Chapter 39: Chapter 39: Grand Unification Theory, Alpha Centauri B Anomaly
"The real gravitons."
Ella was thrilled and recorded all the data.
After an hour, Yan Xia also felt a sense of accomplishment from this discovery, as he hadn't expected much.
After all, who would have thought of using gravitational waves to detect gravitons?
Gravitons follow the oscillations of space, and when matter moves, it inevitably generates mass. Even if gravitons are attached to space, they are motionless relative to space.
But the genius of this experiment was that if gravitons exist, how do they regulate the strength of gravity?
Gravity can propagate to an infinite distance, theoretically having no boundaries, which is a unique characteristic of gravity.
The existence of gravitons would explain this peculiarity, as they would regulate through a mechanism rather than through the number of mediators.
This device was designed to capture the subtle changes in gravitons, and if they couldn't be detected, it would prove that Ella's theory was wrong.
Fortunately, they succeeded.
"Yan Xia, we've discovered gravitons!"
Yan Xia nodded. The discovery of gravitons meant the perfection of quantum mechanics.
Of course, this was not grand unification.
The grand unification theory suggests that the four fundamental forces have a unified source, and Ella's discovery proved that all forces have intermediate mediators.
If mediators bind everything in the universe, what is on the other side of these mediators?
"If gravitons exist alone, it may be easier for us to achieve grand unification." Yan Xia said.
This was like a bucket of cold water.
They had climbed one peak to see the gravitons, and at the same time, they saw a higher peak, with three other peaks surrounding it.
On Earth, some people claimed to have achieved the unification of the three fundamental forces: electromagnetism, weak nuclear force, and strong nuclear force.
But this was not true unification, as the model they created was arbitrary, like pointing at a car, a truck, and a sports car and saying they are all vehicles.
And now, they were adding a toy car to the mix (the structure of gravitons is different from the other three fundamental forces, and their interaction is the weakest).
They are all vehicles, but their internal structures are completely different.
If, under certain conditions, these four forces become symmetrical and transform into one force with the same strength, then it can be called true unification.
This involves another thing.
That is the "superstring theory."
Superstring theory is a narrow string theory, where super does not mean superior but supersymmetry.
Superstring theory can perfectly unify the four fundamental forces.
To derive the superstring theory, one must detect the existence of strings.
String theory suggests that particles in the universe are not fundamental, but smaller strings, and strings form particles through motion. All interactions in the universe, and all forms of matter and energy, can be explained by the splitting and merging of strings.
The size of energy is also determined by the strength of the string's motion.
Yan Xia's statement that it would be easier to achieve grand unification if gravitons existed alone was also based on this.
But in reality, the four fundamental forces are vastly different, with the strength of electromagnetic force being 100 billion billion billion times that of gravity.
Even using the term "vastly different" feels like an understatement. If one were to compare it to a 1-nanometer-high object, the sky would have to be 10 billion light-years away.
"That's right, but isn't this the charm of science?"
Indeed.
Although Ella had observed the existence of gravitons, it would still take a long time to apply them.
Yan Xia was about to enter a new round of hibernation, waiting for the day when Ella could create an antimatter device.
But Ella told him something else.
"To detect gravitons, we need to measure the center of mass and create a black hole there."
"I collected some data, including data from Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B."
"These two stars revolve around the center of mass, and if we look at the simple data, there doesn't seem to be anything unusual."
"But after careful calculations, I found that the distance between the two stars' center of mass should be 70 meters off."
70 meters is an insignificant distance compared to the size of the two massive stars, like a wrinkle on a person's clothing protruding by one micrometer.
But this calculation revealed a lot.
The stars' masses were incorrect.
"Do you mean that what we've been looking for is likely inside the stars?"
The third civilization couldn't have collected radioactive elements out of thin air; there must be a device.
Ella had been searching for this device for years without any trace.
The device might have turned all the radioactive elements into strings, the most fundamental particles, which is why they couldn't detect it.
If they couldn't find the source through traces, they would have to use other means.
Ella's discovery was significant.
"Is there a problem with Alpha Centauri A or Alpha Centauri B?" Yan Xia asked.
The previous data on the screen was replaced by new data, showing a three-star system with Alpha Centauri A, Alpha Centauri B, and Proxima Centauri.
"The three stars' gravitational forces influence each other, so Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B should have some displacement as they revolve around their center of mass, even though Proxima Centauri's gravity is not weak enough to significantly affect these two nearby stars."
"But I didn't observe any such influence, as if Proxima Centauri's gravity couldn't budge Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B."
"This is a clever disguise, as Alpha Centauri B must have been hollowed out to correct Proxima Centauri's influence on this binary star system."
"The device we're looking for is likely in the northern hemisphere of Alpha Centauri B."
It's unimaginable to dig a hole in a star.
The internal temperature of Alpha Centauri B may reach 10,000 degrees Celsius, and what could exist there and maintain a huge cavity around it?
"Can our spaceship enter Alpha Centauri B?"
If they couldn't enter, they would have no way to deal with this device.
"Yes!"
"Using light civilization alloy and internal cooling, I can build a spaceship that can enter Alpha Centauri B in five years."
"But it can only reach 500 kilometers below the surface, as the core temperature of Alpha Centauri B is 1.7 million degrees Celsius, and going deeper would melt the spaceship."
Yan Xia nodded.
"Then I'll wait a bit longer to see what's going on inside Alpha Centauri B."
This might be the first contact with the third civilization.
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