Humanity is missing, luckily I have billions of clones-Chapter 394: Gravitons

In just over twenty years, Tom had completed the construction of an industrial system in this completely pristine solar system.

Countless factories of various types appeared on every valuable planet, and space elevators, ranging from thousands of kilometers to as high as one hundred thousand kilometers, stood on each planet.

Huge transport fleets traveled continuously between different planets, day and night.

The already empty warehouses were once again filled with countless materials.

In the residential spacecraft, weather systems, water circulation systems, and wilderness environment systems, which had been canceled due to insufficient energy, were reactivated.

Mountains were once again covered with green grass, and various birds and beasts reappeared in the jungles.

Rivers between cities and wilderness began to flow again, and the dried-up lakes and oceans also showed vast expanses of blue water.

One laboratory after another resumed work, and countless scientific researchers were busy day and night.

The preliminary material and facility preparation work for the Gravitational Engineering was truly completed at this moment.

So, it was time to truly launch an assault on breakthroughs in fundamental physics.

Tom knew that gravity and the other three fundamental forces all had some differences.

These differences had been detected by scientists as early as the Electroweak period, which was the Human Civilization period.

That is, compared to the other three fundamental forces, gravity was too strange, too out of place.

To describe gravity, scientists even had to specially develop a theory called relativity.

This incongruity manifested in various aspects.

One of the most obvious differences was that relativity considered spacetime to be smooth and continuous, while quantum mechanics considered spacetime to be discontinuous.

Applied to gravity, relativity held that gravity was the curvature of spacetime, while quantum mechanics held that gravity was an interaction force between matter.

Since it was a force, it involved the issue of gravitons.

Just as electromagnetic force is transmitted through photons, weak nuclear force through W and Z bosons, and Strong Nuclear Force through gluons, by analogy, gravity should also require a particle to transmit it.

This as-yet-unidentified particle is the graviton.

Tom had long confirmed the existence of gravitational waves.

He had even developed highly accurate gravitational wave detectors, which could even be used to receive gravitational wave communication signals.

The information originally obtained from the Red Star Alliance was transmitted via gravitational waves.

So... where were the gravitons?

How could they be detected and their properties determined?

This was the basic condition for unifying gravity.

In scientific terms, it meant completing the quantization of gravity.

That is, gravity must first be incorporated into the framework of quantum mechanics before subsequent unification can be discussed.

To give an analogy, it’s like there are two races on Earth: one race has developed some technology and has common values and morals, called the intelligent race; the other race is barbaric, living by crude means.

Now these two races intend to negotiate peace.

Then, regardless of whether the peace talks can succeed, the intelligent race must first do one thing: civilize the barbaric race, making them agree with some of their own ideas, such as equality, mutual love, peaceful coexistence, and the pricelessness of life.

These values, such as "equality, mutual love, peaceful coexistence, and the pricelessness of life," are the "framework."

Only when the barbaric race also accepts these frameworks and is within the same framework as their own can there be subsequent peace talks.

Otherwise, if the intelligent race believes life is priceless, while the barbaric race thinks a life is worthless; if the intelligent race believes mutual love is right, while the barbaric race thinks cunning schemes are king; if the intelligent race believes treaties should be honored, while the barbaric race believes treaties are meant to be broken—if their values are not within the same framework, and they fundamentally value different things, how can they negotiate anything meaningful?

At this moment, gravity, for Tom, was a "barbarian."

Quantizing it, in preparation for subsequent unification, was equivalent to the intelligent race civilizing the barbaric race, and then preparing for negotiations.

Clearly, to complete the quantization of gravity, gravitons must first be detectable.

Otherwise, if the existence of gravitons cannot even be confirmed, what can be quantized?

To complete this work, even before docking with this solar system, scientists from various races and Tom had engaged in extensive thought and discussion, leading to some consensus and identifying some potentially effective methods.

It was still necessary to improve the detection accuracy.

How to improve detection accuracy?

Engineers and scientists prepared to do this in two ways.

First, by building a sufficiently large detector, similar in basic principle to a neutrino telescope.

In theoretical calculations, Tom and scientists from various races unanimously agreed that gravitons also have a probability of colliding with ordinary matter particles, and such collisions could also lead to some observable optical phenomena.

Based on existing scientific data, Tom also knew that gravitons have extremely strong penetrating power, even far exceeding neutrinos.

Existing neutrino telescopes have no probability of detecting graviton impacts on pure water molecules within a foreseeable timeframe.

To rely on this method to detect graviton impact phenomena, and then study various properties of gravitons through impact data, the scale of the largest existing neutrino telescope needs to be increased by 50 million times.

The largest neutrino telescope Tom had ever built contained 2.15 billion tons of pure water, and as a sphere, its diameter even reached 1,600 meters.

If this huge water tank were placed on Earth, it would even be taller than Mount Tai.

Increasing it by 50 million times, the mass of pure water it would contain would reach approximately 100 quadrillion tons.

On Earth, the total mass of all forms of water, including all oceans, lakes, rivers, water in the atmosphere, water in the soil, water in organisms, and so on, is only about 1400 quadrillion tons.

This designed graviton telescope would require an amount of water equal to one-fourteenth of Earth’s total water volume, roughly equivalent to the total water volume of the Indian Ocean among the four major oceans.

If so much water were dispersed into space, it would even condense into a water sphere under its own gravity, with a diameter of 720 kilometers!

More crucially, to ensure observation accuracy, all this water must be ultrapure water, meaning at most only one impurity molecule per 100 quadrillion water molecules.

Even Tom found such a massive project somewhat challenging.

But this was probably still within the capabilities of an ordinary Strong Nuclear Civilization; it would just take longer and be built slowly.

At least from a social engineering perspective, completing the quantization of gravity through this type of detector was possible.

Then there was nothing more to say; just build it.