[Interstellar Time 20101111, Untitled]

Thinking about the unreachable and never-returnable homeland, Peng Xiaoming suddenly felt melancholy.

Peng Xiaoming, the seed of human beings, really flew into space, and the distance away from home forever cut off his connection with his homeland, like a kite flying in the sky broke its string and flew high and far away.

"Homesick?" An information window pops up on the ship, which is the ship's intelligent computer talking to him, this computer is particularly intelligent, similar to the intelligence of an intelligent being.

"It, what about it?" Peng Xiaoming asked.

Subtitle: The cornerstone empire hasn't been projected yet, and it's probably coming soon. I don't know.

"Hey......"

Subtitles: Don't be melancholy, don't sigh.

Immediately after the window displays this text, the three-dimensional holographic scenery of the former Earth is used as the background of the starship's interior. The things on the starship were hidden and replaced by the Earthscape. Although Peng Xiaoming knew that this was just a three-dimensional holographic background, he felt extremely real and was in a better mood.

The holographic background is a prairie, dotted with flocks of sheep, a breeze blows, the breeze at this time is real to him, and the holographic device feeds brain waves into his brain, making him really feel this way. When the wind blew the grass and the cattle and sheep appeared, a herdsman on horseback galloped behind the flock, drove straight into the flock, and then galloped back to the back, driving the flock forward. Not far from the flock, there is a puddle of water, which reflects the sky, and the sunlight on the water sparkles the water-plated ground, and the breeze blows the water ripples, making the grass under the water move involuntarily. Like a fading gravitational wave in space.

Peng Xiaoming reveled in such an environment, and suddenly found the feeling of home, as if he forgot that he was on the starship.

After that, the holographic projection of the scenery becomes the sea, and the waves on the sea roll slowly and gently, like music, playing the song of the vast sea, and there is a trace of white sails swimming in the distance where the sea and the sky meet...... At this time, a little thin wave rushed up under Peng Xiaoming's feet, moving towards the shore from the area below, and finally the tide flowed to his feet, feeling very cool, delicate and silky, looking into the distance, another wave rushed over, rubbing against the calm water surface, rolling out some white bubbles, like soapy water.

Soon, a man came out of nowhere on the beach. Wearing sunglasses, a yellow jacket, and a scarf around his neck. He walked in front of Peng Xiaoming, and just as Peng Xiaoming wanted to say something, the man took out a chess board from behind his back and took out chess pieces from his pocket.

"I'm here to play chess with you." The man said.

"You...... Can play chess? ”

"I'm the AI of this ship, and I retrieved chess from your civilization's database, and then learned its mathematical model. I'll go down. The man said that the man was also an element in the holographic background, but it was just the appearance of the ship's AI in human form.

Then, the man asked Peng Xiaoming to turn around, he turned around, and saw the waves in the distance crashing against the cliff wall of a hill on the coastline, splashing countless white waves, there is a hole in the cliff wall, about the size of two people, through this hole can also see the scenery in the distance. At this time, the sea water was flowing through the large hole, which had obviously been washed by the sea for thousands of years.

Looking back, a chess table was placed in front of him, there was an extra tent above his head, the opening position on the table had been placed, Peng Xiaoming was the red side, and there was a glass of water on both sides of the table.

"Please go first."

Peng Xiaoming moved the "cannon" on the second longitudinal line to the fifth longitudinal line, after walking. The man said, "The culture of your civilization is truly brilliant and colorful, and only one's own experience can appreciate this ultimate mystery." Then he also walked the "horse" around.

Peng Xiaoming remembered the various chess games accumulated in the previous game of chess, and immediately thought of one, so Xingyun Liushui dispatched other forces, and after a while, the chess game was very different from the beginning, and each chess piece changed its position, just like the stars running in the star system.

In the game of chess, Peng Xiaoming subconsciously surrendered his gaze to the deep sea, where the calm waves are still there, the sea breeze blows from time to time, and the clouds flutter from time to time, sometimes covering the daylight, sometimes releasing the daylight, and spilling it comfortably on the tent and chess table.

……

At the same time, outside the universe.

The supermembrane is probably the grandest existence in nature, and above it, there are many multiverses, a universe with an inconspicuous universe, a gravitational constant of 6.67*10^-11N·m²/kg², and an electron charge of 1.60*10^-19 coulombs...... This is our universe. However, there is another universe in the narrator, which is a fragment separated from the larger universe, and the laws of physics in it are the same as the universe just now, which is the small universe of the Cornerstone Empire. Its supermembrane coordinates are not far from the Great Universe, which also provides favorable conditions for the Cornerstone Empire to establish projections and entrances.

In the small universe, on a floating island in space, the liaison is connecting to the small universe through a supermembrane link, and the energy required for a connection is very large. On every floating island in this universe, there is an energy node, and every energy node has a nuclear fusion reactor, or antimatter reactor. It provides a steady stream of energy, and then transmits energy to the control center via microwaves.

The liaison turned on the energy harvesting system, collected the microwave energy from the various energy nodes, and then prepared to project it into the universe. At this point, the detection system detected the active universe and reported its supermembrane coordinates, and the liaison person placed the projection on the universe.

……

A day later, a white light appeared on the starship.

"You're finally back." Peng Xiaoming said.

"I'm back." The liaison spoke to him with a consciousness exchange.

At this time, the ship's AI retracted the holographic background, the sea was gone, the chessboard was gone, and the man was gone. The spaceship AI prompts that they have reached the "cosmic gap".

"There's no gap, what's still the same there!"

"It's not. This gap is the gap in the space-time of the universe, and we are in the space-time of the universe, how can we open the gap in itself? The projection said: "However, if you fly towards the past and keep flying forward, after flying for nine hundred and eighty-one days, you will find that you have returned to the original point." Because of that...... You keep moving forward, but in fact you go around the gap, and you go forward, you still go around the gap. Unless you go backwards and find a place far enough away to move forward. Since space-time is integrated, time slows down as you approach the gap. ”

"Hmm." Peng Xiaoming replied simply.

At this point, the starship AI seems to have discovered something, and then a message window pops up, informing the two of them about it.

Subtitle: Around the notch, there is a four-dimensional space, macroscopic.

"It can't be!" The projection said, "Revisit! ”

The AI started running again, and after a while, it came up with the same result.

"Oh, that four-dimensional space was consciously created by life."

"Could it be? The ghost statue entered the gap, so this four-dimensional domain was built? Peng Xiaoming said.

"Yes!" The projection agrees, "Being in the original space cannot observe or enter the gap, but one dimension higher can, they have to enter the gap through the four-dimensional space." ”

"But isn't that looking for death?" The projection said, "There is no space-time inside the gap, and matter cannot exist independently of space-time, so if they enter the gap, what do you think will happen?" ”

"When the matter that makes up their bodies and everything falls into it, it will immediately disappear into ashes and become nothingness."

"It's kind of like ......"

"Zero vacuum."

"I have a problem, when you leave the universe, you make a piece of space out of the big universe, like this...... Why is vacuum decay not triggered? ”

“？”

"You detached a piece of space, and the vacuum energy in this area was also 'stolen', why didn't it trigger vacuum decay?"

"This, this...... You have to know what a vacuum is, a pseudo-vacuum has a vacuum with vacuum energy, and it is also the space we live in, and zero vacuum is nothing. But the two have one thing in common, that is, space is still there, the big membrane of space is still there, but the size of the energy level is different, a piece of space is separated from the universe, how can you decay? Vacuum decay occurs in the same universe. ”

The concept of vacuum decay first appeared in a 1980 paper in the journal Physical Review by Sidney Coleman and Frank DeLucia. Long before that, Dirac pointed out that the vacuum in our universe may be a pseudo-vacuum, in which ghostly virtual particles appear and disappear in unimaginably short moments, and this instantaneous drama of creation and destruction is endlessly staged at every point of space, so that what we call vacuum is actually a boiling quantum ocean, which makes the vacuum have a certain energy level. Coleman and De Lucia's new thinking is that they believe that some kind of high-energy process may produce a vacuum in another state, which has a lower energy level than the existing vacuum, and even a "true vacuum" with zero energy level may appear, and the volume of this vacuum may start out as only one atom, but once it is formed, the surrounding high-level vacuum will fall towards its energy level and become the same low-level vacuum as it, which makes the volume of the low-energy vacuum rapidly expand and form a spherical shape. The expansion of this low-level vacuum sphere will soon reach the speed of light, and the protons and neutrons in the sphere will decay in an instant, which will evaporate the material world inside the sphere and destroy everything...

"I'm not saying it will decay, but you've stolen at least a piece of space in the universe...... Space is not an issue. The problem is the energy of the vacuum, the great universe loses the energy contained in that gap-sized space, how do you know what will happen? Peng Xiaoming said questioningly. He felt a hint of terror.

"This ...... I will report this kind of problem to my superiors and ask them to give a correct answer. Projection said.

"But doesn't it take a lot of energy for you to make a part of the space independent? After that tremendous energy is released, isn't it enough to cause a vacuum decay before this piece of space of yours leaves the great universe? This time I'm not saying that you separate the space will cause a vacuum decay, but that you will use the energy to separate the space. Peng Xiaoming asked.

"We've thought about this kind of question, but ...... I had to take this risk, but after all, the great decay did not happen. The projection said, "Let's go, the ghost has not been eliminated, and the ladder of responsibility has not yet fully reached the highest point." ”

"Take control of the starship and launch an interstellar torpedo into that four-dimensional space." The projection said, and then said, "The macroscopic high-dimensional space will fall into the low-dimensional space that comes into contact with the surrounding area, and the ghosts should still be there, and they should use the force field wall to isolate the contact surface between the fourth and third dimensions, otherwise the four-dimensional space will not last that long." ”

"Also, the best control is manual, and the effect of controlling the starship and its weapons with consciousness is not very good."

So, Peng Xiaoming held the joystick in his hand and fired an interstellar torpedo in that direction.