Chapter 379: The Golden Period and the Bottleneck Period_1

After listening to Jiang Yu's words, a dimness crossed Bernice's eyes; her reason told her this was no exaggeration from Jiang Yu but the truth itself.

Jiang Yu stood up, went to the fridge, and grabbed a bottle of beer, pouring himself a glass: "Have you seen the classified report from the Academy of Sciences?"

The spark in Bernice's eyes grew dimmer: "I have."

It was a report predicting the theoretical and technological development of the Solar System State over the next thirty years, detailed in its arguments and likely highly credible.

The report believed that the next thirty years would be a golden era of harnessing the most advanced technologies of the Solar System State, where previously accumulated technologies would find widespread application.

Some immature technologies would also become mature, and for technology, this should be a Golden Age.

Yet for theory, it would enter a bottleneck period.

For instance, current theories on antimatter have become relatively mature, but theories on dark matter still have many aspects that need to be proven and perfected.

As of now, within the Solar System, some research is hard to complete or rather, merely looking out from the Solar System allows only a superficial observation, with many things requiring one to step beyond the Solar System to confirm and understand.

Add to that, the tension of the previous theoretical explosion has been depleted.

In the past half-century, scholars of the Solar System State universally recognized it as an era of both technological and theoretical explosions.

Scholars generally believe the theoretical explosion was due to previous worlds being blocked by Sophon, but many ideas for theories were already in place, just short of proof.

When Sophon no longer affected humanity's particle collision experiments, many theories were quickly proven or disproven; with many theoretical obstacles overcome, a theoretical explosion ensued.

It's worth mentioning that the theoretical and technological explosions of the PDC and Fleet International appeared quite weak, as they had grown accustomed to waiting for technological shares from the Trisolarans, and their progress wasn't as significant as that of the Solar System State.

The Strategic Department once thought this to be a Trisolaran conspiracy to delay human technological progress.

The second reason was the visible outcomes of Jiang Yu's previous Genetic Modification plan, as a large number of intelligently enhanced new generations entered the scientific research departments.

This significantly strengthened the research force of the scientific departments and overall quality.

Last was the pressure the Trisolarans exerted on the Solar System State, which provided the Academy of Sciences with enough motivation.

Now, the pressure from the Trisolarans was gone, replaced by the pressure from the Dark Forest.

But these two kinds of pressure are different, just as the pressure from a bully in class differs from pressure coming from God.

You might gather up courage to fight the bully in class.

But how do you fight against God?

Even if the researchers at the Academy of Sciences felt enough pressure, they lacked a direction for breaking the impasse, making it hard for this pressure to yield substantial results.

Adding to that, the tension from the theoretical explosion was used up, so the Academy of Sciences believed that for the next thirty years or even half a century, theoretical development would remain in a bottleneck period.

Bernice gave a wry smile: "The opponent from the Dark Forest is too powerful; we won't be able to match them anytime soon, so our only option is to run!"

Jiang Yu nodded: "Exactly, as you mentioned before, interstellar migration will be the focus of your tenure."

"Of course, we can't run blindly; we must escape strategically, or else it's easy to stumble after just a few steps."

He then asked, "Have you seen He Shanqi's team's experiment on curvature?"

Bernice chuckled: "If one didn't know the context, they would definitely think it was a comedy video."

"So much effort, just to move a piece of paper a dozen centimeters, yet it brought cheers from hundreds of researchers in white lab coats."

Jiang Yu laughed along, ladled a bowl of soup with his spoon, and took a sip: "During the Age of Exploration long ago, Europeans were given a broader view, which to a great extent facilitated progress in their thoughts and technology."

"Perhaps humanity has arrived at a moment for a breakthrough; new discoveries and new territories always generate some passion for new progress."

He clinked glasses with Bernice, took a sip of his drink, and then said, "He Shanqi told me he could make a curvature spaceship within half a century."

"This will be our 'ship' for future 'voyages'; the Wandering Earth plan is just a part of my overall plan."

"When Earth and the Moon leave the Solar System, we have to find them a new home."

"That's when we'll need curvature spaceships to search everywhere, and at that point, the grand migration will begin."

"Next, you are to create a Space Age of great voyages!"

Bernice smiled, "That sounds quite nice."

Jiang Yu also smiled, "This will surely be a feat that goes down in the annals of history."

For Jiang Yu, the next half-century would be the most critical period for humanity, yet in the original work, humans wasted too much energy on the bunker project.

For a long time to come, escapism would still be a serious crime in the Solar System. The extinction of the Solar System's humanity could not be blamed on others; mankind would have to shoulder a large part of the responsibility.

In Jiang Yu's view, the main body of humanity's future was on the brink of extinction, with Starship Earth's development being overly conservative in the future.

Humanity might never recover from this stumble and would ultimately miss the chance to enter the ranks of advanced civilizations, only to skulk around the universe.

What Jiang Yu had to do was to manage the Solar System State well over the next hundred years and earnestly look for opportunities to break the deadlock.

About this, there was no longer a God's View to rely on, and he himself was unsure of what could be achieved.

Long ago, Jiang Yu had already foreseen this step, and now he had come to terms with it: he would do his utmost.

...

In January of the second year of the Broadcasting Era, Sean Zachary, a junior at Jupiter University, was in the middle of a class when he was suddenly notified by the intelligent tutoring assistant to make an immediate trip to the school.

Now, in the Solar System State, teaching for undergraduate students and below was done by the school's intelligent lecturers. One could complete their lessons at home, on the streets, and even in entertainment complexes.

Teaching was one-on-one, while assessment was unified by the school's actual teachers.

However, traditional exams were basically not used anymore. Whatever the subject of study, assessment was through real-case scenario simulations.

For technical professions like space agriculture, one had to actually cultivate various crops in a lifelike virtual world; the final results were the exam scores.

For theoretical subjects, the examinations might involve problems encountered with nuclear engines or issues with antimatter weapons in use.

Or one might design an experiment to prove a theory and then simulate the relevant experiments.

In short, the examinations were very close to practical applications.

Upon receiving the notification, Sean hurried from his home to the school without delay.

The school was built magnificently, but there were very few actual classrooms; most of the space was for offices, or for hardware facilities like the intelligent teaching system and simulation assessment system.

The universities of today purely imparted knowledge; there was no student council, no preference or disfavor from teachers.

Just one-on-one lessons with intelligent teachers, no profit-driven tutoring, and naturally, no profit-making tutoring institutions.

College students' hobbies and activities were directly supported and guided by the government, with student societies completely transcending barriers of schools and departments.

Pursuits of hobbies for those below the university level were also free, taught one-on-one by intelligent teachers.

Only that below the university level, the intelligent teachers' supervision of students was much stricter.

This was the education reform that began as soon as Jiang Yu took back control of the Solar System State, and after more than half a century of effort, it had greatly transformed the education industry.

Though it largely lost the relationships between teachers and students and among classmates, it made education purer and essentially took the education industry out of the profit chain.

The compensation for students was that relationships among members of societies became closer; the term "same-group" gradually replaced "classmate."

This teaching method allowed Jupiter University to admit over a million students annually!

Today, defying routine, an intelligent janitor led Sean into a classroom already seated with three boys and four girls, seven students in total.

They could be classmates, but they had never had a class together.

The few of them discussed why they were called to school, and Sean joined the conversation. Soon, they discovered that they all had one thing in common: they had each sent emails concerning the Dark Forest Strike to the Wallfacer Office.

Just then, the wall suddenly lit up.

Number Three appeared on the screen, "Hello everyone. I believe you have mostly guessed the reason we have brought you here. Your emails caught the attention of the Wallfacer Office, so we wanted to communicate with you further."