Chapter 60: Journey to Hydra V, Exploring Tachyons

A few short months pass quickly.

Yan Xia boards the Tiangong.

The new ship feels unfamiliar to him.

Due to the need for more space for energy and propulsion, the Tiangong's interior is slightly more cramped than the Hope, but overall, it is still spacious.

The control room retains the design of the Hope, bright and white, almost blinding.

After all, the universe is dark enough, and Yan Xia doesn't want to be confined to a small, dark room.

Amidst farewells and cheers, the Tiangong departs from the Hundred-Eyed Star with 80% of its warships.

The entire fleet consists of 302 warships, including the Tiangong flagship.

Due to technological advancements, Ella has made the warships larger, with the smallest now exceeding 2000 meters in length.

The reason for the increased size is not to reduce speed but to accommodate more storage space, energy, and firepower.

If the warships are too small, it's like sending rice to the enemy.

As they venture back into space, Yan Xia feels a sense of novelty.

"A new civilization means new excitement. After staying on the Hundred-Eyed Star for so long, even though technology advances with each awakening, there's still a sense of aesthetic fatigue."

Yan Xia has even stopped entering the 'Divine Revelation' world during his hibernation, as he has spent nearly 2,000 years there.

Playing a game for 2,000 years doesn't necessarily mean the game is great; it's more about his unwavering determination.

Perhaps Yan Xia's genetic makeup, inherited from humans, makes him prone to seeking novelty.

Ella, for once, agrees with Yan Xia's perspective.

"Isn't the fascination with the universe rooted in the vastness of space?"

"Every discovery by a civilization is like a bookworm finding a new book."

Ella is well-versed in such matters.

"By the way, how is the research on tachyons going?" Yan Xia asks.

Ella has been exploring new sciences and possibilities during these years.

After discovering 'strings,' they naturally delve deeper into 'string theory.'

In string theory, the universe has ten dimensions, or nine spatial dimensions plus one time dimension.

Ella, through strings, seeks to explore the other six spatial dimensions beyond the three dimensions we inhabit, known as the Calabi-Yau space.

The Calabi-Yau space contains six higher spatial dimensions, but contrary to common sense, these higher dimensions do not imply a larger size compared to our three-dimensional space.

In fact, space is a vague concept.

In string theory, our universe is embedded in a higher-dimensional membrane, which can be simply understood as a four-dimensional space being one face of a cube.

Although our universe is one face of the cube, the four-dimensional space and other higher-dimensional spaces are curled up at an extremely small scale.

They are like pearls on a string, connected by strings.

The theory may seem complex, but Ella's task is to explore the Calabi-Yau space.

In our three-dimensional space, or 3+1 dimensions, the speed of light is the physical limit.

However, in higher-dimensional spaces, this may not be the case.

Just as the purple thornbush-like civilization's quantum coordinate anchor uses quantum entanglement to transmit information faster than the speed of light, Ella is also searching for tachyons, also known as superluminal particles, which come from a hypothesis.

This hypothesis suggests that in the universe, there is another universe composed of particles moving faster than the speed of light.

In this universe, a particle with zero mass moves at infinite speed, and as it acquires more energy, its speed slows down until it reaches the speed of light.

If it acquires an infinitely small amount of energy, its speed will be infinitely fast.

Mathematically, tachyons exist.

So, Ella believes that tachyons can exist in the Calabi-Yau space.

This is what she has been researching recently.

However, the Calabi-Yau space is not a fundamental substance like strings; it is a type of space that requires theoretical means to explore, not a microscope capable of extreme magnification.

As three-dimensional beings, they cannot perceive higher-dimensional spaces. Even if they were to use all the energy in the universe, they couldn't jump from three dimensions to four dimensions or two dimensions.

Only a civilization that has reached Level 4 or higher, capable of controlling an entire universe or even transcending the universe, could achieve this.

This is beyond Ella's capabilities.

However, closed strings can penetrate membranes and reach other spacetimes, and Ella can use closed strings as a means of exploration.

It's like throwing a ball at a transparent object; if the ball passes through, it proves that the object doesn't exist, and if the ball disappears, it confirms the object's existence.

After this, Ella also needs to explore the tenth spatial dimension.

In string theory, various theories emerged, such as Type I, Type IIA, Type IIB, and so on, and some proposed M-theory, which added another fundamental dimension to the existing 9+1 dimensions. In this dimension, all theories can be simplified and explained by a single theory.

After exploring this dimension, Ella can truly understand the nature of the other dimensions.

It's a complex process.

M-theory, as it was known on Earth, was still an undeveloped theory, more of a hypothesis than a well-established theory.

So, Ella has to explore it herself.

After listening for ten minutes, Yan Xia feels the need to hibernate for a thousand years to restore his brain cells.

Fortunately, Ella has already completed her exploration of the Calabi-Yau space.

"So, tachyons do exist?"

Yan Xia is surprised by the result.

Ella replies seriously, "Yes, although higher dimensions are inaccessible and unobservable."

"But we have explored the higher-dimensional world through entropy changes."

"By causing a variation at one end of a closed string and observing the variation at the other end, we recorded a speed 173 times faster than the speed of light."

"Unfortunately, this variation is very basic, like throwing a stone. It doesn't transmit clear information, not even simple variations like strength, zero, or one. It's similar to the function of the purple thornbush-like civilization's quantum coordinate anchor."

Tachyon communication can create a time difference in the vastness of space, which is crucial for both warfare and managing a vast starfield in a future cosmic federation.

Yan Xia believes that tachyons have greater potential than quantum technology.

While quantum motion is random, tachyons can be controlled.

This is a technology that Yan Xia values highly, and he decides to allocate most of their resources to this research.

He hopes that Ella can make a breakthrough, propelling their technological level forward.

Gazing into the depths of the universe, Yan Xia also wishes that everything could be within reach.

But they are still too insignificant compared to the vastness of the universe, and their knowledge is limited.

However, the first step has been taken.

As long as they keep moving forward, they will eventually reach their destination.