Chapter 290 The Big Filter

1800 billion, this is really a huge amount of money, and the global GDP at that time was about 120 trillion!

Almost all the consortiums, banks, governments, and wealthy people participated in this "gambling" action.

If it really succeeds, they can get huge benefits, so these consortiums are willing to take a gamble.

And a large number of people with lofty ideals also ambitiously participated in this action, willing to contribute their wisdom.

This great sage has really tried his best. He has used up all the human resources accumulated throughout his life, gambled on his almost perfect reputation, and the government's support for him has reached its limit.

It must be said that after the basic disciplines such as physics of the Nix civilization almost stagnated, biology flourished.

The next few generations of great sages almost eliminated various diseases, making the medical system unprecedentedly developed...

There are even some life extension technologies, such as organ cloning technology, free radical longevity drugs, etc., which greatly extend the life of Nix people. As the inventor of free radical longevity drugs, Baxter has created huge value with this patent alone.

After all, longevity is something everyone desires and is the most economically valuable. Every Nix person will pay for longevity.

Therefore, research in this area is least lacking in investment and has the fastest development speed.

At that time, the average life expectancy of Nix people had increased to 150 years old!

However, this is only the average life expectancy. The oldest and well-maintained people are over 200 years old!

It is precisely because of this that the population growth is still rapid despite the decreasing annual birth rate of the entire planet, because the mortality rate is lower!

Who knows whether this increase in life expectancy is good or bad...

In the process of entropy increase of a civilization, there will always be heroes who try to slow down its entropy increase. Baxter is undoubtedly a hero-level figure. It sold its valuable shares in the biological company and resolutely switched from biology to nuclear physics, starting a new scientific research career...

At that time, it was already 90 years old!

Controlled thermonuclear fusion is essentially an engineering project with technical difficulties, and "seemingly" there is no insurmountable theoretical blind spot. Therefore, under the premise of having high-level technical talents, Nix people believe that using money can greatly speed up the progress and increase the success rate.

But money can't solve all the problems in the world.

The last saviors of the Nix civilization soon suffered.

They first adopted the most mature and most studied magnetic confinement, that is, the "Tokamak" device.

In theory, this thing has been studied by our ancestors for seven hundred years. With such a long time, even a group of pigs, even if there is not enough money, can research something.

A group of smart Nix people gathered together to discuss frantically. Although 1.8 trillion seems to be a lot of money, it must be spent on the right things.

In fact, scientific research is burning money, and it will be gone after burning, so they must find a suitable direction.

In the idea of ​​"magnetic confinement", there are three technical difficulties in controlled nuclear fusion:

First, the energy output must be greater than the energy input, that is, the triple product must be high enough.

Second, the first wall material must be able to withstand thermal shock, 14MeV neutron irradiation, and hydrogen and helium ion damage for a long time.

Third, the cost of tritium production is extremely high, and tritium must be self-sustaining (recycling).

The "Tokamak" device did solve some problems during the experiments of predecessors, which was more thorough than the exploration of earthlings. It can light up for a few minutes, and the output is about the input. But... it is far from the official power generation!

Formal power generation requires stability, long-term stability, and at least several months of stability, not the kind that a few hours or days are enough!

So, the entire completion rate, that is, in the progress bar of 100, is about 1% or 2% completed, and... it seems to be regressing at any time.

Really pay attention to this project, nuclear fusion is really painful.

The final result is like a carrot hanging in front of a donkey, dangling in front of your eyes, as if you can reach it with one more step forward... but you just can't eat it!

The main idea of ​​"Tokamak" is to use the external magnetic field to couple with the magnetic field generated by the plasma current.

If the plasma is unstable, the system may collapse, causing the instrument to be scrapped.

The scrapping of the instrument is equivalent to burning tens of billions.

So, can the plasma be stably controlled?

The answer of the predecessors is... it's very difficult!

The control of ultra-high temperature (more than 10 million degrees) and ultra-large current (more than one million amperes) is very laborious. Currently, there are no sufficiently stable materials and technologies.

In addition, the turbulence phenomenon unique to plasma is essentially a chaotic problem, which is a huge problem that cannot be overcome in physics for hundreds of years. It can only be forced to fit with quantum computers. But fitting is just fitting, and there is no exact solution.

After trying for a period of time, Baxter and others felt their scalps numb and felt the difficulty of the problem for the first time...

This thing will be scrapped after using it, what should I do?

Things that our predecessors could not make for hundreds of years must have their impracticability and huge difficulties.

Time is running out, and it is difficult for this group of scientists to conquer it in just a few decades, so let's change to another one: stellarator!

Or... Tokamak and stellarator are carried out at the same time, anyway, they use money to throw!

There are also plenty of technicians!

Multiple projects are carried out at the same time! Whichever one succeeds will be used!

The stellarator is another type of nuclear fusion device design. The plasma current inside is too violent, troublesome, and difficult to control. Just don’t use it!

Scientists are trying to create a closed and twisted ring-shaped magnetic cage inside through complex external coils.

That is to say, the difficulty of controlling the plasma current is transferred to the difficulty of designing and processing the three-dimensional magnetic field and coil...

The entire "stellar device" device is like a mess, and the processing technology is extremely complex.

This year, the news about nuclear fusion gradually settled down, and no one cared about it anymore... Ordinary people in the Knicks still sang and danced, and comfort and enjoyment continued to become the mainstream. This has been the norm for hundreds of years.

An interesting thing happened this year. The accidental car accident of a famous entertainment star actually attracted tens of thousands of people to watch. This behavior caused a traffic paralysis and even affected ambulances. This is a rare big news...

Knicks erupted into a melee online, expressing sympathy or grotesquely gloating.

There are also some Internet public figures calling for maintaining morals, etc...

They don't know that the last saviors of this world are killing each other in the laboratory.

This group of the smartest Nix scientists, confused and panicked, face alone this insurmountable "big filter" on a "cosmic scale"...

All the work has encountered huge difficulties that are almost insurmountable...

Turbulence problems can be forcibly fitted using quantum computers; radiation material problems need to be replaced regularly...

It seems that many problems have been barely solved, but all added up, it still cannot generate electricity... There are still too many problems, some of which are almost unsolvable.

Great Sage Baxter, a Knick with an IQ above 220, learned the cutting edge of nuclear physics in just three years, but he could not conquer this majestic mountain.

Its temper is getting louder and louder, and its opponents are getting more and more harsh. It has been fighting late into the night for many years, but... to no avail.

These researchers feel like a mountain climber. It looks like the target is close at hand. When they worked hard to climb one mountain after another, they suddenly encountered a cliff.

At this time, they were exhausted, and only then did they realize that their target was just a mirage.

They climbed the wrong way, they went exactly the wrong way!

This is truly great. 1.8 trillion funds, over several decades, has only proven the error of one path.

Nothing came of it.

The heads of various departments were replaced several times, the money was burned quickly, and they faced... the complaints and suspicions of the entire world.