Chapter 382 Vacuum Expansion Technology

Era of the Divine Vessel, year 1566. (In tribute to my favorite TV series, Great Ming Dynasty 1566)

It has been 400 years since the Divine Vessel Civilization left Daling Five. At this moment, they are voyaging towards Jishui Zengyi, also known as Perseus A, about 120 light years from Earth and approximately 40 light years from Daling Five.

Jishui (Perseus Lambda) and Jishui Zengyi are different constant stars; bright stars were either previously overlooked dark stars or stars added under the influence of Western knowledge, symbolized by adding the word "Zeng" before the number in the star designation to indicate their status as "newcomers." There is nothing particularly special about Jishui Zengyi, but sometimes its lack of specialty is precisely what makes it special.

Jishui Zengyi is a white F5V type main sequence star, which means it is now in a relatively stable stage of its life cycle.

As a main sequence star, Jishui Zengyi is relatively stable in its evolutionary phase and maintains its brightness and temperature within a certain range, making for a suitable environment.

Although the average distance between stars in the Milky Way Galaxy is roughly 4 to 5.5 light years, it is common to only encounter a star every few dozen or even hundreds of light years in the same direction.

Along its journey, the Divine Vessel Civilization did encounter a few dimmer stars, invisible from Earth, but they were not suitable for the civilization to reside and repair temporarily, either due to the dense Sophon Blind Zones around them or the harsh conditions of their stellar systems, which were unsuitable for the civilization to rest and regroup.

However, the current conditions of the Jishui Zengyi stellar system are very favorable, possessing two small rocky planets and one gaseous giant planet, abundant in resources and hospitable, making it the most ideal place for the development of the civilization.

During these 400 years of journey, the Divine Vessel Civilization had once again experienced unprecedented leaps and transformations.

Take humanity as an example; originally, human scholars believed that for Human Civilization to progress from rank 1.5 to 1.6, it would ideally take 2000 years under the most favorable conditions.

However, after contact with the Mo Civilization and a deeper understanding of the nature of energy, they were as if enlightened by the mysterious forces of the universe.

Soon after leaving Daling Five, humanity made significant breakthroughs in the direction of combining Vacuum Zero-Point Energy and Mass Decay, thereby achieving a leap in Civilization Rank from 1.5 to 1.6.

This process took only five hundred years, far exceeding all previous expectations.

What's more, on this path of exploration, humanity not only broke through existing limits but also discovered a new technological frontier—Vacuum Expansion Technology.

This technology, like a key to an unknown world, indicates that Human Civilization is about to step into an unprecedented new era.

Vacuum Expansion Technology is a product of the combination of vacuum decay and Dark Energy utilization techniques, and humanity has finally made a breakthrough in the utilization of Dark Energy.

Over two thousand years ago, humanity had a certain understanding of vacuum decay, a theory based on the properties of the Higgs Field, which revealed a possibility to us.

The vacuum space we currently inhabit is not in the lowest energy state of stability but in a "metastable" quantum field. This means that the vacuum could, due to some mechanism, transition to a lower-energy state, and this process is known as vacuum decay.

If vacuum decay occurs in some area of space, that point will become a vacuum bubble. According to calculations, this vacuum bubble would expand at the speed of light, and in its path, all matter, energy, and even physical laws would be obliterated, ceasing to exist. Once vacuum decay begins, it simply cannot be stopped, and this process of destruction would sweep across the entire universe.

To better understand, imagine a little ball quietly lying in a valley on a hillside. Usually, the ball cannot jump over the valley's sidewalls to slide into a lower valley.

But if a Penetration Effect occurs, the ball penetrates through the side wall, directly falling to the valley's bottom. This process would release a tremendous amount of energy, prompting surrounding balls to imitate, triggering a chain reaction. Eventually, all the balls on the hillside might fall into a lower valley under the force of this chain reaction, with the entire universe facing similar catastrophic consequences.

However, this theoretically frightening scenario has not become a reality. Speaking of reality, if vacuum decay could destroy the universe, then surely some higher civilization would have triggered a vacuum decay to extinguish the entire universe before their own demise, which itself illustrates the issue.

As humanity delved deeper into the microscopic world, it quickly discovered that such a chain reaction would not occur. The microscopic world is actually a complex high-dimensional world, where the enormous energy released by vacuum decay is not the same as the energy we usually deal with.

This energy would quickly be sealed in the microscopic high dimensions of Dark Energy, which neither absorbs nor reflects nor radiates light, making it impossible to utilize under normal circumstances.

Humanity has always hoped to harness the tremendous energy released by vacuum decay. As early as the 1.4 rank of civilization, various attempts were made, but unfortunately, all efforts ended in failure.

Currently, our understanding of vacuum energy is limited to various applications of vacuum zero-point energy, which is merely scratching the surface of vacuum quantum field energy.

It was not until humanity integrated the energy technology of the Mo Civilization and revised its own Unified Model that we were able to glimpse the Dark Energy mechanism hidden within vacuum decay.

Moreover, the mechanism of vacuum decay was far from what we initially envisioned, akin to energy plummeting dramatically from steep slopes into deep valleys. Such a process not only exceeds the reach of human technological capabilities but also challenges our ability to make use of that energy.

Luckily, the structure of the universe is far more complex and intricate than we imagined.

Within what appeared to be flat "slopes," there were hidden multiple sub-level "valleys." When vacuum energy transitioned to these sub-level "valleys," it too could release astonishing amounts of energy.

Theoretically, this process could be somewhat controlled and utilized, and this technology was named Sub-vacuum Decay Technology. The energy it releases is precisely the dark energy hidden at the microscopic scale.

In cosmology, dark energy refers to a type of energy that fills space, possessing negative pressure, and this negative pressure on a large scale resembles a form of anti-gravity that drives the continuous expansion of the universe.

In the standard model of the universe, dark energy constitutes 68.3% of the universe's mass-energy.

Now, through relentless human effort and numerous experimental verifications, we have finally begun to unveil the mysterious veil of dark energy.

Humanity discovered that referring to dark energy as vacuum energy might be more appropriate since vacuum itself possesses attributes of force.

The essence of the vacuum is space, and the fundamental attributes of space include dimensions, curvature, and vacuum energy (or dark energy), as well as the most essential characteristic of accommodation.

We can think of curvature as a type of "density attribute" of space, and vacuum energy as the "substance" within this density, which in earlier times was termed ether and is now known as dark energy.

Dark energy is the impetus behind the expansion of the universe, an effect that is essentially the expansion of the vacuum.

Vacuum Expansion Technology harnesses the dark energy released by Sub-vacuum Decay, initially sealed within the microscopic high-dimensional levels, utilizing certain technologies that exhibit "force" properties in the vacuum, driving the expansion of the vacuum.

This force of expansion is so powerful that it can accelerate the space ahead nearly to the speed of light without changing the curvature of the vacuum.

The essence of this propulsive effect of the vacuum is also the "Fifth Force" in the universe, which also transcends microscopic high-dimensional levels.

The Trisolarans early used Strong Interaction Material and gluon oscillation beams, which are effects of this "Fifth Force."

Today, the framework of human understanding of the universe is undergoing an unprecedented restructuring. The once pursuit of unifying the four fundamental forces is no longer sufficient to depict the entirety of the universe.

On the new theoretical horizon, the unification of the five forces has become the ultimate goal of exploration, indicating a broader and deeper cosmic vision that is slowly unfolding.

PS: Linking dark energy with vacuum energy and even ether is not just my personal speculation; it's a research direction among many scholars in the scientific community, even trending towards the mainstream.

There are two existing models for dark energy: the cosmological constant (a uniform energy density filling space) and scalar field (a dynamical energy density varying with space-time, like Quintessence and Model Space).

This is based on the model of the cosmological constant, with the scalar field often included within the cosmological constant, which is physically equivalent to vacuum energy.

In this theoretical framework, dark energy in the universe is more like a background and a "superconductor," and some also refer to "dark energy" as "vacuum energy."

In this theoretical framework, whether the vacuum has properties and attributes of force is also the prerequisite for "dark energy" to become synonymous with the vacuum.

If the vacuum is proven to have properties of force, then "vacuum force" becomes the fifth kind of natural force, existing universally in nature, independent of gravity, electromagnetic force, strong force, and weak force.

In this book, this "Fifth Force" is also combined with dark energy and the attributes of space expansion, a force that, like gravity, can transcend microscopic high-dimensional levels.

The author here has combined vacuum decay, high-dimensional energy, dark energy, and vacuum expansion to explain the current state of the universe concurrently.

While some in the scientific community do not recognize dark energy, there is still some controversy.