Chapter 102: Equilibrium State
Next, the two civilizations fell into a bizarre equilibrium state ...
After stationing on Sedna Star, the Green Light Civilization began to collect resources and repair their ships on a large scale. With the attitude that it was better to do more than less, they did not want to interact too much with this seemingly more powerful "new human civilization".
They did not know whether the casual communication would anger each other. In order to reduce unnecessary trouble, they even hid behind the planet Sedna and let a planet block them.
Likewise, the human Noah has been floating in the Martian atmosphere, drifting with the Martian rotation. Humans also do not want to have much interaction with the Greenlight civilization.
But if we want the Noah to land on Mars, we have to overcome the air buoyancy, which means that we have to hang a lot of heavy things on the outside of the Noah. This landing method is really too strange, maybe will be green light civilization see something.
To be cautious, Oliver never gave the landing order. But humans are not very eager to collect resources, because those low-end robots are more likely to lead to human exposure.
The good thing is that so long mining down, the Noah's material reserves have been extremely rich, even if there is no outside material to replenish, people can also work normally.
Now the most urgent human is a more powerful means of observation! This is also a key project that Oliver urged.
The difference between the two civilizations is eighty-five astronomical units, for the universe this distance is not worth mentioning, but for humans is still too far away.
With the current observation ability of people's astronomical telescopes, the other side's ship is just a very small point, it is difficult to see the exact situation.
The sun's rays have been very faint by the time they reach Sedna's position, and the reflected light from this planet is almost non-existent, making it difficult for an unusual astronomical telescope to see. The green light civilization alien ship hiding behind the planet, it is even more difficult to observe. Humans can only estimate the exact location of the other ship by the leakage of infrared light from the other side.
But since the alien ship stationed on Sedna, perhaps because of the massive engine shutdown, the leakage of infrared light was so little that humans often lost the view of the alien ship.
This annoys Oliver greatly, and he will never allow this unknown situation to occur. So he is urging scientists and engineers to build more powerful observation facilities.
The first method: a more powerful radio interferometer. This radio interferometer is not a traditional single-antenna radio telescope, but consists of two different telescopes.
For a radio interferometer, the larger the maximum spacing of the two antennas, the higher the resolution. In addition, the shorter the received radio wavelength, the higher the resolution when the diameter of the antenna or the spacing between the two antennas is certain.
Radio interferometer is undoubtedly clearer than a simple radio telescope to see, and then has a higher sensitivity.
According to scientists' calculations, two 200-meter-diameter radio telescopes distributed at both ends of the Noah, and then through a series of technological means constitute a radio interferometer, the highest resolution can reach one ten thousandth of an arc second.
"Noah is still too small, if only it were a few hundred kilometers bigger."
Oliver could not help but think. Because of the folding space, the inside volume is not small, but the outside surface area is a little smaller, there is no way to place a larger telescope. More because of the entrance and exit restrictions, the Noah is very no way to enter and exit the very large machinery, which is actually a major limitation of this ship.
In the future, technology has developed, humans must take the Noah as the core, to build a more massive spaceship, as the green light civilization like a few hundred kilometers in diameter spaceship ...
This idea in Oliver's mind also just a flash, with the current technology certainly can not do. He sighed, all things must still be on the ground. He believed that, according to the current speed of technological explosion, not too far from that day.
In addition to the radio interferometer, there is another option, that is, the gravitational wave telescope!
Gravitational waves, proposed and predicted by Albert Einstein, the greatest scientist of the 20th century. In physics, a gravitational wave is a ripple in the curvature of space-time that propagates outward from a source of radiation and transmits energy in the form of a wave.
In 2015, scientists actually observed the existence of gravitational waves in the collision of a double black hole system and opened the era of gravitational wave astronomy. This discovery is another proof of Einstein's general theory of relativity.
Gravitational waves have a very important and unique property: they can travel almost unimpeded through objects in their path. For example, while light from a distant star is blocked by the interstellar medium, gravitational waves can pass through unimpeded. This feature allows gravitational waves to carry more information about astronomical phenomena that have never been observed before.
The gravitational wave telescope, on the other hand, is an instrument for observing gravitational waves.
"... Gravitational waves are really too faint and the fluctuations it brings are very small, requiring instruments with very high precision. As of now, we cannot "see" gravitational waves directly, but can only detect them through a gravitational lens or the slightest oscillation of an elastic object."
In this session, Oliver and a group of engineers, along with a large number of astronomical scientists, are exploring this issue. This kind of cutting-edge science often reveals more about the shortcomings of human science.
What is "gravity" and why is it created? I don't know, but gravity, one of the four fundamental forces, has always been a mystery.
Einstein's general theory of relativity did point out what gravity is, but this theory is in serious conflict with another great discipline, quantum mechanics. So much so that people have not been able to unite the two disciplines in opposition to each other, and the "quantum theory of gravity" that people have tried to build has not been successful.
Without understanding the essence of gravity, it is difficult to use it, so there is no way to build a gravitational wave telescope.
"All right, all right, gentlemen and ladies." Oliver said with a frown, "I'm not here to listen to your whining, I just want to ask, is there any possibility of completing the gravitational wave telescope?"
"No, gravitational waves are really too tiny."
Answering from his position was astronomer Professor Thomson: "Not possible with human technology! But ... a large device we removed from the flying saucer happens to be a gravitational wave telescope! And, after partial restoration, it should work fine."
"It requires an extremely high amount of computation to function properly. After all, there are as many celestial bodies in the universe, each producing their own gravitational waves, all mixed together, and it takes an extremely high amount of computation to solve these characteristic equations."
Scientists are actually not very willing to use such alien creations, because not understanding their construction means insecurity and unreliability. But now there is no choice but to bring it up.
"Do we have enough computing power in the central computer?" Oliver asked. Noah's central computer, the most advanced computer on the moon base and even on Earth, has a calculation speed of about one billion billion times per second.
"No, with such a computer, the time required to solve a system of equations with billions of variables is ...100 years!" Professor Thomson shook his head and said, "That's why this instrument has never been used."
"If we can develop a higher speed computer, we can really make good use of this alien creation."