Three Body 1: Earth's Past

Chapter 11 Cosmic Blink II
Sha Ruishan told Wang Miao that Ye Wenjie returned to this city in the early 90s and taught astrophysics at the university where her father had worked until she retired.

"I only found out recently that she spent more than 20 years at the Red Bank base."

Wang Miao was shocked by Sha Ruishan's narration, and it took him a long time to react to his last sentence, "Could it be that those legends..."

"Most of them are true. A developer of Red Bank's self-interpretation system immigrated to Europe and wrote a book last year. Most of the legends you mentioned come from that book. As far as I know, they are true. Red Bank Most of the participants in the project are still alive."

"This is really... a legend!"

"Especially when it happened in that era, it is a legend among legends."

……

The spotlights on the radio antenna array have been extinguished, and the antenna has turned into a simple black two-dimensional pattern under the night sky, like a row of abstract symbols, looking up at the universe at the same elevation angle, as if waiting for something.This scene made Wang Miao shudder, and he thought of those giant pendulums in "The Three-Body Problem".

It was exactly one o'clock in the morning when they returned to the laboratory. When they turned their gazes to the terminal screen, fluctuations had just appeared, straight lines turned into curves, sharp peaks appeared at different intervals, and the color also turned red, like a hibernating bird. The snake began to congest and squirm.

"It must be a malfunction of the COBE satellite!" Sha Ruishan said, staring at the curve in horror.

"It's not a malfunction." Wang Miao said calmly. In the face of such things, he had initially learned to control himself.

"We'll know right away!" Sha Ruishan said, quickly operating on the other two terminals.Soon, he called up the real-time cosmic background radiation data of the other two satellites WMAP and Planck, and displayed their changes as a curve——

The three curves fluctuate synchronously, exactly the same.

Sha Ruishan took out another laptop computer, frantically started the system, plugged in the broadband network cable, and then made a call—Wang Miao heard that he was contacting the Urumqi Radio Observation Base—and waited.He didn't explain anything to Wang Miao, his eyes were fixed on the browser on the screen, and Wang Miao could hear his rapid breathing.A few minutes later, a coordinate window appeared on the browser, and a red curved line appeared on the window, fluctuating in precise synchronization with the other three.

In this way, three satellites and a set of ground observation equipment simultaneously confirmed one thing: the universe is flickering!

"Can you print out the previous curve?" Wang Miao asked.

Sha Ruishan wiped the cold sweat off his head, nodded, and moved the mouse to start the printing program.Wang Miao couldn't wait to grab the first piece of paper from the laser printer, draw a pencil across the curve, and compare the distance between the crests with the Morse code table he just took out.

short long long long short long long long short short short short long long long short long long short long long short long long long short short long long long short long long short short Long and long, long and short, this is 1108:21:37.

short long long long short long long long short short short short long long long short long long short long long short long long long short short long long long short long long short short Long and short, long and short, this is 1108:21:36.

short long long long short long long long short short short short long long long short long long short long long short long long long short short long long long short long long short short Long and short, short and short, this is 1108:21:35.

……

The countdown continues on a cosmic scale, with 1108 hours left?

Sha Ruishan paced back and forth anxiously, stopping behind Wang Miao from time to time to look at the string of numbers he was writing. "Can't you really tell me the truth?!" He couldn't bear to ask loudly.

"Dr. Sha, believe me, I can't tell for a while." Wang Miao pushed away the pile of papers printed with fluctuation curves, staring at the row of countdown numbers, "Maybe, all three satellites and one ground observation point have malfunctioned." .”

"You know it's impossible!"

"What if someone vandalized it?"

"Impossible! Change the data of three satellites and one ground observation station at the same time? Then this destruction is a bit supernatural."

Wang Miao nodded, he would rather accept this supernatural than the flickering of the universe.But Sha Ruishan immediately took away the only life-saving straw in his arms.

"It's actually very simple to finally prove all of this. The fluctuation of the cosmic background radiation is so large that we can detect it with the naked eye."

"What nonsense are you talking about? Now you are violating common sense: the wavelength of background radiation is 7 centimeters, which is seven or eight orders of magnitude larger than visible light. How can you see it?"

"Use 3K glasses."

"3K glasses?"

"It's a popular science gadget we made for the Capital Planetarium. The current technology can make the 40-foot horn antenna that Penzias and Wilson used to discover the 3K background radiation more than 7 years ago into the size of glasses. And a conversion system is set in the glasses to compress the wavelength of the background radiation received by seven orders of magnitude, and convert the 3 cm wave into red light. In this way, the audience can see the universe with their own eyes when wearing the glasses at night. [-]K background radiation, now, can also see cosmic flickering."

"Where is this thing now?"

"In the planetarium, there are twenty copies."

"I must have it by five o'clock."

Sha Ruishan picked up the phone and dialed a number, but it took a long time for the other party to answer the phone. It took Sha Ruishan a lot of persuasion to convince the person who was woken up in the middle of the night to wait for Wang Miao in the planetarium an hour later.

When parting, Sha Ruishan said: "I won't go with you. What I saw just now is enough. I don't need such a proof. I still hope that you can tell me the truth at the right time. If this phenomenon leads to any research If it works out, I will never forget you."

"The flashing will stop at five o'clock in the morning. Don't go into it in the future. Believe me, there won't be any results." Wang Miao said while holding the car door.

Sha Ruishan stared at Wang Miao for a long time, then nodded: "Understood, something happened in the scientific world..."

"Yes." Wang Miao said, getting into the car, he didn't want to continue this topic.

"Is it our turn?"

"At least it's my turn." Wang Miao said and started the car.

Wang Miao arrived in the city an hour later, and he got off the car in front of the new planetarium.The midnight lights of the city pass through the transparent curtain wall of this huge glass building, revealing the inner structure faintly.Wang Miao now understands that if the architect of the new planetarium wanted to express his feelings about the universe, he succeeded—the more transparent things are, the more mysterious they are, and the universe itself is transparent. As long as you can see it, you can see as far as you want How far away, but the more you look, the more mysterious it becomes.

The sleepy-eyed planetarium worker was already waiting for Wang Miao at the door, and he handed a suitcase to Wang Miao, "There are five pairs of 3K glasses in here, all of which are fully charged, the button on the left is the switch, and the button on the right is Brightness adjustment. There are more than a dozen pairs on it, you can look at it however you want, I will go to sleep for a while, and I am in the room near the door. This Dr. Sha is really crazy.” After speaking, he turned and walked into the dimly lit hall Inside.

Wang Miao put the box on the car seat and opened it, and took out a pair of 3K glasses, which were very similar to the helmet-mounted display in the V-suit he had just used.He picked up a pair and went out of the car to put it on. The night view of the city he saw through the lens did not change, but became darker. Only then did he remember to turn on the switch. Immediately, the city turned into hazy halos. Most are fixed in brightness, and some flicker or move.He knew that these were all centimeter microwaves converted into visible light, and the center of each halo was a source of emission. Because of the wavelength, it was impossible to see the shape clearly.

He raised his head and saw a dark red shimmering sky. In this way, he saw the cosmic background radiation. This red light came from more than 100 billion years ago, which is the continuation of the big bang and the aftermath of creation.I can't see the stars. Originally, since the visible light band has been pushed to the invisible, the stars should be black spots one by one, but the diffraction of centimeter waves drowns out all shapes and details.

When Wang Miao's eyes got used to all this, he saw the red background of the sky flickering slightly, and the whole space flickered synchronously as a whole, as if the whole universe was just a single lamp in the wind.

Standing under the twinkling sky, Wang Miao suddenly felt that the universe was so small that only he was imprisoned in it.The universe is a small heart or womb, and the diffuse red light is filled with translucent blood, which is suspended in the blood, and the flashing cycle of red light is irregular, like the heart or uterus pulsating irregularly , from which he felt a huge weird and perverted existence that could never be understood by human wisdom.

Wang Miao took off her 3K glasses and sat weakly on the ground leaning on the wheel.In his eyes, the city at midnight regained the realistic picture depicted in the visible light band, but his eyes wandered, catching something else: one of the neon lights next to the gate of the opposite zoo was broken, irregularly Flickering; the leaves on a small tree nearby swayed in the night wind, reflecting the light of street lamps, flickering irregularly; the five-pointed star on the Russian-style spire of the Beijing Exhibition Hall in the distance also reflected the different streets below The lights of the headlights flickered irregularly...

Wang Miao tried hard to decipher these flashes according to the Morse code.He even felt that the folds of the colorful flags floating in the breeze and the ripples on the surface of a puddle of water by the side of the road were all transmitting Morse codes to him... He tried hard to decipher, feeling the passage of the ghost countdown .

After some time, the staff member of the planetarium came out and asked Wang Miao if he had finished watching.When he saw him, the way he looked made the sleepiness disappear from the man's eyes.After packing up the case of the 3K glasses, the man stared at Wang Miao for a few seconds, then walked back quickly with the case.

Wang Miao took out her mobile phone and dialed Shen Yufei's number, she answered it quickly, maybe she also spent a sleepless night.

"What is the end of the countdown?" Wang Miao asked feebly.

"I don't know." After saying these three short words, the phone hung up.

what is itMaybe it was his own death, like Yang Dong's; maybe it was a catastrophe like the Indian Ocean tsunami a few years ago, no one would link it with his own nano research project (associating, every time before Are catastrophes, including the two world wars, the end of a ghostly countdown? There is a person like myself who no one can imagine is ultimately responsible); perhaps the total destruction of the world, in this perverted In the universe, that would be a relief to everyone... One thing is for sure, no matter what the end of the ghost's countdown is, in the remaining thousand or so hours, speculation about the end will torture him cruelly like a demon , and finally completely destroy him mentally.

Wang Miao got into the car, left the planetarium, and drove aimlessly in the city.Before dawn, the road was empty, but he didn't dare to drive fast, as if the car was driving fast, and the countdown was also going fast.When a ray of morning light appeared in the east, he parked the car on the side of the road, got out of the car and started walking, also aimlessly.There was a blank in his consciousness, only the countdown appeared and jumped on the dark red background radiation, and he himself seemed to have become a simple timer, a death knell for whom he did not know.It was dawn, and he was tired from walking, so he sat down on a bench.When he looked up at the destination he subconsciously walked to, he couldn't help shivering.

He is sitting in front of Wangfujing Catholic Church.Under the pale dawn sky, the Romanesque spire of the church looked like three giant black fingers, as if they were pointing out to him something in the dark space.

Wang Miao got up to leave, but a burst of sacred music from the church stopped him.Today is not a Sunday. This may be a rehearsal for the choir for Easter, singing the "Illumination of the Holy Spirit" that is often sung at mass on this holiday.In the majesty and profoundness of the sacred music, Wang Miao once again felt that the universe had become smaller and turned into an empty church. little ant.He felt that his trembling heart was being caressed by an invisible giant hand, and he returned to his frail and helpless childhood for a while, and something that was hard in the depths of his consciousness softened like wax and collapsed .He covered his face with his hands and began to cry.

"Hahaha, another one was brought down!"

Wang Miao's crying was interrupted by a burst of laughter behind him. He turned his head to see Da Shi standing there, exhaling a puff of white smoke.

(End of this chapter)