From all-round academic master to chief scientist

【Two chapters in one】

The next experimental arrangements have basically been determined, which is to use their particle accelerator to produce more of that special tungsten plate to prepare for subsequent verification on the Oriental Hyperring!

The total amount of tungsten plates required to produce the Oriental Super Ring takes two months, which is almost half of the conch-type device designed by Lin Xiao.

This is mainly because the size of the Oriental Hyperloop is still relatively small. Even if it can achieve stable nuclear fusion, the energy it can provide is not enough to meet all the electrical energy needed by the entire Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei economic circle.

Of course, the main reason for not being able to provide it is due to technical issues. In theory, even a disc with a diameter of less than ten centimeters can achieve nuclear fusion, but the most critical issue is how to achieve nuclear fusion in this ten centimeter disc. , create a magnetic field strong enough to constrain the plasma flow that carries out the fusion reaction inside.

Obviously, to achieve this, the magnetic field strength must be at least hundreds or thousands of Teslas, and it is impossible for any current superconductor to provide such a strong magnetic field without quenching.

After all, the black technology contained in Iron Man's luminous disk, which is less than ten centimeters, is not something that can be produced in reality.

Of course, for now, they don't need to pursue that level of technology. They will first develop a commercially available nuclear fusion reactor.

Therefore, after two months, when all the tungsten plates are produced, it is time to prepare for the real deal.

Of course, there was also a more important thing during the period, which was Lin Xiao's optimization of the magnetic field line of the Oriental Super Ring.

To a certain extent, this point is more important to this experiment than the production of special tungsten plates.

Although the general direction of the magnetic field of the tokamak device is fixed, the magnetic field lines are not fixed, which means that the lines of the energized conductors that provide the electromagnetic field can be designed more specifically.

The quality of this design is related to the stability of the entire reaction.

This is because in the plasma flow of controllable nuclear fusion, any slight disturbance may cause a subsequent chain reaction, which will greatly reduce the life of the device.

For example, these plasma flows were originally controlled to perform a stable reaction in the center of the reaction device, but two of them happened to collide. After they collided with each other, they collided with other plasmas, so in the end, the plasma The flow will become disordered again, causing these equally high-energy plasmas to hit the inner wall, causing damage, and the life of the device will naturally be reduced.

Therefore, careful design is needed at this time to allow the plasma flow to only participate in the reaction rather than in the destruction.

In this way, for their experiment this time, the error of the experiment can be reduced. After all, this experiment is to verify the performance of the special tungsten plate under the neutron bombardment of the nuclear fusion reaction, and the bombardment of the plasma flow Obviously it will bring errors.

Of course, in addition to this purpose of this experiment, they also have another purpose, which is to see how long their Eastern Super Ring can illuminate the sun's light this time!

The best results achieved by Oriental Hyperloop are the repeatable 101-second plasma operation at 120 million degrees Celsius and the 20-second plasma operation at 160 million degrees Celsius.

This kind of performance is good, at least in the world, but it is also very bad.

Because whether it is 101 seconds or 20 seconds, compared to the ultimate goal of running for a long time to generate electricity, this time is completely insufficient.

Not to mention generating electricity for such a short period of time is even more insignificant compared to the resources invested.

But this time, they replaced it with a material that can achieve complete resistance to ordinary neutron irradiation. Coupled with Lin Xiao's optimization of electromagnetic field circuits, how long can it resist this time?

Everyone at the Plasma Institute is looking forward to it.

However, during this process, some people also wanted to know how Lin Xiao wanted to optimize the route.

Especially in just two months.

The superconductor circuits of the entire Oriental Super Ring are quite complex. Even a slight movement of the ground may affect the overall magnetic field. Therefore, how to optimize the circuits has a lot to do with it. It can almost be said that one move affects the whole body.

Moreover, the route they originally designed has reached a very good level. If this is further optimized, where can it be optimized?

Many people are curious.

This also includes Li Gang.

…

"It's been a month. This month's two hundred and fifty fusion tungsten plates have been shipped to the Oriental Hyperloop."

In the cafeteria of the Golden Crow Project Research Institute, Lin Xiao and Li Gang were sitting together eating. After taking a few bites, Li Gang said something.

Fusion tungsten plate refers to the new type of tungsten plate. Why is it called that? It is because they all put their hopes of successfully achieving fusion on this tungsten plate, so they use this name to express their expectations. .

"Um."

Lin Xiao nodded, "Just follow the time, don't worry."

Li Gang smiled and said, "I'm not too anxious, but the problem is on your side."

"Optimizing routes shouldn't be that simple, right?"

Lin Xiao smiled and said: "It's indeed not very simple, but it's not a big problem. I have a VIP account with Pangu Supercomputer."

Li Gang was stunned, "Pangu is super calculating?"

"Um."

Lin Xiao nodded.

An expression of surprise suddenly appeared on Li Gang's face: "Didn't I just set this up? Do you already have an account?"

Lin Xiao spread his hands and said: "Theoretically, our Dingguang Research Institute is the one who makes the most money in Pangu Supercomputing. Of course I have an account."

Li Gang's face suddenly showed an expression of envy.

The Pangu supercomputer, which is said to be the most powerful supercomputer in mankind, has attracted all kinds of attention from the scientific community since its release, which naturally includes people from their plasma institute. After all, researchers who study plasma fluids in tokamak devices Among the problems, the use of supercomputing to assist research is an indispensable means.

So when the news of Pangu supercomputer first came out, it had already attracted their attention, not to mention the amazing computing power that Lin Xiao showed when he used it for the first time. It will regain its momentum as the world’s number one supercomputer.

After such a long time, the Pangu supercomputer has been built some time ago, but it is not yet open for use. After all, it still needs a period of internal debugging.

However, as Lin Xiao’s Dingguang Research Institute is the party that paid the money, Lin Xiao can naturally use it in advance.

But soon, Li Gang came back to his senses and said: "Although you can use Pangu supercomputer now, does this not affect your design of the magnetic field line of the Oriental Super Ring?"

Lin Xiao spread his hands: "It does not affect it, but as for the magnetic field circuit, I have actually designed it a long time ago, and I have been running simulations on the Pangu supercomputer recently."

"It doesn't matter..." Li Gang was nodding, and then suddenly his eyes widened and he looked at Lin Xiao.

"?"

"What are you talking about? You've already designed it? So quickly?"

"Well..." Lin Xiao groped his chin and said, "I can't say that it has been designed. It's just that during this period of time, I have been further optimizing based on the supercomputer simulation."

Li Gang: "..."

How do you manage to say such incredible things with such calm words?

"My Academician Lin, are you sure you are not joking? It has only been a month! And you have already designed it?"

According to Li Gang's original thoughts, he had already planned to wait a few more months before Lin Xiao had completed the optimization.

Then Lin Xiao turned around and told him that not only had the design been completed, but the details were even being polished now?

No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn't figure out why.

Lin Xiao smiled, spread his hands and said, "Don't be so surprised. How about I take you to the office after dinner?"

Li Gang nodded immediately and said, "Okay, I'll go and see it after eating."

Although he had been shocked by Lin Xiao many times for so long, he had to be shocked every time, and he couldn't get used to it at all.

This time he wanted to see how Lin Xiao was able to optimize the magnetic field circuit within a month.

Regarding Li Gang's surprise, Lin Xiao just shrugged and continued eating.

After finishing their meal quickly, they left the cafeteria and headed to Lin Xiao's office.

After arriving at the office, Lin Xiao turned on the computer and showed the supercomputer's operating interface to Li Gang.

Seeing the simulation animation above and the large amount of data popping up next to it, Li Gang finally confirmed that what Lin Xiao said was true!

He actually built this superconducting circuit in just one month!

And Li Gang took a closer look at the simulation above. Good guy, the simulation has been running continuously for fifteen days.

Of course, this continuous running of fifteen days is an accelerated calculation achieved through computing power, and it does not mean that the program has been running for fifteen days in reality.

However, after running this accelerated calculation for fifteen days, the inner wall wear degree displayed above was actually less than one thousandth!

In other words, in this simulation, the magnetic field circuit optimized by Lin Xiao made the wear of the plasma flow on the inner wall of the device almost negligible!

After all, less than one-thousandth part is worn out in fifteen days, and about 2% is worn out in 360 days a year. And they plan to perform maintenance once every three years, which is equivalent to replacing the inner wall every three years. material, in this way, the wear rate of the plasma flow will only reach 6% at most.

So in this way, you only need to face the radiation damage caused by neutrons with peace of mind.

Seeing this, Li Gang couldn't help but look at Lin Xiao next to him, still feeling very unbelievable.

"How did you do it? It's only been a month!"

Lin Xiao spread his hands and said, "That's it."

"How did you do this?" Li Gang still couldn't figure out how he could complete so much work in one month.

Lin Xiao sat down on his office chair, held his head in his hands, and said: "Okay, Academician Li, you should also know that the existence and smoothness of the solution to the Navier-Stokes equation are I proved it, right?”

"Well, of course I know that."

"So, we can treat the plasma flow in nuclear fusion as a compressible fluid, and then calculate it based on the Navier-Stokes equation."

"Well, since I am the prover of this problem, doesn't it mean that I have a deeper understanding of the Navier-Stokes equations, so it is not troublesome for me to optimize this electromagnetic field circuit."

"this……"

Li Gang didn't know what to say this time.

At first glance, what Lin Xiao said makes sense, but the most important question is how to complete such a large workload in one month?

Even if they use the Navier-Stokes equations to calculate, it's not like they haven't used this method before. It also requires a lot of effort. For any situation, it needs to be recalculated using the NS equation. Sometimes it is very complicated, and the equation needs to be rewritten. Even if you are as good at mathematics as Lin Xiao, the amount of work required is still a lot, right?

After all, the problem that Lin Xiao originally solved was only about the existence and smoothness of the solution, and it was not a general solution. Only a general solution could simplify all this workload, right?

But there is no news that Lin Xiao has also solved the problem?

At this time, Li Gang even began to think in his heart, could it be that Lin Xiao didn't need to sleep at night, and then he could use the clone technique?

But if Lin Xiao knew the guess in his mind, he would probably praise him for his good guess.

Because he indeed simplified this problem by relying on the general solution of the NS equation, and thus easily solved the entire optimization problem.

So for him, this issue of line optimization is basically not a concern.

Mastering the general solution of the NS equation is equivalent to mastering the secrets of various fluids in a sense, and plasma fluids are also among them. However, if you want to compare ordinary fluids, the variables that need to be added to plasma fluids are quite a lot. Just a little more.

"So, according to what you said, does it mean that the optimization has been completed now?"

Finally, Li Gang recovered from his surprise and asked.

The wear degree of less than one thousandth in fifteen days has fully met the expected requirements, or in other words, completely exceeded expectations.

Although this is only a supercomputer simulation and not a real scene, there is a high probability that the performance of the simulation will not be much different from the performance of the real scene. It may even be that in real nuclear fusion, the wear degree can be even better. What about lower?

Thinking of this, Li Gang was increasingly looking forward to the day of the official experiment.

That day was probably a dark day for foreign researchers in the field of nuclear fusion.

Of course, if they really succeed in developing nuclear fusion, darkness will fall not only on the field of foreign nuclear fusion, but also on everyone abroad.

After all, once they develop nuclear fusion, the world's economic balance will tilt towards them from the other side of the Pacific, where they control the hegemony of the US dollar. Even the hegemony of the US dollar will become precarious.

After all, the hegemony of the US dollar is based on oil hegemony, but when controllable nuclear fusion appears, oil's position in energy will inevitably be replaced.

A variety of predictions about the future situation flashed through his mind for a moment, and Li Gang could no longer calm down.

So he stared at Lin Xiao again, looking forward to his answer.

Lin Xiao smiled and said: "Don't worry, we can continue to optimize anyway, don't worry now, let me see if I can control it to a thousandth of the wear in thirty days."

"Thirty days wear and tear of one thousandth?"

Li Gang glared again, and then sighed.

I want to say something, but I don’t know what to say.

From the wear of one thousandth in fifteen days to the wear of one thousandth in three days, if this was done in the past, he would definitely say "greedy", but now...

He waved his hand and said: "Forget it, I don't care. You are the chief engineer and you have the final say. I think I should drink tea every day and walk around Jinmen City. After the Golden Crow Project is over, I will apply for retirement." .”

"What do you call it in young people's terms? A mess?"

"Well, I'm done with it."

Lin Xiao looked at the old academician's appearance and finally touched his nose and said, "This should be called lying flat."

"Lie down flat?" Li Gang was stunned for a moment, then said "Oh" and said, "I forgot, Academician Lin, you are still a young man, you know better than me."

"It's great to be young..."

He shook his head, finally waved to Lin Xiao, and walked towards the door of the office.

Lin Xiao looked at this scene and couldn't help but touch his nose. Why did he feel like he accidentally hit an old man?

Of course, he also saw a sense of relief from Li Gang's leaving back. Perhaps for this old scientist, this time "lying down" was something he was willing to do?

Lin Xiao stopped thinking about it, sat down again, then looked at the data on the computer, and continued to optimize the magnetic field lines.

…

Time flies and another month has passed.

And all in all, two months have passed.

All fusion tungsten plates have been prepared and shipped to the Plasma Institute in Fei City.

Similarly, half a month ago, Lin Xiao had taken out the lines he had optimized. After half a month, the superconducting lines of the Eastern Superloop had been rebuilt according to his plan.

At this point, all preparations have been completed.

"According to the plan, our experiment needs to be ignited twice. The first ignition is a control experiment, in which ordinary tungsten plates and fusion tungsten plates are arranged in a cross arrangement. After ignition, we will take a look at the irradiation of different tungsten plates. The degree of damage and then compare.”

"The second ignition is based on the premise that after the first ignition, the fusion tungsten plates have reached the expected condition, all the internal tungsten plates will be replaced with fusion tungsten plates, and the extreme ignition test will be carried out."

"Okay, this is all the plans for this experiment. For the rest, all units are asked to follow the original arrangements!"

"yes!"

After Lin Xiao announced all the plans for this experiment, everyone immediately started working.

Of course, the most important task is to replace the tungsten plate.

This work requires drilling into the Oriental Super Ring and then installing the tungsten plates one by one. However, the staff has drilled many times before, so it is not a big problem.

In this way, half of the fusion tungsten plates and half of the ordinary tungsten plates were quickly installed inside.

"Okay, all staff are beginning to evacuate the restricted area, and the first ignition will be carried out soon."

Lin Xiao held the walkie-talkie and gave his instructions.

After a while, a response came from the intercom: "Everyone has been evacuated!"

"Very good, then, now start the ignition countdown."

Lin Xiao said again.

Everyone held their breath, waiting for the moment of ignition to begin.

"10!"

"9!"

"8!"

"7!"

"..."

At this moment, the entire plasma institute almost fell into silence, with only the countdown on the broadcast, accompanied by echoes, echoing throughout the laboratory.

"3!"

"2!"

"1!"

"ignition!"

As the final "ignition" sounded, Lin Xiao pressed the button representing the ignition. Of course, this actually turned on the current.

Heating is carried out through electric current, and the temperature is heated to hundreds of millions of degrees. Of course, there are many heating methods involved. Only with the assistance of a variety of heating methods can it reach hundreds of millions of degrees.

As the ignition started, everyone looked at the big screen, which displayed the temperature in the fusion furnace.

I saw the numbers representing the temperature on the big screen soaring rapidly, from a few dozen degrees at the beginning, to hundreds of degrees, and then to thousands, then tens of thousands of degrees.

The numbers are getting bigger and bigger, which also means that an artificial sun is being born in this device.

What you need to know is that even the surface of the sun is only a few thousand degrees. As for the core temperature, it is only 20 million degrees Celsius, and their temperature is heading straight towards 100 million degrees!

This is a great cause for mankind!

In this way, as time passed, the temperature that was only normal temperature at first finally reached more than 99 million degrees.

"I'm coming!"

Seeing this scene, everyone in the institute clenched their fists and began to wait.

Finally, the temperature reached 100 million degrees!

When the temperature reached 100 million degrees, a timer was also displayed on the big screen and started counting. This was to record how long they could maintain the temperature above 100 million degrees!

At the same time, all the researchers could not help but silently recite this number.

"1."

"2."

"3."

"4..."

He chanted silently second by second, but the temperature was still rising rapidly. Soon, the temperature finally reached above 120 million degrees.

Last time, they burned above 120 million degrees for 101 seconds. How long can they burn this time?

Of course, at the same time, the temperature is still rising and has reached 160 million degrees.

Seeing this scene, the people present became even more excited.

Can the 160 million degrees this time exceed the 20 seconds last time?

Everyone once again counted the seconds silently.

"1……"

"2……"

"3!"

"..."

until--

"20!"

"twenty one!"

"twenty two!"

"Breakthrough! Better than last time!"

All the researchers cheered when they saw this scene.

They broke through last time!

However, this time, what limits can they reach?

Everyone has huge expectations!