The pilot hovered the helicopter in the center of the sphere, and the image of the body on the sphere was reduced to a dot. The fuselage rotates slowly, and the dot image is stretched into horizontal strips that flow rapidly over the mirror. The three of them were shocked to admire the strange sight around them, and they were all deeply mesmerized. But when the helicopter is in the center of the sphere, the roar is reflected from the entire sphere, increasing the decibels of noise by a hundredfold, which is unbearable. He Zizhou's strongest consciousness at the moment is - fear. Their three-state vacuum theory does not anticipate this large hollow sphere at all, and by logical extrapolation, the theory is equally unreliable for predicting that vacuum annihilation will be confined to a local area. Although their prediction was correct, it was just a fluke. Of course, the objections at yesterday's meeting were not to the point, and they did not expect such an outcome. It is only true that the "hidden laws of the universe" mentioned by Uncle Comber are correct - the more powerful the disaster, the higher the threshold for its activation, so the universe is "naturally safe".

As soon as man thinks, God laughs. Yesterday, when twenty-three first-class scientists were seriously thinking, God may have covered his mouth and laughed and his stomach hurt.

Amidst the thunderous roar, Dai Qi asked in a loud voice: "Mr. He, did you estimate the scene in front of you beforehand?" ”

He Zizhou said frankly: "No—there is." We only expected that the annihilation would be local space, but we didn't expect it to be such a scene. ”

The noise was too loud, and He Zizhou motioned for the driver to fly away from the center, and the sound was significantly reduced. Dyche turned around and said, "He, your theory has triumphed—space is indeed inspired to annihilate and confined to a localized area; But your theory is also wrong - you say that there will only be a trace amount of energy, but looking at the scene in front of you, will it be a trace amount of energy? Think about it, how much strength is required to complete such material transportation; How high is the instantaneous temperature required to melt the substance into such a mirror? ”

Dai Qi's question was very powerful, but He Zizhou quickly sorted out an explanation from the new phenomenon, shook his head and said: "No, this spherical mirror should have nothing to do with temperature and energy, but just a natural accumulation after the 'ebb tide' of space. You can imagine if ......," he struggled to gather his thoughts and deliberate on his words, "if a lake was full of ping-pong balls...... No, this analogy is not accurate, but a more accurate analogy is that if there are many hollow iron balls in the lake water, their specific gravity is the same as that of water, and thus they can stay at any depth of water, the small balls will gradually connect with each other to form some kind of random three-dimensional structure due to the attraction of weak magnetism. On the surface, this structure is only related to magnetic force, but in fact, it is also affected by the dual effects of gravity and buoyancy, but the two cancel each other out and have no external expression. Now, assuming that the lake disappears instantly, and the buoyancy disappears at the same time, then all the iron balls will sink to the bottom of the lake, and the collection of iron balls will change from the original three-dimensional shape to two-dimensional, and its shape will naturally fit with the lake bottom. Yes, that's how it works. Mr. Dyche," he said, gesturing around, "this spherical inner wall is the bottom of the lake after the annihilation of space, it is only the natural subsidence and natural fitting after the 'low tide', and there is no high energy and high temperature. Because the shape of everything in nature, in addition to being related to electromagnetic force, strong force, weak force and gravitational force, also relies on the support of the deep structure of space, but we were not aware of it in the past. But here, at that moment of spatial annihilation—it must be on the order of Planck's time—this invisible supporting effect suddenly disappears. ”

Dai Qi thought for a moment and nodded, "I think you're right." Since there is not a trace of heat left here, it should be a 'cold deformation'. But you say that the process of spatial annihilation is Planck time? I'm afraid not, otherwise these substances would have traveled much faster than the speed of light in that time, flying from their original position to their current position. ”

He Zizhou smiled, "Wrong! This is the disappearance of space itself rather than the movement of matter in space, and it does not require time. ”

Dyche was also a quick-witted man, and he woke up immediately, but he was also shocked even more. Because at this very moment, the space-time of Newton and Einstein, that is, the lifelong belief of all physicists, has been shattered. He looked around, his gaze confused. At this moment, at the lower part of the middle of the jagged void, that is, at the original height of the ground, some figures appeared, poking their heads into the hollow ball through the gap. It was Dai Qi who said that the officers on duty came out and came to watch the magic of nature. As the crowd gathered, the crowd erupted in exclamations, apparently trying to get into the ball, but couldn't, because from that point of view, there was a spherical hole that was as smooth as a mirror and seven stories deep. Someone was anxiously waving to the helicopter to take them into the hole. At this point, a daring fellow came up with a solution, he jumped diagonally from the gap to the inner sphere, drew a distorted conic curve on the smooth inner sphere, and slid towards the bottom of the hole. But this reckless guy miscalculated how smooth the ball wall was - it had almost no friction! So instead of a slide, he fell from the air, and when he reached the bottom of the cave, he was as fast as a racing car, swinging over the bottom of the cave and then quickly rising up the wall of the cave, along another deformed conic curve. When he reaches ground level, the height at which he jumps, his speed drops to zero. After that, he went down and up again, up and down, forming an unattenuated oscillation, like an acrobat playing a speeding car and walking on a wall. His face turned pale with fright, and he shouted into the gap:

"I can't stop! Can't stop! Hurry up and get me! ”

The spectators at the gap were all unsympathetic fellows, knowing that although the current scene was thrilling, it was actually thrilling, so no one helped him, but burst into cheers and laughter. The guy quickly got out of the initial panic and simply relaxed and enjoyed the cordless bungee jumping for the rest of his life, screaming when he reached the lowest point and waving his hand at the people when he reached the highest point. As he swings around in the lower hemisphere, there is a giant image flowing on the opposite mirror, like a dome movie. The people on the ground were greedy and wanted to do the same, but they were smart enough to realize the danger: it was safe for a person to drive around the wall inside, and it was easy to collide with each other if there were too many people. If the collision occurs at the high point of the curve, there is no problem, when the velocity of both parties is close to zero; But if the collision happens at the bottom, the two heads will definitely not be saved.

Eventually someone threw down a rope and pulled the guy up. Then the people on the ground lined up, jumped down one by one, enjoyed a short period of excitement, and then reluctantly left under the urging of the ground.

Dai Qi answered a phone call at this moment, hung up the phone, and said to He with a sad expression: "Four of the twenty-five officers on duty are missing, and the four who are on duty at the probe. ”

Then, they have died in this spatial annihilation, and their bones are gone—in fact, it should be said that the bones are eternal, and the particles that make up their bodies are now mixed in this ball wall, and this ball wall will be preserved forever. It is an important milestone in the development of human science. The three people on board were silent and mourned the deceased. The group of people on the ground didn't know if they already knew the bad news, but it didn't affect their excitement, and the cheers came and went. Now they played a new trick, and seven or eight men joined each other's arms, formed a human chain, and slid down the huge spherical slide, arousing even more exuberant cheers.

The driver suddenly turned his head and pointed to a certain place on the cave wall and exclaimed: "Look! ”

He Zizhou followed his direction and saw an astonishing picture: there was obviously a person, or rather a person, flattened, magnified several times, pasted against a smooth ball wall, the edges of which were blurred, blending with other substances. This is undoubtedly one of the four missing. The three people on board searched the entire ball wall and found no remains of the other three. If you look closely, the surface layer of the inner wall of the ball is transparent, only a few millimeters thick, and then gradually transitions to opacity, forming a reflective layer of mirrors. This human body is located at the junction of the transparent layer and the reflective layer, so it can be seen from the outside. The other three are supposed to be located in the opaque inner layer of the ball wall, so they can't be seen from the outside; Or it is in the transparent layer, the body is completely transparent, and it is not visible. He Zizhou asked the pilot to point the nose of the plane at the flat portrait, and the three of them mourned for a long time.

They ended their silence and enjoyed the revelry of those below. Then He Zizhou said: "You can't waste time on carnivals. Convene a meeting of experts. Also, don't forget to inform the state and county** that evacuated people can go home. ”

The expert meeting was also pre-arranged, so the personnel arrived at 4 p.m. The participants were all experts in particle accelerators, including two men in their eighties and nineties who were participants in the construction of the Fermi particle accelerator. The attendees all watched the scene in advance, and when they entered the conference room, they were all beaming, shaking hands with Dai Qi and He Zizhou, who were waiting at the door, and hugged them tightly. While the destruction of the Fermi accelerator is distressing and the sacrifice of the four is sad, the technological progress it has brought is even more exciting. At the beginning of the meeting, everyone first observed a moment of silence for the four deceased, and then He Zizhou began to speak. He said excitedly:

"The first step has been successfully taken, and now it's time to start the second step. As we have seen, the space excitation experiment on the ground can only be a one-time one-time, and it will cause irreversible damage to the accelerator vacuum pipeline, unless the vacuum pipe is greatly expanded so that it can accommodate the entire annihilation area, such a modification is more expensive and unnecessary, because the closed experiment cannot verify whether the vacuum annihilation can form a thrust. We might as well simply go to space to do it, because in three important ways, the working conditions in space are far better than on the ground: first, there is no need for bulky vacuum pipes to maintain the vacuum, only there is an accelerating magnetic ring, and high-speed particles can directly run freely along the magnetic orbit in space. Second, instead of cumbersome cryogenic generation systems, superconducting magnetic rings can work directly at space temperatures. Third, without gravity, all parts can be made lighter, and there is no need to adjust the motion of particles by gravity - of course, if the accelerator is installed on a spacecraft with uniform acceleration in the future, the trajectory of the particles will also need to be adjusted for acceleration, but this is a matter for the future, and there is no need to consider it at the moment. So I think the next urgent task is to move the high-energy particle accelerator on the ground to the sky and build a relatively simple spacecraft for experimenting with the principle. From the perspective of principle, this is not too difficult task, the only difficulty is that the scale of the spacecraft should be relatively large, and it should be able to fit the Fermi accelerator. Of course, the original shape of the accelerator must also be changed, and the '8' must be superimposed to save space. Think about it, how much time will it take to complete the amount of work I mentioned above? After a pause, he smiled and said, "The 'Friends of Joy' are accustomed to working under the whip of God. According to the work efficiency of the 'Friends of Joy', I think it should be completed within half a year. Oh, by the way, the head of the spacecraft development is Alex, he's on his way to the United States, and he'll be there soon. ”

There was a moment of silence in the conference room, and a middle-aged man stood up, with a smile hidden in his beard: "In my opinion, your first and most urgent task is to describe to us the driving principle of the 'Space Annihilation Spacecraft', which is the basis for the following discussion. ”

He Zizhou was stunned for a moment, and said suddenly: "Ah, it was my negligence. No wonder there is a Chinese proverb that says that if you have no hair on your mouth, you can't do things well; I thought you all knew. Now I'm ......"

The bearded man interrupted him, "We do have our own understanding, but does it match your thoughts?" Well, let me talk about the driving principle, and you will be the referee. ”

He Zizhou was very happy, "Good! Please speak. ”

"The driving principle and structure of the spacecraft are roughly as follows: the particle accelerator is 'installed in the open air' on the spacecraft, and the particles are accelerated by a thousand magnetic rings in a vacuum, and then collide behind the spacecraft, which excites the annihilation of local space and converts it into a trace amount of energy, that is, into light. A paraboloid-shaped reflector is installed behind the spacecraft to reflect and convert the scattered light from the spherical light source into a parallel beam, which converts the light pressure into a driving force. According to theoretical calculations, the duration of each light pulse is very short, one ten-millionth of a second, but the particle impact can reach tens of millions of times per second, which makes the intermittent light pulse accumulate into a continuous drive. ”

"Yes."

"Of course, the vacuum bubble created by annihilation should be far enough away from the reflector not to damage it."

"Yes."

"This light energy can also be harvested and used as energy for the ship's in-board installations, including particle accelerators. If the energy is insufficient, fusion energy can also be used as a supplement. ”

"Exactly."

"The principle I mentioned above is relatively simple, but the following principle is more winding, I don't know if I understand it correctly."

"Please speak boldly, I believe your understanding is correct." He Zizhou said with a smile.

"After the annihilation of the local space, it is like forming an 'ocean navel', and the surrounding elastic space will instantly flow towards the navel and become a sparse space. However, according to Mr. Chu's 'theory of steady-state accretion of spatial elements', the evacuated vacuum will be restored to a standard vacuum in Planck time, and then reduced to a dense vacuum under the pressure of the surrounding dense vacuum, so as to prepare for the next excitation. This elastic deformation of space creates tidal forces on the spaceship. However, this force is too small to overcome the electromagnetic force, so the ship will only have a brief slight elastic deformation without damage. This is a strong proof that all equipment outside the scope of the annihilation space remains intact from the test site. ”

"That's right, keep talking."

"Here's the most detouring part of the drive principle, I really don't dare to say that my understanding is correct, but I'll go ahead and talk about it. In the case of local space annihilation, the flow of space cells towards the 'vacuum navel' will not damage the spacecraft, but the result of its synthesis will be the backward drag effect of the spacecraft. He stared at He with blazing eyes, "When you calculate the forward driving force of the light pulse, I wonder if you have taken into account this reverse dragging?" ”

He Zizhou praised sincerely: "This bearded gentleman is so powerful - may I ask the honorable name?" ”

"My name is John Barrow, and I majored in theoretical physics."

"Mr. Barrow, your understanding is completely correct, you have already planed to the very heart of the three-state vacuum theory. So," he said jokingly, "I didn't talk about the driving principle because I didn't talk about it, but because I knew that everyone in this room is an expert." He continued, "We have taken this drag into account. Since the time of spatial hyperplasia is Planck time, that is, the sparse space will return to normal within 10~-43 seconds, the action time of the drag force will not exceed this level. Compared with the 10~-8 second level of light pulse, it is only 10~35 times of the former, which is really insignificant. Therefore, it can be completely ignored when doing engineering calculations. ”

Barrow nodded, "Oh, that's right. I don't have a problem anymore. Before sitting down, he added, "I'm glad that my understanding of the three-state vacuum theory is basically correct." ”

He Zizhou said with a smile: "You can also paraphrase a Chinese proverb, and the heroes see the same thing." ”

The participants began to discuss. He Zizhou's mobile phone rang, and after listening to it, he said, "I'm sorry, I'm going to leave for a while." Alex came, and the helicopter immediately landed on the scene. He wanted me to show him around and then come to the conference room together. He smiled and said, "Let's continue the discussion, and hopefully you'll have a clear conclusion when we come back." ”

He hurried to the hollow orb. A helicopter landed nearby, and Alex and Ji Jichang jumped down and hugged him excitedly. The third one to come down is - willow leaves. He Zizhou wanted to hug her, but Liu Ye broke free, and his two small fists slammed him hard, scolding him angrily: "Villain, it's been so long, why haven't you kept telling me about safety?!" She was so angry, with a look full of anger and tears in her eyes. He Zizhou could only admit his mistake, saying that he was negligent, negligent, he only cared about being happy, he only cared about rushing forward to work, and forgot about the top important little sister of Liu Ye. However, at such a happy moment, Liu Ye's anger could not last long, she quickly turned her anger into laughter, and rushed over to hug Yang Yang.

They re-boarded the plane, flew through the gap into the sphere, hovered around the center of the ball, and admired the wonders of nature with awe; It is also with pathos and tragedy that I look at the flattened human body embedded in the cave wall. The sunset has already half set, and at this time it happens to be embedded in the gap of the sphere, and thousands of sunsets, thousands of helicopters, and thousands of portraits are reflected in the mirror, forming a fantastic golden world, a super kaleidoscope. Willow Ye's eyes were shining, and he murmured:

"It's beautiful, it's amazing, it's incredible. Brother Yangyang, it is as if we have entered the pupil of God and are looking at a deified world. ”

Compared with her intoxication, Ji Jichang was more in awe, he looked at the strange scene in front of him with almost dizzy eyes, and also looked at He Zizhou in the front row with reverence, and muttered: "Brother Yangyang, you are so lucky that you are the first to witness this miracle...... A new era begins with you! I'm so sorry I didn't get this mission over at the time! ”

Alex smiled and said to Liu Ye, "It's a pity that your brother Tianle didn't come. I heard that he has been obsessed with blowing bubbles since he was a child, and you see, what a strange big bubble here! ”

He Zizhou said: "This 'bubble' will not burst! Someone has already done a preliminary test, and the transparent layer of the bubble wall is a completely new material. It has the hardness, transparency and strength of carbon fiber of diamond, and it has nothing to do with the variety of the original material, but directly depends on the rearrangement of protons, neutrons and electrons, and is a special degenerate substance. ”

He looked at Alex meaningfully, who said sharply, "You mean, it can be used to develop a completely new processing method?" ”

"That's right! The new method, which is very energy-efficient, has a wide range of materials and is inexpensive, especially for the construction of thin-walled hollow parts, such as spaceships. ”

The two were overjoyed. This harvest is something that has not been predicted by the three-state vacuum theory. It seems that Ji Renrui's proposition is right: set off first and then find the way. Their quest for the Vacuum is similar to Magellan's, beginning with a half-blind plan and stumbling into a strait leading to the New World, followed by a land of great treasures and countless new and unexpected opportunities.

Before leaving, Alex muttered to the figure in the cave wall, "Rest in peace." As you can see, the light-speed age of humanity has begun. ”

The helicopter began to fly outward, but Ji Jichang, a mischievous ghost, was unwilling to let this "historical moment" end so dullly. When the helicopter was about to fly out of the gap, he suddenly opened the cabin door and shouted with a smile to the pilot:

"Hold on, I'm going to jump!"

In the exclamation of the willow leaves, he really jumped down, and when he jumped, his head rushed forward, and his arms stretched forward, like a swimmer entering the water. Several people on the plane leaned out in shock, looked down anxiously, and then were relieved. This daring guy is actually not reckless at all, he has already taken the angle when he jumped off the helicopter, basically jumping down in the tangential direction of the ball wall, and his hands touched the wall first, which played a cushioning role, so he slid smoothly. He jumped a little higher than the American cowboys, so he slid to the bottom faster, reaching 80 kilometers per hour. Then he swung up, and the highest point was three or four meters above the ground, level with the helicopter. He enjoyed the flying car and the cordless bungee jump, shouting happily and swinging in the sphere, and the giant-like image flowing rapidly on the opposite ball wall.

The people on the plane were relieved and watched with a smile. Liu Ye was very red-eyed and wanted to do the same, but in the end he still lacked enough courage. He Zizhou shouted:

"Changchang, stop playing, the people in the venue are still waiting."

Everyone struggled to pull this guy up. The helicopter is equipped with ropes, but for safety, the helicopter must not be too close to the ball wall. However, if he stops near the center of the ball and hangs down the rope, Ji Jichang can only correspond vertically to the helicopter when he is at a low point, at this time his horizontal speed is too high to grasp the rope, and even if he pulls it, such a large horizontal speed will threaten the safety of the helicopter. They decided to fly out of the sphere first, let the helicopter land, and then use human hands to hang the rope through the gap. But without waiting for them to implement it, Ji Jichang solved the problem by himself. He pushed the ball wall with his hand to steer when swinging up and down, and although the friction on the wall was small, the direction of the swing still changed slightly, visibly to the naked eye, and the swing trajectory slowly approached the direction of the gap. After a moment, he suddenly realized that he stopped pushing with his hand, but the swing trajectory was still slowly approaching the gap. He was shouting something, drowned out by the reverberation of the roar of helicopters. When he ascended to the top, he made a large clockwise circle with his hand, signaling something to this side. He Zizhou suddenly understood his dumb riddle:

"Foucault pendulum!"

Due to the zero friction of the ball wall, his up and down motion at this time actually constitutes a cordless Foucault pendulum, and the Coriolis force formed by the rotation of the earth causes the swing plane to rotate slowly clockwise. He Zizhou nodded to him, and also made a large clockwise circle with his hand, knowing that he understood, the two laughed at each other from a distance.

The direction that Ji Jichang jumped into just now happened to be on the left side of the gap, so this Foucault pendulum only needs to rotate at a small angle to align with the gap. The helicopter drove out of the sphere and landed, waiting patiently. Half an hour later, Ji Jichang flew up from the gap, with a chic and graceful posture; Then he fell heavily to the ground, and the chic turned into embarrassment. Although he fell into a crisp butt squat, he was generally safe and sound, and everyone on the plane was relieved. He scrambled to his feet and ran happily in this direction, and the helicopter picked him up and flew in the direction of the venue. Liu Ye smiled and said:

"Brother Changchang, look, there's a female fan of yours there."

Near the gap on the other side of the sphere was a blonde girl, about sixteen or seventeen years old, who was now waving her hands feverishly to greet the helicopter in the distance, apparently she had been watching. Liu Ye laughed and teased:

"Brother Changchang, do you need to stop the helicopter for a moment, you go and ask for a call?"

Ji Jichang laughed at himself: "It's a pity that the last ass squatted and ruined my image, so I won't be embarrassed." He poked his upper body out of the hatch and beckoned to the girl. The girl's figure quickly became smaller, and then the huge sphere disappeared into the vast twilight.

3

The construction of a near-lightspeed starship is in full swing. Alex was in charge of the design and manufacture of the principle-based experimental spacecraft, and according to his words, he picked an easy job and left the hardest bone - the practical starship - to the young He Zizhou.

Indeed, if the spacecraft approaches the speed of light infinitely to the point where the relativistic time effect becomes apparent, the spacecraft design will face a completely new situation. First of all, some of the problems that people had suffered in the past, such as the 100,000-year-level spacecraft's life support system and the crew hibernation system, have been solved at this time, because once the spacecraft reaches nearly the speed of light, the rate of the passage of inherent time inside the ship is close to zero. The crew can travel around the universe in their lifetime and then return to Earth, not to mention escaping from the cataclysmic area of tens of light-years, even considering the time consumed by the acceleration stage, it will only take more than ten years (spaceship time) at most. Some experts have said that for the starship, the leakage of the spacecraft's sealed door alone is extremely difficult to solve, because in a long time, even the smallest leakage will cause a huge loss of oxygen, and the spacecraft cannot stop to replenish (the spacecraft needs too much energy to brake and start again). But for near-lightspeed ships, leaks are no longer a problem.

There are two difficult problems. One is radiation protection, because for near-lightspeed spacecraft, stationary free particles in space will also be converted into lethal radiation. However, this problem is relatively easy to solve, as it is possible to set up sufficient radiation shielding for a ship with unlimited fuel. The second is the reaction speed of the ship's control system. During the voyage, it is inevitable to make some emergency adjustments, such as the spacecraft deviates from the scheduled course, encounters a large meteorite, and so on. There aren't many of these surprises, and ordinary ships are generally able to react. But for a near-light-speed ship, the speed is extremely high and the rate of passage of time inherent on board is close to zero! The result is a situation in which people (and machines and computers) live and work at normal speeds inside near-lightspeed ships; But if a stationary observer outside the ship could see inside the ship (which is impossible according to the theory of relativity), he would be anxious to find that it would take a hundred years for the word "warning" to pop up on the computer screen inside the ship, and 10,000 years for the pilot to recognize it. In other words, light-speed ships simply cannot react quickly to the "normal universe", and neither can they be automatically controlled by computers - and the computers run slower.

This seemingly simple problem is actually completely unsolvable - you can't reserve a special space in the spaceship's time system for the pilot (and the ship's computer) where time passes at a normal rate, and this is absolutely impossible unless the theory of relativity is completely overturned. Moreover, once there is a light-speed spaceship, of course, human beings will not be satisfied with just fleeing, but will definitely set their sights on the farther universe, then, the spacecraft may not only hit a small meteorite, but one day it will crash right in front of a star. For a ship that is unable to react in time, this means, of course, destruction.

Of course, there is a way to do this - to limit the speed of the ship. For example, limit the speed of a ship to half the speed of light, at which the rate of time lapse is 0.861 of the normal rate. At this rate, the driver still has plenty of reaction time. But – is this possible? Humans can travel at the speed of light they dream of, but humans actively harm themselves? Moreover, limiting the speed of the ship means giving up all the benefits of the time delay, such as the increased life of the crew, and even the leakage of the sealed door has to be faced again.

This is a dilemma. It cannot be solved by minor repairs and minor changes, and if we want to solve it, we must break through the current theoretical framework. Therefore, "this problem, which may take a lifetime, will be handed over to the young He Zizhou." Alex said with a smile, but in a very serious tone.

The drawings of the principle experimental spacecraft were completed in three months. The ship on the drawing was pre-named: "Goldfish" because of its resemblance to a goldfish. In front of it is a spherical cabin with a diameter of about two thousand meters, which is the body of a goldfish. Behind it is a concave parabolic mirror that resembles a goldfish's tail, which is responsible for converting the light energy generated by the annihilation of space into a driving force. On the outer surface of the spherical cabin, along the longitudinal circumference of the sphere, that is, through the front and tail of the sphere, there are two dense "necklaces", which are the main injector and the trillion electron volt accelerator, which are the "eight" of the Fermi accelerator folded together. The beads on the necklace are rings of superconducting magnets exposed to a vacuum, which constrain particles from traveling in circular orbits and accelerate them. The final leg of the trillion-electron volt accelerator passes through the tail of the goldfish and enters the interior of the concave parabolic mirror, where it meets at its focal point, where protons and antiprotons collide at near-luminal speeds. Of course, in order to protect the spacecraft from damage, the distance of the collision point from the reflective surface is greater than the spherical radius of the annihilation space.

The vertical projection surface of the mirror surface is about 1,000 meters in diameter and covers an area of 790,000 square meters, which can generate a light pressure driving force of 3,800 N. The spacecraft is designed to weigh 1,600 tons, then the light pressure will produce an acceleration of 0.0002g. This is already a very rare achievement for a light pressure drive.

At the front of the spherical pod is a horizontal pilot's viewing window, which is the eye of the ship, but looks more like a goldfish's mouth. But how can a goldfish be missing a pair of eyes? So, the childlike Alex slightly violated his principle of "design should be simple and practical" and drew two big eyes on the head of the fish. He laughs and says that this kind of beauty is a luxury that can only be enjoyed by a principle experimental spacecraft, because in a practical spacecraft, the hull has to rotate around the central axis to create a simulated gravity (the accelerator and the mirror surface also rotate together, which does not affect the collision of particles), and the bow has to be equipped with a very thick heavy water shield, so it is impossible to maintain the shape of a goldfish.

Sixteen variable vector vents are also equipped at the bow and tail of the spacecraft for attitude adjustment. They are powered by ordinary plasma drives. The most important function of the attitude adjustment device is that once the spacecraft is about to reach its destination, it relies on them to make a 180-degree turn of the spacecraft, turn it into a tail front and back, and turn the spacecraft's drive into a brake.

Under the merciless whip of God's whip, design and manufacturing are interspersed. After the overall design is completed, some parts that can be determined and have a long manufacturing period are designed in advance and put into production immediately; Other components were then designed and manufactured. There will inevitably be some mistakes and some rework, but – in wartime, time is more important than cost.

That new processing method, the "implosion molding method", will not be used on the first experimental spacecraft, but it may be used on the second. At that time, the cost of building a spacecraft will be drastically reduced, and the strength of the spacecraft will be greatly increased, and the improvement of the two can even reach two orders of magnitude.

Factories all over the world with the appropriate level of craftsmanship have invested in the construction of this spaceship, and they are listed at the top of the factory plan. Ten months later, spacecraft components began to be put into space-synchronous orbit, positioned above the Halmahera launch site, where they were assembled. During that time, the Long March rockets, Saturn rockets, proton rockets and Ariane rockets from China, the United States, Russia and Europe were frequently lifted into space, almost once a week, and the splendid rocket tail flames in space were already a common scenery on earth. A year later, the spacecraft was assembled and successfully commissioned, and then it was time to begin the all-important, uncertain ignition experiment.

Before Alex went to the synchronous orbit, he deliberately returned to the mountains to visit Ma Lao and Chu Tianle. The seventy-eight-year-old Ma Lao is nearing the end of his life, and there is no specific problem with his body, but a comprehensive decline in function caused by aging. He was extremely thin, his skin was yellow and flabby, only his mind remained clear, his eyes were bright, and the flames in his eyes seemed to be fueled by his body. Sixty-seven-year-old Tianle's mother pushed him in a wheelchair, and he leaned over in the wheelchair to shake Alex's hand, congratulate him on his successful first step, and wish him a smooth ignition experiment. Alex smiled wryly:

"There is a very good Chinese idiom: fear when things happen. I'm just scared now, just like George was back then. There is so much hope on this future lightspeed spaceship that the whole world is working for it, and more than a billion children have donated their candy money to it alone! But whether it will succeed or not, I really don't know in my heart. After all, the ground experiment was only carried out once, and it was actually only half a time, because it only confirmed that local space can indeed be annihilated and converted into light energy, but whether it can be used for space propulsion is still very unknown. If I fail, I'm afraid I won't have the shame to go back to Earth. ”

The weakened Ma Lao smiled and comforted him slowly: "You are just a pre-exam nervous syndrome, there is no need to be like this, at least the stimulation and annihilation of the local space has been verified, with this new breakthrough, we can always drum up something." He made a joke, "I'm sure that even if you fail this time, you'll come back cheeky, and the rest of the work is still waiting for you." ”

Alex also smiled, "Okay, I promise you, I'll come back cheeky." He turned his head and asked Tianle's mother, "What about Chu Tianle, didn't he say that he lived in seclusion in the mountains?" I've been so busy that I haven't been in touch with him in a while. ”

Tianle's mother looked at her husband and said with a smile: "He didn't think it was quiet enough here, so he hid on the desert island where the eggs were hatched, and stayed with Pauli, not letting anyone else accompany him, only letting the service staff bring them cooked food every week." ”

Alex keenly noticed that there seemed to be bitterness hidden in Tianle's smile, which seemed to be a bad omen. After all, the test flight of the "Goldfish" was an extremely important experiment, and as the chief "violinist" of the three-person team of the "Three-State Vacuum Theory", Chu had not shown up before the experiment, which was certainly abnormal. Alex didn't want to express his worries, thus adding to the psychological burden of a mother, so he smiled and said:

"According to my understanding of Chu Tianle, such a death and living alone often means that he is about to have a major breakthrough in theory. Let's be patient. Okay, I'm leaving. ”

He said goodbye to the second elder and took a helicopter to the headquarters of the "Friends of Music", and all the personnel of the "Friends of Music" came out to see him off. After saying goodbye to everyone, he called Ji Renrui and Yu Leshui aside and asked simply:

"Chu Tianle has been living in seclusion on Human Egg Island?"

The two of them keenly heard what he didn't say, and Yu Leshui smiled and said, "Well, even I won't let me accompany you." But don't worry, I'm going to be there tomorrow. ”

"He's with Pauli?"

"Yes, Pauli has always lived there."

Pauli's seclusion was very devoted, and in accordance with his orders, even Xiao Zhu, who was given to him, only unloaded the supplies to the stop point, and returned immediately, without meeting him. But Mr. Zhu said he often saw Pauli in the air, and that Pauli was an astrologist who often swam bare-bottomed or sunbathed on the grass — "sunset baths," or "sunbaths," to be precise, always when the sun was about to set, perhaps because his snow-white skin could not tolerate the intense sun. Pauli sometimes went to the headquarters of the "Friends of Joy" for meetings, but even when they did, he seemed withdrawn and reticent, and often hurried to return to his little nest after the meeting.

However, although he and Chu Tianle did not have much contact, the two respected each other. Chu Tianle has said many times that Pauli's profound knowledge, especially mathematical literacy, as well as his extraordinary insight and amazing intuition, are something he admires very much. Due to the arrangement of fate (the teenager dropped out of school), at least he could not compare with Pauli in mathematical literacy, if Pauli was Maxwell, Chu Tianle could only do Lady.

Alex thinks that the two smartest brains in the world have come together for more than just seclusion. But instead of going on, he said, "Okay." Then I'm gone. ”

"Let's go. Again, I wish the experiment a success. ”

After Alex left, Ji and Yu looked at each other. After more than ten years of getting along, the two have known each other very well and can see what is deep in each other's hearts. Ji Renrui asked:

"You're a little worried about him?"

Yu Leshui nodded, "Well, Tianle's mental state has been bad recently, and he seems to have regained his autism when he was a teenager. I don't know what the reason is, maybe it's ......"

She didn't finish her words, Ji Renrui already understood, and nodded heavily, "I don't feel good either." I always had a feeling that maybe he had discovered a catastrophe again, an even greater catastrophe. ”

Yu Leshui denied it, and said with a smile: "Alarmist." This catastrophe has reached the sky, how can there be a greater disaster! ”

"That is, he discovered the dead hole of the three-state vacuum theory, and he has already predetermined that the test flight of the 'Goldfish' will not be successful."

Yu Leshui thought about it and felt that although this possibility could not be ruled out, it was not big, otherwise, he would decisively ask the "Goldfish" to suspend the experiment. She was silent for a moment, and said self-deprecatingly:

"Renrui, you say, is it a kind of suffering to have a genius husband? As a wife, I can't grasp the psychological pulse of my husband, and I think it's very embarrassing. ”

Ji Renrui smiled, "Don't feel sorry for yourself, your wife is already very good." ”

They chatted a little. Yu Leshui said that she would go to Rendan Island tomorrow, first, to appease her husband, and secondly, to tell him that she had decided to have a child and use Tianle's sperm to carry out artificial insemination, even if it had disease-causing genes. Uncle Chu is right, if this pathogenic gene is accompanied by genius, then it is worth keeping. She was forty-three years old, and it would be too late for her to have children.

Speaking of Chu Guifu, both of them were a little gloomy. I don't know where the "Chu's" spacecraft is now? Did the flight go well? The vigorous guy in hibernation, and the thirteen hibernating toddlers, will be able to recover smoothly in the future? But now it's in vain to think about this, and the two tacitly agree not to talk about it. Ji Renrui nodded and said:

"Yes, give birth as soon as possible, this is exactly what Miao Qi and I have been persuading you, and I heard that Lao Kang has also persuaded you several times."

Yes, that's right, Uncle Comber was the most zealous of all, even rising to philosophical heights, saying that refusing to have children was unnatural and selfish. If I don't make this decision again, I won't dare to see him. ”

"That's right, my old Tonggeng is a hot-gutten person."

The two said goodbye and Yu Leshui took a helicopter home.

[Note 1] 1 foot = 0.3048 meters