Deep Space Fleet

So, Mars is not the planet that humans focus on, and there is only such a lonely space city above it, mostly in the nature of scientific research and transfer stations.

Mars enthusiasts are thinking about melting two levels of carbon dioxide to improve the atmosphere of Mars to achieve the purpose of habitability in the future.

"If the population explodes after human civilization, and the earth and the moon can't live there, then it is possible to develop Mars...Compared with other planets, this planet is quite good for people to live in. No extraterrestrial microorganisms have been found so far , and the safety is okay." Brother Zhao said suddenly.

Zhang Yuan responded: "I don't think there is such a possibility in the foreseeable future. Because the growth rate of the civilized population is not high."

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

But capitalism is the pill for population growth.

In the old days, due to resource constraints, the earth's population had stagnated at 7-8 billion for a long time.

After experiencing the Fourth World War and the "light of nuclear fusion", the entire civilization once ushered in a wave of baby boom. But now, the population growth rate has slowly slowed down again, with an annual growth rate of less than 1%.

It is actually very difficult to grow from the current population of tens of billions to hundreds of billions or even trillions. For many families, having a second child is already a very painful thing.

As for the low-quality population in some countries, no amount of it will help.

Zhang Yuan had a whim: "If in the future, artificial womb technology and robot care are developed, do you think this situation will change?"

Brother Zhao shook his head: "The artificial womb technology has liberated women, and it is a major technology that affects the progress of the entire world. With the artificial womb technology, the feminist movement can finally stop."

"...But I don't think it can change the fundamentals of population growth. Because the most important thing for children is the upbringing, not the process of giving birth. Upbringing consumes a lot more energy than giving birth!"

"As for the raising of machines, how strong artificial intelligence is needed! Moreover, the ethical aspect may have to be discussed for a long time..."

"Instead, I am more worried about the womb revolution strategy of some small countries. A large number of foreign immigrants will lead to a decline in the influence of the main nation. The conflict between ideologies and cultures is likely to allow bad money to replace good money. There have been many in history. This has happened for the first time.”

Zhang Yuan sighed, "Oh, that's true."

Just talking about the mountains like this, and visiting the observatory for a while, Zhang Yuan suddenly discovered that there is an electronic reading room hidden here, called "Star Library", and a few people are reading books in it.

He thought to himself, in this kind of place, people who can still enjoy solitude must be some top experts. Maybe I can try it later...

After a casual visit, the two turned around and returned to the track car.

The end of the journey is the mothership's empennage, where the fusion engines are located.

Nuclear fusion engine, its largest ring diameter exceeds 400 meters. Just the tip of the iceberg is enough to make people feel shocked.

When witnessing this behemoth, Zhang Yuan felt his heart start to burn.

The long-term work here, the level of happiness and sense of accomplishment, must be much stronger than cleaning the cabin.

On a recent detection screen, a bluish-white plasma cluster is discharging, and changes in various parameters are also displayed nearby.

Zhang Yuan squinted his eyes. He saw a temperature marked above, which was about 750 million degrees!

"You guys are here!"

"Professor Ding."

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

Academician Ding was here to understand the changes of various parameters, and happened to meet them.

"Zhang Yuan, it seems that you like this place very much. To fully understand this big thing, you may need to learn some knowledge about mechanics, nuclear physics, and plasma. There are a lot of things to learn."

Zhang Yuan is naturally quite positive, "Can I do some work now?"

"Let's read some papers first. If you don't understand, you can ask your brother. You can also monitor the trajectory of the plasma turbulence here, and by the way, study the structure of the entire engine, such as the thermal value of the helium-cooled solid-state cladding, and the impact of periodic shocks. The influence of the helium turboexpander in the cryogenic system, etc., you can choose the topic yourself, and I will open certain database permissions for you."

"If you fully understand the working principle of the entire engine, the rest of space engineering is trivial to you."

Zhang Yuan responded and found his seat.

He fixed himself on the seat with great interest, trying to find some papers in the database.

Here, he was even able to read the control codes of various machinery!

Of course, only the permission to read, not the permission to modify.

Zhang Yuan was very pleased to find that his father did a lot of work in the entire nuclear fusion control project, so his curiosity and eagerness to try were naturally even greater.

He thought to himself: "The work on nuclear fusion sounds very lofty. If Li Zhendong meets him, I don't know how long he can brag about it..."

Nuclear physics, similar to high-energy physics, is a theory that studies the microscopic and deep. Nuclear physics tends to apply horizontally, while high-energy physics leans toward microscopic and deep-level theories.

But in this era, high-energy physics began to gradually decline.

The main reason is that what can be figured out has been gradually figured out, and what is not understood is still not understood.

In the 23rd century, Xiaguo Academy of Sciences once spent huge sums of money to build a larger collider, but the final result was that no particles beyond expectations could be collided, and this project became a classic white elephant project.

The standard model based on the non-Abelian gauge field seems to be the supremum of human understanding of nature.

According to the estimates of some scientists, if you want to verify higher-level theories and discover some physical phenomena beyond expectations, you need to build a ring-solar system collider! In other words, the length of this collider has to circle the solar system for one week.

For humans, it is an impossible task.

This conjecture is called the "energy level desert" conjecture.

Substances in nature will have completely different properties under different accelerator energies.

At energies of 10 electron volts, one can observe atoms disintegrate crashingly, breaking down into nuclei and electrons.

In the interval of 10^6-10^7 electron volts, people can observe that the atomic nucleus disintegrates again and breaks down into neutrons and protons.

At an energy of 10^11 electron volts, electroweak particles can be observed, which is the proof of the electroweak unified theory.

The LHC in Europe was able to reach the energy level of 10^13 electron volts, and the Higgs boson was discovered.

Xia Guo's collider consumed hundreds of billions of funds to raise the energy level to 10^15 electron volts again.

Then what?

No more, 10^15 electron volts, no new physics observed

However, the "energy level desert" conjecture believes that there will be no new physical phenomena at the energy level of 10^24 electron volts. According to the current theory, if you want to continue to study high-energy physics, please increase the energy level by another billion times!

This is also the origin of the accelerator around the solar system, which requires an accelerator with a circumference of 1 trillion kilometers to do this.

1000 billion kilometers!

But this is not all about high energy physics. The accelerator of 1000 billion kilometers may only observe the unity of the strong force, the electromagnetic force and the weak force, and has not wrapped the gravitational force into it.

If you want to thoroughly study quantum gravity or the legendary theory of everything, please build an accelerator with a length of 1,000 light years, that is, a ring-galactic accelerator!