Humanity is missing, luckily I have billions of clones.

Chapter 228 Theoretical Breakthrough
Billions of years have passed quietly, until today, this magnetic monopole has been flying day after day, silently passing through the superfluid helium-3 chamber of a magnetic monopole detector built by Li Qingsong.

It is like a wanderer, passing through a field of flowers without getting a single leaf on it, causing almost no real impact on the superfluid helium-3, except for causing a slight fluctuation in their magnetic field.

Afterwards, it entered the universe again without looking back, continuing its long journey through the universe, and may not stop until the end of the universe.

What happened in this ordinary star system is just a small fragment in its almost endless life, and it is not even worth remembering.

But this small disturbance was recorded by Li Qingsong, and became the key support for Li Qingsong to break through technological barriers.

Gazing at the starry sky, Li Qingsong seemed to be chasing the figure of the magnetic monopole that had long gone away, and he did not take his eyes off it for a long time.

"We've finally detected a magnetic monopole. We finally have solid enough evidence to prove its existence..."

In just this moment, Li Qingsong gained more from the scientific level than all the scientific research in the past combined.

This is a major discovery and breakthrough in fundamental physics. Fundamentals, as the name suggests, underpin all subsequent scientific research and applications.

No word is too much to describe the significance of this discovery.

First, Li Qingsong scientifically verified for the first time that the strong nuclear force can definitely be unified with the electroweak force.

This is scientific evidence, not the sociological evidence that allowed Li Qingsong to confirm that strong nuclear force can be unified, based on the reality that there is a strong nuclear civilization in the universe.

Because magnetic monopoles were born in the very early days of the Big Bang, around 10^-36 seconds ago, the strong nuclear force must not have been unified with the electroweak force at that time, but only later did they separate into two forces.

To describe it in scientific terms, it is SU(5)→SU(3)×SU(2)×U(1).

It is this process that leads to the birth of magnetic monopoles. From this, Li Qingsong can directly conclude that the strong nuclear force must have been unified with the electroweak force in the early days of the universe.

This is direct evidence.

It is direct rather than indirect. Its probative effect far exceeds that of indirect evidence.

Besides proving that the strong nuclear force could be unified, it also proved another theory.

Theory of cosmic inflation.

Li Qingsong's scientific system believes that the universe is constantly expanding and has a lot of observational evidence, such as redshift.

But these are just observational evidence, and the discovery of magnetic monopoles can prove the theory of cosmic inflation from a scientific perspective.

The reason is simple. According to existing theories, the number of magnetic monopoles should have been extremely high in the early days of the Big Bang. But why are there so few now?

Clearly there could only be one reason: cosmic inflation.

The universe continues to expand, diluting the density of magnetic monopoles, making them as rare as they are today.

Just like a drop of water merging into the ocean.

Therefore, by measuring the density of magnetic monopoles, Li Qingsong can infer many things and study the various changes in the universe throughout the evolution process.

Even when technology advances in the future and the measurement of magnetic monopoles becomes more accurate, Li Qingsong may even be able to use magnetic monopoles as a means to detect and interpret changes in extremely distant galaxies, further increasing his understanding of the evolution of the universe.

Now, Li Qingsong has a clear mandate. Using the existing data, he must further investigate the various properties of magnetic monopoles to supplement the existing theoretical framework. Meanwhile, he must continue operating these monopole detectors in an effort to observe more monopoles and gain more information about them.

This single observation, while significant, is clearly not enough.

However, this is a long-term thing. After all, magnetic monopoles are too numerous and rare, and Li Qingsong cannot expect to observe too many in a short period of time.

At this stage, there is another equally important thing to do first.

That is proton decay detection.

Proton decay detection, along with the mass of magnetic monopoles and neutrinos, can be considered the three pillars of a grand unified theory. All three are equally important and indispensable.

Magnetic monopoles can prove the symmetry breaking in the early universe and reveal topological defects;

Detection of proton decay can prove the unity of quarks and leptons at a unified energy scale.

Neutrino mass can prove that lepton number is not conserved.

Without any one of them, the grand unified theory will be incomplete and cannot be considered truly unified.

Among these three, the study of the source of neutrino mass is closer to the theoretical level and does not require too much investment in large scientific facilities.

The discovery of magnetic monopoles is also related to the study of the source of neutrino mass, but it is more related to proton decay.

Because the existing theoretical framework has been able to fill in a considerable part after the discovery of magnetic monopoles, and based on this part of the theory, Li Qingsong's research on proton decay has also quickly achieved theoretical breakthroughs.

Now, Li Qingsong knows that he probably understands why he has built so many proton decay detectors but still cannot detect the proton decay phenomenon.

The latest theoretical research shows that the proton's lifetime is indeed not infinite, and its lifetime is about 10^37 years.

Based on this lifespan, the many detectors we built should have detected the corresponding phenomenon long ago.

But... although I had predicted the approximate range of the proton's lifetime correctly, I had made one mistake.

How protons decay.

Based on the real existence of magnetic monopoles and the current characteristics of magnetic monopoles, after revising the theoretical framework, Li Qingsong discovered that the path of proton decay is not to produce photons as he had previously predicted, but another new type of particle.

A photon-like particle with zero rest mass and a speed equal to the speed of light.

This type of particle also has extremely strong penetrating power, and because proton decay events are extremely rare, the number of such particles produced is also very small. Even in a device such as a proton decay detector that can detect neutrinos, the probability of detecting it is extremely low.

After all, the number of neutrinos entering a detector every second is more than a trillion trillion trillion, and such a huge number only produces a few dozen collision events per day.

And there are only a few of these particles?
If we rely on proton decay detectors to detect such particle collision events, we may never be able to do so until the end of time.

So, how do we detect proton decay?

Li Qingsong was in a dilemma.

(End of this chapter)