kang Buming. To the last writer, He Lao specially said a few more words, "At a similar important conference in China, it is the first time that a science fiction writer has attended. In fact, it is not surprising that the British science fiction writer Clark has always been the guest of honor at important NASA conferences in the United States. ”

Kang Buming is over the age of six, and his hair is prematurely gray, but he is in good spirits. His physiognomy is very distinctive: his earlobes are unusually large, and his eyebrows are relatively long, which makes him look like an arhat with long eyebrows. He nodded to He Lao and said with a smile: "The professional advantage of science fiction writers is that they can talk nonsense, so if I have suggestions or opinions for a while, please don't take them too seriously." Of course, one or two out of a hundred nonsense sentences are true. ”

"Oh yes, there was also a reporter in attendance, Miss Yu Leshui. We weren't going to invite the press, she jumped in by climbing a tree. He Lao's face was expressionless when he said this, and the audience didn't know if it was a joke or a fact, so they didn't laugh, but turned their eyes to Yu Leshui curiously. Chu Tianle smiled and quietly touched the fish's arm, and Yu Leshui smiled and touched it back. "Now that you've jumped in, let's be the only representative of the press. Of course, fish journalists must also abide by the confidentiality agreement just mentioned, and your report must be published after the official gazette. He looked at Yu Leshui, who was slightly embarrassed, and quickly nodded in agreement.

"There are a lot of scientific laymen here today, including me, so I hope that the experts will be as simple as possible when speaking. In order to save time, I have drafted a few questions, which I ask experts to use as a basis to give concise and reliable answers. Time is limited, so today I will try to give only conclusions and not elaborate on the intermediate process. If there is anything that cannot be covered by the above questions, there will be free statements thereafter. His gaze swept over everyone and fell on Zhan Xiang. The first question, what is going on with this Chuma discovery? What is the degree of certainty? ”

Zhan Xiang got up and walked to the projection screen: "I have communicated with Chu, Ma, and Xu many times, so I am speaking on behalf of the four of them. Let's start with a little bit of background knowledge. In the 20s of the last century, the great American astronomer Hubble discovered that the spectrum of distant celestial bodies has a redshift, and the redshift is proportional to the distance of the star from us, thus confirming that the entire universe is expanding uniformly, and this hypothesis has been recognized by the scientific community. This spectral redshift, which is associated with the expansion of space, is known as a cosmological redshift. In general, we can only observe this phenomenon on distant objects a billion light-years away, because the cosmological redshift values of NEOs are extremely small, covered by Doppler red-blueshifts and gravitational redshifts. Later, the astronomical community also confirmed that the expansion of the universe is still accelerating, probably caused by the repulsion caused by dark energy, because the acceleration is very small and has nothing to do with the issue at the moment, so I will not talk about it. All you have to remember is that we are in a moderately expanding universe. He repeated, "Remember these four words: gentle swelling." ”

Everyone nodded. He went on to say:

"In the Hubble formula, there is a proportionality constant in the direct relationship between the redshift and the distance of the star, that is, the Hubble constant, which is currently recognized as a more accurate value of seventy-five, that is, two stars with a distance of one million parsecs, that is, 3.26 million light-years, and their mutual recession speed is 75 kilometers per second. If converted to the annual expansion rate of space on a one-dimensional scale, it is roughly 7.67 parts per 100 billion. Extrapolating backwards from this rate of expansion, and taking into account relativistic effects, it is possible to calculate that the universe was born with a Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago. He turned his head to look at the people in the back row, "Everyone is familiar with this knowledge, right?" ”

Everyone nodded. He Lao said: "You mentioned gravitational redshift and Doppler red-blue shift, please explain it again. ”

"Oh, let me add a few words. There are three types of spectral redshifts. The first, the redshift caused by the relativistic effect of gravity is called gravitational redshift, and it has a very small value. The second, the redshift or blueshift caused by the movement of the star itself in space, is called the Doppler red-blue shift, which is related to the radial velocity of the star relative to the Earth. It can be intuitively said that the Doppler red and blue shift is because the light source drags the light backwards or forwards, stretching or compressing the wavelength; The third type, the redshift caused by the expansion of space, which I just mentioned, is called a cosmological redshift, in which the star does not move relative to the local space in which it is located, but moves relative to the far space. So intuitively speaking, it is the expansion of space itself that expands the wavelength of light. Everyone understands this knowledge, right? ”

The audience nodded again.

"But nine days ago, we suddenly received an email from Chuma and Ma, informing them of an astonishing discovery: all near-Earth stars within 35 light-years of each other have added blue shifts of different sizes to their spectra after deducting the original red and blue shifts, forming an anomaly that is clearly centered on the solar system. Stars with anomalies include Sirius 8.7 light-years away, Nanhe-3 11.4 light-years away, Cowherd 16 light-years away, Vega 26.5 light-years away, and many dark stars that are not well known to the public. Among them, the Cowherd star, the α star of Aquila, has the largest blueshift increment. Since the universality and consistency of the blue-shifted increments of the stars, all pointing towards the Sun, it can be concluded that this is not due to a random change in the radial velocity of a single star, but rather to a contraction of the entire space. However, the shrinkage space must be local, because the blueshift value gradually decreases outside the Cowherd star, which is obviously only affected by the contraction of the region, and the blueshift cannot be detected by the 35 light-year Beihe 3 and 36.7 light-year Arcturus. He paused slightly, "If, as we assumed, the blueshift is caused by the contraction of the local space, and the shrinkage is assumed to be uniform, then within the shrinkage region, its magnitude should be proportional to the distance." This is basically consistent with the observations within the Cowherd. ”

Astronaut Zhang Mingxian asked: "Since these blue shifts are caused by space contraction, they should belong to the 'cosmology' blue shifts you just mentioned, right?" ”

"Yes, in essence, yes. I have been careful not to use this name for fear of misunderstanding, because the true cosmological redshift encompasses the entire universe, whereas the blueshift I just mentioned only occurs in a small local space. Therefore, it would be more accurate to say 'spectral blueshift due to local space contraction'. ”

Zhang Mingxian nodded. Zhan Xiang continued: "As I said earlier, the maximum blueshift is in the Cowherd Star, and the blueshift at 5,000 angstroms in the spectrum reaches 0.15 angstroms. According to the following formula—"

He typed out the formula on the projection screen:

V=C△λ/λ_1【Note 1】

"According to this formula, the Cowherd Star has an additional velocity of 9.21 kilometers per second towards the Earth. You may think it's a small number, but when you compare it to cosmological redshifts, it's staggering. According to the Hubble formula, the redshift velocity of the Cowherd is only 0.004 kilometers per second, which is only 1/25,000th of the above velocity! So," he said in an accentuated tone, "it's a violent, terrible collapse of local space, which can be called a contraction. ”

The venue was extremely quiet.

"It's hard to describe what this picture looks like, I can only use a two-dimensional analogy." He shot a balloon on the screen that was slowly inflating, "If the sphere of this balloon is a two-dimensional universe, and the balloon slowly expands in the three-dimensional dimension, the two-dimensional sphere also expands. But suddenly a giant hand reached out to clasp a sphere and squeezed it inward, "On the screen, five fingers stretched out from outside the second dimension tightly clasped the sphere of a balloon, and five fingers tightened inward," That's the picture I just said. This astonishing collapse is too unbelievable, but in the past nine days, the National Astronomical Observatories, the Purple Mountain Observatory have all confirmed it, and later there will be 240 observatories around the world, all of which are like this. ”

Xu Yifan interjected: "Let me add one point. Among the various observational data of the universe, only the data on the radial velocity of the star is the most reliable, and there is no error. Therefore, there is no need to doubt this local contraction. ”

In everyone's shock, Zhan Xiang continued: "The collapse alone is not too terrible, but the terrible thing is that its shrinkage rate is still uniformly accelerated. According to their data, the blue shift value of the Cowherd Star increases by about 0.01 angstroms per year, and the corresponding blue shift velocity increases by 0.58 kilometers per second per year. But it's actually quite large, a thousand times the speed of the Cowherd's red-shifting according to the Hubble constant! Please note that this speed of 0.58 kilometers per second is only added by the Cowherd every year! The observatories are not in a position to immediately review this growth rate, but I have carefully reviewed the observation records of Chu Ma and believe that it is reliable. From these data, it can be seen that the space contraction began roughly 30 to 32 years ago. ”

"What could be the cause of this local space collapse, or contraction?" He Lao asked.

Zhan Xiang smiled bitterly, "I don't have a clue." We considered all sorts of the craziest hypotheses for this, but we had no clue. The most likely cause is the sudden appearance of a giant black hole near the Sun, which is pulling stars and space within 35 light-years towards the center, causing a partial collapse. But this assumption certainly doesn't make sense. First of all, if there is such a black hole, the closer the object is to the black hole, the faster it should collapse, but according to observations, the contraction rate of this local space is roughly uniform. Moreover, a black hole of this size should have a strong accretion effect, a strong X-ray burst, and even a gravitational anomaly that can be felt. But in reality there is nothing, and the vicinity of the solar system has been calm. Also, the blueshift increment mentioned above is calculated based on the standard Sun[note 2], which orbits the center of the Milky Way at a fairly high speed of 220 kilometers per second. If there is a black hole, then it should also have exactly the speed of the sun to get the current stable measurement. But could this sudden black hole only be an 'outsider' that broke into the solar system and gained exactly the same speed as the sun? It's too coincidental to be possible. ”

Xu Yifan said: "He Lao just said that he should only give conclusions as much as possible, not intermediate processes, but the research on the causes of collapse can only be said to be intermediate processes at the moment, and if you want to draw conclusions, I am afraid it is still a very distant thing." He shook his head in confusion, "Indeed, we can't imagine any reason for such a violent partial collapse, and the fact that the collapse has no reason always gives me a strong feeling - unless the cause is in a higher dimension outside of three dimensions. I mean: it could be a higher dimensional natural factor, or even ...... It could be human intervention in a higher dimension. He said self-deprecatingly, "If you just use different dimensions as a metaphor like Zhan Xiang, everyone can accept it." But if it is explained as the real cause of the catastrophe, I am afraid that it will not be easy to be accepted, for example, Chu Ma and the two firmly disagree. However, Sherlock Holmes once said: after ruling out all possible hypotheses, we have to consider those that seem impossible at all. ”

Chu Tianle looked at his godfather, who motioned for him to speak. Chu said calmly: "Who is going to pull this three-dimensional sphere with a scale of tens of light years? Four-dimensional intelligent creatures? Is it similar to an almighty God? Essentially, this is a repeat of Newton's mistake of attributing the first impetus to God. Neither my godfather nor I agree that there is a God in the universe who loves to play with balloons. ”

His condition had affected his speech, and some of his words were slurred. Ma Shiqi cooperated with him tacitly, and repeated and corrected all the unclear words in time. After Chu Tianle finished speaking, none of the scientists present at the meeting expressed their opinions, but many people nodded subconsciously, obviously agreeing with his refutation of Xu. Xu Yifan shook his head slightly and did not speak again.

Yu Leshui heard him mention playing with balloons, and suddenly thought of the scene where he focused on blowing bubbles more than ten years ago, and couldn't help but look at him sideways. She thought that today's Chu Tianle was far from the autistic little boy, and there was a god-like calmness in his tone. He Lao just said that he was "too young" and didn't say Chu Tianle, he should have understood his maturity. He Lao said:

"To put it simply, it is this partial collapse that came for no reason, but the collapse itself is beyond doubt. Isn't that so? ”

Zhan Xiang nodded: "That's right, that's right." ”

"So, I have to ask the most crucial question: Will it cause the destruction of human civilization? If yes, how long does it leave for humans? ”

All the attendees, especially those in the back row, pricked up their ears. If the previous introduction is relatively vague and theoretical, and ordinary people can only see a vague ghost, then now it will "collapse" into a concrete demon and become a sharp knife that directly stabs people's hearts. Zhan Xiang, as well as Chu, Ma, and Xu, were obviously very aware of the weight of this answer. None of them want to be "crows of revenge", but they can't avoid the responsibility that falls on their shoulders. Zhan Xiang was silent for a moment, and said bitterly:

"Responsibly, we can only make an accurate estimate if we first understand the cause of the collapse. But the situation is too urgent for us to sit back and wait for that day. At the moment, we can only make rough predictions based on existing observations, so there are uncertainties in forecasts, but we think that the general trend will not be wrong. He looked at He Lao, who motioned for him to continue. As I said earlier, what is terrible is not the speed of contraction that is already there, but its acceleration. The new blue-shift velocity of the Cowherd Star is 0.58 kilometers per second every year, and the corresponding one-dimensional contraction rate of the space is △ψ which is increasing by 12 billionths per year. If this trend continues, then, in a few years, the one-dimensional contraction of this space will be calculated according to the formula on the screen—"

He made a formula:

L_t=(/L_0=(1-△Ψ)(1-2△Ψ)(1-3△Ψ)(1-4△Ψ)…… [1-（

-1）△1Ψ]≈(1-

△Ψ)~

/2

"Let's not talk about it far, even if it's a few hundred years from now. According to the current acceleration of space contraction, in two hundred years, the one-dimensional scale of this local space will shrink by three thousandths, that is, the distance between the Sun and the Earth will be closer to three thousandths, which will lead to an increase of six thousandths of the earth's insolation. And these figures are rising exponentially, and in 500 years, the increase in sunshine will reach 30 per 1,000; A thousand years later, more than one hundred in a thousand. As for the consequences of this, please ask Mr. Zhu, a climatologist, to tell us. ”

Zhu Tianwen thought for a moment and said, "It doesn't matter if such a change in light is short, but in less than two hundred years, its cumulative effect will cause the earth to become a hot hell, causing the existing ecosystem to completely collapse." As for whether new ecosystems can evolve in the hot hell, this is unlikely, because the changes are too steep. ”

Two hundred years. This number made everyone in the venue subconsciously shake their heads.

Zhan Xiang continued: "After the space shrinks, the gravitational pull of the sun on the earth will increase in the same proportion as the sunshine, but it will not fall into the sun. According to the law of conservation of momentum, it will revolve around the Sun at a faster rate and the length of the year will be shortened, which will also cause unpredictable effects in the biosphere. And this is only two hundred years from now, what if it is five hundred years from now? What about a thousand years from now? That's a short time on an astronomical scale, but by then the collapsed area must have turned into a hell of heat and gravity. Not to mention that the end result of the contraction could be," he paused, "a black hole." ”

There was silence in the room, the air seemed to have become extremely sticky, Yu Leshui felt that it was difficult to breathe, and his heart was like a thousand pounds of boulder. This great collapse will wipe out the solar system and the human species. The fate of mankind is not even comparable to that of extinct dinosaurs, not even a pile of sterile eggs. And this generation will also be like the dinosaur parents of the year, screaming at the approaching sun. He Lao chose the meeting place near the remains of the dinosaur egg, could it be an arrangement in the dark? Yule is open-minded by nature, and has never been the kind of delicate woman who faints when she sees blood, but when she suddenly bumps into such a "catastrophe" (she thought angrily, saying the word "collapsed" today does not have a bit of rhetorical color), in any case, her heart is still too tender.

Only then did she really understand He Lao's words before the meeting, and understood his compassionate gaze at her.

Looking at Xiao Chu and Uncle Ma with side faces, their expressions were relatively calm. After all, they have known about these situations for a long time. But Yu Leshui thought about what kind of pressure they should have been under in their hearts in the past five years when they were alone with this secret.

The venue was silent for a long time, and science fiction writer Kang Buming coughed lightly and said carefully: "Science has long confirmed that the solar system will perish and the universe will also perish, but the universe is measured in tens of billions of years. Now you say: This small universe in which human beings live has an unknown terminal disease, and will not live to live for many years, and may die in the order of a thousand years, or even be unsuitable for human existence in 200 years, does this mean? ”

Zhan Xiang nodded, "You literalized my words, but you said it well, that's what it means." ”

After a long silence, paleontologist Wang Qingyin motioned for someone to hand over the microphone. This is a petite middle-aged woman, dressed in a Chinese turtleneck top, with a casual demeanor, a gentle smile, and a calm tone — but the content of her speech is anything but peaceful. She said:

"The evolutionary history of organisms has actually been accompanied by astronomical and geological cataclysms. There have been six mass extinctions of life on Earth, all of which are almost certainly related to the catastrophe of heaven and earth. Historically, some people have questioned that the 'catastrophic theory' is too bizarre, but considering the long astronomical or geological time, the 'catastrophic theory' is actually the 'uniformity theory', and the catastrophic theory is the most normal phenomenon in the universe. For example, craters all over the moon are a convincing example of how accidental cataclysms add up to normal uniformity. If we open our horizons a little more, the frequent nova explosions, supernova explosions, gamma bursts, X-ray bursts, engulfment between binary stars, annexation between galaxies, and devouring of surrounding celestial bodies by black holes are irresistible. Are there any life or civilizations in these cataclysmic areas? There is no reason to conclude that if not, then these lives or civilizations have quietly become extinct in the cataclysm. Therefore, the astronomical catastrophe of human beings encountering this small-scale cosmic scale is actually a normal phenomenon in the universe. It is difficult for us to accept emotionally, just because although the period of peace between cataclysms is relatively short compared to astronomical and geological time, it is long enough for human lifespan, which creates an illusory sense of security. ”

She spoke in a very calm tone when she told these facts, but her calmness made the listeners feel cold. After a pause, she added: "As for whether this catastrophe is man-made, I don't think I need to waste time on it. Alien catastrophes are only suitable for science fiction genres, while natural catastrophes are real and must be faced by humanity. She probably felt that this was not polite to a science fiction writer, so she nodded apologetically to Kang, who laughed it off.

There was silence in the venue for a long time, and Elder He sighed, "I've been thinking about an idiom for the past few days: people are worried about the sky. More than 2,000 years ago, a man was always worried that the sky would fall, so he became the laughing stock of 2,000 years. In fact, he is the real sober man in history. He waved his hand, "Don't talk about that gossip." Let's talk about it, if what Zhan Xiang said is true, what else can human beings do. ”

Kang Buming immediately said: "The matter of increasing the light is easy to solve. Scientists have a well-established plan to set up huge mirrors to gather sunlight at the first Lagrangian point of the solar-terrestrial gravitational system at a distance of 1.5 million kilometers from the Earth. This could buy humanity hundreds of years. Another option is to colonize Mars, which is a little farther away from the sun and could also buy humanity hundreds of years. Of course, this is only a palliative, not a cure. ”

After a pause, he added: "It is also possible to migrate to Uranus and Neptune, which are far away from the Sun, roughly 20 astronomical units." When space shrinks and distances are greatly reduced, there will be a significant increase in sunlight and may also become habitable for humans. But after I thought about it, I'm afraid not, although these ice giants are called 'ice', their mantles are actually superheated fluids formed under high pressure such as water, ammonia, methane, etc., and once the temperature rises sharply, it will immediately become Satan's hell. And at the end of the day, it's only going to buy a limited amount of time, and in the long run, humans still have to ......," he paused, "and escape." ”

When it comes to escaping, people naturally turn their attention to astronaut Zhang Mingxian. It was a thin, middle-aged man who was silent and reserved at the meeting. He realized everyone's gaze, and pondered for a long time in embarrassment, before he said carefully:

"As for the way to escape, I can only talk about the chemical rocket that I am only familiar with. The maximum speed that a rocket can reach depends on two things: first, the speed of the ejected substance, Ve, which is currently 4 kilometers per second and will not exceed 10 kilometers per second in the foreseeable future; Second, the ratio of the initial mass to the final mass of the rocket is unlikely to be greater than twenty in the foreseeable future. Based on these two figures, the maximum speed of a chemical rocket will not exceed 30 kilometers per second. This is certainly not enough for interstellar travel, orders of magnitude worse, let alone intergalactic travel. There is also a well-established method of using the gravitational field of the stars to accelerate, which has been used by humans for a long time. However, due to the distance between the stars, there are too few available gravitational fields, and it can only be used as an aid. Other more advanced ideas, such as working or non-working fluid rockets powered by nuclear fission or nuclear fusion, ion rockets or light sail drives that use stellar light as a continuous energy source, laser power station drives, ramjet drives that collect space hydrogen atoms along the way, and photon rockets that use positive and antimatter annihilation as energy sources, are still in the category of science fiction, and at most belong to the category of theoretical hypotheses, and it is difficult to enter the engineering implementation stage in the foreseeable future. ”

Everyone was waiting for him to continue, but he had finished his speech and had been silent ever since. The meeting was a little cold, and there was a faint dissatisfaction, and even the presiding officer of the meeting, He Lao, also showed that the technical expert's caution was right, but at such an extraordinary moment, this gentleman was too cautious. Apparently his vision is too narrow and his thinking is too rigid, perhaps this is the difference between an "expert" and a "master". When he confirmed that he had finished speaking, Kang Buming coughed lightly and said euphemistically:

"Caution is the first day of a technologist's nature, especially at such an important conference. Therefore, Mr. Zhang's caution is understandable that he does not want to discuss any technical assumptions that cannot be guaranteed to be implemented. Then I'll do the trick for you, as I said earlier, science fiction writers can talk nonsense. He said with a smile, and then spent 20 minutes analyzing the above "science fiction" driving methods in detail, analyzing their advantages and disadvantages. Judging from his statement, he does have extensive knowledge in this field. In the end, he concluded: "In my estimation, nuclear fusion technology should be able to achieve a breakthrough within a hundred years. In this case, if you want to achieve an interstellar or intergalactic escape within a hundred years, the feasible and only feasible way is to use a variable-ratio impulse magnetic plasma rocket powered by nuclear fusion. Its jet Ve can reach a thousand kilometers per second, and the rocket can reach a maximum speed of three thousand kilometers per second, that is, one hundredth of the speed of light. He turned to Zhan, Xu, Chu, and Ma, "I wonder if you can escape from the collapsed area at this speed?" ”

Chu Tianle immediately said: "I have calculated with my godfather that this order of magnitude is not enough. If it were able to maintain this speed, and not taking into account the time it took to set off for the acceleration phase, it would take 3,500 years for it to fly out of the cataclysmic region of thirty-five light-years. It's long enough, but it's acceptable, the problem is that it can't even maintain this speed. As space shrinks, and the rate of contraction increases at a uniform rate, the ship is like a boat sailing against the current, the longer it goes, the more the current becomes, and the further it goes, the faster the current becomes, at least in the area within the peak of the contraction. So the flight of the spacecraft will be a uniform deceleration motion. To know how long it took for a spacecraft to fly out of the cataclysmic region of thirty-five light-years, all you need to do is solve a quadratic equation. He shook his head and said, "We did, but unfortunately it didn't have a real solution, because the ship was already at negative velocity before it reached the boundary." At that time, in the cataclysmic peak region, space will pour inward at a speed of more than one hundredth of a light. Intuitively, the ship can't rush faster against the rapids. ”

This conclusion made everyone's hearts sink.

Zhan and Xu used different methods to make calculations, and the results were not large. The consensus estimate is that humans need to reach at least one-tenth of the speed of light to escape the subsidence, and they must set sail within a hundred years, otherwise the speed of the reverse jet stream will get higher and higher. Chu Tianle said.