Humanity is missing, luckily I have billions of clones.

Chapter 232 Fallen Leaves
After pressurizing it to one thousand times the atmospheric pressure, Li Qingsong temporarily stopped the hydrogen infusion and began to carefully check the operation of each functional module of the entire detector.

After all, this is the first high-pressure proton decay detector I have built, so I still have to be cautious.

After a thorough inspection, Li Qingsong breathed a sigh of relief.

All modules are functioning normally and no unexpected problems occurred.

Then the hydrogen infusion began to continue.

Under the operation of the high-pressure inflator, even though the pressure inside the inner spherical shell has reached as high as one thousand atmospheres, a steady stream of hydrogen is still forced in.

The volume is fixed and cannot be increased. However, the mass is constantly increasing, so the density also begins to increase accordingly.

The density of hydrogen began to increase rapidly.

Under normal circumstances, the density of hydrogen is only 0.07 kilograms per cubic meter, which is only about one 1.5th of that of water.

And now, its density has increased to more than a thousand times of its original value, reaching 84 kilograms per cubic meter!

Correspondingly, its temperature also began to rise rapidly, from the original minus 200 degrees Celsius to dozens of degrees Celsius at this moment.

This is unbearable because in Li Qingsong's design, these ultra-pure hydrogen must be kept at an extremely low temperature to ensure the accuracy of the detector.

The heat dissipation system then kicked in. Through pipes installed inside the inner shell and temperature control devices installed outside the shell, the heat was transferred out and released into space in the form of thermal radiation through a huge area similar to a solar panel.

Pressurization and cooling were carried out simultaneously. Under the continuous infusion of external hydrogen, the state of the hydrogen underwent a strange change.

The hydrogen gradually turned into liquid and then gradually turned into solid.

They became crystal clear like frozen water.

However, although they are solid, under huge pressure, these solids can still be like gases or liquids, and can be easily changed in shape and filled into every place inside the inner spherical shell without any omissions.

The hydrogen infusion phase lasted for about half a year. At this point, the total mass of 16 billion tons of hydrogen had been completely infused into the huge inner spherical shell.

The pressure inside it has increased to 40 times the original atmospheric pressure.

At this moment, the seven supporting nuclear fusion plants also entered the full-power operation state, doing their utmost to transfer the pressure of the inner sphere to the outer sphere, and then relying on the super performance of the special rope to eliminate it.

At this moment, the interior of the inner spherical shell with a radius of about 640 meters has been completely filled with solid hydrogen without any omission.

After observing for a while and confirming that the detector was functioning normally, Li Qingsong finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Now we can enter the observation phase.

At this moment, the number of protons inside this inner shell has reached 10^39. Assuming a proton lifetime of 10^37 years, on average, about 100 protons decay inside this detector every year.

Assuming a detection accuracy of 20%, if everything goes well, Li Qingsong should be able to detect 20 proton decay events every year, an average of about one every 18 days.

After the detector entered the formal operation stage, Li Qingsong stopped all mechanical operation tasks inside the detector.

Currently, the only devices working inside it are some electronic devices that basically do not produce any noise or vibration.

They have no gears, no belts, and essentially no vibration.

At the same time, Li Qingsong also evacuated all personnel and robots working inside, and was on high alert for any possible collisions from the outside.

Even if it was a collision as small as a speck of dust, Li Qingsong would stop it. His only goal was to keep the detector in near-perfect stillness and absolute silence.

Time passed quietly as Li Qingsong waited patiently.

One day, the precision detection equipment installed on the inner spherical shell suddenly reported a vibration signal to Li Qingsong.

There was a very slight vibration happening.

Li Qingsong's heart was instantly lifted.

After controlling tens of thousands of clones to quickly check all the operating data of the detector during this period and eliminating all possibilities of external interference, Li Qingsong finally made a judgment with excitement.

It was almost impossible for this vibration to be caused by an error. After ruling out almost all possibilities of external interference, there was only one possibility left for the source of this vibration.

It came from inside the detector!

Based on the structure and detection mechanism of the detector, this vibration can almost only come from proton decay!

Among the 10^39 protons, one proton suddenly decayed spontaneously into a photon and then escaped from the detector.

Its sudden disappearance left behind a tiny cavity inside. Due to the enormous external pressure, the surrounding hydrogen atoms were forced to quickly fill this cavity, and the violent collisions between them caused a vibration.

This pattern is similar to a core-collapse supernova explosion.

Core-collapse supernovae are also caused by the sudden loss of internal support, which causes a large amount of matter to fall and collide with each other.

The energy density of this collision occurring inside the detector at this moment is extremely high, but compared to a supernova explosion, its total energy is extremely low.

No matter how high the pressure is or how fast the collision speed is, it is just the cavity of an atomic nucleus. How many can there be?

Its overall intensity is tens of thousands of times lower than a leaf falling quietly on Earth.

However, this detector always remains in a state of almost absolute silence.

At the same time, the vibration sensor designed by Li Qingsong is also extremely sensitive.

Therefore, even such a slight vibration, in Li Qingsong's eyes, it was as loud as thunder in spring.

At this moment, Li Qingsong was so excited that he could hardly control himself.

Proton decay, I finally detected proton decay for the first time!

This is a major scientific discovery that is no less significant than that of the magnetic monopole!
Although this was only the first detection, and I had not yet had time to conduct further observations on the pattern of proton decay and had not yet acquired relevant knowledge, the mere confirmation of proton decay itself was already significant enough.

This at least proves that my thinking is correct!

At the same time, it also fully proves that his theoretical framework is correct.

Is the sample size too small?

What are you afraid of!
As long as the idea is correct, with my industrial strength, it will not be easy to build ten or a hundred similar detectors, and the number of samples can be increased quickly.

(End of this chapter)