229: Chapter 229: The Perpetual Motion Machine Experiment - Success!!!

The next day, early morning.

Before the New Year in Gusu, it was somewhat warm.

Xiao Yu had already ridden her bicycle to school early in the morning.

Jiang Zhe also went out for a walk after breakfast, but during this leisurely stroll, he encountered a few unusual gazes.

A slim, expensively dressed girl seemed to want to say something but hesitated, appearing as if she wanted to greet him but stopped herself.

Jiang Zhe looked at the youthful and pretty girl walking a dog ahead and asked, "Is there something on my face?"

The girl looked stunned, "Ah? Ah? No, nothing."

After saying this, the girl quickened her pace and left. Jiang Zhe shook his head speechlessly and continued his walk.

The girl turned her head, observing Jiang Zhe carefully with stars in her eyes, "So Student J lives right near my house. I almost got caught! I can't be the reason my brother stops telling those fun stories later."

Yes, he had run into a fan.

Or rather, Jiang Zhe's fans were exceptionally polite and would almost never proactively break the ice.

...

As time passed, it was noon in the blink of an eye.

At this moment, thousands of miles away in the capital, inside a physics laboratory at Huaqing University.

The place was stark white, looking ten, or perhaps nine out of ten parts, science fiction.

Various instruments in the room were humming. Ouyang Baili, Professor Wu, Professor Guan, Li Mo, and several other condensed matter physics and optical engineering professors, along with Ph.D. students and researchers, were gathered together.

Everyone's gaze was focused on the special silvery-white metal cavity in the center, across the transparent glass.

The cavity was about 5 meters long and 1 meter wide, resembling a capsule!

That was exactly the [asymmetric microwave resonant cavity] they had urgently built, based on the [EmDrive] concept Jiang Zhe mentioned in his livestream yesterday, combined with current conditions.

The cavity's design mainly copied... borrowed from the conical structure in the NASA report—the interior was polished to a mirror finish, with one end connected to a high-power microwave generator, and the other end connected to a high-precision torsion balance thrust measurement system capable of detecting micronewton or even nanonewton-level thrust.

"Data calibration complete. The environmental vibration isolation system has been started at maximum!" Li Mo was controlling the main console screen. His face was full of dark circles, and he hesitated to press the Enter key, clearly very nervous!

He had spent the entire night in the laboratory building the prototype with Professor Guan, Professor Wu, and Professor Ouyang.

Professor Guan patted his shoulder, his chubby hand resting on Li Mo's shoulder to knead it, "Relax, Xiao Mo. We are verifying a conjecture that might overturn our understanding. Failure is the norm. Even if we copied NASA's technology, their repeatability is questionable, so it is very normal for us to fail. Don't be afraid!"

After Professor Guan's comfort, Li Mo's tense body indeed relaxed a lot.

Professor Wu looked at the cavity opposite, his brow furrowed, "To be honest, even now, I still feel this violates the conservation of energy. A closed cavity generating thrust solely from internally reflected microwaves feels like pulling oneself up by one's own hair to leave the ground..."

Ouyang Baili stood with his arms crossed, his gaze very focused as he swept over the several professors beside him, "Precisely because it seemingly violates the classical framework we are familiar with, verifying it is even more valuable."

"Student J, or rather, Xiaoyu's brother."

"What he provided is an anti-gravity path that can be actually simulated right here and right now."

"Regardless of whether it is right or wrong, this path must be walked!"

"Once successful, it will be of tremendous help to cosmology, aviation, materials science, people's livelihoods, and all other aspects!"

"Alright, begin!"

"First experiment, input power 50 watts, frequency 2.45 GHz." Li Mo pressed the Enter key.

Everyone raised their heads, looking intently at the main control computer screen.

The microwave generator began to work, the humming sound gradually becoming clearer, and the high-precision sensor data stream appeared on the computer screen, scrolling like a waterfall.

One minute, two minutes, two and a half minutes...

The torsion balance reading fluctuated within a range of extremely tiny noise, showing no clear directional thrust signal.

"The thrust signal did not exceed the background noise." Li Mo's tense heart died on the spot, "It failed!"

"Don't be discouraged. Continue to change the frequency, adjust to 1.6 GHz, and increase the power to 100 watts." Professor Ouyang nodded slightly and issued the instruction.

The second experiment began, and the data still showed no change.

"No thrust..."

Professor Ouyang said again, "The standing wave mode inside the cavity might be wrong. Continue to adjust the matcher."

"No thrust..."

Professor Ouyang was a bit suspicious and continued to command, "Check the environmental electromagnetic interference again, and confirm the shielding layer one more time!"

"No thrust..."

Professor Ouyang was a bit stunned, "Rerun the torsion balance zero-point drift compensation algorithm!"

"No thrust..."

The 2.5th, third, fourth, fifth, tenth time...

Time passed bit by bit. Occasional machine anomalies could make the professors happy for half a second, but then the joy would instantly extinguish.

Aside from the running instruments and occasional commands, there was only the sound of disappointed breathing at the scene.

Professor Wu shook his head repeatedly, "Jiang Zhe may have broken his word. Although his thinking is very powerful, not everything he says is correct. For a genius, making a mistake once is understandable."

Even Li Mo agreed with Professor Wu's words.

As the operator, he was more nervous than all the professors present, and his blind trust in Jiang Zhe gradually turned into calmness.

"Perhaps Jiang Zhe is really just a king of theory, and practical operation..."

The other optical and physics professors were also whispering to each other, looking doubtful.

Were they wondering if this was yet another failed [perpetual motion machine] experiment!

After all, light being able to provide thrust fundamentally violates physical models!

Only Ouyang Baili refused to believe it, saying with a firm face, "Xiao Mo, increase the power to 200 watts for me. Sweep the frequency from 1GHz to 3GHz, then slowly to 50MHz."

"I don't believe NASA would lie about this matter, and I don't believe Jiang Zhe would cite fake evidence from NASA!!!"

"Alright!!!"

Li Mo gritted his teeth, set the parameters, and a new round of frequency sweeping began.

The data stream on the computer screen remained very chaotic.

Ten minutes passed, twenty minutes passed, twenty-five minutes passed...

Just as Professor Wu couldn't help but want to say something again, Li Mo suddenly made an "Eh~" sound.

His eyes were locked onto a white waveform rapidly scrolling across the screen.

"Holy crap!"

Professor Ouyang, Professor Wu, Professor Guan, and the other experimental personnel gathered around the screen one after another.

They saw that in the frequency range of approximately 1.847 GHz, the thrust reading curve, which originally should have been fluctuating randomly near the zero value...

...had strangely shown a tiny positive shift!

Although the magnitude was only hovering on the edge of the nanonewton level and was almost drowned out by other waveforms, its persistence and directionality were completely different from the previously completely random noise fluctuations!

"Is, is this it?" An optical engineering professor beside Li Mo gasped.

"Don't rush. Fix this frequency, maintain the power at 200 watts, and extend the single test time to 250 seconds." Ouyang Baili's heart was in his throat as he continued to command.

At this moment, everyone in the laboratory, who had been drowsy, was suddenly energized, sweeping away their fatigue!

The laboratory was deathly silent. Everyone held their breath, their gazes locked tightly onto the screen.

As Li Mo pressed the Enter key, microwaves were once again injected into the cavity.

Time passed second by second.

One hundred seconds, two hundred seconds...

The weak positive shift had actually stabilized!

It was like a small stream, stubbornly maintaining a weak force protruding from the smooth line!!!

"There is a signal, a stable weak thrust signal; the directionality is very clear!" Li Mo gasped, completely stunned.

"Incredible!!!" Professor Wu leaned forward, staring intently at the protruding waveform signal, "Really, we measured it! Inside a closed cavity! How is this possible? This is like lifting myself up to the sky!!!"

Professor Guan looked at Professor Ouyang, looking surprised, "Good grief, Professor Ouyang, you casually picked a frequency range, and it actually succeeded!!!"

Ouyang Baili's tense heart also instantly relaxed; the solemnity on his face suddenly transformed into excitement, shock, and thrill!

But soon, he returned to a solemn expression, "Don't rush. Continue to repeat. Immediately, the same experiment, 5 times in a row!"

The laboratory entered a state of high-speed operation.

Under the same parameter settings, the second, third, and fifth repeated experiments were conducted.

Although the magnitude of the thrust measured each time had slight fluctuations, and although the thrust was still at the nanonewton level, the stable positive signal appeared like a ghost time and time again. Its repeatability far exceeded their initial expectations, and also far exceeded the so-called elusive [randomness] in the NASA report!

When the final set of data was confirmed to be correct, the laboratory fell into a brief silence.

Immediately after, a fanatical sound erupted!