I started with a ship full of max-level veterans, and I'm just a complete noob.

The following morning, the first batch of silicon rods that had undergone six rounds of regional purification were sent back to Laboratory 502. After the enriched section at the tail end was cut off, the remaining rods shone with a uniform silver-gray metallic sheen, and several sample cut surfaces had been ground smooth.

Fang Xudong adjusted the four-probe tester, pressing the probes from the front to the middle section in sequence. He checked the sample temperature and contact pressure at each measurement point. The resistivity reading on the graph paper remained between 98 and 103 ohm-cm.

The two data points near the end drop slightly, but are still higher than the device-level test requirements. The steep slope formed by the enrichment of impurities at the tail end remains intact on the cut sample, corresponding to the six paper tapes and the axial curve.

Jiang Ming used a magnifying glass to inspect the cut surface. Cracks, pores and inclusions within the visible range were all controlled within the process line. The entire investment in No. 3 furnace, from modification, calibration, material compensation to adaptive control, finally resulted in a physical object that could be delivered to the device group.

Wang Shouwu entered the room at the agreed time, followed by two assistants carrying the constant temperature bath and the sealed process box. He didn't even bother to take off his coat before checking the joint number, furnace record, and cut-off location item by item.

He held the silicon rod to the window and slowly moved the magnifying glass along the rod. He saw that the middle section had a continuous luster, and he could not find any macroscopic dislocation bands or abnormal patterns on the sampled section. Only then did his tense expression relax slightly.

"Each section, including the front and middle sections, is kept as an independent set of retests. The semiconductor research group takes away the same batch of samples, and the diffusion source, junction depth, and high-frequency tests all use this numbering system."

Wang Shouwu put down the magnifying glass, picked up a pen to sign the handover form, and then placed the process sheet he had brought next to it. The double-diffused silicon NPN experiment officially entered the joint research and development process.

"The constant temperature bath is used to control the temperature of the four probes. In the first round of boron diffusion, the window is narrowed first, while phosphorus diffusion still follows the third set of conditions in the document box. The furnace temperature and time reference is unified by the 502 circuit."

After reviewing the process sheet, Jiang Ming pointed out that a surface treatment comparison needed to be done before diffusion. Wang Shouwu directly added a joint number to the margin of the page, and then had his assistant pack the first batch of samples into a cork-lined device box.

After the door closed, Jiang Ming stored the handover copy in the safe. The silicon route had moved from material assessment to device verification, and the relief brought by this step only lasted until the moment the signature was completed.

He turned and locked the secure compartment. Ren Xinmin was sitting on the other side of the long table, with several cigarette butts piled in the ashtray. The Russian parameter package was on page twelve, and the matrix that had been recalculated the night before was spread out next to him.

"I broke down the low Mach range and calculated it three times. The angle of attack changed from positive two degrees to negative two degrees. The deviation law was always stuck at two ten-thousandths. Even the vibration of the wind tunnel support was greater than that."

Ren Xinmin pressed his rough fingers on the lateral deviation coefficient column, and drew a pencil along the three angle of attack intervals. The data in the table were arranged in a fixed step size, and the local reverse changes that should have appeared in the original summary were all corrected to continuous increases.

He had worked on engines and trajectories for many years. Wind tunnel data always contained scattered points caused by equipment errors, model assembly errors, and flow separation. These points could be converged through fitting, but if they maintained the same deviation law across multiple operating conditions, it would violate the basic form of measured data.

Jiang Ming pulled the summer and autumn sounding data from Jiuquan onto the table, selected the set of records with the strongest wind shear in August, and then took out a slide rule and abacus, substituting the changes in altitude, velocity, dynamic pressure and angle of attack into the lateral drift equation.

The abacus beads clicked continuously inside the wooden frame. Ren Xinmin was responsible for checking the lateral torque and the rudder surface response, while Jiang Ming connected the segmented integral parameters of the program cam, first calculated it according to the Su Fang smoothing coefficient, and then restored the local fluctuations in the original summary.

The first round of results only showed deviations in the integral. After entering the low Mach range, the effective angle of attack caused by wind shear changed rapidly. The smoothing coefficient still gave the lateral force estimate according to the old slope. The program integrator then judged the real disturbance as a slow shift in another direction.

Jiang Ming stopped using the abacus, checked the symbols again, and added the thrust decay and shutdown delay terms to the final stage. The lateral deviation of the landing point increased from 1.3 kilometers in the original model to 3.4 kilometers, with an additional error of more than 2 kilometers.

Ren Xinmin took away the calculation paper and recalculated from the integral of the lateral deflection angular velocity to the moment of shutdown. When the last abacus bead was pushed to the edge of the frame, the second set of results was only about forty meters off.

A two-kilometer impact deviation is enough to penetrate existing circular error probabilities. Once the range adopts this parameter freezing technology, the program control system will continuously accumulate its own misjudgments. The more the live ammunition tries to correct, the greater the lateral deviation becomes.

"This table has been systematically organized. The person who organized it knew which intervals looked bad, so they smoothed out all the bends in the low Mach range."

Ren Xinmin slapped the pencil next to the file, then shoved the cigarette butt into the ashtray after it burned down to the filter. His gaze, which had been suppressing his drowsiness, was now fixed on that overly neat curve.

"Whether they want to cover up the inherent aerodynamic defects of the R-2 in this range, or they are worried that we will find deeper problems by following the anomalies, we can only list two hypotheses at the moment."

Jiang Ming divided the preliminary calculation results into three columns: measured input, Soviet coefficient, and control response. His vigilance gradually settled into specific details. He could not reach a formal conclusion based on mere speculation, but the contradictions in the data were enough to prevent a direct decision.

"This parameter package will not be approved at tomorrow's meeting."

Ren Xinmin pushed his recalculation sheet to Jiang Ming, his voice hoarse from a night of hard work, but he also made his position clear.

Jiang Ming accepted the recalculation paper. The two men's names would appear on the technical objection record at the same time. This meant that no matter if the Soviet Union exerted pressure or the preparatory group held them accountable, Ren Xinmin would choose to stand on the side of independent verification.

Soon, there was a series of knocks on the door. A confidential clerk from the Fifth Academy handed over a formal notification, stating that the third review meeting would be held at 8:00 a.m. the next morning, and that Soviet advisors would attend with the original document. The notification also requested that the overall team make a comprehensive decision on the complete revision package.

After reading the report, Ren Xinmin slowly stood up, pressing his palm against the edge of the table. His rough calculations and engineering intuition were enough to support a temporary halt, but they could not overcome the weight of the technical agreement between the two countries and the multiple target practice verifications at the round table.

"We're still missing one layer: we need to prove that the low Mach range is supposed to have a bend, and whoever flattens it out is violating aerodynamics."

Jiang Ming arranged the original summary and the smoothing matrix side by side. The necessary ironclad evidence was clear. He had to start with the underlying model of crossflow separation, lateral force jump and wind shear coupling to prevent the other party from pushing the dispute back to general measurement error.

After seeing Ren Xinmin off, he sat down again under the lamp, pulled over his kraft paper notebook and the "Connections to the World" book, and traced his gaze upwards from the Wiener node that had just been opened, finally stopping at an obscure German name deep within the Von Kármán network.

That pioneer of ballistics who once put shells, air, and mathematics into the same blueprint may hold the most solid evidence on the round table of tomorrow.