Earth Era - Chapter 16: The Hypothesis of Quarks

Chapter 16: The Hypothesis of Quarks

Zhao Huasheng recalled many people and events. He remembered the couple he saw that day, the old man in the small restaurant, and every ordinary person he met on the street.

Suddenly, Zhao Huasheng’s head started to throb faintly. He stood up and tried to wipe away the tears on his face, only to find that the tears had frozen onto his face, melting away as soon as he touched them.

“I understand,” Zhao Huasheng said hoarsely.

“It’s not your fault, Huasheng,” Li Wei gently reassured.”Nobody wanted this to happen.”

Zhao Huasheng looked at Li Wei gratefully and nodded.

In the small town, the old man sighed and directed several people to get Freya’s family onto the sled. A group of people slowly moved toward the town—in order to prevent the sled dogs from consuming too much heat and freezing to death, they dared not let the sled dogs move too fast. At the same time, they also took off their clothes and put them on the sled dogs to help them keep warm.

The snowstorm gradually weakened, and the townspeople finally returned to the town. The only priest in the church put on his robe and started to pray for Freya’s family. The welcoming banquet originally prepared for the Zhao Huasheng’s group also became a funeral.

The atmosphere in the small town began to become heavy and oppressive. Zhao Huasheng locked himself in the room and didn’t come out for three days except to eat and meet his physiological needs. Zhao Huasheng seemed to still be able to smell Freya’s family breath in the house, hear their conversations and laughter, but he could no longer see them, never again.

The supplies for the following days arrived gradually over the next three days, and it was finally time to embark. Zhao Huasheng left his room and reunited with everyone. Several helicopters had already stopped in front of the small town church, and the townspeople had come here to bid farewell.

Facing the crowd bidding farewell to him, Zhao Huasheng said, “Don’t stay in this small town anymore; go to Equator City. Contact the government now; they will send someone to pick you up. Don’t stay here anymore, don’t you know? The weather has changed, this place is no longer suitable for human survival.”

Zhao Huasheng could not violate the confidentiality agreement, and these words were all he could say.

The old man sighed tremulously and said, “The weather is indeed getting colder and colder; alas, we all know that. But how can we leave here? We have lived here for a lifetime, gone through the long years of seven or eight decades, we just want to stay here peacefully and die here. We don’t know where to go if we leave here. Young people love to run around and go adventuring; they are willing to go to the Equator City; let them go to the Equator City; we are all old, can’t walk anymore, so let’s just stay here and go nowhere.”

Zhao Huasheng seemed to have heard the same words from the old restaurant owner, who was also getting old.

“Anyway, we don’t have much years left to live; let’s just stay here.”

Zhao Huasheng could not understand the words and choices of these elderly people, but Zhao Huasheng knew what kind of deep emotion it was. Under the threat of death, this deep emotion made them choose to stay and not leave their hometown, and Zhao Huasheng was sure that there must be many elderly people with the same idea all over the world.

Even if it meant death, they would not leave.

If they don’t leave, they will die.

And Zhao Huasheng did not want them to die.

Zhao Huasheng felt a hot flow in his eyes, but he finally held back. Zhao Huasheng turned his head and said hoarsely: “Well, then you stay here. I hope… I can have the ability to change all this before the weather gets too cold.”

The elderly were puzzled, not understanding the meaning of Zhao Huasheng’s words. But they still expressed their thanks and blessings to Zhao Huasheng. Zhao Huasheng then boarded the helicopter and dared not look back.

The helicopter took off amidst a loud roar and a flurry of snowflakes stirred up by the propellers, leaving the place and quickly heading north towards the Arctic. There, the personnel of the Arctic Longshan Station would stay for three days.

The Arctic is dangerous, especially now that the level of solar radiation has dropped significantly. The danger and harsh environment of the Arctic is beyond imagination. But Zhao Huasheng still chose the Arctic as his destination. Nobody asked why Zhao Huasheng did that – as long as Zhao Huasheng thought it was necessary, even if Zhao Huasheng wanted to go to the moon, they would try to make it happen.

Even Zhao Huasheng himself was not quite sure why he wanted to go to the North Pole. There was just a voice in his heart constantly ringing, “See these scenes; soon they will disappear and never be seen again.”

The effects of the decrease in solar radiation are global. Zhao Huasheng knew that from then on, scenes of lush greenery, bird songs, fragrant flowers, and babbling streams would all gradually disappear, and only cold ice, wind, and snow would remain eternal.

As Zhao Huasheng pondered all this, he wanted to remember all these scenes before they eventually disappeared, and only then could the side of firmness and struggle and never giving up in his heart outweigh the side of decline and collapse. After all, Zhao Huasheng was just an ordinary person.

Zhao Huasheng and Li Wei sat side by side in their seats without speaking. The huge roar of the helicopter sounded exceptionally monotonous at this moment, just like the scenery on the ground below the helicopter.

That was an endless expanse of white ice. Sometimes there were living creatures to be seen here, such as polar bears, Arctic foxes, wolves or deer. When a helicopter flew by, they would raise their heads to observe the strange object, as if wondering why it could fly.

“We used to worry that global warming caused by the greenhouse effect will melt the Arctic ice and have an impact on the local ecosystem. Now we don’t have to worry about that anymore,” Li Wei said with her hands on her hips. “If I’m not mistaken, there was no ice here at this time last year.”

“This is no laughing matter,” Zhao Huasheng shook his head.

“Don’t be so serious,” Li Wei said softly. “My brother has faith in you, so he assigned you this task. I have the same faith in my brother. I’m sure his choice was not wrong. You can do it.”

Zhao Huasheng sighed and looked at Meng Zhuo: “Have there been any new discoveries in the research department these few days?”

“Yes,” Meng Zhuo said, “Further observation shows that the substances that appear in the photosphere layer which resemble Dyson spheres are not solid but rather appear darker and blacker due to the lower temperature. At the same time, certain observation data indicate that it seems to be present above the solar convective layer rather than the photosphere layer as previously speculated. Of course, this needs more observational evidence to be confirmed.”

The sun is divided into the core, radiation layer, convective layer from the inside out, and then the atmosphere, with the photosphere layer being the closest to the surface of the sun in the solar atmosphere.

“Does this suggest that the decrease in solar radiation is due to some physical mechanism inside the sun?” Zhao Huasheng asked.

“The assessment data from the Research Department indicated that the possibility has risen to 80%. The possibility of interference from some external force, i.e. an unknown civilization, has been reduced to less than 20%. The Research Department has also speculated that the change in the sun might be caused by some unknown advanced civilization, but it doesn’t seem to be the case now. It seems more like a spontaneous change in the sun. You’re a scientist in the field of stellar physics; perhaps you can make your own speculation about this.”

Zhao Huasheng shook his head, “I can’t imagine any physical mechanism that could cause such a phenomenon. Has anyone from the Research Department proposed any physical models?”

“There are two. One is the neutrino escape hypothesis and the other is the uncontrolled thermonuclear fusion under extreme environment. Of course, these are just hypotheses; the Research Department has not yet found enough evidence to support either of them.”

“Oh?” Zhao Huasheng showed a bit of interest, “Bring me the relevant materials to look at.”

Meng Zhuo nodded and five minutes later, he brought over a stack of documents and handed them to Zhao Huasheng.

“The escape of neutrinos… due to some unknown reason, a large number of neutrinos were produced in the fusion process of the sun’s core. Due to the high density of the sun’s core, even neutrinos which are extremely difficult to react with matter, were unable to escape smoothly. A large number of neutrinos took on the task of supporting the structure of the sun, and after leaving the sun’s core, the neutrinos began to escape freely and carried away a large amount of energy, thus leading to a decrease in the sun’s radiation level…”

Neutrinos are a very mysterious particle that almost does not react with any matter. It is also very small, so small that it can freely pass through the whole earth without colliding with any particles that make up the earth. This hypothesis is the key to explain all the changes with neutrinos. But this explanation also has a rather large loophole.

Is it true that the matter density of the sun’s core is so high that even neutrinos can’t escape? At least according to the knowledge held by Zhao Huasheng at the moment, the matter density of the sun’s core is far from reaching that point. Furthermore, if the hypothesis is true, the neutrino telescope deployed deep underground on Earth should be able to detect neutrinos at a level far beyond the previous one.

“Someone has proposed a new nuclear fusion model, predicting a completely new and different neutrino particle, to explain the contradiction in the hypothesis. The Research Department is working hard to verify the hypothesis, and the results will be available soon,” said Meng Zhuo.