Chapter 1142 Strange Drops

Lu Zhou originally thought that this hourglass-shaped building is so majestic that there should be many floors. Unexpectedly, however, a large amount of floor space was wasted in the space between the floor and the ceiling.

The continuously extending ceiling is like a sky without cloud cover. The sense of oppression from the space makes the interior of the whole hall look extraordinarily solemn and majestic.

It seems that this is not a conference hall, but a place similar to a court.

In fact, not only the design of this main hall, but even the high conference table gave people the same feeling.

The entire conference table is in the shape of a horseshoe, like an unfolded fan, extending diagonally upward.

Those who sit at the bottom are general councilors, and the higher you go, the higher your status and status, and the ones who sit at the top are ministers of high-ranking departments, the speaker, and even the ruler of the empire—the supreme consul.

Weird civilization.

It is obviously a materialistic value, but the political form does not give people a sense of efficiency or convenience at all, but instead gives people a sense of majesty in a religious sense.

Lu Zhou guessed that this may be related to the special philosophy and aesthetics of Jialan civilization.

As a topic of sociology, it has to be said that this is a very interesting phenomenon, worthy of further study. Unfortunately, Lu Zhou is not a social science scientist, so he quickly focused on something more worthy of his attention...

The meeting started quickly.

Standing on the side of the hall with General Saines, like two sculptures, it blended with the guards beside him and the wall behind him. Lu Zhou waited quietly for about five minutes, and the ruler sitting at the head of the conference table The official watched Dr. Ryan standing in front of the conference table calmly, and finally spoke slowly.

"Are you Dr. Lane?"

Dr. Ryan nodded slightly and said politely.

"Yes, Your Excellency the Consul."

"Recently, there has been a rumor about an 'Oracle' circulating in the ring world, and according to the investigation of the intelligence agency, it seems that everything is caused by you."

With a breathless sense of coercion in his eyes, and in an unquestionable tone, the powerful Jialan man continued, "I want to know why you brought such a thing to the empire and to yourself. Big trouble."

"Whether it is the council or me, as well as the people of the empire, an explanation is needed."

Facing the coercive gazes cast from the conference table, Dr. Ryan tried to keep his tone as calm as possible, and said neither humble nor overbearing.

"Your Excellency the Consul, I must correct your statement."

"First of all, the 'Oracle' is not a rumor. Our civilization is indeed facing an unprecedented crisis. Second, as a scholar, I will be responsible for every opinion I express, and what I say is true."

There was a commotion in the hall.

Except for those high-ranking people who sat at the top, most of the councilors looked at each other, whispered to each other, and even laughed from time to time.

crisis?

There might have been a market for such an argument three centuries ago, when doomsday theories were once in vogue.

But now that the ring world has been completed, the empire is ushering in unprecedented prosperity, and according to the current population growth rate, it is no surprise that this period of prosperity can be maintained for centuries without any problems.

They have already solved all crises once and for all.

It is undoubtedly quite ridiculous to bring up this argument now.

The chin was lifted slightly, and a playful chuckle hung on the consul's face. It's hard to tell whether the look in his eyes is contempt, or just watching a very funny joke, he continued to speak.

"Then Dr. Ryan, tell me, what exactly is your so-called crisis, is it your so-called talk about aliens?"

"Yes and no."

After giving an ambiguous answer, Dr. Ryan explained what he said, seeing the archon's slightly frowned brows.

"I'm not sure if the crisis came from them, but it did have something to do with it."

There was another commotion at the conference table.

Looking at the crowded conference table, the scholar continued.

"First of all, it must be clear that our universe is not as lonely as we imagined. Even if no traces of other civilizations are found within 500 light-years, it does not mean that the situation beyond 50,000 light-years is also the same. Same. If the distance scale is enlarged to the background of the entire universe, only we are a special existence, but it is a very low probability accident.”

Looking at Dr. Ryan who spoke so convincingly in the audience, the consul said casually.

"This kind of argument was popular many years ago, and I am not interested in discussing it with you here. Even if they exist, if we will never meet them on the scale of time, then whether they exist or not Prosperity or not, what does it matter to us?"

Jialan civilization is not a civilization that is keen on expansion.

Compared with expanding the empire's territory outward, they are more keen on the unity within the race and improving the cohesion of the empire. It is precisely because of this that they were able to complete their unification in the early days of the space age, and were able to create such a majestic star-level megastructure project as the ring world.

Alien civilization?

Although they had been enthusiastic about first close contact in the early days of the space age, this ethos was only abandoned by the end of the early days of space colonization.

Dr. Ryan nodded in agreement with the consul's statement, and continued.

"Under ideal circumstances, glorious isolation is a virtue and a wise choice. We really don't need to argue with ants tens of thousands of light-years away... But the problem is that this time they took the initiative to contact us. Rather than us actively finding them."

The noisy voice suddenly quieted down.

It was as if the sound system had been turned off suddenly, and there was no sound in the entire hall.

A hint of surprise finally appeared in his eyes, and he exchanged glances with the Speaker sitting next to him. The Consul continued to look at Dr. Ryan who was in the audience, and said in a deep voice.

"Don't be alarmist! Where's your evidence?"

"I have stated my findings in a paper published 127 sundays ago, but because of this paper, I have brought my life to danger...Thanks to General Saines, and his Marines, If it wasn't for them, I'd have been sent to meet the Cosmic Spirit by radical mobs and drones."

General Saines, who was standing in the corner of the conference room, nodded slightly and responded politely.

"You're welcome, Dr. Lane, your rights are protected by the charter. Regardless of whether you will face legal trials in the end, it will not change this."

Nodding his head again to express his gratitude, Dr. Ryan turned his gaze back to the conference table.

Responding to the sights staring at him one after another, he continued to speak.

"For the sake of your understanding, I will present my research again here now."

As he said that, he took the suitcase that had passed the security check procedure from the security personnel on the side, and took out a square cone the size of a thumb from inside.

As his index finger pressed lightly on the square cone, azure blue light was emitted along the tip of the square cone, and the azure blue interlaced light drew a giant image in the space.

Holographic projection?

A look of interest appeared on Lu Zhou's face.

And it's naked-eye holographic, as well as touchable interaction!

Something ah, this is how to do it?

He felt like a countryman who had just entered the city at the moment, and he couldn't help but be surprised for a while when he saw everything.

Except for Lu Zhou, everyone in the chamber didn't feel any strangeness about the scene in front of them. They just watched the unfolding image quietly, waiting for Dr. Ryan to continue.

"...We all know that there is a kind of matter between black holes and neutron stars in this universe, which we call strange drops. It is composed of up quarks, down quarks and strange quarks, and is only the size of a grain of rice. It weighs tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of tons."

With a small gesture of index finger and thumb, Dr. Lane continued.

"In order to study how to release the matter we need from black holes, the study of strange droplets has always been a frontier topic in physics research, and some time ago, we were lucky to lock a particle located at 23,000 ray through the analysis of gravitational waves. Strange drops outside the year..."

"And its size is about... at least as big as the holographic pen in my hand."

Hearing this, Lu Zhou's face suddenly showed a shocked look.

Strange!

And it exists in nature! ?

For the physics community of human civilization, "strange drops" have always been a kind of matter... or state that exists in conjecture.

The theory about its existence can be traced back to Witten's conjecture that "a large strange quark may be the ground state of a strongly interacting system" proposed by Witten in the 1980s. As for its cause, there are also conjectures including QCD phase transition in the early universe, supernova explosion, strange quark star collision and so on.

However, the conditions for the existence of strange drops are too harsh. In theory, its contact with any matter may lead to annihilation, and release more terrifying energy than the annihilation of antimatter.

Therefore, neither the astrophysics nor the high-energy physics community has found evidence that can prove their existence.

The only conjecture at present is that extremely high-energy cosmic rays with a total particle energy higher than about 10^19eV may contain a small number of strange droplets. However, how difficult it is to capture such cosmic rays, just look at how difficult it is to collect "slightly cheaper" neutrinos.

But now, this Dr. Lane "tells" him in an affirmative tone that there actually exists a strange blob in this universe that is large enough to be seen with the naked eye.

If all this were true, the entire geophysics community would be thrilled...

Thinking of this, Lu Zhou couldn't help but get excited.

However, the excitement didn't last long.

Because he quickly thought that even if he knew the existence of this strange substance, he seemed to have no way to prove it to others.

You can't, take the settings of the "game" as evidence, right?

He didn't even figure out where this Jialan civilization was, and whether it was still there.

Thinking of this, Lu Zhou couldn't help but sink into depression after being excited just now.

It would be great if we could determine the specific coordinates of this singular droplet, or obtain a complete observation technique.

But thinking about it, this memory should not include this part of the content.

At most, it can only make him greedy...

"...Gentlemen, think about how excited we were at the time. This is a strange drop that is so big that it can be seen with the naked eye, and even exists under natural conditions!"

"What's the use of this?" Looking at the excited Dr. Ryan, a congressman muttered, "Even the most advanced scientific research ship in the empire can't reach 23,000 light-years away to investigate the situation there."

The voice of these words was not small, and it happened to float into Dr. Ryan's ears.

Looking at the congressman, he spoke seriously.

"Any theory is useless when it's first studied, but the point is... if we don't understand it, we can't make it useful."

"In short, the project I am in charge of is to study this strange drop. At first we thought it was stationary, until we analyzed the gravitational waves, and got a series of soap bubbles separated from each other... This is not an abstraction It’s a metaphor for the image, but something intuitively reflected in the image. Do you know what this means? It means that the singular drop is indeed stationary in the concept of motion, but jumping, Follow the hyperspace light path toward the center of the galaxy—"

The consul coughed lightly and said seriously.

"The point is, this is the Imperial Chamber, and we are not interested in your physical theory."

"...The important point is that the latter discovery directly overturned our previous guess." Dr. Ryan accepted the advice of the consul graciously. After a pause, he continued with a serious expression, "This strange drop is definitely not natural. Forming."

"It's that other civilizations made it."

"And the civilization that made it is probably much more advanced than ours."