Humanity is missing, luckily I have billions of clones.

Chapter 244 Micro Nuclear Bomb
The difficulty of hydrogen fusion is so high that even massive stars like the Sun and V432 Pegasus cannot achieve it. Even they can only barely maintain it through quantum tunneling, which is almost a "cheating" method.

But at this moment, after mastering the grand unified formula, having a deeper understanding of the strong nuclear force, and even being able to further influence microscopic particles through X and Y bosons, Li Qingsong has truly completed the maintenance of an environment in the laboratory that is sufficient for stable nuclear fusion of protium!

It is true hydrogen fusion, not hydrogen fusion caused by quantum tunneling!

At this moment, in the huge device like a mountain that appeared in front of the numerous clones, only a few grams of hydrogen entered the fusion state.

Due to the excessively high temperature and pressure, the Coulomb barrier between atoms was overcome, and the two protium nuclei were squeezed together, and then combined with each other. Through a series of processes, they eventually fused into deuterium, helium-3 and other products.

In this process, a huge amount of energy was released.

but……

Although the energy released by protium fusion is higher, its mass conversion efficiency is as high as 0.7%, that is, for every kilogram of protium that is completely fused, 7 grams of its mass will be completely converted into energy, which is twice as high as Li Qingsong's previous main fusion mode, deuterium-tritium fusion. However, at this moment, the Q value of this entire system is only about 0.5.

That is, Li Qingsong needs to input two units of energy to produce one unit of energy.

Overall, it is a loss-making business.

But...it doesn't matter!
Just like when Li Qingsong first started to master nuclear fusion technology, his Q value was also very low.

This is not scary. As long as you have truly mastered the technology of protium fusion, you can iterate and improve it bit by bit, and increase the Q value bit by bit. By then, protium fusion will show better performance than deuterium-tritium fusion.

Li Qingsong was filled with excitement.

How could we not be excited? Originally, one mass of energy could only contribute one portion of energy, but now one mass of energy can contribute two portions of energy, doubling it out of thin air!
It’s like people in the Earth era bought stocks, and then the stock price doubled. How could they not be excited?

After a major breakthrough in protium fusion and entering the subsequent iterative optimization stage, another major scientific research project made a breakthrough.

High-speed ion propulsion technology!
Still based on a deeper understanding of the strong nuclear force, Li Qingsong finally overcame the key obstacle to increasing the speed of ion ejection. As a result, in the laboratory, the speed of ions ejected by Li Qingsong's newly manufactured ion propulsion engine directly increased 2000 times from the original approximately 10 kilometers per second to the current 2 kilometers per second!
Therefore, 1 unit of working fluid could only provide 1 thrust originally, but now, the huge increase in ion injection speed has led to a huge increase in the utilization efficiency of the working fluid. 1 unit of working fluid can now provide 10 thrusts!

This is like people living in the Earth era who bought a stock and saw the share price double. That’s not all, as they looked back and discovered that prices had plummeted to one-tenth of their original value.

Multiplying the two together means a 20-fold increase in wealth!

"No wonder only after reaching the strong nuclear stage can the fleet's speed be increased to 70 to 80 percent of the speed of light. So that's why..."

Li Qingsong's heart was filled with emotion.

At this moment, he understood everything.

Breakthroughs in protium fusion technology allow powerful nuclear civilizations to obtain more energy.

The development of high-speed ion propulsion technology has enabled nuclear civilizations to achieve even higher energy efficiency. Combined, these two technologies allow a fleet to surge from its electroweak phase speed of approximately 4% of the speed of light to speeds of % to %.

But at this moment, breakthroughs in energy technology and energy utilization are not enough; an extremely necessary condition is also needed.

Energy shield.

Don't forget that although Li Qingsong's fleet's speed at this moment is only 8% of the speed of light, it has been severely affected by interstellar particle collisions, so it has to cover the outside of each spacecraft with a layer of plastic sheet to avoid it.

If the speed increases to 10 to percent of the speed of light, even covering it with layers of plastic sheeting will be of no use.

Because the impact of interstellar particle collisions does not increase linearly with the increase in speed, but increases exponentially.

If the speed increases by 20 times, the impact of interstellar particle collisions may increase by 200 times!
Energy shields are not only crucial on the battlefield, but also indispensable in interstellar travel.

Fortunately, Li Qingsong has already mastered the basic energy shield technology.

At this moment, the three necessary factors are in place. Li Qingsong immediately began to develop a new type of warship that truly belongs to a strong nuclear civilization while further iterating and optimizing related technologies.

Of course, a real warship cannot be without a weapon system.

Conventional electromagnetic guns are too backward and are not suitable for warships of strong nuclear civilizations.

Then develop energy cannons!
The technical core of the energy cannon lies in using X and Y bosons to influence the projectile matter, putting it in a certain stable "strong nuclear excited state".

At this moment, in a huge experimental ship, due to various complex environmental influences and the most critical influence of the unified force boson, the tiny projectile with a mass of only 1 gram was quietly suspended, and then quietly turned dark red and then bright white.

This means that the strong nuclear force inside it has been truly stimulated, and it is now in a strong nuclear excited state!

Before anyone could get excited, the tiny bullet, which had turned bright white, exploded, directly destroying the test equipment.

If there had not been an energy shield installed outside the test equipment, the entire spacecraft would probably have been affected.

There is no way. The overall energy of the projectile in the strong nuclear excitation state is too high.

After the strong nuclear force was stimulated, the mass-energy conversion efficiency of this projectile reached about 0.005%, which is about 180/ of the mass-energy conversion efficiency of nuclear fission.

After a 1-gram bullet explodes, it loses about 0.05 milligrams of mass. Based on the mass-energy equation, this 0.05 milligram of mass is converted into about 45 billion joules of energy, roughly equivalent to the explosion of 1 ton of TNT!

Judging from the energy source and intensity, it is a real miniature nuclear bomb!
The most terrifying thing is that this projectile with such huge energy and such high destructive power is just the most conventional and ordinary weapon of a strong nuclear civilization.

This kind of projectile can be fired at a speed of dozens of rounds per second, at a muzzle velocity of hundreds or thousands of kilometers per second, just like the electromagnetic cannon of the electro-weak civilization, and it can launch a sweeping attack like a storm!
Imagine thousands of miniature nuclear bombs flying towards us every minute at hundreds of kilometers per second. What a terrifying scene that would be! Even a truly massive mountain would be flattened in a short period of time!
(End of this chapter)