Deep Space Wandering Fleet-Chapter 80 - "Energy Level Desert" Conjecture

Chapter 80: Chapter 80 “Energy Level Desert” Conjecture

So, Mars was not a major point of interest for humanity, with only one solitary Space City above it, serving mostly as a scientific research and transit station.

Mars enthusiasts were contemplating melting two levels of carbon dioxide to improve the Martian atmosphere, aiming to make it inhabitable in the future.

“Only if there’s a population explosion in the future and Earth, as well as the Moon, can no longer accommodate people, might Mars be developed… Compared to other planets, this one is quite suitable for habitation. We haven’t found any extraterrestrial microorganisms yet, so it’s still relatively safe,” Senior Brother Zhao suddenly commented.

Zhang Yuan replied, “I think that, for the foreseeable future, it doesn’t seem likely because the growth rate of civilized populations isn’t high.”

Within the limits allowed by natural resources, social systems, and productivity, the more people, the better, especially high-quality populations.

But capitalism is a contraceptive for population growth.

...

In the old times, limited by resource constraints, the population of Earth had been stagnant at 70–80 billion for a long time.

After experiencing the Fourth World War and the “light of nuclear fusion,” civilization had once witnessed a baby boom. However, now, the growth rate had started to slow down again, with an annual increase of less than 1%.

From the current population of ten billion, growing to a hundred billion or even a trillion is very challenging. For many families, having a second child is already a painful matter.

As for the low-quality populations in certain countries, more of them aren’t very useful.

Zhang Yuan had a sudden thought, “In the future, if artificial wombs and robotic parenting are developed, do you think it would change this situation?”

Senior Brother Zhao shook his head, “Artificial womb technology has liberated women; it’s a major technology that affects the course of the whole world. With artificial womb technology, the feminist movements can finally stop.”

“…But I still think it wouldn’t fundamentally change the population growth. Because what’s important for children is nurturing, not the birthing process. Nurturing consumes much more energy than giving birth!”

“As for robotic parenting, such strong artificial intelligence is needed! Moreover, ethical issues might need to be discussed for a long time…”

“I’m more worried about the womb revolution strategies of certain small countries; a large influx of foreign immigrants could reduce the influence of the native populations. Ideological and cultural conflicts might very well lead to the inferior driving out the superior, which has happened many times in history already.”

Zhang Yuan sighed, “Indeed, that’s true.”

After idly chatting for a while and visiting the observatory, Zhang Yuan suddenly discovered an electronic reading room hidden here, called the “Star Library,” with just a few people inside reading books.

He thought to himself that those capable of enjoying solitude in such a place must be top experts, perhaps he could also try it out later…

After casually touring around, they turned back and re-entered the orbiting vehicle.

Their final stop was the tail wing of the Mother Ship, where the nuclear fusion engine was located.

The nuclear fusion engine, with its largest ring diameter exceeding four hundred meters, was just the tip of the iceberg, enough to be awe-inspiring.

Witnessing this colossal object, Zhang Yuan felt his heart start to heat up.

Working here long-term, the joy and sense of accomplishment would definitely be much more intense than cleaning the cabin.

On the nearest detection screen, a blue-white plasma was discharging electricity, with various parameters changing nearby.

Zhang Yuan squinted his eyes; he saw a temperature indicated on it of about 750 million degrees!

“You came!”

“Professor Ding.”

Seeing a figure emerging from a room ahead, Zhang Yuan quickly greeted him.

Academician Ding was here understanding the changes in various parameters, happenstance meeting them.

“Zhang Yuan, it seems you really like it here. To fully understand this big gadget, you might need to learn some mechanical engineering, nuclear physics, and plasma physics—there’s a lot to learn.”

Zhang Yuan was naturally quite proactive, “What work can I do now?”

“First, read some papers. If you don’t understand something, you can ask your senior brother or monitor the trajectory of plasma turbulence here, and at the same time study the entire structure of the engine like the helium cold solid-clad thermodynamic numerals, the impact of periodic shocks on the low-temperature helium expansion turbines, etc. Choose your own topic; I will grant you certain database permissions.”

“If you fully understand the working principle of the entire engine, the rest of space engineering will be a trivial matter for you.”

Zhang Yuan acknowledged and found his seat.

He eagerly secured himself into the seat, trying to find some papers to read in the database.

Here, he could even read various mechanical control codes!

Of course, he only had read access, with no permission to modify anything.

Zhang Yuan was thrilled to discover that many tasks in the control engineering of the nuclear fusion were done by his father, which naturally made him even more curious and eager to try.

He thought to himself, “Working on nuclear fusion sounds prestigious. If Li Zhendong ever comes across it, I wonder how long he could boast…”

Nuclear physics, similar to high energy physics, is a discipline researching profound microscopic theories. Nuclear physics leans toward horizontal applications, whereas high energy physics is aimed more at profound microscopic theories.

But in this era, high energy physics was gradually fading.

The primary reason was that what could be fundamentally understood had already been so, and what couldn’t be understood remained so.

In the 23rd century, Xia Country Academy of Sciences once spent huge sums to build an even larger collider, but the end result was that it failed to produce any kind of particles beyond expectations, turning the project into a classic white elephant.

The standard model built on non-Abelian gauge fields seemed to have become the upper limit of humanity’s understanding of nature.

According to some scientists’ estimates, to verify higher-level theories and discover some unexpected physical phenomena, a Solar System Ring Accelerator would be needed, meaning that this collider would have to encompass the entire Solar System.

For humans, it was an unachievable task.

This hypothesis was called the “Energy Level Desert” hypothesis.

In nature, substances under different accelerator energy levels produced completely different properties.

At 10 electron volts, people could witness atoms bursting open, splitting into atomic nuclei and electrons.

In the range of 10^6 to 10^7 electron volts, people could observe atomic nuclei further disintegrating into neutrons and protons.

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At 10^11 electron volts, electroweak particles could be observed, proving the electroweak unification theory.

The LHC in Europe once reached an energy level of 10^13 electron volts and discovered the Higgs boson.

Xia Country’s collider, which used hundreds of billions in funds, raised the energy level again to 10^15 electron volts.

And then?

There was no further discovery; at 10^15 electron volts, no new physics was observed.

However, the “Energy Level Desert” hypothesis suggested that at 10^24 electron volts, no new physical phenomena would occur. According to current theories, to continue researching high energy physics, please increase the energy level by a billion times!

This was also the origin of the Solar System Ring Accelerator, which would require a collider with a circumference of 1000 billion kilometers to achieve this feat.

1000 billion kilometers!

But this isn’t all of high energy physics. A 1000 billion kilometer accelerator could likely only observe the unification of strong force, electromagnetic force, and weak force, still excluding gravity.

To thoroughly research quantum gravity or the legendary All Things Theory, please build a Galactic Ring Accelerator spanning 1000 light-years!