Age of Cataclysm: I can light up the technology tree

Dense atomic material.

According to the scheme proposed by Lv Yongchang, its principle is similar to that of dense neutron material, but its strength is certainly not as good as that of dense neutron material linked to strong interaction force.

First of all.

Strong interaction force is a short-range force.

When its range of action is within 1.5*10^(-15) meters. When the distance is greater than 0.8*10^(-15) meters, the strong interaction force manifests as attraction, and decreases with the increase of distance. When it exceeds 1.5*10^(-15) meters, the strong interaction force drops rapidly and almost disappears; and when the distance is less than 0.8*10^(-15) meters, it manifests as repulsion.

Therefore, if you want to make dense materials, you must overcome the strong interaction force that manifests as repulsion when the distance between particles is less than 0.8*10^(-15) meters.

Secondly, even inside a neutron star, there is a distance between neutrons.

The distance between these neutrons will continue to decrease as the density of the neutron star increases.

There is no doubt that the smaller the distance, the higher the strength of the material.

Normally, there is only electromagnetic interaction between atoms because the distance between them is "too far".

But dense atomic materials are different.

In order to make the material show unprecedented strength, it is necessary to do everything possible to compress the distance between atoms.

At this time, the strong interaction force begins to hinder.

Therefore, both dense atomic materials and dense neutron materials are actually strong interaction materials.

The biggest difference between the two is actually just the type and spacing of particles.

Compared with dense neutron materials, the particle gaps of dense atomic materials are much larger, and correspondingly, the material strength is much lower.

Therefore, in Lv Yongchang's view, dense atomic materials are actually a transitional technology towards strong interaction materials.

But no matter what, with the word dense, it is also a high-strength material beyond the scope of normal matter.

Having said that, choosing what atoms as raw materials is another headache.

Compared with monotonous neutrons, atoms have too many tricks.

Different atoms will inevitably produce different effects in the end.

In addition to considering the properties of the atoms themselves, there is another most important issue.

The weight of an atom.

The weight of a single atom is negligible and can be basically ignored.

But if the distance between them is very small, or even completely close to each other, dense atoms.

Imagine the density and mass of a neutron star.

Although dense atoms cannot reach such an exaggerated degree, their mass is definitely not negligible when accumulated!

…

The screening of target atoms took a lot of time.

At the beginning, based on a large amount of experimental, test and simulation data, Lv Yongchang decided to use helium atoms as the raw material for dense armor.

There are several considerations.

The properties of helium atoms are relatively stable, and they are relatively abundant in the universe.

In addition, its mass is relatively light, and making dense atomic armor will not bring too much burden to the starship.

As for metal atoms...

Because of their own quality problems, they did not even survive the first round of preliminary screening, and were directly eliminated by Lv Yongchang from the candidate list.

As for why helium atoms were chosen instead of lighter hydrogen atoms...

Unlike helium atoms, the chemical properties of hydrogen atoms are not stable.

Unless it turns into hydrogen ions or combines with other atoms.

Of course, this can be solved by technical means.

Using a sufficiently strong grand unified field to lock these hydrogen atoms tightly can solve this problem.

The problem lies here, which requires higher operating precision.

Judging from the strong interaction force and grand unified field manipulation technology demonstrated by the previous Materials Research Center, this difficulty is obviously a bit beyond the standard.

Simply put, the output is enough, and the operation can't keep up.

Therefore, according to Lv Yongchang's original plan, the dense material constructed with hydrogen atoms is the next generation of armor material in Lv Yongchang's mind-lighter and stronger.

Going up, it is Lv Yongchang's ultimate goal.

Dense neutron armor.

...

Plans can't keep up with changes.

Especially in the field of material-related research, this sentence is even more vividly demonstrated.

The first batch of dense helium materials was successfully born in the laboratory, and good news came from Ding Chengwang.

According to Lv Yongchang's teachings, Ding Chengwang successfully improved the strong interaction material production device.

Perhaps it was because of luck, or perhaps it was the combined influence of talent and hard work.

Ding Chengwang's final result far exceeded Lv Yongchang's imagination - the control accuracy of the strong interaction force control device and the grand unified field control device have been greatly improved.

Although the limit size of dense neutron materials is still limited to ten centimeters square by the grand unified field strength as Lv Yongchang predicted, the grand unified field control device with improved control accuracy has reached the manufacturing threshold of dense hydrogen materials.

So...

Dense helium has become the shortest-lived high-strength material in the history of the Human Union.

Retired at birth.

...

With the accumulation of a large amount of resources, in just one month, the dense helium production device of the No. 3 Materials Laboratory was transformed into a dense hydrogen production device.

One month later.

Lv Yongchang stood in front of the main console of the No. 3 Laboratory of the Materials Research and Development Center.

In the holographic projection, the "light board" constructed by the materialized light was bright and dazzling, reflecting the nervous expressions of everyone around him - except Lu Yongchang.

He had full confidence in his calculations.

The experiment officially began.

The hydrogen atom nozzle slowly extended from the top of the "light board" and sprayed a large number of hydrogen atoms towards the "light board".

These high-speed flying hydrogen atoms were firmly locked on the "light board" by the surrounding grand unified field at the moment they were about to collide with the "light board".

At this time, if you observe from a microscopic perspective, you can easily observe that there is still a considerable distance between these hydrogen atoms.

But as the experiment entered the second stage, driven by the grand unified field control device, the distance between hydrogen atoms rapidly narrowed.

When their distance was less than 1.5*10^(-15) meters, strong interaction force appeared, and a gradually powerful force pulled them closer to each other.

The distance continued to narrow, and when the distance was less than 0.8*10^(-15) meters, the manifestation of strong interaction force was transformed into repulsion, and they tried to push the surrounding hydrogen atoms away.

The strong interaction force control device was activated at this time.

Through the grand unified field, the strong interaction force was directly interfered.

The compression process ended only when the distance between these hydrogen atoms was reduced to the limit that humans could control.

The above operation was repeated.

As the area of ​​dense hydrogen material on the "light plate" began to gradually increase,

one square micrometer, one square centimeter, one square meter...

In the laboratory, the tension on everyone's face began to gradually dissipate.

The applause to celebrate the victory finally rang out.