China's most successful science fiction novel is probably the three-body problem. This sci-fi masterpiece created by Liu Cixin. Widely acclaimed around the world, it is said that single-handedly elevated Chinese science fiction literature to a world-class level, and the Hugo Award for Best Novel, which once won the Nobel Prize in science fiction, has been translated into more than a dozen languages and distributed around the world, and even former President Barack Obama of the United States is her fan. In the three-body, there is both a grand cosmology and many exquisite detailed descriptions, both complex and huge veins, and core main lines.
To put it simply, there is a three-body civilization in the Alpha Centauri information four light years away, where the aliens want to invade the earth, the earthlings are unwilling, and the story of the resistance, however, the earth civilization is only a weak explosion in the novel, the first encounter between the two civilizations, the human side is a fleet of 2000 starship-class battleships, and the three-body side is only about the same size as the small truck, which looks a bit like a work of art, however, the final result is that the human race is defeated. The trisolaran man effortlessly wiped out the entire fleet of mankind, which looks a bit like a work of art, called water droplets, let's talk about the brain hole in the three-body of the water droplet today, the shape of the water droplet weapon, just like his name, is simply an enlarged version of a drop of mercury, the appearance of the perfect water droplet shape.
Pure and immaculate, it looks not like a weapon, but like a work of art. The head of the water droplet is very pointed, the surface is an extremely smooth fully reflective mirror surface, the Milky Way should be a smooth light pattern on its surface, making this drop of mercury look pure and beautiful, the original text is described as such a water droplet, this thing is really too beautiful, its shape is simple, but the shape is exquisite, every point on the curved surface is just right, so that this water droplet is full of flowing motion, as if every moment in the cosmic night there is no end to the low field, however, the tiger does not threaten, You can't think of it as hellokitty.
This water droplet looks cute on the surface, but it is both a gun and a cannonball, once the attack is launched, all human weapons will explode in an instant, instantly destroyed, including mankind's most advanced interstellar battleship, so why is this water droplet so powerful? In short, it's a word hard, imagine what would happen if a shot put and a watermelon collide? Surely watermelon turns into watermelon juice? What about after the water droplets reach the earth? The attack method used is the most primitive method, impact, its hard shell, so that it can pass through the human spaceship in turn like a sugar gourd, everywhere it goes, fragments fly randomly, explosions one after another, and the highest technology of human beings is completely vulnerable in front of the water droplets.
The length of the water droplet is about 3.5 meters, the mass is less than ten tons, in contrast, about 3.5 meters of the small truck weight is about 3.5 tons, so ah, its density is actually not large, the original book once mentioned that scientists on the earth after seeing these parameters are more assured to say, he is not made of neutron star material.
There is no nuclear fusion reaction inside the neutron star, can not be like the sun through thermal pressure to fight against gravity, the gravitational force of the celestial body itself is very large, so that it will explore the density more and more inward, and finally the mat is also beaten into the inside of the atomic nucleus and the combination of protons, forming neutrons, inside the atomic nucleus, there were originally neutrons, all neutrons united, through the degeneracy pressure to fight against the gravitational force, which caused the density of the neutron star is very, very large, its radius is about ten kilometers, and the cross-sectional area is almost the same as the Fengtai district in Beijing But its mass is even greater than that of the sun, about 1.4 times the mass of the sun and 3.2 times the mass of the sun, when several times the mass of the sun is compressed into the size of a region, the density is visible, that is, hundreds of billions of tons per cubic centimeter, and the weight of digging with an ear spoon can already be comparable to Mount Everest.
Here why do we have to take the neutron star out separately to talk about it, many people simply think that ah, the density of the object is large, the hardness must also be large, a popular science v in explaining why the water droplets are so powerful, and everyone is saying so, he said that the main reason why the water droplets are strong is the density, at that time I was really confused for a long time, in fact, the two concepts of hardness and density are not necessarily linked, for example, diamond real-time India's largest mineral, so that its density is far from being ranked, The density of gold nuggets is very large, more than 5 times that of diamond, but our teeth can still leave a good mark on its surface, for example, solids are definitely harder than liquids, but liquid water and ice cubes, the density is more liquid water, in short, hardness and density are two things. Density mainly depends on two factors, one is the mass of a single atom, the other is the arrangement between atoms, and the hardness depends on the size of the interaction force with the atoms.
In the novel, the water droplet is actually just a nickname given by humans according to its appearance, and after humans communicate with the Trisolaran civilization, they know that its official name is called the Strong Interaction Cosmic Probe. Speaking of this, we can summarize the reasons for the high hardness of water droplets, which is the matter maintained by strong interaction forces, and the strong interaction force is the strongest of the four basic forces of the universe.
Therefore, it is the hardest of the genus. So what is a strong interaction force? Strong interaction is one of the four basic forces of the universe, the other three, respectively gravity, electromagnetic force and weak interaction force, we all know that matter is composed of atoms, atoms can be decomposed into atomic nuclei and electrons, atomic nuclei and electrons can form atomic structure, the main reason is the positively charged protons in the nucleus, and the electromagnetic force between the electrons with negative electricity outside the nucleus, when we walk into the interior of the nucleus, we will find that it is actually composed of protons and neutrons, and protons and neutrons? They are all made up of a material quark that we currently look indivisible. Two upper quarks and a lower quark constitute protons, two lower spans and one upper quark constitute neutrons, here there will be a problem, the upper quarks and lower quarks are charged, the protons they compose are also charged, the charged particles will repel each other, if there is no force to restrain them, the result is likely to be chickens flying dogs, flying around, no one wants to see anyone's situation.
What about strong interactions? It is to solve this problem, he will be in a very small range, about ten minus 15 square meters, such a femtocell scale level plays a role in a strong interaction force, can resist electromagnetic forces, so that quarks will not be because of the charge problem of mutual exclusion, protons will not be because of the same sex repulsion and split movement, everyone is good, three quarks composition, protons and neutrons a number of protons and neutrons to form atomic nuclei, and because of this, the strong interaction can be stronger, at least much stronger than the electromagnetic effect, So just mentioned that the hardness is determined by the interaction between the basic units of the constituent matter, the strong interaction force is the strongest, the connection between the particles of the constituent matter is closer, it is not easy to be cut off, so it seems that the hardness is relatively hard and slow, and the general material relies on the electromagnetic force to maintain the structure relatively loose, if the electromagnetic force gives the hardness of the substance as one, then the hardness given by the strong interaction force is 100, what about this gap? It is like the gap between solid and liquid, in the novel, the weapons of the earthlings are compared with the water droplets, which is the strongest force and the second strongest force in the four basic forces of the universe, human beings have completely fallen behind in parameters, in fact, the war has not yet begun to lose, the weapons of the earthlings rely on electromagnetic force to maintain hardness, but the water droplets of the three-body people use strong interaction, the result is like a block of iron, in the water to turn the river and the sea, all human weapons are soft and vulnerable, So how is such a powerful weapon made in fiction? The scope of influence of the strong interaction is very small, we just mentioned that there are only ten minus 15 meters, and such a femtometer scale range is limited to the interior of the nucleus. The novel introduces that the method of making water droplets is to create a special position inside the water droplets, so that the electromagnetic forces on the surface of the water droplets cancel each other out, let the strong interaction forces overflow from the nucleus, and fix the shell of the water droplets with dead atoms, so they will be so hard that nothing can enter from its surface?
See here, you will feel that this weapon in the novel is simply like the existence of god, invincible, in fact, the water droplets are only slightly higher than the human civilization after all, the three-body civilization invented, their degree of civilization is also limited, the novel also designed a lot of ways to crack the water droplets, so how should we deal with the water droplets? So the simple way is to hit the hard, the Trisolaran can use strong interaction, can the Earthlings also? The universe is still fair at this point, the first way for humans to fight against water droplets is to create a strong interaction material shield, in the laboratory, ah, to create a variety of strong interaction materials, use them to build a defensive barrier, if the water droplets of the Three-Body Man attack such a barrier, it is a self-contradictory story, such a water droplet, after hitting once, can not be used, equivalent to a disposable shell.
In the original text, the way the water droplets are defeated is to use high-dimensional space, you can imagine, if there are really two-dimensional creatures and four-dimensional creatures, then they are compared with us three-dimensional creatures, the understanding of the sealed space is completely different, for a two-dimensional creature, it puts a treasure on the paper, and draws a circle around the two-dimensional space will no longer have anything to enter it, but for three-dimensional space creatures, just drawing a circle is not enough, It is necessary to create a three-dimensional spherical shape in order to protect the treasure, although the circle drawn by the two-dimensional creatures on the paper can prevent other two-dimensional creatures from entering, but for the three lives, this circle is useless, we can easily cross the circle, take out this treasure in it, in the novel Journey to the West, the master brother Sun Wukong every time he leaves, in order to protect the master from being eaten by the monster, he will draw a circle around the Tang monk, so that the monster can not enter, But in fact, this setting is a bit anti-scientific, because this method can only resist the two flying three-dimensional monsters walking on the ground and can easily cross the circle.
Take the master away from the air, so ah, in order to better protect the master, the best way is to change a spherical protective barrier. However, even if it is a spherical protective barrier, in front of the four-dimensional creatures is also useless, if there are really four-dimensional creatures, you will find that obviously in the three-dimensional space is a better sealed thing, they can enter from the inside, for example, you just ate into the stomach of the pot meat and deposited into the safe of private money, four-dimensional creatures, can effortlessly take them out, this is the power of dimensionality reduction blows, in front of the two microorganisms, three-dimensional creatures are gods, the same four-dimensional creatures, It is also the god of three-dimensional creatures.
In the three-body novel, human beings use four-dimensional space debris to successfully enter the interior of the water droplet, once the position generator inside the water droplet is destroyed, the strong interaction will return to the inside of the atomic nucleus, it can no longer support the super hardness of the water droplet, at this time, the water droplet, it becomes an ordinary substance and scrap copper rotten iron There is no difference, the three-body is after all a science fiction novel, with a lot of fantasy components, so can the water droplet become a reality? Unfortunately, at the current level of human theory, water droplets are unlikely to be realized, because, ah, the interaction occurs only between quarks and quarks, and between protons and neutrons. The range of action is limited to the nucleus, and there is currently no indication that strong interactions can function outside the nucleus.
Of course, it is not completely impossible, what we just said is from the perspective of the existing theoretical level of human beings, then will there be a strong interaction that we are not yet aware of? It is indeed possible, we just said that three quarks can form protons and neutrons, in fact, two quarks can also be combined to form mesons, in addition, like what four quark combination five quark combination, theoretically may also exist, but I can only see them in the laboratory for a short time at present is not stable, if these four quark particles five quark particles or even more quark particles between the distance Ah just can produce strong mutual dynamics and firmly grasp each other, the formation of strong interaction materials, It is also possible that, in this case, the super hard cosmic weapon of making water droplets will turn from fantasy to reality, and Liu Cixin designed the weapons used by the cosmic civilization in the three-body novel very wonderfully.
In addition to the water droplets we discussed before, the light particles, two elephant foil, etc. can also be discussed separately, Liu Cixin's great point is that she not only uses physical knowledge and reasonable imagination to create things like gravitational wave communication, quantum communication, water droplets and other things that can be achieved in the future, but also basically conforms to scientific principles, these weapons beyond human current science and technology, so that people can appreciate the ups and downs of the novel at the same time, but also can learn a lot of scientific knowledge, and leave a relatively broad space for discussion.