Great Power Technology

At two o'clock in the morning, Ye Zhou, Chen Hao, and Lin Ling were sitting on the balcony used for rest outside the main control office of the Shenguang No. 4 device in Huawu Yuan, looking at the night sky far away from the city, quietly waiting for the crucial moment. Big moments.

Ye Zhou was holding a cup of Tieguanyin that was so bitter that his tongue was numb. Chen Hao was sitting far away smoking a cigarette, while Lin Ling was leaning back on the recliner, sucking on the straw with a vacant expression.

"Actually, you can come and see the results directly tomorrow. I heard that you have been working overtime a lot recently. If you continue like this, your hair will fall out."

Ye Zhou put down the cup in his hand and spoke in a tone that was half teasing and half concerned.

"It doesn't matter. I don't have to stay up every day. I can't miss such an important thing."

Lin Ling chuckled and continued:

"Besides, if nuclear fusion can be successfully ignited, it will be of great significance to my research direction. More electricity means more high-energy experiments. At least I don't have to worry about electricity bills in the future."

"Also, if the fiber laser performs normally this time, laser pulse acceleration technology can also be used in the future, and then we can use super particle beams to conduct collision experiments."

Hearing this, Ye Zhou nodded and replied:

"I didn't expect this. However, from this perspective, the scope of derivation of this technology is wider than I originally expected, and it will bring more marginal benefits in the future."

"This is a good thing. The technology begins to have marginal effects before it is actually applied. This is crucial for the stable development of a technology life cycle."

"If a technology can really only have a single use, its development will be greatly restricted - this is why many people are more optimistic about inertial confinement fusion. From the technology itself, it has a certain degree of self-sustainability. Sex, in the early stages of development, can realize itself and support itself.”

Chen Hao on the side put out his cigarette, came over and said:

"This is just one of the reasons. After all, such a large-scale project requires a large amount of financial support anyway. But having said that, how is the development of magnetic confinement fusion now?"

Ye Zhou shook his head slightly, and then replied:

"Magnetic confinement, or tokamak devices, have actually been developing faster than inertial confinement technology. Now there is ITER internationally and CFETR domestically. These facilities are directly aimed at fusion power plants, and the technology is also Relatively mature.”

"Logically speaking, the progress of a fusion research is mainly measured by the three indicators of plasma density, temperature, and effective discharge time, and the tokamak device is much larger than the inertial confinement fusion in the product of these three. many."

"But that's just much bigger - it's not commercially viable."

"It's like everyone is holding back their energy to jump over a cliff. The width of the cliff is ten meters. Previously, the inertial constraint technology jumped 3 meters, but the magnetic constraint technology jumped 8 meters, but the result is the same, you still have to fall. Go under the cliff.”

"So, until you actually jump over the cliff, no matter how close you are, it actually doesn't mean much."

"And our Shenguang No. 4 device this time is to jump over this cliff."

"Can you jump over it?"

Chen Hao asked slightly worriedly.

Ye Zhou laughed and replied:

"You should ask how many meters above that cliff we can go."

"The goal of Shenguang 4 is not to achieve a fusion reaction, or even a self-sustainable fusion reaction, but to achieve a self-sustaining and steady-state discharge fusion reaction."

"To achieve a fusion reaction, it means crossing a 10-meter cliff to achieve a self-sustainable fusion reaction. It means jumping over the cliff and then walking down the mountain for a while, reaching halfway up the mountain."

“Only when a reaction that is self-sustainable and capable of steady-state discharge is achieved can we truly go down the mountain and onto the Avenue to Heaven.”

After hearing Ye Zhou's words, Chen Hao sighed with emotion and said:

"This kind of thing has happened so many times that I have become a bit hallucinated - I always feel that everything we do must be done at once and the best at once, otherwise it will fail."

“I used to think that those who said ‘China is either number one or a failure’ were outrageous. Now that I think about it, I am even more outrageous than they are.”

"Not only do we want to be first, but we also have to do the second lap."

Lin Ling on the side laughed when he heard this and interrupted:

"Mr. Chen, our Chief Technical Office should be more ambitious. If we can't even set a goal, why do we need you to coordinate it?"

"Of course, of course, I just think it's quite magical."

Having said this, Chen Hao sat down next to Ye Zhou, and then continued to say:

"Actually, I have been having an idea in the past two days, that is, the realization of this device is a very science fiction thing."

"Think about it, from the time our cutting-edge technologies in all aspects were completely suppressed by the ugly country to now that we have actually achieved a comprehensive lead, how long did it take us?"

Lin Ling stared at the memory for a moment and said:

"Five years, right? The first transcendence started with chips and lithography machines, and then moved on to engines, large aircraft, batteries, and a lot of derivative technologies. All of them caught up in one fell swoop."

"I didn't know about it before. I felt like it was suddenly cheated. It was only when the confidentiality level was raised some time ago that I found out that it was Ye Gong who did it."

"Hey, are you considered a bug in history? Just like Huo Qubing, Wei Qing, etc., you can't do it either."

Having said this, Lin Ling said twice:

"It's bad luck, it doesn't count."

Ye Zhou looked at her actions funny and said:

"You think too much of me. In fact, this kind of overtaking didn't start recently at all. It didn't even start from this century. We have been doing this since the last century and from the beginning of our country. Prepare for this moment today.”

"If nothing else, let's just talk about inertial confinement fusion. You all know that the principle of inertial confinement fusion is the same as the principle of hydrogen bomb explosion, so you should also know how much effort Academician Yu Min made to achieve today's situation. .”

"Think about that time, when they were in their prime years of 30s and 40s, they abandoned their wives and children and went to a barren land in the desert to sit and discuss top-secret projects with no one. They even wrote only letters to their families. Can use a pseudonym.”

"At that time, we did not have particle accelerators and could not screen fusion materials. Researchers of that generation had to use hand-cranked calculators, abacuses, or even pen calculations to derive fusion route equations."

"Not to mention the natural environment, drought, water shortage, desolation, and remoteness. We are now building a Liubi base in Kunlun Mountain, and even the cigarettes that researchers smoke every day have to purchase hundreds of different brands. Where were they at that time? "

"I guess the dishes they ate all year round at that time were not as diverse as what our current researchers eat in one meal."

"It was under those circumstances that they made the atomic bomb, they made the hydrogen bomb, and later they completed the nuclear bomb miniaturization program before the Comprehensive Nuclear Ban Treaty."

"Without their contributions, the development of our entire country's nuclear industry would probably be locked at the level of the 1960s. If that were the case, what kind of inertial confinement nuclear fusion would we still be trying to achieve?"

"I can only pick up the leftover bones, like Koreans, and make some experimental-level tokamak for masturbation."

"Not talking about nuclear fusion, do you know when our battery technology research first originated?"

"It was 1958, and it's almost 80 years since today."

"Sometimes I think, in fact, I am really not a pioneer of technology, I am just the last tooth on a key."

“Without the efforts of those who came before us, even if we had the technology, it would be just a castle in the air.”

Ye Zhou's words deeply agreed with the other two people. Just when Chen Hao was about to continue chatting on this topic, the balcony door was suddenly pushed open, and then, a figure familiar to everyone appeared at the door. It was Qian Lixun.

"Mr. Qian, why are you here?"

Ye Zhou asked in surprise.

According to the previously discussed plan, he originally planned to participate in the ignition remotely, but it was obvious that he still couldn't resist his curiosity.

"I'll come over and take a look, Xiaoye, it's almost 4 o'clock, let's go."

"Let's go together and see how this first fire is going."