Humanity is missing, luckily I have billions of clones.

Chapter 233 Heat Death
While fully analyzing the vibration data, Li Qingsong mobilized the corresponding industrial forces and immediately began manufacturing more detectors.

As he actually detected the proton decay phenomenon, Li Qingsong knew that all the fundamental obstacles on his path to conquering the grand unified formula had been eliminated.

All I need to do next is to follow the established procedures. I only need to build more high-pressure proton decay detectors, gradually detecting the pattern of proton decay, figuring out its process, understanding its data, and then gradually adding them to the existing theoretical framework, and the entire theory will be complete.

The road ahead is certainly difficult and extremely complicated, with huge engineering and computational workloads. However, as long as we keep going, there will definitely be a definite result. It will no longer be like before, where we have no idea of the direction or whether there will be any results.

At this moment, the clone where Li Qingsong's consciousness resided once again cast his gaze into the vast and starry space.

The detection of proton decay is undoubtedly a huge breakthrough in scientific research, but it also means another thing.

The fate of the universe.

It can be said that once proton decay is confirmed, Li Qingsong will be able to determine the future fate of the universe and what its final outcome will be.

Heat death.

Magnetic monopoles confirm the reality of cosmic inflation and directly prove that the universe is expanding.

Proton decay directly confirms that nothing in the universe can exist forever.

If even protons can decay, what else can exist forever?

In the distant future, the amount of hydrogen in the universe will become less and less, because stars mainly use hydrogen as fuel.

They will gradually be converted into other elements, and eventually, all the stars in the universe will go out.

Due to the influence of gravitational waves and gravitational disturbances, planets, stellar debris, etc. will also break away from their current orbits and become free celestial bodies traveling through the universe, and even the Milky Way will no longer exist.

After 10^37 years, about half of the protons in the universe will have decayed. By then, even the remnants of stars, planets, and asteroids will have disintegrated.

Because the protons that make up them have "escaped".

If protons didn't decay, they could exist almost forever due to their own gravity.

But unfortunately, by this time, Li Qingsong had already confirmed that protons decay. Thus, their fate, and the fate of the universe, was sealed.

In the distant future, all macroscopic celestial bodies in the universe will disintegrate, and even black holes will slowly disappear due to the existence of Hawking radiation.

Eventually, only photons and leptons will remain in the universe, turning it into a thick "soup" that will almost never change and exist forever.

The word "forever" seems inaccurate here, because it is a word that describes time, and in a universe that will never change again, time has no meaning, or in other words, time no longer exists.

Looking at the starry sky, the brilliant stars, the endless stars, and the magnificent galaxy, Li Qingsong's heart was filled with emotion.

No matter how great or magnificent an existence is, it cannot withstand the passage of time.

And what led to this outcome was just a tiny proton.

"At least the events after 10^41 are too far away for me."

Li Qingsong sighed, "At this stage, we should first do our own thing and achieve the breakthrough to a strong nuclear civilization.

After all, there isn't much time left for the Omnic Scourge Fleet to return..." While carrying out the massive scientific research task, Li Qingsong also began a massive construction project.

As a result, one after another super-giant proton decay detectors were built, and tens of billions or even hundreds of billions of tons of ultra-pure hydrogen were poured into them.

The slight vibration caused by proton decay was observed by Li Qingsong again and again.

Based on the continuously improved detection methods and through observation of these vibrations, Li Qingsong gradually understood the specific pattern of proton decay.

Although he failed to actually observe photoneutrinos, Li Qingsong still accurately measured the properties of photoneutrinos through indirect means and added them to the existing theoretical framework.

Thus, Li Qingsong's grand unified theory gradually became perfect.

Until this moment, Li Qingsong finally had enough data and methods, and finally calculated the precise value of the grand unified energy scale!

The so-called grand unification energy scale refers to the energy intensity at which the strong nuclear force and the electroweak force will be unified.

Obviously, only by determining this data can Li Qingsong start the research and development of particle colliders, try to reproduce this energy level, and truly observe the phenomenon of the unification of the three basic forces in the experiment, and observe the process of separation of the three basic forces as the energy level subsequently decreases, as well as the various subatomic particles born in this process, and truly understand their mechanisms and principles.

It is obviously extremely difficult to achieve such a high energy standard.

How can it be easy to reproduce the energy level that existed just a few billionths of a billionth of a second after the Big Bang?

Of course, Li Qingsong does not need to reproduce the total amount of energy, he only needs to reproduce the energy levels on an extremely small scale.

Otherwise, let alone Li Qingsong, even the super civilization that Li Qingsong knew about, that could use supernova explosions as weapons, or the Demon Eye civilization that transformed an entire galaxy, would not be able to do it.

After a series of calculations, Li Qingsong took a breath as if he had a toothache.

Calculations show that with Li Qingsong's current scientific and technological strength and industrial strength, he does have the ability to achieve this energy level.

All we need to do is build a particle collider with a total length of 1000 kilometers, powered by 100 large nuclear fusion power plants, and a total mass of more than 4 million tons.

This is not comparable to a spacecraft that is mainly composed of external armor and internal mechanical structure.

Of this 4 million tons of mass, almost 80% is made up of extremely precise and advanced instruments.

The difficulty of manufacturing it can be imagined.

"A particle collider of over 4 million tons... If it were an ordinary electroweak civilization, it would probably take hundreds of years to build, and they would have to go all out to complete it.

Even if it were me, it would take at least ten years to complete it while carrying out other construction and scientific research at the same time.

The development of science and technology is really difficult.”

Li Qingsong sighed and once again selected a suitable construction site and began construction.

More than a decade passed quietly, and this unprecedented giant particle collider was finally built.

After all the inspections and debugging were completed, Li Qingsong couldn't wait to start the first particle collision experiment.

(End of this chapter)