"Samantha's story is over," Ms. Zhang said, "and it's time for us to go back!" ”

"It's not over yet, is it?" Shu Yunpeng said: "I haven't said anything about being entangled with our earthlings!" Why are you in a hurry to go back? ”

"Brother, do you still want to hear Samantha talk about curvature flight?" Qin Huaiyu asked.

"yes, I'd like to hear that, too."

"I don't have a ...... of this concept at all," Qin Huaiyu said, "I don't understand." ”

"Concept?" Shu Yunpeng thought about it and went to the bathroom to get a towel. He spread the towel on the table, then took another piece of paper, rolled it up, and placed it on the end of the towel.

"Look clearly," he said, pointing to the towel and the paper ball, "the towel is the space, and the paper ball is the spaceship." Now, the towel is flat and the paper ball does not move on the towel...... Look! ”

He grabbed the two corners of the towel with both hands and shook it slightly, the towel rose and fell with his movements, and the paper ball rolled to the other end of the towel.

"See, the paper ball has no momentum, but when the towel is shaken by me, the paper ball rolls to the other end of the towel!" He explains: "I shake the towel, and the towel fluctuates, just like the curvature of the universe, and the paper ball moves forward despite the lack of power!" ”

"This is curvature flight?" After all, Zhang Jingyi is the commander of the space fleet, and she is also interested.

"I'm making a metaphor, not necessarily accurate."

"Can the Jones do this?" Zhang Jingyi asked, "Can they make the space curvature?" ”

"According to Samantha, they can't, but they can take advantage of the curvature that naturally occurs in space."

"Why can't they make the universe curvature?" Zhang Jingyi asked: "With their level of science and technology, they can't solve this problem?" ”

"I don't know about this, the last time I asked her, she said it was too late, so she didn't say," Shu Yunpeng said: "She only said that curvature and wormholes are cosmic forces, which can only be used, and cannot be artificially created...... Why, let's hear her explain tomorrow! ”

"It can't be artificially made, doesn't that mean it's impossible to make it......" Zhang Jingyi sighed and said when the two of them were lying on the bed after washing up at night.

"Seems to mean that."

"To be honest, after listening to her story, I feel quite depressed!" Zhang Jingyi said: "According to her words, the scientific and technological level of our earthlings, if we want to go to the interstellar journey, it is a matter of the Year of the Monkey and the Horse Month, which is not at all possible!" ”

"The commander of the Earth and Space Combined Fleet, he feels very uncomfortable when he finds out that he is small, right?" Shu Yunpeng smiled: "I feel very helpless!" ”

"I don't know, anyway, I can see that I don't have a chance in my life......" Zhang Jingyi muttered: "The universe seems to be saying to human beings: staying at home is the safest ......"

"You're homesick, that's why you say that," Shu Yunpeng said with a smile: "The problem is that we only have one ship, if we let you drive away, what will I do?" ”

"You mean, you don't want to go yet?" Zhang Jingyi said: "I don't understand, why do you understand so well, you can get by in a daze!" ”

"No way!" Of course, Shu Yunpeng didn't want to be confused. Finally, there was such an opportunity, after this village, maybe there would be no shop, he didn't want to do this.

So, he didn't want to go. The boat is his, he said he wouldn't go, Zhang Jingyi really didn't have a problem.

"I know," Zhang Jingyi thought for a while and understood: "You still haven't given up on your world, you always want to figure out how you came here, right?" ”

Shu Yunpeng didn't speak, and acquiesced.

"You are ruthless enough, leaving so many women who care about you, and running back to your world alone, don't you feel that you owe something?"

"Indebted! But I didn't belong here. ”

Shu Yunpeng admits that he does have a lot of responsibility here, but this responsibility should not be his. Seniorly, he should be the ancestor of the ancestors of everyone here. Human beings have come to such a situation, and if you think about it, they have also started to go down the wrong path very early. Maybe some factors of the year gradually evolved, and the vicious circle gradually evolved into the current embarrassing and helpless result.

It suddenly occurred to him that there were his children and grandchildren now. Oh no! He is not married there, where is the descendant? So, what about his brother's? Just in the Lovers' Fortress, where the former hometown is, there is a surname Shu.

He remembered that when he asked Dr. Shu what his surname was, and when she said that her surname was Shu, his heart chuckled. This surname is not like the surname Zhang, the surname Wang, and the surname Li, which is very common...... He thought, unconsciously laughing dumbly: Is he a little nervous? People here don't care who their last name is, just like Sister Zhen, he still doesn't know her full name, isn't that what she calls it?

He retracted his aimless reverie, looked at Zhang Jingyi, and said, "If you insist on going back, I'll send you away first, and then come back, how about it?" ”

"How much time is it going to waste to send me back, so far? Forget it! ”

After she finished speaking, she closed her eyes and fell asleep. Looking at Zhang Jingyi's quiet sleeping face and listening to her even breathing, he was completely sleepy. Yes, Zhang Jingyi is right, he really seems to owe a lot, but so what? People are selfish, and he will be no exception.

"Samantha, I have a question," the next day, before Samantha could speak, Shu Yunpeng asked a question: "You said that your home planet is 500 light-years away from the solar system, and as you said last time, you have not mastered the curvature flight technology, so you can really come fast enough." ”

"Slow enough, Major Shu," Samantha disagreed, "When our first motherships departed, it was more than 70 million Earth years ago, and it took them nearly a million years to reach Earth, and we, in order to ensure safety, took a little longer than them. For the universe, this time is only a moment, but for organic life, that time is too long...... Major Shu, you still can't remember the question I didn't have time to answer last time---- flying in curvature, right? ”

Shu Yunpeng smiled and acquiesced.

"Well," Samantha laughed, "I'll tell you about what interests you!" ”

Shu Yunpeng was a little nervous. He really didn't have much interest in how the Jones people developed and how they came to Earth. Anyway, everyone is coming, does it matter how they come? The point is, what he wants to know is what they are capable of.

"I'll start with a TV series "Star Trek" that was once very famous on your earth!" Samantha said: "In this TV series, curvature flight seems to be commonplace, and it is not difficult to say that curvature flight is curvature flight. Is this really the case? ”

Since we are talking about interstellar travel, let's start at the beginning. There are theoretically three ways for humans to carry out interstellar voyages between the universes.

The first is conventional space travel, which relies on engines to propel spacecraft. As engines advance, human interstellar travel will get faster and faster. However, there is a limitation to this speed, which is that it can never exceed the speed of light. Any object with a stationary mass would require an infinite amount of energy to reach the speed of light. Interstellar voyages in this way, exceeding the speed of light, can only be a dream.

In this way, in the vast universe, human beings will have to shrink into a corner of the universe forever, and the fate of human beings can only live and die with the sun?

To this end, scientists have also proposed two other ways of interstellar travel, one is wormhole crossing, and the other is warp flight.

Scientists believe that if wormholes are a cosmic space-time phenomenon, then warp flight is an artificial space-time phenomenon. The so-called curvature flight is to compress the space-time in front of the spacecraft when the spacecraft is advancing, and at the same time expand the space-time behind the spacecraft, so that if the speed of the spacecraft is extremely fast, the spacecraft will theoretically exceed the speed of light.

Star Trek was all the rage and people watched it enthusiastically. Perhaps inspired by Star Trek, physicist Migiel Akuberi proposed the wave mode of extending space in 1994. The idea is that the space in front of the vehicle shrinks and the space behind the vehicle expands by artificial technology, and the axis formed by the front and rear is the direction that the vehicle wants to sail. The vehicle rides the wave in an interval called a "warp bubble", which is a flat space-time.

In space, the speed of light is constant, and the speed of all objects is limited by the speed of light. It has to be said that warp drive is a cool idea that avoids the law of the speed of light limitation by "weaving" space-time. Spacecraft built according to this concept will be able to achieve spacecraft speeds of about 10 times the speed of light without breaking the speed of light limit.

But that's only theoretical. In fact, flying in curvature is a seemingly beautiful but unattainable dream. Why?

On Earth, the engine that flies with curvature is named after the proposer "Akuberi engine", what material is the engine made of? No solution! In curvature flight, the space in front shrinks and the space in the rear expands, how can such fluctuations be triggered, and what is its working principle, there is no solution!

"Science is rigorous, you can't just talk about it," Samantha said, "and of course you can say it in science fiction: curvature flies!" So, with the help of computer stunts, you can all see the ship hula and fly forward, and in a moment it will run for several light years. But in reality, you can't do it at all. Erase all the processes and just say one result, and that's what you say! ”

"What does the Governor mean that science fiction is science fiction and is not realistic?" Zhang Jingyi asked, but her tone was not confident: "Maybe the current level of human science and technology is too low, and there may be a way to solve it in the future, right?"

Samantha smiled: "Commander Zhang's statement is what you earthlings like to use the most, such as maybe, maybe, and so on...... Of course, you can also say that these problems will be solved naturally when the time comes. Indeed, I really can't argue with what you say, because I don't have any conclusive evidence that humanity will not be able to solve these problems in the future. Okay, so let's take a look at what other problems of curvature-driven flight are unsolvable. ”

"Have more questions?" Qin Huaiyu asked softly.

"And, of course," said Samantha, "and many more!" ”