In fact, this is not the plot in the original work, but the creation of the cartoon. The logic of the original work is much more rigorous. This article is part of the series "Looking at the Three-Body Problem and Thinking More".

■ Introduction

This is not scientifically true! Because there are not enough high-energy particles in space to conduct collision experiments. In fact, this is not the plot in the original work, but the creation of the cartoon. The logic of the original work is much more rigorous.

■ This article is Part 3 of the series "Looking at the Three-Body Problem, Think More"

Series (1) See: Nano-wire cutting giant wheel, is it technically realistic? | Yuan Lanfeng

series (2) See: Why is the collision experiment a thorn in the side of sophon ? | Yuan Lanfeng

Hello everyone, I am Yuan Lanfeng from Yuan Technology. Just like the motto of Beihai 's father in chapter "Think more", today we will discuss the third "think more" inspired by the "Three-Body" cartoon. A very important plot in the first two episodes is that humans put five collider in space for experiments, hoping to break through the blockade of sophons. Dr. Ding Yi's team tried their best, but failed miserably. So the question is: Why do want to collide in space?

The results of five colliders

The answer is a bit surprising: This is not scientifically true! Because there are not enough high-energy particles in space to conduct collision experiments.

Actually, this is not the plot in the original work, but the creation of the cartoon. The logic of the original work is much more rigorous. In the original work, Ding Yi believed that building a new accelerator was a stupid idea, whether in space or on the ground. He did go to space to do experiments, but he did experiments of a different kind.

The relevant original text can be found in the first part of the second volume of the original book "The Wall Facer". The conversation between Ding Yi and the Wall Facer Frederick Taylor:

"Building a new accelerator was not my suggestion. I always thought that it was foolish to race against sophons by building multiple accelerators, so I went to space."

...

"The project we are carrying out on the space station this time is to study high-energy particles in cosmic rays. In other words, use the universe to replace high-energy accelerators. This kind of project Things have been done before, but due to the uncertainty of the distribution of high-energy particles in the universe, especially the difficulty in capturing ultra-high-energy particles required at the frontier of physics, it cannot replace accelerator research. The detection method of high-energy particles in the universe is very similar to that at the accelerator terminal, but the cost of each detection point is very low, and a large number of detection points can be established in space. This time we invested the funds originally planned to build a ground accelerator and set up hundreds of detection points. We conducted this experiment for a year. We didn't expect to get anything valuable. We just wanted to find out whether more sophons had arrived in the solar system. What is the result of "

"? Taylor asked nervously.

"All high-energy impact events detected, including those with confirmed results in the last century, have shown complete chaos. In other words, sophons are now able to interfere with hundreds of accelerators at the same time. Maybe if we establish tens of thousands more detection points, they can also interfere, so the number of sophons in the solar system is now far more than two."

Let's explain Ding Yi's plan and his experimental results. The most basic thing about is to use high-energy particles in cosmic rays and for research. If you know the word cosmic rays, your knowledge level exceeds 90% of people.

What are cosmic rays? They are high-energy particles coming from outside the earth. People have long discovered that the atmosphere has a certain degree of conductivity because atmospheric molecules are ionized. Why is it ionized? People initially thought that it was due to the radioactive element in the earth.

But in 1912, Austrian scientist Victor Hess (Victor Francis Hess, 1883-1964) took a hot air balloon to an altitude of 5,300 meters and found that the higher the place, the stronger the ionization, not the weaker. This shows that radiation comes from above the earth's atmosphere, not from below. This is cosmic rays, for which he won the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Victor Hess (https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1936/hess/facts/)

One characteristic of cosmic rays is that their energy can be very high, surprisingly high. Currently, the highest energy that ground accelerators can achieve is 13.6 TeV, or 13.6 × 1012 electron volts , which was just achieved at the Large Hadron Collider in July 2022. However, the highest energy particles found in cosmic rays are 20 million times higher, up to 50 joules. This energy is comparable to a macroscopic object, such as a flying baseball, but it is just a microscopic particle! A particle reaches the energy of a baseball. What an incredible thing! So when this particle was discovered in 1991, it was named Oh My God particle (https://futurism.com/what-is-the-oh-my-god-particle). Yes, that’s really what the scientific community calls it!

Oh My God particles

You may want to ask, why are we not sieved by cosmic rays? 's answer is that when cosmic rays enter the atmosphere, they will continuously collide with air molecules to produce secondary particles, which in turn produce secondary particles. This creates a thunderstorm of secondary particles, which is like a broom and is called an atmospheric shower (air shower) . After many bifurcations and decelerations, when the final secondary particles reach the ground, the energy is not very high, so that we will not be blown away by cosmic rays (Chinese scientists received a "letter from extraterrestrials", could they be aliens? | Yuan Ren of Science and Technology) .

Atmospheric showers

However, the ground is sometimes affected by cosmic rays. In 2013, someone encountered an "impossible" teleport while playing Super Mario. The final conclusion was that cosmic ray particles rewritten a bit that defines Mario's height (Space Challenges Facing Supercomputers | Wang Qiao ) . In 2008, a plane flying from Singapore to Australia suddenly dived while flying at an altitude of 11,300 meters, causing serious injuries to 12 passengers. It may also be due to data errors caused by cosmic rays. In the development of supercomputers and quantum computers , cosmic rays are becoming an increasingly serious problem.

The most advanced device currently used to detect cosmic rays on the ground is China's "Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory" (LHAASO), which is hosted by the Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and is located in Haizi Mountain, Daocheng County, Sichuan Province. In 2021, I did a live broadcast with two experts, Dr. Yang Ruizhi and Dr. Chen Songzhan, introducing the major achievements of Lasso. If you understand this, your knowledge level exceeds 99% of people.

Lasso opens a new window for ultra-high-energy gamma astronomy

Therefore, it is beneficial to conduct experiments in space, because the energy of particles there is higher, and results that cannot be obtained on the ground may be obtained. This is what Ding Yi did in the original work, and it is also a reason for the space collision experiment in the cartoon. However, what the cartoon says is to collect high-energy particles produced by solar storms for collision, which is wrong.

solar storm

Why is that wrong? Because the energy of solar storm particles is only a few tens of GeV, which is on the order of 10 to the power of 10 electron volts, it is not as high as what can be achieved by ground accelerators! In fact, many people initially thought that cosmic rays were emitted by the sun, but later they discovered that only a very small part of the cosmic rays were emitted by the sun, and that most of the cosmic rays were emitted from the Milky Way . The most amazing thing is that until now we are not sure what the real origin of cosmic rays is.

Maybe you will say that the energy of the particles emitted by the sun is not high enough, so it is always possible to use higher-energy cosmic ray particles from other sources to collide, right? The answer is still no.

The reason is that the number of high-energy cosmic ray particles is very small, which means that they are not bright enough in terminology. Although the particles produced by ground accelerators are not that high in energy, they are much brighter.Collision experiments require sufficient brightness to produce enough collision events, so cosmic rays cannot replace ground accelerators in this regard. The two are complementary and cannot replace the other. This is why Ding Yi said in the original work: "Due to the uncertainty in the distribution of high-energy particles in the universe, especially the ultra-high-energy particles required at the forefront of physics are difficult to capture, they cannot replace accelerator research." Liu Cixin is still very rigorous here!

You may ask, this won’t work, that won’t work either, So what exactly can cosmic rays do? The answer is that we don't need it to collide. We can just measure the distribution of various types of cosmic ray particles at various energies. This is called energy spectrum. Experiments like are also very important. It is possible to detect dark matter , or at least discover new physics. What Ding Yi did in the original work of "The Three-Body Problem" should fall into this category, but it failed due to Sophon's interference. As he said, "We have been conducting this experiment for a year. We did not expect to get anything valuable. We just wanted to find out whether more sophons have arrived in the solar system." However, the result was complete chaos. The conclusion is that "the number of sophons in the solar system is now far more than two."

In reality, representatives of cosmic ray spectroscopy experiments include Nobel Prize winner Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (Alpha Magnetic), an international cooperation project hosted by Spectrometer, referred to as AMS) , and the "Wukong" dark matter particle detection satellite (Dark Matter Particle Explorer, referred to as DAMPE) jointly developed by the Purple Mountain Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the University of Science and Technology of China, the Institute of Modern Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. They both discovered many signs of new physics.

In March 2016, Ding Zhaozhong reported at the University of Science and Technology of China on the latest progress of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer experiment on the International Space Station.

Wukong announced the electron cosmic ray energy spectrum in November 2017.

Now, your understanding of cosmic rays exceeds 99.9% of people. Although I pointed out that the cartoon is not scientific enough, I think it is also well adapted. The cartoon turns the battle of wits into a battle of courage to a considerable extent like "The Wandering Earth", presenting a story that is difficult to express with images, leaving a deep impression on the audience about the importance of basic science and the great spirit of scientists.

The core frequency multiplier has been increased by 10 times

The space station is about to be paralyzed

In the future, whether on the ground or in space, we should seize the opportunity to do experiments and explore the laws of nature - before sophons block us. Technology is the right path for human progress, and we must follow the right path. Welcome everyone to pay attention to Yuan Ren of Science and Technology. See you in the next issue!