Son of the Stars

Chapter 15 Witchcraft
It has been said that science fiction is essentially nothing more than cyber wizardry.A technical means that is too unrealistic to be regarded by readers as almost indistinguishable from witchcraft.

Lu Chen saw this point of view in a tweet on a social networking site.Lu Chen, who was only an undergraduate student at the time, scoffed at this view, and left a message under the tweet, "It's just because of the lack of education you have received. As long as your knowledge is broad enough and the content is deep enough - science fiction works propose The concept of "is just a 'concept'."

If there is a time machine in this world, Lu Chen's first priority now is definitely to go back to his sophomore year and strangle himself to death before this answer is sent out.

What mental retardation thing!
Watching Mu Zhiran busy in the laboratory these days, Lu Chen's biggest feelings are two, "What is this" and "What the hell is this".

Fortunately, there is also a laboratory in the Immunization Institute, at least Lu Chen has learned the iron rule of "unless you know what you are doing, never touch any experimental equipment".Now in the entire Institute of Physics, the only experimental equipment that Lu Chen can use is a printer.

Even in such a miserable state, under the supervision of Tang's father, Lu Chen could not escape the torture.According to Academician Tang, "You are in the experimental group related to quantum physics, and what you are studying is the key project that the entire human society cares about most - such a major topic, such a serious project, you don't understand quantum mechanics at all, which is unreasonable. Yes!"

The elder did not dare to resign, Lu Chen inexplicably had the illusion that his father-in-law was grabbing his ears and telling him his order.

As this kind of life without seeing the sun continued, Lu Chen's daily work became the key to saving him.A doctor of rheumatology and immunology is actually looking forward to coming to the hospital for outpatient consultation every day.This shows the power of quantum mechanics.

While discussing the paradox of "allergies" and "enhancing immunity is better for the body" with patients in the outpatient clinic, the door of Lu Chen's clinic was suddenly pushed open roughly.

Watanabe, who was two weeks thinner than two weeks ago, appeared at the door. With dark circles under his eyes, he said to Lu Chen, "Doctor Lu, I need your help."

"If you have an emergency, please go to the emergency room. I've finished my registration today—there's no plus sign." For such a guy who once pressed himself on the ground and tied him into a rice dumpling, it would be polite if Lu Chen didn't directly scold him.He rolled his eyes and said, "Please wait outside—I haven't finished communicating with the patient yet."

Who wants to deal with this kind of person!

Watanabe was not angry, he looked at Lu Chen very calmly and asked, "Are you sure I want to wait outside?"

After getting the second confirmation from Lu Chen, Watanabe took out the green work card without saying anything.The work card just flew back and forth in his hand, like a huge green grasshopper flapping its wings.

Lu Chen still wanted to delay the time, but the aunt who was seeing a doctor said nothing and didn't stay in the room anymore.She even said clearly to Lu Chen, "I'd rather be hospitalized again than let the investigation bureau think about it."

Being directly disturbed by Watanabe, Lu Chen rolled his eyes and asked, "Why do you have to bother a poor doctor like me? Isn't Brother Yang already working as a consultant at your place? Ask him if you have anything to do."

"Don't bring personal emotions when you work." Watanabe said very calmly, "Professor Yang suggested that we consult your opinion - he thinks that in this field, you should be the most professional person."

Lu Chen raised his eyebrows, "You want to learn quantum mechanics? At most, I can only tell you about bosons. I haven't learned enough about fermions yet..."

"It's related to quantum mechanics, but that's not the content." Watanabe's eyes twitched twice, and he squinted and asked, "Dr. Lu, how did you come up with the concept of 'quantum contagion'?"

"A reasonable guess." This inexplicable question made Lu Chen somewhat at a loss as to how to answer, "I told you, she discovered during the experiment that the electron spin direction detection of some brain tissue samples from patients with a large collapse was abnormal."

"Why does the abnormal spin direction of electrons cause diseases?" Watanabe took out a notebook and began to write and draw on it, "According to Dr. Lu's hypothesis, the abnormal spin direction of electrons outside lithium atoms will What about the other atoms? What happens to the orientation of their electron spins?"

Lu Chen shook his head helplessly and said, "This is the question we hope to answer through experiments—but until now, there has been no result."

"What about other atoms? Do we need to worry about it?" Watanabe asked again. "Is it possible to perform a general check on other atoms?"

"That's unlikely." Lu Chen might not be able to answer other professional questions.But on this issue, Lu Chen really learned something in the past two weeks - including the principle of Mu Zhiran's "Electron Spin Direction Detection" system.

The electron is such a tiny substance that direct observation of its properties is almost impossible.Therefore, Mu Zhiran chose the simpler, more convenient, and more traditional and mature indirect observation method.

Mu Zhiran's system is divided into three parts: "evaporator", "controllable deflection magnetic field" and "collector".After the sample enters the evaporating furnace, the evaporating furnace will completely burn the sample to ashes in a very short time—and in the green smoke of these ashes, there are very small amounts of simple elements.

These simple elements will enter the controllable deflection magnetic field in an almost completely vacuum environment, and this magnetic field can exert an uneven magnetic force on the blue smoke containing the simple elements.

This magnetic influence can interact with the electrons in the outer layer of the element.But it can only work on elements with an odd number of electrons - the outer electrons of elements with an even number of protons are paired in pairs, which can cancel each other out due to the different spin directions of the electrons.

An odd number of electrons means that the element must have an electron whose magnetic moment is not cancelled.And this magnetic moment will be amplified by the uneven magnetic field, and finally hit the collector, leaving a "mark".

Through the shape of these traces, Mu Zhiran was able to judge the rotation direction of individual electrons in this group of atoms.

"The even-numbered protons cannot be measured, while the odd-numbered protons can be measured but the effect is not very good - after all, a large number of samples are required to generate a resulting dot matrix. The dot matrix itself needs to be interpreted to get the answer..." Lu Chen tried hard to explain , "There are more than 100 elements, and only half of them can be checked at most, which is completely meaningless to check."

Watanabe seemed a little surprised when he got this answer, he thought for a while, and then chose to give up and continue to ask, "Professor Yang is now subject to confidentiality control, I am just an intermediary - I have to go back and check with him for some questions I'll ask you again later."

Lu Chen secretly rolled his eyes. I really don't know what can be "controlled" about this kind of thing.The experiment at Dr. Mu's place hasn't produced any results yet, so even if Brother Yang talks nonsense, it won't have much impact on the experiment.

After all, there are many places in the world where electron rotation measurement experiments can be done, but only the Institute of Physics of Central University can complete the measurement of electron rotation direction with such high efficiency like Mu Zhiran.

"Why don't you ask Brother Yang to call me directly?" Lu Chen thought for a while and suggested, "There are your people over there, and you are watching over here—you don't have to worry about leaking the content and direction of our experiment."

"We are worried about other issues." Watanabe looked at Lu Chen with a foolish expression, "letting ordinary people know that the big crash is related to quantum mechanics, at most it will cause social panic. But if those religious extremists know ,The consequences could be disastrous."

Lu Chen realized that he still had such an idea, but he still felt that the risk was not that great, "I don't think that group of anti-science extreme religiousists can achieve large-scale long-distance quantum entanglement preparation. Seriously, big Large-scale, indirect, and long-distance preparation of entangled quantum, this miraculous technology has been able to weaponize quantum.”

Watanabe stared at Lu Chen quietly, and then said, "Thomas is most likely an extreme religious."

"The so-called extreme religious people, they are not necessarily illiterate, or people who have never received higher education-in fact, the extreme religious people who have caused the most serious damage to the entire society ... they are often He has a very proud educational background." When talking about his professional content, Watanabe is very confident and natural. "If there is any group that can pose a huge threat to the coalition government, it is only these religious extremists."

"Since they are so powerful, why do they still want to engage in religion?" Lu Chen was confused by the conclusion drawn by Watanabe, "Isn't it better to just engage in academics?"

"Because religion can provide them with goals, needs, and even answers that they can't provide." Watanabe said with a gloomy face. "Extreme religions promised them that after all human beings died due to the catastrophe, they could be with themselves in heaven." The meeting of relatives who have died in the collapse—that alone is enough to shake most people."

"Who can't be tempted." Lu Chen sighed. If there is a chance to see the dead relatives again, human beings are even willing to start another war for this.

Every human being, every human being in this world has at least one relative who died in the Great Crash.Considering the lack of warning of the disease, and the extremely short time between onset and death... the need to see a departed loved one again is, of course, ridiculously high.

Especially after the Coalition government has banned any AI impersonating dead humans because of the incidence of mental illness related to the collapse.Those longings, sorrows and pains that cannot be released because of the death of their loved ones... have become the most secretive, deepest and untouchable sores in this society.

The air in the consulting room became heavy, and Watanabe's nose was a little red, wondering if he remembered a relative who died due to a big collapse.

He sniffled, and said in a stammering tone as if he was covering himself, "Professor Yang suggested that we should let you take a look at the video of the medical recorder - there may be some things that we have overlooked. details."

"Professor Yang said so, if the big crash is a quantum contagion, then maybe this explosion is also." Watanabe spoke with a nasal voice, sounding like a cold, "After all, quantum contagion is comparable to Ultraman Viruses sound much more realistic."

Lu Chen rolled his eyes, why don't you say that quantum contagion is witchcraft?Anyway, these two things are the same-you can't see it, you can't touch it, and you get sick when you say it.

(End of this chapter)