Chapter 97

Yi Yan was suddenly called away by the research institute during the New Year's Eve dinner, but Qi Yi felt no resentment whatsoever. Even setting aside the fact that they had just received a house worth tens of millions, she still hoped that Yi Yan and his research institute's energy project would succeed soon.

As Chinese people, who wouldn't be worried after seeing the news about controlled nuclear fusion today?

Ji Zhixing is a good boss, Qi Yi knows that. If it weren't for a breakthrough, he would never have called everyone back at such a special time as New Year's Eve.

Yi Yan thought so too, as did Shan Yan and the others who were hitching a ride with him. The car was silent, save for the heavy pounding of hearts.

It takes about 20 minutes to drive from Four Seasons Genting to the research institute, which is a very short commute time. However, Yi Yan felt that the journey was incredibly long as he drove.

The research institute was brightly lit, and almost everyone arrived at the same time.

When Yi Yan ran into the laboratory, the scene before him seemed strangely familiar.

More than two years ago, they encountered a bottleneck in the first phase of their experiment. At that time, Ji Zhixing gave them an early break. Then, when he returned to the lab, he saw Ji Zhixing and Deng Yi working non-stop, with stacks of data output piled up on the workbench—Ji Zhixing had found a way to break through the bottleneck.

Right now, Ji Zhixing and Deng Yi are busy working around the MSR910A quantum spectrum analyzer, and there are several analysis reports that have just been produced on the table next to them.

Yi Yan took a few steps over and his pupils dilated instantly. The analysis report showed the peak of the rapidly rising quantum fluctuations that they had been dreaming of!

Having completed another observation of quantum fluctuations, Ji Zhixing felt reassured as he held the latest analysis report.

He glanced around and, seeing that everyone had arrived, smiled broadly: "It can be stated definitively that the peak value we observed a month ago represents vacuum energy!"

Even though they had expected it, everyone still couldn't help but cheer when Ji Zhixing gave him such unequivocal confirmation. However, they kept their voices down, afraid of interfering with Ji Zhixing's analysis.

After the cheers subsided, Ji Zhixing continued, "The reason why vacuum energy appeared so suddenly and was so short-lived was because it was affected by external interference."

What interference?! Everyone stared intently at Ji Zhixing.

Ji Zhixing was also filled with emotion. Einstein once said that "the solution to a great problem can never be found in the dimension that created the problem," and only today has he truly grasped this philosophical truth.

A month ago, they repeated the experiment countless times, but they just couldn't reproduce the peak value. Everyone racked their brains to recall what unexpected variables had occurred during the first experiment, and they also repeatedly observed the monitoring records.

When the experiment was repeated, every aspect—materials, instruments, and operations—was meticulously replicated to match the precision, energy, momentum, and tensors of the first experiment. Even the participants unconsciously reproduced their earlier actions: Lin Yujing removed her glasses to wipe them before extracting the endohedral fullerenes; Yi Yan scratched his hair a couple of times after trapping the quantum cluster; Deng Yi twisted his neck while waiting for the quantum spectrum analyzer's synthesis results…

But at the time, no one expected that the real interference actually came from outside Earth, from the universe!

"The real disruptive factor comes from the black hole that erupted in the Alpha Centauri A galaxy!"

"A black hole?!" everyone exclaimed in unison.

Ji Zhixing nodded steadily: "It is a black hole! This was inspired by Deng Yi."

Deng had already felt proud in his heart, and now, upon hearing his name called, he raised his head slightly with a reserved air.

Ji Zhixing had just consulted Deng Yi and reviewed relevant materials, and quickly grasped some of the information he needed.

The Centaurus A galaxy, located approximately 12 million light-years from the Milky Way, contains a supermassive black hole with a mass about 55 million times that of the Sun. Its daily ejections of energy and matter can extend over a million light-years. Of course, this distance poses little threat to Earth.

However, it broke out a few months ago.

Humans living on Earth will not feel any impact, but on a macroscopic level, the X-rays produced when a black hole erupts spread throughout the Milky Way like ripples in water; on a microscopic level, the transients of X-rays may affect activities at the quantum level.

Although they were conducting experiments 100 meters underground, they could still be affected.

To verify this hypothesis, he rushed back to the lab and began repeating the experiment, trying to apply X-ray interference of varying intensities. The results were encouraging; he once again observed the long-awaited peak!

"As for why X-rays can induce the emergence of vacuum energy, I speculate that it's because the X-rays from the black hole caused stress interference in the quantum clusters in our experiment. Just as a fish leaping on a calm surface of water creates ripples, a stable quantum cluster, once disturbed by X-rays, forms a vortex—and vacuum energy emerges!"

"To go a step further, the reason why quantum clusters form vortices when disturbed by X-rays is thought to be the theory of dislocation."

Upon hearing this word, Yi Yan's eyes widened instantly.

Ji Zhixing also looked at Yi Yan: "Yi Yan, you should explain this point."

Everyone turned to look at Yi Yan. Yi Yan took a deep breath, suppressed his pounding emotions, and after gathering his thoughts, he spoke.

"The academic conference I attended previously focused on physical chemistry and synthesis, where I came across a concept—dislocation theory, which is considered the most important theory in crystal materials science."

"The atoms inside a crystalline material are arranged in a certain pattern. When an atom disappears, leaving a vacancy, or when an atom suddenly squeezes into a certain position, a dislocation is created. A large number of dislocations give the material a variety of properties. In many cases, people develop materials by using dislocations to obtain special properties of materials, such as increasing the strength and toughness of the material, making the material fire-resistant, etc..."

After Yi Yan finished explaining the dislocation theory, he stopped talking. Seeing this, Ji Zhixing took the opportunity to praise him.

"As you may recall, after returning from the academic conference, Yi Yan proposed applying stress to vacuum energy to observe its morphological changes such as bending, twisting, adhesion, and fracture. In retrospect, this direction was generally correct, but at the time we did not think of using X-rays as stress."

"The interference of X-rays on quantum clusters causes stable quantum fluctuations to generate dislocations that slide towards the stress direction, thus creating vortices. Therefore, our previous experimental direction was entirely correct!"

Clap! Clap! Clap! Everyone clapped excitedly. Great! Their efforts over the past two years hadn't been in vain!

In fact, failure is commonplace in scientific research experiments. However, failure means that countless days and nights of hard work have gone to waste, and that the road ahead will be even more difficult and tortuous. Therefore, when they shook off the shadow of failure, saw the dawn of success, and saw the possibility of counterattacking the United States, everyone was so excited that they couldn't contain themselves. Some even shed tears, and Ji Zhixing couldn't help but feel a lump in his throat.

Everyone had fully vented their emotions, and the applause gradually subsided.

Ji Zhixing continued, "Lin Yujing previously proposed 'reducing the relationship between mass and scale to deduce the constraints of stable quantum fluctuations.' We can continue this line of thought and experiment with the relationship between the time and intensity of vacuum energy generation under various conditions, different frequencies, and different wavelengths of X-rays..."

After analyzing the theoretical basis and determining the experimental plan, Ji Zhixing glanced around and said apologetically, "So, I'm sorry, everyone's Spring Festival holiday will probably have to end early."

"With pleasure!"

"I can't wait!"

"What are you waiting for!"

"Let's get started!"

Everyone cheered and rushed towards the laboratory.

...

After the Lantern Festival, the festive atmosphere of the Spring Festival fades. After the first month of the lunar calendar, most of the lanterns, couplets, and other decorations on the streets are taken down. People return to work or school, and most people lead ordinary and orderly lives.

However, the international situation is far from peaceful.

The United States has been making frequent moves, first allocating $550 billion to the controlled nuclear fusion project as research funding, and then announcing its return to the Paris Agreement and allocating $40 billion to "solve the climate crisis and make the United States a global leader in clean energy technology."

In March, it announced a ban on starting new oil and gas projects on federal lands and urged countries around the world to follow suit.

In April, the "Global Methane Emission Reduction Commitment" was proposed, and a real-time methane emission monitoring tool was launched to accurately quantify global methane emission reductions.

In May, an initiative was launched to the world to promote energy structure transformation and set clear carbon neutrality goals through legislation.

Netizens are discussing this extensively:

“MD is using the banner of climate and environmental protection to suppress other countries step by step.”

"Isn't this a good thing? The climate problem is indeed becoming increasingly serious, and carbon neutrality has long been a consensus, hasn't it?"

"Academician Ding Zhongli said long ago that environmental protection is a Western hoax. Do you think they really care about environmental protection? They just see that developing countries, especially China, are developing too fast, and they are using environmental protection as a weapon to restrict production capacity!"

"The United States has always been very keen on setting various orders for the world, but it always leaves a big piece of the pie for itself in the rules of the game it sets. Do you think it would be in such a hurry to suppress energy sources like oil and natural gas if it hadn't made a breakthrough in controlled nuclear fusion experiments?"

"Yes! He eats until he's stuffed and then announces that the whole world has to lose weight, regardless of whether others have just eaten or are even hungry."

"Some countries are really spineless, kneeling down so readily."

"Exactly! I thought Oceania could hold out a little longer, but who knew it would be the first to give way. It's already revising the Oceania Climate Act and the Non-Renewable Energy Directive."

Due to the United States launching local wars, coupled with the combined effects of oil-producing countries adjusting their production plans, global inflation, extreme weather, and energy structure transformation, the problem of energy shortages has become increasingly prominent worldwide, and many countries have fallen into energy famine.

Countries with abundant resources or the ability to produce their own oil are better off, but some countries that rely entirely on energy imports have seen their energy-related industries, such as chemicals, steel, and food, shut down or cease production. Meanwhile, widespread power outages and restrictions are frequently occurring in the public sector.

In July, the United States announced the convening of the World Energy Congress, inviting representatives from all countries in the world to participate.

Everyone thought this was a trap!

A note from the author:

This chapter's description of dislocation theory references "Dislocations: Ant Colonies in the Microscopic World".