62: Supergravitons

Proxima Centauri, the star closest to the Solar System, bid farewell to the Far Star Fleet for the last time with its dim red light.

In the cold and empty space on the outskirts of the Proxima Centauri system, ten elegant falam warships completed their brief one-week rest and self-inspection.

All systems were restored to their optimal state.

The energy core of the Warp Drive was recalibrated.

"All units, report status."

On the bridge of the flagship rathia, Talon's voice rang out over the command channel.

"sifidia, systems normal."

"Pathfinder, systems normal."

...

When the last status-normal signal was received, Talon cast his gaze toward the final target marked with a red box on the main screen.

4.2 light-years.

This was the final distance between them and the star system personally designated by "the guide."

"Activate propulsion engines." He issued the final order.

The sterns of the ten warships simultaneously lit up with the light of conventional thrusters, resembling blue stars.

They began to accelerate slowly, breaking free from the weak gravitational well of Proxima Centauri.

"Warp Drive entering operational status, Warp bubble coverage at 10%... 30%... 60%... coverage complete."

When the fleet reached the critical speed for safe warp travel, Talon's voice sounded again.

"Enter superluminal state."

Space rippled like water once more.

The ten streams of silver-white light ceased abruptly, silently merging into the deep darkness.

They embarked on their final journey toward that bright star.

...

Meanwhile, on Earth, 4.2 light-years away.

A great exploration, equally vital to the future of civilization, was quietly unfolding hundreds of meters beneath the surface.

Beneath a certain mountain range on the Northwest Plateau.

The largest, most precise, and most expensive scientific instrument ever built by humanity—the Large Hadron Collider "Gonggong"—was about to conduct its first official run today.

The name "Gonggong" is taken from the ancient Chinese mythological water god who struck Mount Buzhou in a fit of rage, symbolizing humanity's determination to use the most powerful force to smash open the door to the most fundamental laws of the universe.

Its main body is a circular vacuum tunnel buried deep underground, with a total length of 87 kilometers.

This length is more than three times that of its predecessor—the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Europe.

With the support of super-materials and numerous engineering machines provided by Paradox Technology, the construction technology and performance parameters of this collider reached a level that the designers of the LHC would not even dare to imagine in their dreams.

The inner wall of its tunnel is composed of "el-3 composite target material" capable of withstanding any energy impact. (This thing is truly omnipotent!)

Its acceleration magnetic field is composed of tens of thousands of superconducting magnets capable of generating super-strong magnetic forces at room temperature.

It is capable of accelerating a pair of neutrons, which are smaller than protons, to infinitely close to the speed of light, equivalent to 99.9999999% of the speed of light.

It then makes them collide billions of times on this circular track at a speed of millions of laps per second.

Each collision releases a terrifying energy density in an instant.

Under such extreme energy, the most fundamental particles constituting matter are torn apart, releasing deeper, unknown particles that only exist in the conjectures of theoretical physicists.

Today, Lei Wen also personally came to the general control center of "Gonggong."

As the Asian representative of Paradox Technology and the largest sponsor of the "Gonggong" project, he certainly had the qualifications to stand here, shoulder to shoulder with many titans of the Chinese scientific community and Nobel Prize winners in Physics from around the world.

He also wanted to witness with his own eyes how far humanity's own scientists could go on this path toward the microscopic world, relying on their own strength.

The general control center resembled a combat command room from a futuristic science fiction movie.

The huge circular screen displayed real-time operational data for various parts of the collider—vacuum level, magnetic field strength, cooling system temperature...

Hundreds of top physicists and engineers were sitting in front of their respective consoles, their expressions tense and focused.

Academician Chen Haikang and Professor Liu Zhaodong were also prominently among them.

"President Lei Wen, your presence truly brings light to our humble abode." Seeing Lei Wen arrive, Academician Chen Haikang immediately greeted him warmly.

"Academician Chen, you are too kind." Lei Wen said with a smile, "I am just an enthusiast interested in physics, here today just to broaden my horizons."

"You are no mere enthusiast," Professor Liu Zhaodong joked from the side, "If you are an enthusiast, then the rest of us can only be considered laymen."

Everyone also knew that without the super-materials and construction technologies provided by Paradox Technology, this great scientific miracle could never have been built in just two short years.

"...All systems self-check complete, preparing for beam injection!"

As the chief engineer gave the order, everyone returned to their posts, and the atmosphere in the control center instantly became heavy.

"Neutron source activated, first neutron beam injected into the acceleration orbit."

"Energy injection started, 1 TEV... 10 TEV... 100 TEV..."

On the screen, the numbers representing the energy level were jumping frantically.

In that 87-kilometer-long underground tunnel, a stream of particles composed of trillions of neutrons, invisible to the naked eye, was moving in a circular motion at an ever-increasing speed, constrained by the powerful magnetic field generated by the superconducting magnets.

"Second proton beam injected in the opposite direction!"

"Dual beams stable, energy level has reached peak—1400 TEV!"

"Prepare for collision!"

The chief engineer's voice trembled slightly with excitement.

Everyone held their breath, staring fixedly at the three-dimensional model in the center of the screen that represented the collision point.

"...3, 2, 1, collide!"

In that instant, two neutron beams moving in opposite directions at speeds infinitely close to the speed of light slammed into each other with unparalleled precision in the center of four huge detectors.

There was no sound.

There was no light.

But on that microscopic scale, countless times smaller than an atomic nucleus, a magnificent "firework" comparable to the creation of the universe was blooming.

The neutrons were torn apart.

The quarks and gluons that composed them annihilated into the purest energy under the terrifying energy impact.

And these energies, under the laws of quantum fluctuations, instantaneously condensed into various strange and extremely short-lived particles, such as the higgs boson, top quark, W boson, Z boson...

These particles, like cosmic ghosts, were born in an instant and decayed in an instant.

And the hundreds of millions of incredibly sensitive detectors around the collision point acted like an ultra-high-speed camera, faithfully recording the fleeting trajectory and energy information left by every particle in this microscopic firework show.

...

"Data captured! Massive amounts of data are flooding in!"

Inside the control center, the data analyst's voice broke the silence.

The "Apocalypse" optical quantum supercomputer began operating at full speed, performing real-time screening, reconstruction, and analysis of the collision data, which reached several PB per second.

Soon, images reconstructed from particle trajectories appeared on the main screen.

"We see a clear signal of the higgs boson decaying into two photons!"

"The top quark mass measurement is three orders of magnitude more precise than the data from CERN!"

"...My God! We seem... we seem to have seen something that does not belong to the Standard Model!"

A young theoretical physicist looked at an extremely strange particle trajectory on the screen and let out an exclamation of disbelief.

Everyone's gaze focused on it.

In that complex image composed of countless particle tracks, one trajectory appeared out of place.

It was not a smooth curve, nor was it a clear straight line.

It was an intermittent trajectory that seemed to constantly "flicker" in space.

A particle seemed to appear out of thin air here, fly for a very short distance, then vanish into thin air, and then reappear somewhere else...

"What is this? Instrument failure? Or a data reconstruction error?" Professor Liu Zhaodong asked, frowning.

"It doesn't look like it," the young physicist shook his head, "This signal appeared in four different detectors! And its energy characteristics are very strange; it seems unaffected by gravity?"

As soon as this guess was made, the entire control center exploded.

A particle unaffected by gravity?

This completely overturned the existing edifice of physics.

According to Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, any matter with energy and mass is affected by gravity and causes the surrounding spacetime to curve.

Yet this mysterious particle was like a ghost walking outside of spacetime, completely ignoring the most fundamental law of the universe: gravity.

"Could it be... a dark matter particle?" someone guessed.

"Impossible." Professor Liu Zhaodong immediately dismissed this idea, "Although dark matter does not participate in electromagnetic interactions, it clearly participates in gravitational interactions; we only observed its existence through the gravitational lensing effect."

"Then what exactly is it?"

Over the next few hours, the entire scientific team of "Gonggong" fell into an intense brainstorming session.

They retrieved all the collision data and performed tens of thousands of simulations and reconstructions of that strange trajectory.

Finally, they reached an even more astonishing conclusion.

This particle is not unaffected by gravity.

It is generating a force opposite to gravity!

"Every time it flickers," the young physicist pointed to the simulation animation, explaining excitedly, "it generates an extremely weak but measurable negative spacetime curvature around it! It is repelling space! It is generating anti-gravity!"

Anti-gravity!

This term, which only existed in science fiction, appeared in human experimental data for the first time in an irrefutable manner.

Lei Wen looked at the constantly flickering particle on the screen, and a monstrous wave rose in his heart.

Humanity seemed to have inadvertently smashed open a door to a completely new field of physics.

"I suggest," after a long period of shock, Professor Liu Zhaodong took a deep breath and said in a solemn tone filled with a sense of historical mission, "that we name this brand-new particle capable of transmitting anti-gravitational interaction as—"

"Super Graviton."

This name immediately received the approval of all the scientists present.

They knew they were witnessing the birth of a new era.

The discovery of the Super Graviton is far more significant than the discovery of the higgs boson.

It is not just adding a new member to the Standard Model of particle physics.

It is more like a key.

An ultimate key that can allow humanity to break free from the shackles of gravity and truly achieve free flight among the stars.

If this particle can be captured and stabilized, if it can be used to create a controllable anti-gravity field.

Then...

Future aircraft will no longer need bulky wings and noisy engines; they can hover silently in the air like a UFO.

Future starships will no longer need to consume massive amounts of fuel to counter a planet's gravitational well; they can easily achieve vertical takeoff and landing within planets, and can also effortlessly break free from a star's gravitational well.

They can even utilize the gravitational slingshot effect to catapult the ship, achieving faster speeds.

Future cities could all float in the sky!

"This... this will be the greatest leap in the history of human technological development!" Academician Chen Haikang said excitedly, looking at the flickering trajectory.

The same light shone in Lei Wen's eyes as well.

Perhaps the space elevator could be realized even sooner.