The Science Fiction World of Xueba

"team leader?"

Edmond immediately spotted Pang Xuelin standing at the door, and spoke out.

Immediately, the remaining few people also focused their attention on Pang Xuelin.

Anthony, Cathy, Carrick, Benjamin, Frank...

Pang Xuelin instilled the names of the remaining five people and the system into his memory and matched them one by one. The names of these five people were not mentioned in the movie.

After entering the world of their choice, they did not send any signal.

Obviously, these people chose to sacrifice themselves to explore the future of human civilization.

Pang Xuelin glanced over the five people, smiled and said: "Everyone, continue training, I'll stop by and have a look."

With that said, Pang Xuelin was about to turn around and leave.

"Brother-in-law..."

At this moment, Murphy suddenly spoke up.

Pang Xuelin turned his gaze to Murphy.

The dirty little girl back then has completely changed her appearance now.

Tall and fit, with chestnut-colored hair tied into a ponytail, and a face that inherited the good genes of her parents, she was not inferior to Chris in the slightest.

"What's wrong? Murphy?"

Pang Xuelin said.

Murphy narrowed his eyes slightly, and said with a smile, "Brother-in-law, there is something I want to tell you."

"What's up?"

Murphy looked around and said, "Can I go to your office and talk?"

Pang Xuelin hesitated for a moment, then nodded: "Come with me."

Soon, Murphy followed.

Behind him, the voices of discussion from the team members could be faintly heard.

"You guys say, when will Murphy push the captain down?"

Pang Xuelin was a little speechless, and his team members seemed to be more and more afraid.

As for Murphy.

Pang Xuelin had a headache.

In my memory, this little girl began to show some strange emotions towards herself since she was eighteen years old.

Later, she came to work at the space agency. After graduating from university, this girl actually came to the space agency. She also passed the astronaut test and was selected for the Lazarus project, becoming one of the reserve members of the Lazarus project.

The two get along day and night, and the team members can see Murphy's affection for him in his words.

This world has experienced several devastating disasters, and currently there are millions more women than men. Therefore, in order to ensure the continuation of civilization, polygamy is allowed in this world.

Therefore, although the team members saw Murphy's feelings for Pang Xuelin, they didn't think it was too strange.

But then Murphy heard about the Lazarus Project that couples cannot go into space together.

It was only then that Murphy restrained his feelings for Pang Xuelin and behaved a little more normally.

After all, the reason why she chose to join the space agency was not only her affection for Pang Xuelin, but also her personal interest in spaceflight and adventure.

Of course, occasionally in private, she would secretly tease Pang Xuelin.

When he came to the office, Pang Xuelin sat down at his desk and said, "Tell me, what's the matter?"

A flattering smile appeared on Murphy's face and he said, "Brother-in-law, hasn't the Eternal Night spacecraft been assembled? I heard that the next launch will carry five astronauts into space on a shuttle. Can you help me go to the old man's side and say Do you want to say something good? You know, among the few of us reserve astronauts, only Brandt and I have no space experience."

Pang Xuelin shook his head and said: "This mission is mainly to check the overall status of the Eternal Night. What are you doing there? Are you holding back everyone?"

"Brother-in-law!"

Murphy walked behind Pang Xuelin, leaned down while pressing his shoulders, and whispered in Pang Xuelin's ear, "My scores in all tests are at the top. Why can't I do it when other people can?"

Pang Xuelin couldn't help leaning forward,

Said: "Don't get so close, it smells like sweat."

"Brother-in-law!"

Murphy said coquettishly.

Pang Xuelin said: "It's useless for you to look for me to act like a baby. The reason why you and Little Brand are not included in this mission is because you have no experience in spacewalking! The mission of the Eternal Night detection mission requires more than 24 missions for each astronaut. Hours of spacewalking can be completed, and the orbital time is at least one month, you rookie at least have to wait for the Eternal Night to pass the test before you can enter space."

"Hmph, if you don't have it, you don't have it!"

Murphy was unhappy and turned around to leave.

"etc!"

Pang Xuelin said suddenly.

Murphy turned around in surprise: "Brother-in-law, did you agree to speak for me?"

Pang Xuelin said: "Come home with me at night, you haven't seen Grandpa for a long time, you can't go on with this cold war, anyway, it's already a fait accompli, you go back and admit your mistake to Grandpa."

"All right."

Murphy couldn't help but rolled his eyes, feeling weak.

Murphy's choice to become an astronaut was firmly opposed by Cromwell Oliver.

As a result, the girl hadn't returned home for nearly half a year after she had a big fight with the old man.

Naturally, Pang Xuelin would not let this situation continue.

Seeing Murphy's figure disappear behind the door, Pang Xuelin shook his head, picked up the astronaut file he got from Brand, and looked through it.

There are not many files left by Brand, there are about a hundred people.

Pang Xuelin quickly went inside and found relevant information about Cooper.

Uris Cooper: Astronaut, shuttle pilot, lost contact with NASA in 2040 AD, and his whereabouts are unknown.

On the information, there is also a photo of Cooper, who is about the same age as Pang Xuelin now, and can be regarded as a middle-aged handsome uncle.

"Cooper!"

Pang Xuelin muttered to himself.

The space agency where he is now is located in the Mississippi Valley of North America, which is part of the Great Plains of the United States.

According to the state described in the movie, the location where Cooper lives should be within a few hundred kilometers of the space agency.

It's just that it's not easy to find Cooper in such a large area.

Today's human civilization is divided into various autonomous regions, and has not formed a unified world government.

The North American Autonomous Region, the East Asian Autonomous Region, and the European Autonomous Region, plus the fact that the earth is vast and sparsely populated, human settlements are scattered all over the place, and the civil affairs system has not carried out unified household registration management. Finding Cooper is almost equivalent to finding a needle in a haystack.

"However, there should be another way. In the movie, Cooper's daughter, Murphy Cooper, seems to be studying in a public school. As long as I check the public schools in the small towns around the space agency, I will definitely find Cooper! OK, let's do it!"

Pang Xuelin slapped his thigh and made a decision.

The main purpose of finding Cooper was the attic of his house.

I hope that Cooper, who is trapped in the fifth-dimensional time and space, will not only have his daughter in his eyes.

As long as he notices him, Pang Xuelin believes that the other party will definitely send him the desired message.

...

After finding Cooper's file, Pang Xuelin began to read the research materials that Brand had copied for himself, which contained relevant descriptions about the nature of gravity.

In the late seventeenth century, Newton proposed universal gravitation, describing gravity as an infinitely extending field and explaining the motion of massive objects, such as the Earth.

Newton even derived a system of equations for gravitation.

Through this system of equations, it is possible to predict the motion state of everything in the universe and the stars in the universe.

Physicists once believed that Newton's universal gravitation was the end of physics.

But at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, the emergence of quantum theory, special relativity and general relativity overthrew the classical physics building built by Newton.

In 1915, Einstein proposed his general theory of relativity, which suggested that what we call gravity is actually a distortion of space and time.

The Earth appears to be orbiting the sun in an elliptical orbit, but it actually moves in a straight line in curved space-time.

Einstein's theory of gravity has been very successful in explaining the behavior of massive objects.

But a few years later, physicists opened up a strange new world: the quantum world.

This led scientists to discover that the other three fundamental forces that govern the universe are actually produced by the exchange of a type of force-carrying particle called a boson: photons convey the electromagnetic force, the strong nuclear force is conveyed by gluons, and the weak nuclear force The carrying particles of force are W and Z bosons.

These have been rigorously proved by experiments.

The natural question for physicists, then, is whether gravity is also produced by some sort of particle exchange?

To connect gravity and quantum theory, physicists have come up with a new hypothetical particle called the graviton.

Although humans have never observed a graviton in experiments, physicists already know enough about gravitons.

First, since gravity has an infinite range and decays with the inverse square law (i.e., F ∝ 1/r), gravitons must be massless.

We know this because if the photon had mass, it would change the "2" on the exponent, and "2" is rigorously verified experimentally.

Like photons, gravitons travel at the speed of light.

In general relativity, the distribution of mass and energy in the universe is described by a 4-by-4 matrix, which mathematicians call a second-order tensor.

This is important because if tensors are the source of gravity, we find that the graviton must be a particle with quantum spin 2 (Weinberg provided the proof).

If you observe a massless particle with spin 2, then you have found the graviton.

So why hasn't anyone found the graviton yet? The main problem is that gravity is too weak.

For example, in a hydrogen atom, the electromagnetic force between an electron and a proton is 10^39 times stronger than the gravitational force between them.

A more intuitive example is the behavior of magnets and paperclips: a magnet can pull the paperclips together against the gravitational pull of the entire Earth.

Think about it and you'll see what that means, a magnet you can easily hold in your hand pulls a paper clip up, while the gravity of the entire planet pulls it down, the magnet still wins.

That is to say, a single graviton is very, very weak, which makes some scientists think that it is almost impossible to directly detect such a graviton.

But in Brand's theory.

He has some new ideas for graviton detection.

Gravitons might be detectable, requiring a whole new way of understanding the universe.

Brand argues that gravity only appears to be weak in the three-dimensional world we live in.

But in fact, gravity can actually travel to extra dimensions.

But these extra dimensions are curled up so small that we in the three-dimensional world cannot perceive them.

Now, let's imagine a tightrope. For a tightrope walker, it can only go forward or backward along the rope. The rope is one-dimensional.

But to ants, which can crawl around along the perimeter of the rope, the rope appears to be two-dimensional.

A rope that is one-dimensional to humans is two-dimensional to small creatures.

Quantum mechanics tells us that all particles are also vibrational waves, and physicists think gravitons can vibrate in these extra dimensions, which bend like a bracelet around a slender wrist.

But the circular nature of extra dimensions also imposes constraints on how gravitons can vibrate.

Only integer wavelengths can propagate uniformly in extra dimensions.

This also leads to some interesting results. Theoretically, there are more than one type of gravitons in the extra dimension, and the wavelengths of different integers are different kinds of gravitons.

The graviton that vibrates more strongly can have mass, and such particle is called Brand graviton by Brand.

On very small scales, Brand gravitons can have mass; but on large scales, they become what classical theory considers to be zero mass.

The problem now is that under macroscopic conditions, with the current level of human technology, there is no way to measure the existence of gravitons in a short period of time.

Unless a human being enters the interior of a black hole, or enters a high-dimensional space-time, the relevant parameters of the graviton are measured through the high-dimensional space-time, and then the entire gravitational mechanism is deduced through the Einstein gravitational field equation.

This is the dilemma facing Brand's theory.

And there is no hope of a solution in the short term.

After roughly understanding Brand's overall thinking, Pang Xuelin shook his head. He didn't have a good solution to this problem.

Unless, in Cooper's attic, the crucial information that the future Cooper sent back from the five-dimensional space-time was obtained.

As for whether there will be something related to the grandfather paradox, it is not what Pang Xuelin needs to consider.

...

The time of the day was fleeting. At five o'clock in the afternoon, Pang Xuelin took Murphy, who had just taken a shower and finished training, into the pickup truck, and then went to an elementary school ten kilometers away, and picked up little Murphy in the car .

The two Murphys, one big and one small, were making a lot of noise in the car. In my memory, her daughter had been close to her sister-in-law since she was a child, which was why Chris chose her daughter's English name as Murphy.

Of course, Little Murphy also has an official Chinese name: Pang Fei.

It's just that the family has always called her Little Murphy since she was a child, and she has long been used to such a title.

When I got home, Chris had already prepared dinner.

Fish steak, corn salad and mashed potatoes.

Now all over the world, the two staple foods of potatoes and corn can still be grown normally. Food crops such as rice and wheat have long since been completely extinct on the earth due to wilt.

Oliver didn't seem to care about Big Murphy's return, but from the corners of his slightly raised mouth, he could feel that he was still very happy.

After all, they are both grandparents and grandchildren, and there is no overnight feud.

In the evening, Pang Xuelin took a shower and found a large-scale map of the United States from the bookshelf.

Then, with his space agency as the center, a circle was drawn with a radius of 500 kilometers and a radius of 300 kilometers.

According to the scene shown in the movie, it took Cooper at least half a day to drive to the space agency. Based on the current road conditions in North America, it is only 50 kilometers per hour.

Therefore, a circle of 300 kilometers to 500 kilometers is a reasonable interval.

It's just that even after screening in this way, there are more than 100 small towns with a population of more than 1,000 in this area.

The rest of Pang Xuelin had no choice but to drive the car to find them one by one.

After confirming the work to be done next, Pang Xuelin put away the map and was just about to go to bed when he saw Chris in lace pajamas coming out of the small room where Murphy lived next door.

"Daughter asleep?"

Pang Xuelin said in a low voice.

Chris smiled and said, "Asleep, hubby..."

"Um?"

"I kind of want to..."

Pang Xuelin blinked, stepped forward, and resisted Chris.

...

The next day, Pang Xuelin went to the space agency to ask Brand for a three-month long vacation, and then began to drive along the route planned on the map, looking for it from town to town.

This is not an easy job.

After arriving in a small town, Pang Xuelin first determined whether there was a baseball field in the town.

Because in the movie, Cooper once took his son and daughter to watch a baseball game.

There was also a sandstorm in the process.

Therefore, if there is no baseball field in a small town, Pang Xuelin can just skip it.

However, baseball is very popular in North America. Even though human beings have experienced several catastrophes, the tradition of baseball games is still well preserved within the boundaries of North America.

Therefore, nine out of ten of the small towns that Pang Xuelin passes by have baseball fields.

After confirming that there is a baseball field in the town, Pang Xuelin will go to the town education official, show his work ID, and ask the other party to cooperate with him in searching the student files.

As long as the word Cooper appeared in the students' surnames, Pang Xuelin would investigate them one by one.

After all, there are still more than ten years before the film's plot officially begins, and Pang Xuelin is not sure whether Murphy was born or not.

Cooper's eldest son, Tom Cooper, should have started school.

Fortunately, Cooper is not considered a common surname in the United States, and Pang Xuelin didn't have so much trouble finding it.

that's all.

one day,

two days.

a week,

two weeks.

January,

two months.

...

Pang Xuelin ran all over 60% of the towns within the arc, but still found nothing.

At noon that day, Pang Xuelin drove into a small town called Nola, and just found the town's parking lot, billowing yellow sand and smoke billowed in the distant sky.

Pang Xuelin's eyes lit up, and he was not at all worried about the coming sandstorm.

Because the scene in front of him was almost exactly the same as the scene in the movie in his memory.

"It should be here!"

A gleam of hope rose in Pang Xuelin's heart, but soon, he got on the car again, and under the guidance of passers-by, he found the mayor's residence.

Pang Xuelin stayed at the mayor's house to avoid the sandstorm all afternoon. It was not until the next morning that he, accompanied by the mayor, went to the public school in the town to look up student information.

"Tom Cooper, it should be him!"

Pang Xuelin looked at the little fat man in the photo in the student file, and excitedly asked the principal beside him, "Do you have his home address?"

"Tom? His home should be about ten kilometers northwest of Nola Town. Every morning, his father would drive him to school. Today is the weekend, and the school does not have classes. Why don't you wait until tomorrow? His father will send him here." When will you come again?"

Pang Xuelin shook his head and said, "No, I'm going to his house today."

The principal hesitated for a moment, looked at the mayor beside him and said, "But, none of us have ever been to his house, and we only know a general direction of his house."

Pang Xuelin said: "As long as there is a direction, I will drive there."

"Mr. Pang, don't you need me to arrange a guide for you?"

Pang Xuelin smiled and said, "No need, Mr. Robert, I have troubled you for the past two days!"

"No trouble, we will fulfill our obligations when cooperating with your work."

Pang Xuelin smiled, and drove the dilapidated pickup truck that had been eroded by wind and sand towards the direction pointed by the principal.

After driving for more than ten kilometers, two houses appeared in the middle of a large cornfield.

In the cornfield, there are still many unmanned harvesters harvesting corn in the field.

Pang Xuelin drove the car and stopped in front of a house, and saw an old man packing up debris at the door.

Pang Xuelin rolled down the car window and asked, "Excuse me, is this Mr. Cooper's home?"

"Who are you?"

The old man was puzzled.

"I'm a member of the space agency, and I want to chat with Mr. Cooper..."

The old man's expression changed involuntarily, and he said, "There is nothing called Cooper here."

At this moment, the door of the house opened, and a handsome man was helping a pregnant woman in her thirties and walked out of the house. Who else could it be but Cooper? !

"Mr. Cooper, I finally found you!"

Pang Xuelin got out of the car and came to Cooper.

"Who are you? Why are you looking for me?"

Cooper looked Pang Xuelin up and down, a hint of vigilance flashed in his eyes.

Pang Xuelin smiled and stretched out his hand, "My name is Pang Xuelin, I'm from the space agency..."

"My name is not Cooper, you have the wrong person."

As soon as Cooper's face changed, he helped his wife and walked into the house.

The old man quickly followed in, and then slammed the door shut.

Pang Xuelin was slightly taken aback, then stepped forward to knock on the door and said, "Mr. Cooper, I have something very important to ask you, please open the door."

"Mr. Cooper..."

"Mr. Cooper..."

"..."

Pang Xuelin kept knocking on the door for more than ten minutes, the door finally opened with a creak, and what appeared in front of Pang Xuelin was a long double-barreled shotgun muzzle.

"I told you, his name is not Cooper, if you don't leave, I will shoot!"

The old man said impatiently.

"Okay... okay... I'll go right away!"

Pang Xuelin quickly raised his hands, stepped back slowly, and came to the yard.

He then got into the cab and drove back to town.

In a bedroom upstairs, Cooper and his wife stood at the window, watching Pang Xuelin leave.

"Honey, are you really not going to see him?"

Cooper shook his head, looked at his wife's swollen belly, and said with a smile: "No, I just want to be a farmer in peace now, waiting for our child to be born."