Technology invades the modern world

Chapter 472 Vacuum: A Gift and a Curse

"Waiting for a cyclical downturn."

Yuri thought of the 1990s.

Back then, Silicon Valley was indeed an invincible god.

Yuri vividly remembers that in his laboratory in Moscow, all the computers used Microsoft Windows as their operating system, Intel chips as their processors, and Autodesk as their design software.

We often see stories of wealth creation from Silicon Valley in newspapers and magazines.

The entire digital world of Russia has been completely conquered and dominated by this alliance of Microsoft, Intel, and IBM.

They possess a huge market and an astonishing speed of innovation, and Russia simply has no competitive domestic companies that can rival them.

But now?

At the software level, Russia has almost completely replaced its domestic products.

After 2022, Russia was forced to rebuild its own ecosystem in areas such as operating systems, office software, and search engines. Although it was difficult at first, it is now running steadily.

They can indeed wait for the next cycle to arrive.

The thought of a superbrain made Yuri uneasy. He reminded him, "But they have a superbrain."

Zack smiled and said, "Yes, there are super brains, but the wall of reality can make any genius who thinks he is invincible feel hopeless, and the professor is no exception."

The laws of physics and the principles of mathematics are so despairing that even the most brilliant mind would succumb to the perfect laws woven by the universe.

Fermat's casual conjecture, written in a letter to a friend, was not proven by Wiles until three hundred years later.

To put it simply, the Chinese are now telling everyone that they will develop lunar resources without limit, and they have indeed made many amazing achievements.

But why didn't the capital market experience drastic fluctuations, why didn't the US stock market crash, and why is capital indeed shifting to the A-share market? China's stock market is performing well, but the most active and crowded capital market is still America.

If the space age is truly on the horizon and China is the leader in this industry, then the world we see will definitely not look like this.

America's decline cannot be simply described as a sign of weakness; they have collapsed, even splitting into two countries.

Without waiting for Yuri's reply, Zach continued, "Because the fundamental problems cannot be solved, China's development on the moon will only be small-scale."

It can bring about tactical changes, provide China with some advanced technologies, and bring China some resources returned from the moon, but it cannot utilize lunar resources on a large scale and without restriction.

The importance of the Moon and Earth is not a matter of size or weight ratio. China did not find a smaller Earth; they only had a brief lead on the Moon.

The most brutal reality we face is heat dissipation.

The current heat dissipation mechanism, which uses the principle of blackbody radiation to radiate heat into space through a large-area, high-emissivity surface, is too complex and requires too many resources, not only those on Earth but also those on the Moon.

This means that Hua Guoguang's expansion on the moon is limited; they cannot expand indefinitely.

The ultimate solution to this problem requires a theoretical breakthrough in quantum mechanics to achieve active quantum tunneling heat dissipation.

To put it simply, traditional heat conduction follows Fourier's law, where heat always flows from high temperature to low temperature.

They need to develop a mechanism that can directionally and non-thermally transfer heat energy from the interior of an object to a cryogenic heat sink on the outside, even if there are complex temperature gradients or insulation layers between them.

This requires using quantum coherence to control the direction of phonon motion, well, I don't know if humans will be able to do it in the next century.

The theoretical constraints will inevitably lead to this bottleneck in China's pursuit of its vast potential sooner or later.

This is not a technology that can be mastered in this century.

Yuri wasn't surprised that the other party had such a deep understanding of the technology. After all, he had worked in aerospace media for over thirty years and was considered an industry insider. He could easily chat with bigwigs from the Russian Space Agency, so it was perfectly normal for him to know so much.

After a pause, Zack continued, "Have you watched the Professor's podcast?"

Yuri shook his head.

Zach said, "He said on the show that the challenges for humanity in reaching the universe are algorithms and energy."

That's correct, because there is no air in the universe; it's a vacuum. In a vacuum, there is no air resistance, so once you escape the gravity of celestial bodies, you can rely on your initial velocity to fly all the way into deep space.

With precise algorithms, it could even be used as a gravitational slingshot to propel itself forward.

Voyager 1, launched by NASA in 1977, is still operational today. It has been running for nearly fifty years and has traveled more than 25 billion kilometers.

In theory, once acceleration is complete, we will only need very little energy for attitude control and the operation of scientific instruments.

The vacuum brings efficiency and permanence to deep space exploration.

There is no air in the universe; this is a gift from the Creator. When traveling in space, the only question is time.

However, the absence of air in the universe is also a curse of the Creator, meaning that until humanity solves the problem of heat dissipation, the characteristics of a vacuum mean that heat transfer is limited to the inefficient path of radiation.

On Earth, we dissipate heat efficiently through convection and conduction, but these methods fail in a vacuum.

We pursue high-density computing, but every transistor generates heat when it operates.

If the heat cannot dissipate, the chip will overheat, reduce its frequency, or even melt.

Heat dissipation has become a physical bottleneck for computing density and computing power limits.

Efficient deep space exploration requires high-power energy sources such as nuclear energy.

The enormous heat generated by these energy systems, if it cannot be efficiently radiated out in a vacuum environment, will in turn limit the power output of the energy systems.

Until humanity solves the problem of heat dissipation, it will never be able to leverage Earth's finite resources to access the infinite resources of the universe.

Yuri countered, "What if China solves this problem?"

This time it was Zach's turn to say it was impossible: "Impossible, absolutely impossible! This is not something a human could handle."

First, they need to establish the theoretical foundation and develop a quantum mechanical theoretical mechanism that can transfer thermal energy without obeying Fourier's law.

Even if the professor is truly omnipotent, he has already mastered the theoretical foundation.

Then they need to develop topological insulator materials that can guide the flow of phonons.

But that's not all. The next step is to create nanodevices that can actively switch or amplify heat flow, enabling precise, electronic control of the heat flow.

The final step is industrialization, scaling up nanodevices, and developing quantum phonon films that can be attached to the surfaces of large equipment to achieve efficient, directional heat pumping.

Even for professors, each step takes at least twenty years.

But I think it might take hundreds of years just to break through the theoretical foundation.

Therefore, Musk's plan to go to Mars is more realistic. Developing an atmospheric environment modification system is much less difficult.

Therefore, the moon is merely a stepping stone; Mars is the key to determining the outcome.

"What if?" Yuri insisted.

Zack paused for a moment, then stroked his chin before replying, "Then we will witness a miracle, an unprecedented miracle. Humanity will only need to provide the initial resources, and the facilities in outer space will automatically reproduce infinitely and bring the resources back from space. They can experiment without limit."

The entire operating logic of human society will be overturned, and humanity will truly become cosmic beings.

"What are you thinking about?" Pony asked curiously, looking at Lin Ran, who was sitting in the company cafeteria in a daze, not eating breakfast and motionless.

Today is the first day of Rainbow's large-scale testing. Pony arrived at the company early, feeling both expectant and excited.

"I'm thinking about how to break the limitations of Fourier's law," Lin Ran said.

In a sense, Zach is indeed a top-notch space journalist; the biggest technological constraint he keenly observed is consistent with the conclusions Lin Ran reached through his thinking.

"Huh? I only know Fourier transform, what is Fourier law?" Pony felt there was still a barrier between him and scientists.

"Simply put, it is heat conduction from high temperature to low temperature, a random process based on temperature."

"Our goal is to achieve directional, non-random, and non-thermal equilibrium heat transfer," Lin Ran explained.

Pony was stunned. As a pragmatic entrepreneur, he felt that Lin Ran's idea was a bit too science fiction. "Mr. Lin, I feel like your idea is like a perpetual motion machine, it's simply impossible."

Lin Ran grinned: "No, no, no, of course it's possible."

At least in theory, it is possible.

This is an energy conversion and transfer device that requires an external power source to drive its active functions.

It consumes electrical energy to combat heat buildup, and it's not the same thing as a perpetual motion machine at all.

Moreover, it already has a theoretical foundation, based on quantum thermodynamics and near-field effects, so it's not nonsense.

The second law of thermodynamics does not prohibit the decrease of entropy in a local region, as long as the entropy of the entire universe is increasing.

My proposal is a typical non-equilibrium thermodynamic process: using the ordered energy of an external energy source to drive the system, transferring the disordered energy inside to the external cosmic heat sink.

Near-field radiation has been experimentally proven to overcome the blackbody limitation of traditional radiation.

Metamaterials can be used to achieve extremely high heat flux at the nanometer distance.

Our goal is to extend this efficient nanoscale transport to a macroscopically usable scale.

The current obstacle is how to design topological materials or phonon crystals that can precisely control and guide the flow of phonons, allowing only heat to flow out while preventing external heat from flowing back in.

And whether the electrical energy consumed to drive such a device is less than the heat energy it transfers.

Does such a structure exist in reality, where the energy required to drive the device is far less than the heat energy it transfers?

In short, there is still a long way to go from theory to experiment.

After listening, Pony seemed to be deep in thought: "Should we recruit a group of PhDs in related fields to do this?"

Lin Ran said helplessly, "Recruiting people at this level is not something a PhD can handle. Even if it's just a small contribution, the premise is that it has value and practical significance, not just publishing papers."

They all have to be at least at the level of physicists.

If we set our expectations higher and hope that he can make some theoretical breakthroughs, then it would probably have to be at the level of Professor Yang.

This is absolutely a Nobel Prize-worthy breakthrough.

Such talent is probably not something we can find simply by spending money.

Pony touched her nose sheepishly, too embarrassed to bring it up again.

He remained silent until Lin Ran broke the silence: "Pony, we were all amazed by Rainbow's performance in the lab. In terms of meeting users' emotional needs, if users don't pay close attention to capture it, they can't tell whether Rainbow is human or artificial intelligence."

If you were to tell the user of Rainbow 10 years ago, "Congratulations, you have obtained a system from another world that allows you to chat with the queen of that world," he would most likely not notice anything unusual.

I want to ask you a question about the future direction of Rainbow.

In the past, our model has always been closed-source, just like internet giants, not releasing the core code to the outside world, only allowing external users to use it through APIs.

Will Rainbow be open source this time?

Pony instantly understood the strategic significance of this issue.

From Tencent's perspective, it must be closed-source; how could it possibly be open-source?

By leveraging the closed-source advantage of rainbows and through cooperation with Crimson, they can effortlessly build their own moat.

But things certainly can't be said so bluntly.

After gathering his thoughts, Pony replied, "Mr. Lin, if I were to speak from the perspective of a general platform developer, I would say: it must be open source."

Open source is the fastest way to build an ecosystem.

Just like the success of Linux and Android, open source can attract developers and research institutions from all over the world to participate in the optimization and application creation of Rainbow.

This will accelerate Rainbow's technological iteration speed, while rapidly establishing industry standards in academia and consolidating our leading position.

“But,” Pony’s tone shifted, “if I were to speak from the perspective of a business competitor, I would say: absolutely not open source!”

Lin Ran asked, "Why? Are you worried about technology leaks? The architectural principles are public knowledge, and those top companies will catch up sooner or later. Just like OpenAI's lead was only three years, Rainbow's lead will most likely only be two to three years as well."

Pony replied, "Mr. Lin, you underestimate the value of know-how."

Publicly revealing the architecture and publicly revealing the code are two different things. We know that Nvidia and Intel are also making neuromorphic chips, but they don't know how we solve the data synchronization and low-latency communication protocol between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. This is our proprietary technology, just like Nvidia's CUDA. They also don't release the source code of CUDA.

If it's open source, competitors can immediately copy and follow suit. Then the technological barriers we've built at great cost will become a public technological framework that everyone can copy.

My suggestion is to keep the model closed-source, but open the API interface and advanced customization tools.

Our platform allows developers and businesses to build applications while keeping the core architecture, scheduling algorithms, and left-right brain communication protocols firmly in their own hands.

In this way, we can both enjoy the benefits of the ecosystem and ensure a technological monopoly.

Pony's suggestion is excellent. Lin Ran is considering whether open source can promote technological progress.

Open source technology can bring together global wisdom to jointly promote artificial intelligence towards AGI, which can speed up the progress.

(End of this chapter)