Live Stream 1980: Netizens Teach Me How to Make a Rocket by Hand

In October, the capital city is ablaze with autumn colors.

The wind swirled the withered yellow sycamore leaves, tirelessly pattering against the red brick walls of the old Soviet-style buildings at the Imperial University, making a rustling sound.

No. 5 Yiheyuan Road, South Building of Chemistry, 3rd floor.

Before I even stepped across the threshold, a suffocating smell of kerosene, mixed with the unique pungent odor of acid mist, assaulted my senses as if it had eyes.

This place looks dilapidated, but it is the heart of China's rare earth separation technology.

Rare Earth Chemistry Research Laboratory.

At the lab bench, an elderly man with gray hair hunched over, holding a dropper in his hand, his eyes almost touching the beaker, staring intently at the minute change in the solution's layering.

Mr. Xu.

He is known as the "Father of Rare Earths" in China and is the founder of the cascade extraction theory.

"Teacher, this data can't be processed!"

With a "thud," the notebook was slammed heavily onto the table.

Zhao Qing, a female graduate student with a ponytail, had red eyes.

"Our chromatograph is an old relic from five years ago; its resolution is simply insufficient!"

"The iron-neodymium separation data we just analyzed was all noise; all that work for the week was for nothing!"

Zhao Qing became increasingly aggrieved as she spoke, her voice trembling:

"The physics department next door has all switched to equipment imported from the United States."

"And what about us? We're still using this outdated, blind testing method!"

"Isn't this like trying to fight a machine gun with a fire poker?"

In the lab, the other researchers stopped what they were doing, lowered their heads, and remained silent.

Even a skilled cook can't cook without rice; this is a thorn in everyone's side.

Old Xu straightened up, gently put down the dropper, took off his glasses, rubbed his temples, and spoke in a hoarse but gentle voice:

"Xiao Zhao, hold back your tears."

"The country is currently facing a foreign exchange shortage, so every penny must be spent sparingly, and half of it must even be reserved for emergencies."

"We who work in rare earths are here to 'generate blood' for the country's barren industry, not to suck its blood."

"If the equipment is bad, we'll just run more data sets and stay up a few more all-nighters."

"Wasn't the mushroom cloud of yesteryear also created by manipulating abacus beads?"

Zhao Qing bit her lip, swallowing back the complaint that was about to come out.

She wiped her face hard with her sleeve, then turned to wash the beaker, her stubbornness heartbreaking.

Just then, there was a knock on the laboratory's wooden door.

"Knock knock knock".

Old Xu turned around, somewhat surprised:

"Old Zhang? What brings you here, you busy man?"

Standing at the door was Zhang Zhengguo, followed by an excessively young man.

The young man, wearing a slim-fit jacket rarely seen these days, with bright eyes, was looking around the laboratory with great interest, which had a “heavy industrial feel”.

Zhang Zhengguo strode into the room, not bothered by the pungent smell, but instead took a deep breath and laughed:

"Old Xu, you wouldn't come here without a reason."

"I've brought you a timely rain today."

As he spoke, he stepped aside to let Lin Xi pass:

"Let me introduce you, this is Comrade Lin Xi."

"The deputy manager of the Red Star Labor Service Center at our Northwest Launch Base is also a..."

"A tech 'maverick'."

Old Xu paused for a moment, then subconsciously reached out and shook hands with Lin Xi, a hint of confusion flashing in his eyes:

"A service center? It's...does it handle logistical support?"

Before Lin Xi could speak, Zhao Qing, who was holding back his anger, exploded first.

She was already furious because of the failed experiment, and when she saw that a high-ranking official from the Seventh Ministry of Machinery Industry had brought someone from a "service agency" to this top-secret national laboratory, she immediately lost her temper.

"Director Zhang, we work on rare earth separation atomic chemistry here, not on boiler repair or tire patching."

Zhao Qing glanced at Lin Xi, her tone as sharp as a knife:

"If you're trying to sell shampoo or work gloves, turn left after you leave; the logistics department is over there."

The live stream chat was instantly flooded with comments.

[Haha, young lady, you've really hit the jackpot! This is a future money-maker!]

[Lin Xi: I don't fix boilers, I fix your brains.]

[You can't blame her, these days service agencies really do all the odd jobs, who would have thought the streamer was a cheater?]

[Professor Xu looks so haggard, it breaks my heart. This generation of scientists is truly risking their lives to fill the gaps.]

Lin Xi wasn't angry; in fact, the smile on her face didn't change.

He looked at Zhao Qing with the same gaze he would give a child who was still throwing a tantrum.

"This student is right, I'm from the service club."

Lin Xi's tone was calm and composed.

"However, our Red Star Service Center not only repairs pots and pans, but also occasionally helps to address the shortcomings of the country's industry."

"Tch." Zhao Qing snorted and turned his head away, too lazy to pay attention.

Old Xu was somewhat embarrassed. He glared at Zhao Qing, then turned to Zhang Zhengguo and said:

"Old Zhang, don't take offense, this kid is spoiled by me, he's very outspoken."

"But... what exactly is the purpose of your visit this time?"

Zhang Zhengguo found a stool, sat down, and pointed at Lin Xi:

"Kobayashi has some unique ideas about rare earth extraction and would like to discuss them with you."

"In addition, we would like to discuss a collaboration with your laboratory."

"A unique idea?" Zhao Qing couldn't help but interject while washing the beaker, her tone dripping with sarcasm.

"What does a service center's deputy manager know about trivalent ions?"

"Do you even know what a complex is?"

Lin Xi ignored her provocation and directly took out a neatly folded document from her pocket, handing it to Old Xu with both hands.

The gesture was as solemn as if one were presenting a letter of credentials.

On the cover, a line of text was neatly written in pen:

"A Proposal for Optimizing Dynamic Equilibrium and Fuzzy Logic Control in Hundred-Level Cascade Extraction Using Computer Matrix Operations"

Mr. Xu took the document.

But when he saw the words "matrix operations" and "dynamic equilibrium" in the title, his pupils suddenly contracted.

A true expert's skill is immediately apparent.

Current methods for rare earth separation rely on experience with "shaking the funnel" or calculations using simple linear equations.

Once the series exceeds fifty levels, the variables explode exponentially. The human brain? An abacus? That's like an ant trying to shake a tree.

Mr. Xu turned to the first page.

After reading only three lines, the politeness on his face vanished.

Instead, there was solemnity.

Immediately following was a shock that ripped through my pupils.

Finally, he felt as if he were sucked into those thin sheets of paper, and the people and things around him seemed to disappear instantly.

The laboratory was deathly silent, with only the ticking of the wall clock.

five minutes.

ten minutes.

twenty minutes.

Old Xu remained in the same posture, like a statue. The only thing that moved was his slightly trembling hand, his knuckles white from exerting too much force.

Lin Xi wasn't in a hurry. She pulled up a chair and sat down, even picking up a test tube on the table with interest.

Zhang Zhengguo, on the other hand, calmly drank the tea he had brought with him.

Seeing Zhao Qing's increasingly surprised and uncertain expression, he secretly rejoiced: Let them look down on us aerospace engineers!

Finally, Old Xu let out a long breath.

He suddenly raised his head, his eyes burning with an intense intensity as he stared intently at Lin Xi:

"The 'nonlinear feedback compensation algorithm' involved..."

"How did you come up with that?!"

"Current computer computing power is simply insufficient to handle such complex simulations!"

"How did you simplify this model to this extent?"

"This is simply...a brilliant idea!"

Lin Xi smiled slightly and leaned forward:

"Professor Xu, there's no need to calculate the motion of every single molecule."

"We only need to introduce the 'queueing theory.' Consider each extraction tank as a service window, and the rare earth ions as customers queuing up..."

The next twenty minutes became a duet between Lin Xi and Old Xu.

Zhao Qing was completely dumbfounded.

Because these two people were spouting terms like "centrifugal extractor," "PLC automatic control," and "online mass spectrometry analysis feedback"—terms she'd never heard of before, but which inexplicably sounded incredibly impressive.

As Mr. Xu listened, he became more and more excited. He grabbed a pen and quickly wrote down notes on the paper, as if he had suddenly become ten years younger, with an astonishingly bright light in his eyes.

"Wonderful! Absolutely wonderful!"

Old Xu slapped his thigh, not even caring about the pain:

"If a centrifuge is used instead of a clarifier, the residence time can be reduced by tens of times!"

"The purity we need... 99.9999% is possible!"