Start sweeping the universe by rubbing the CPU with your hands.

At this moment, the gold element, which had lost its currency anchoring role and had simply degenerated into an industrial metal, had some special value.

Because Han Yang discovered through research that the gold element is the easiest element to achieve the "quark fission" process based on its special properties, just like uranium is the most suitable for nuclear fission, and deuterium and tritium are the most suitable for nuclear fusion.

Of course, the simplest efficiency is usually not the most efficient.

The ideal mass-to-energy conversion efficiency of quark fission is as high as 14%, while the ideal conversion efficiency of gold elements is 9.5%. At this moment, human engineering capabilities can only reach a maximum of about 8%. But even so, it is still more than 11 times the ideal nuclear fusion metamorphic energy conversion efficiency.

This is undoubtedly a huge breakthrough.

Fortunately, although the gold element is rare, its absolute content is very large at the level of the universe, or even just at the level of the solar system.

There are many asteroids in the solar system that contain more than tens of trillions of tons of gold. With the engineering capabilities of mankind at the moment, it is trivial to directly "cut into pieces" an asteroid. No matter how deeply those gold elements are buried, they cannot hinder human mining.

After completing the uncontrollable quark fission experiment, the human scientific community, under the leadership of Han Yang, immediately began the research and development of a controllable quark fission reactor.

This puts forward higher requirements for gravity conversion equipment. Han Yang must make the gravity conversion equipment more efficient, smaller, and more stable and reliable.

Of course, this requirement is also related to the practicality of gravity conversion equipment, which is considered the same research topic.

In a hurry, several years passed by. With the concerted efforts of the people, the first practical gravity conversion equipment that can be put on a ship was finally successfully developed.

The "Gravity One" spacecraft, equipped with the latest gravity enhancement and shielding facilities, has slowly left the dock.

Its size is roughly equivalent to that of an asteroid-class battleship, but it does not have any weapons and equipment and almost no defense facilities. It is just a simple engineering test spacecraft.

Because the controllable quark fission device has not yet been successfully developed, it currently uses nuclear fusion to provide energy.

Hundreds of scientists and engineers gathered on this spacecraft, paying close attention to every movement on every part of the spacecraft. At the experimental base, there are more people monitoring the data returned by each sensor.

It does not have the commonly used equipment to create gravity through rotation, so at this moment there is no gravity inside it. All people are suspended in the cabin and rely on jetpacks and handles to move.

"The first experiment of shipboard artificial gravity system begins!"

Following the issuance of an order, the on-site commander solemnly pressed a button. Immediately, under the huge energy supply, a series of complex and huge facilities started working at the same time.

The next moment, a force of gravity suddenly appeared, so the people who were still suspended in the cabin and various facilities began to fall at the same time with an acceleration of 0.9 meters squared, until their feet actually stepped on it. to the floor.

This gravity is still increasing slowly, and has increased to 9.8 meters per square second, which is basically the same as the earth's gravity.

The scientists and engineers looked solemn as they kept walking, running, jumping, and climbing in the cabin, feeling the gravity with their bodies.

Many instruments and equipment are also conducting close measurements.

It wasn't until more than three hours later that the first experiment ended.

"The second experiment begins!"

This time, it was a gravity reduction experiment.

As the device starts up, people begin to feel that their bodies are getting lighter and lighter, as if they are floating in water. Until gravity disappears completely and people can jump directly to the ceiling with a single jump.

During this process, many scientific researchers carefully inspected the working conditions of each component of the entire set of equipment, and did not end until they confirmed that every part was working properly.

After that, comes the most important experimental part.

First, some gravity was still given to keep everyone grounded, and then the Gravity One spacecraft began to slowly accelerate.

Acceleration and gravity are equivalent. That is, if a spacecraft accelerates at a speed of 9.8 meters per square second, then a person in a closed room will not be able to tell whether he is on the earth or in a spacecraft.

But at this moment, the direction of acceleration of the spacecraft is not the same as the direction of artificial gravity.

This requires that this artificial gravity system must simultaneously shield the gravity in one direction and enhance the gravity in the other direction.

The working mechanisms of the two are opposite, but they must operate harmoniously and synchronously. This undoubtedly places higher demands on technology.

At this moment, the spacecraft's acceleration reached 4.5 meters per square second. As a result, people who have their feet on the ground feel a force from behind, just like the pushing feeling felt when sitting in a car.

"Gravity shielding, activate!"

In an instant, the "stress on the back" disappeared instantly. People are down to earth again, as if they are standing still on the earth.

The acceleration is still increasing rapidly, and at this moment, it has even reached 700 meters per square second.

This is almost the highest acceleration that a third-level civilized battleship can achieve. Because if the acceleration exceeds this, the life of a third-level civilization will die in a short time.

The body structures of intelligent beings in different civilizations are inconsistent, and the corresponding acceleration they can withstand is also different. However, the acceleration limit of the third-level civilization spacecraft has little to do with the stress resistance of the intelligent life body, but has to do with biotechnology such as anti-gravity suits, anti-stress agents, and body supplements.

With the technological level of a third-level civilization, the biological agents that can be produced can only reach this level at best.

It's just that at this moment, all the personnel in the Gravity One spacecraft have not taken any biological agents or drugs that can improve their ability to withstand stress.

Among them, there are even old and frail elderly people.

But at this moment, no one felt any discomfort caused by being in a high-gravity place.

Everyone is safely on the ground, bearing only about half the gravity of the earth. The gravity of more than 70 times that of the earth due to acceleration was completely shielded, without any impact on the interior of the spacecraft!

When this test is also a complete success, the entire test process is over. Warm cheers and applause erupted again from the command center.

After the major breakthrough in the artificial gravity system, the controllable quark fission device also ushered in a major breakthrough.

With the support of an artificial gravity system that is more precise, more efficient, and smaller in size and mass, in the fission laboratory, for the first time, people have created a quark fission device that can be precisely controlled and output energy smoothly. The first quark fission device born was very large in size and mass, and did not yet have the ability to be equipped on a spacecraft. But it doesn’t matter, just continue to optimize later.

Han Yang invested his computing power in another more important field.

Faster-than-light navigation technology.

Among the several iconic technologies of Level 4 civilization, the one that Han Yang valued the most and was also the most important was the super-light navigation technology.

The significance of this technology cannot be overstated.

Faster-than-light navigation is a technology that generations of human scientists have dreamed of and pursued tirelessly, but have failed time and time again. I don’t know how many people have spent their entire lives on this technology but have been unable to achieve any breakthrough...

At this moment, after mastering M theory and achieving a certain degree of practical application of controllable quark fission, gravitational shielding and enhancement technology at the engineering level, human civilization is finally qualified to launch an impact on this epoch-making technology.

Today, Han Yang has clearly understood that the technical key point of super-light navigation lies in the influence of gravity control technology on space.

In other words, super-light travel does not violate the theory of relativity and the deeper M-theory. Because it is the movement of space, not the movement of matter.

This phenomenon of movement in space achieving super-light speed exists a lot in the universe. One of the most typical examples is the Big Bang.

Even now, the universe is still expanding faster than the speed of light.

There is a very important concept in the theory of cosmic inflation, red shift.

Redshift is the speed at which distant stars move away from the Earth. Through observations, people have confirmed that the farther a star is from the earth, the faster it moves away from the earth.

There is a correspondence between distance and away velocity, which leads to another constant, the Hubble constant.

By measuring redshift, one can even determine the distance between distant stars and the Earth.

Then there is a question: since the farther away from the earth, the faster the star moves away from the earth, then there will be a distance beyond which the star will move away from the earth faster than the speed of light, causing the star to The light emitted can never reach the earth?

The answer is that this distance exists. Its length is approximately 465 billion light-years.

The universe with a radius of 465 billion light years is named the observable universe. The universe beyond this distance is named the unobservable universe.

The speed of light is the highest speed of conventional motion. In the universe beyond this distance, its information can never reach the earth, and it is of course unobservable.

Unless it uses faster-than-light navigation technology to get there, no civilization can know what actually exists in the unobservable universe.

After clarifying the principle of super-light navigation technology, which is to achieve the impact on space through gravity control technology, the test site for super-light navigation is clear.

The answer is far away from any massive stars.

Because if it is located in the gravitational field of a massive star, the gravity of the star will affect the curvature of space, causing the curvature of space to fail to meet the requirements for super-light navigation, or even causing chaos, resulting in abnormal space curvature.

If the curvature of space is abnormal, it is not a trivial matter. It may even distort the hull of the ship, overload the energy of the equipment, and may directly blow up the spacecraft, destroying the ship and killing people.

Through calculations, Han Yang confirmed that the limit distance that a star with the mass of the sun can travel at super-light speed with current technology is 1 trillion kilometers away.

Of course, to be on the safe side, this distance needs to be farther away, preferably 2 trillion kilometers.

In the future, as technology advances and the control of space curvature becomes more precise and stable, this distance can be shortened.

Therefore, in a distant space 2 trillion kilometers away from the sun, far away from any massive stars, and with almost no stars more massive than Ceres within a trillion kilometers around, a huge space experiment base was quickly built. Finish.

In this base, people first tested the operation of high-intensity gravity enhancement facilities, and then tested a series of facilities such as space curvature controllers and high-power nuclear fusion power plant clusters.

Originally, super-light navigation, a highly energy-consuming technology, required quark fission technology to support it. However, quark fission technology is not yet mature yet, and it can only be replaced by clusters of nuclear fusion power plants.

A total of 12 engineers, scientists, project managers and logistics personnel work at this huge base. Even Han Yang invested up to 16% of his computing power to participate in the construction of this base and subsequent experiments.

After another few years, all the preliminary preparations were finally completed.

In a huge factory building covering an area of ​​tens of thousands of square meters, a long pipeline runs through both sides of the factory building. In this pipe, a small metal ball floats quietly.

With the activation of many huge equipment, this small metal ball instantly entered a state invisible to the naked eye and disappeared from the observation equipment in an instant.

At the same time, a laser was emitted and launched towards the other side of the pipe.

However, before the laser beam was received by the receiver on the other side of the pipe, the small ball suddenly appeared on the other side of the pipe.

It reaches its destination faster than a laser beam!

Faster-than-light sailing has truly become a reality at this moment!

The command center was instantly filled with warm applause and cheers.

Subsequent research showed that under the precise control of the gravity control equipment, a "space bubble" was instantly generated around the small ball. This space bubble "suspended" above the three-dimensional space. With the help of the movement of space, it could not have the space itself. Under the premise of any momentum, super-light motion is completed.

Although the current super-light voyage is accomplished with the joint efforts of many very large equipment, and is located outside the small ball, not inside the small ball, it does not have the ability to be practical on the spacecraft, but still, the sentence In other words, it is nothing more than subsequent optimization.

After completing the breakthrough from zero to one, then going from one to one hundred, or even ten thousand, is no longer far away.

At this point, Han Yang could finally say that truthfully.

No matter from the basic theoretical level or the iconic technology level, human civilization is already real, without any falsehood, and is a true fourth-level civilization. (End of chapter)