vrcanaries Chapter 117 Knowledge Sealing Criteria
Chapter 117 Knowledge Sealing Criteria
Crisis Era 31, 2038 AD.
After his vacation ended, Dr. Ding Yi immediately devoted himself to research on cold fusion.
This differs slightly from the original storyline.
In the original storyline, Ding Yi was still trying to find a way to break through the Zhi Zi's blockade, but in the end, he still came up empty-handed.
However, with Lin Xuan's participation this time, he no longer needed to wander aimlessly like the fly in the bottle, and could concentrate on focusing the experiment on physics.
Wang Miao has also started a new job.
Fleet International has grand ambitions; they are not limited to simply building a Martian base.
They want to build a space city large enough to house millions of people.
The idea is wonderful, but there are many difficulties in implementing it.
Humans currently lack the ability to terraform a planet. Coupled with the typhoons on Mars that can reach levels 30 or higher, as well as the various harsh living conditions, constructing large-scale ground engineering projects has become a pipe dream.
So they chose a different approach and built an underground city.
After first asking Wei Cheng to help design a new blueprint for the mirror project, everyone got to work.
First, use a stellar-class hydrogen bomb to drill a crater on Mars, then drag the shelter that has already been assembled on Earth to Mars to complete the foundation work.
The next steps are quite easy, much like the construction of the space station. First, use a tunnel boring machine to extend outwards along the location of the shelter, then connect and advance the modules one by one, pushing the original modules into the next section of soil.
Sitting on the engineering boat, Wang Miao looked at the design drawings in his hand. The small squares one after another seemed somewhat familiar to him.
"Isn't this just like Fallout Shelter?"
They are all modularly constructed and then pieced together; the only difference is that I am on Mars.
Even so, the construction of the entire Mars base is quite slow. Wei Cheng estimates that it may take at least eight years to build an underground city the size of Los Angeles.
The main challenges are twofold. The first is transportation costs: after the modules are built in geosynchronous orbit, they need to be transported to Mars.
Although controlled nuclear fusion technology has been realized and the energy problem has been solved, transportation still incurs time costs.
The second point is that the harsh environment of Mars itself would make the original assembly work extremely difficult.
Actually, solving these two difficulties is quite simple – cold fusion.
Once cold fusion is completed, controlled nuclear fusion devices will be miniaturized and made lighter, and then something else can be manufactured as well.
Power armor!
Industrial-grade power armor could give an ordinary person strength dozens of times greater than their own body, at which point the construction speed of the entire project would be extremely fast.
Therefore, Ding Yi now bears a heavy responsibility. Whether cold fusion technology can be completed is related to whether many technologies can achieve revolutionary breakthroughs.
Lin Xuan also approached Ding Yi several times, hoping he could find inspiration from the field of catalysts.
If thermonuclear fusion is like a pile of firewood igniting a flame to produce energy, then cold fusion is like using a catalyst to ignite that pile of wood even without producing high temperatures.
This is why the physics community has always thought this thing is a hoax, but with the simulation of the dream world, Ding Yi has roughly found a research direction.
"Perhaps we really can find a way to change the ignition point of this pile of wood, thereby generating energy. After all, what we call cold fusion is not about not releasing heat at all, but about compressing the heat release to below room temperature."
To this end, Ding Yi built a super-large cold fusion device at the connection point between Zhiyuan Star and Earth as an experimental device.
He needs to disassemble the entire device step by step first, and only after he succeeds can he gradually reduce the size of the device.
After countless failures, they finally produced an unstable sample that could only be used in space.
Just like when he improved the tokamak device, humanity has only taken the first step. There is still a long way to go before the complete application of cold fusion technology.
Lin Xuan stopped interfering in the affairs of Earth International and Fleet International during this period, and devoted all his energy to the expansion of Reach and the Van Gogh Project.
After all, I am an observer, so I should do something that is in line with my identity, right?
The Trisolarans now mistake him for an observer, so in their eyes, Lin Xuan and all of humanity are two civilizations of completely different levels.
This may not seem to offer any substantial benefits, but if the universe has more than just the Dark Forest Theory as a universal axiom, then this operation could be extremely useful.
Knowledge sealing principle!
This is another concept that Liu Cixin introduced in "The Way of Dawn".
This is one of the highest principles of civilized worlds in the universe: advanced civilizations are not allowed to transfer knowledge to lower civilizations; such behavior is called knowledge conduit transfer.
Less advanced civilizations can only acquire knowledge through their own exploration.
As mentioned before, the concept of knowledge is very complex; it could be a principle, a technology, or just a piece of information.
This principle is actually reflected in "The Three-Body Problem," but it is not specifically shown.
In the later stages of the Three-Body Problem storyline, the Trisolarans' approach to dealing with the two-dimensional foil was somewhat vague, and even contradictory.
Subjectively speaking, they may have been afraid that the Trisolarans who had fled into space would retaliate after human civilization redeveloped.
However, objectively speaking, it is actually following the principle of knowledge sealing.
Compared to humans, the Trisolaran civilization is clearly more advanced, so if it were to transmit certain knowledge to humans, it would be violating the principle of knowledge secrecy.
For example, Evans, the former leader of ETO, learned about the Dark Forest Theory, and the entire ETO was destroyed by the Trisolarans through the "Guzheng Project".
Evans, the first leader of ETO who knew the Dark Forest Theory, was also cut into three pieces, becoming a true "Trisolaran".
This was purely a mistake by the Trisolarans. They mistakenly believed that Evans knew the Dark Forest Theory, so they inadvertently revealed it. However, they quickly corrected this error.
Lin Xuan's current situation is similar to Evans'.
The Trisolarans believed that Lin Xuan was from an advanced civilization and that he knew everything, so sharing knowledge with Lin Xuan did not violate the principle of knowledge sealing.
But in reality, Lin Xuan knows nothing at all. He is pretending to know everything to trick the Trisolarans into revealing information.
If the Trisolarans find out that they have been tricked again and that Lin Xuan has led them to violate the knowledge sealing principle, they will probably try to kill Lin Xuan at all costs.
Lin Xuan, the universe's number one con artist, has now successfully led the Trisolarans down a path that completely violates the rules of the universe.
However, Lin Xuan was actually quite innocent. After all, from the very beginning, it was you who treated me as some kind of "observer," it had nothing to do with him!
It's not my fault for fooling you; it's just that your imaginations are too vivid. As for the consequences of violating the knowledge sealing principle... that's your business, the Trisolarans.