Chapter 1139 The Pendulum Model

There was no nuclear fusion reactor on the moon, nor was there a way to install a fusion reactor on the moon. The Pangu nuclear fusion reactor could heat an entire lake of water in a few hours. The heat exhaust port had to be replaced to prevent the acc.u.mulation of excessive heat. The absence of an atmosphere on the moon made things more troublesome.

Also, there was a high power demand on the moon. Even though the collider consumed a significant amount of power, it was only turned on for minutes at a time. Currently, the collider was powered by solar energy, which was stored in the form of chemical energy. It took three days just to charge enough for three minutes of experimentation time.

However, there was a problem with this. The moon’s daily cycle was 27.3 days, half of which was night, so the day time was only around 13 days, which was enough to fully charge the collider 4 times.

In other words, there were only 4 experiment opportunities a month. Each experiment opportunity was extremely critical and important.

At the ILHCRC headquarters.

After Luo Wenxuan gave Lu Zhou the latest experimental data, he spoke.

“It’s going to be dark soon, we’ll be able to do one more experiment this month.”

Lu Zhou looked at the doc.u.ment and frowned.

He suddenly gently sighed and placed the doc.u.ment on the table.

“If only we could run a few more tests and collect more data, our chances of success will be higher.”

Luo Wenxuan: “We can… Last time, during a meeting, someone suggested to me that a set of solar power arrays and a power storage facility can be built next to the collider. We’ll be able to increase the experiment frequency by 1.5-2 times.”

Lu Zhou: “How much will it cost?”

Luo Wenxuan awkwardly said, “A conservative estimate is around one billion USD.”

A billion USD…

Lu Zhou heard this number and couldn’t help but cringe.

Even he would have a hard time spending so much money at once.

The ILHCRC had a fixed budget of approximately two to three billion USD per year, which was split among all countries. This was quite plentiful compared to CERN’s budget of one billion a year.

However, spending almost half of the budget at the beginning of the year was quite risky.

After all, for such a huge research inst.i.tute like the ILHCRC, the collider wasn’t the only thing they needed to spend money on.

Not to mention that adding a solar array would double the maintenance costs. Even though increasing the number of experiments per month sounded tempting, adding solar arrays was only a temporary solution.

The 750 GeV experiment proposal was already risky enough; they didn’t want to add any more risk.

Lu Zhou tapped his index finger on the table. After contemplating for a while, he shook his head and spoke.

“Not a good idea. The collider pipeline has to undergo maintenance after each experiment. Increasing the experiment frequency will increase the maintenance cost…”

Not to mention this would also decrease the lifespan of the collider.

The high-energy particles caused permanent radiation damage to the collider material. The higher the energy level of the collision experiment, the greater the damage and maintenance cost.

The Lunar Hadron Collider wasn’t the only collider that had this problem; high-energy collision experiments all over the world were cursed by the radiation damages.

“Money is still the problem. Once the collider is turned on, we’ll be burning through cash…” Luo Wenxuan sighed and said, “If only we can make money on the moon.”

Lu Zhou smiled when he heard this. He shook his head.

Make money on the moon?

He wasn’t the only one that had this idea. Many people, including Chen Yushan, had suggested this idea to him.

Obviously, it was difficult to profit from the moon at this stage. He would have to complete his “Control of Earth and Moon” mission chain first before he could make money off the moon.

Lu Zhou: “Don’t worry about money. Money can’t solve all of our problems. Also, New Year is in a few days. When the last experiment finishes, we should all go home for the holidays.”

Luo Wenxuan sighed and spoke.

“Okay then.”

…

The last experiment in January 2024 ended with “sparks” flying across a pipeline 360,000 kilometers away.

The long night cycle began as the collider entered maintenance mode, preparing for next month’s experiment.

Although the experiment was over, Lu Zhou wasn’t relieved at all.

Over the past few weeks, he had been attending meetings from various ILHCRC research groups, listening to data presentations by the heads of departments. He would also meet with experts at the ILHCRC to discuss the collected experimental data and form new experiment plans.

The huge amount of data made it impossible for him to carefully examine each data segment in detail. He had to rely on his mathematics and physics intuition to connect the dots.

He still remembered seven years ago, when he listened to CERN’s experimental data reports as an intern.

But now, he had gone from an intern to an academic leader, someone that led the future of physics research.

He felt quite nostalgic.

But now was not the time to get sentimental.

The amount of work made Lu Zhou wish he could clone himself so that he could attend meetings and work in his office at the same time.

Eleven o’clock in the morning.

Inside the conference room.

As Lu Zhou looked at the experimental data, his eyebrows furrowed.

The results from the last experiment were not ideal. Judging from the data collected by several detectors, even though there was a 750 GeV characteristic peak, the confidence level was below three sigmas.

Lu Zhou was looking at a Dalitz plot when he suddenly noticed a series of green dots hovering below 125 GeV.

“It wasn’t a total failure, at least the data we collected in the low-energy range is consistent with the results from CERN. Even though the 750 GeV characteristic peak seems to be weak, the experiment data tells us that this is unlikely just a random occurrence.”

The people at the conference table looked at each other.

It sounded like Lu Zhou was trying to convince him that the situation “wasn’t too bad”.

After contemplating for a while, Witten spoke.

“Then what do you think this is?”

“I can only make a guess…” Lu Zhou paused for a second and said, “The matter that makes up the elementary particles is something we can’t directly observe or understand. For example… look at the clock on the wall.”

Everyone turned toward the clock.

Lu Zhou paused for a second before speaking.

“Look at the swinging pendulum… When it’s swinging to the sides, it’s blocked by the clock case, so we can’t see it. We can only see it when it’s near the center.”

Witten pinched his chin with a look of interest on his face.

“That’s an interesting a.n.a.logy… So what you’re saying is, we just need more time, and the treasure will appear in front of our eyes?”

Lu Zhou said in an ambiguous way, “Sort of… Maybe we can only observe it at a certain time.”

Frank Wilczek twisted the pen in his hand and spoke.

“How do you plan on verifying this conjecture?”

Even if it could only be observed under certain conditions, that conclusion didn’t help anyone. They were trying to find a method of observation; they weren’t trying to find any excuses.

Lu Zhou shrugged and said, “Well, just like any conjecture, verifying it requires time, this includes the time crystal theory… Of course, I will design an experiment to solve this problem. I’ll try to implement the experiment next month.”

Witten paused for a second and said, “But it’s almost Chinese New Year, are you sure?”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about me.” Lu Zhou tapped on the conference table with his pen, looked around the room, and said, “This meeting is over.”

The meeting ended.

Lu Zhou left the conference room and returned to his chairman office.

He asked his a.s.sistant to bring him a sandwich and a cup of coffee. He took out the meeting notes he had written a moment ago and began reading.

“Where is the problem…”

As Lu Zhou pondered, he gradually started to acc.u.mulate some ideas and clues in his mind. His intuition told him that these clues were exactly what he needed.

However, these clues were too vague. Even after thinking for a long time, he wasn’t able to find an answer.

Suddenly, a string of text suddenly appeared on the lower right corner of his laptop, and this interrupted his train of thought.

Xiao Ai: [Master! Good news! (✿゚▽゚ )]

Lu Zhou looked at the computer and said, “… What news?”

Xiao Ai: [Master, the experiment was successful! (๑•̀ᄇ•́)و]

Experiment?

Lu Zhou was shocked, and he quickly realized what was going on.

Xiao Ai isn’t talking about the physics experiment.

It’s talking about another experiment.

The experiment on the Void Memory…