Chapter 472: Vacuum Is Both A Boon And A Curse
“Waiting for the cyclical decline.”
Yuri thought of the 1990s.
Silicon Valley at that time was indeed an invincible deity.
Yuri clearly remembered that in his laboratory in Moscow back then, all computers’ operating system was Microsoft’s Windows, processor was Intel’s chip, design software was from Autodesk.
Newspapers and magazines often featured wealth-creation myths from Silicon Valley.
The entire Russia’s digital world was completely conquered and dominated by this alliance composed of Microsoft, Intel, and IBM.
They had a massive market and astonishing innovation speed; Russia had no decent domestic companies to compete against them at all.
But what now?
At the software level, Russia has almost completely completed domestic substitution.
After 2022, Russia was forced to rebuild its own ecosystem in operating system, office software, search engine, and other fields. Although it was difficult initially, it is now running steadily.
They can indeed wait for the arrival of the next cycle.
But thinking of Super Brain, Yuri felt faintly uneasy. He reminded, “But they have the existence of Super Brain.”
Zak smiled: “Yes, there is Super Brain, but reality’s walls will make every genius who thinks they are omnipotent feel despair, and the professor is no exception.
Physical rules and mathematical principles are so despairing; even the most powerful brain will succumb before these perfect laws woven by the universe.
Fermat’s conjecture casually written in a letter to a friend had to wait three hundred years to be proved by Wiles.
To put it this way, Chinese people are indeed telling everyone now that they will develop Moon resources without limits, and they have indeed achieved many astonishing accomplishments.
But why hasn’t the capital market fluctuated violently, the US stock market hasn’t crashed, capital is indeed shifting to A-shares, China’s stock market performance is good, but the most active and crowded capital market with funds is still America.
If the cosmic era is really coming and China is the leader in this industry, the world we see would absolutely not look like this.
America is absolutely not just showing signs of decline; they have already collapsed, even split into two countries.”
Without waiting for Yuri to answer, Zak continued: “Because the essential problem cannot be solved, China’s development on the Moon will only be small-scale.
It can bring tactical changes, give China some leading technology, bring China a little resources returned from the Moon, but it cannot utilize Moon resources on a large scale without limits.
The importance of the Moon to Earth is not about volume or weight ratio; China hasn’t found a smaller Earth; they only have a brief lead on the Moon.
The cruelest thing facing reality is heat dissipation.
The current heat dissipation mechanism that uses blackbody radiation principle to radiate heat to space through large-area, high-emissivity surfaces is too complex and consumes too many resources, not only Earth’s resources but also land resources on the Moon.
This makes China’s expansion on the Moon limited; they cannot expand infinitely.
The ultimate solution to truly solve this difficult problem requires achieving a theoretical breakthrough in quantum mechanics, realizing active quantum tunneling heat dissipation.
To put it more simply, traditional heat conduction follows Fourier’s Law, with heat always flowing from high temperature to low temperature.
They need to develop a mechanism that can directionally and in a non-equilibrium state transfer thermal energy from inside the object to the external low-temperature heat sink, even if there are complex temperature gradients or insulation layers between them, such heat transfer can still occur.
This requires using quantum coherence to control the direction of phonon movement. Well, I don’t know if humanity can achieve it in the next century.
Theoretical shackles will eventually make China’s sea of stars hit this bottleneck.
This is not a technology that can be broken through this century.”
Yuri was not surprised that the other party knew so much about technology; after all, he had been doing aerospace media for more than thirty years and was considered an industry insider, often chatting casually with big shots from Russian Space Agency; knowing so much was too normal.
After a pause, Zak continued: “Have you watched the professor’s podcast program?”
Yuri shook his head.
Zak said: “He said in the program that humanity’s difficulty in stepping into the universe lies in algorithm and energy.
This is not wrong, because there is no air in the universe; it is vacuum. In vacuum, there is no air resistance; after escaping celestial gravity, it can fly to deep space with initial velocity.
If combined with precise algorithms, it can even use celestial gravity slingshot to advance.
NASA’s Voyager 1 launched in 1977 is still running to this day; it has been operating for nearly fifty years and has flown over 25 billion kilometers.
Because theoretically, once acceleration is complete, we only need minimal energy for attitude control and scientific instrument operation.
Vacuum brings efficiency and eternity to deep space exploration.
There is no air in the universe; this is the creator’s boon. In space navigation, the only problem is time.
But similarly, there is no air in the universe; this is also the creator’s curse. This means that before humanity solves the heat dissipation problem, the characteristics of vacuum mean that heat transfer only has this inefficient path of radiation left.
On Earth, we dissipate heat efficiently through convection and conduction, but in vacuum, these all fail.
We pursue high-density computing, but every transistor operation produces heat.
If heat cannot be dissipated, the chip will overheat, throttle, or even melt.
Heat dissipation problem has become the physical bottleneck of computing density and computing power limit.
Efficient deep space exploration requires high-power energy sources like nuclear energy.
The massive heat generated by these energy systems, if not efficiently radiated out in vacuum environment, will in turn limit the power output of the energy systems.
Before humanity solves the heat dissipation problem, it will never be able to leverage the limited resources of Earth to pry open the infinite resources in the universe.”
Yuri countered: “What if China solves this problem?”
This time it was Zak’s turn to say it’s impossible: “Impossible, absolutely impossible! This is not something humans can handle.
They first need to tackle the theoretical foundation, come up with a quantum mechanics theoretical mechanism that transfers thermal energy without obeying Fourier’s Law.
Even if the professor is really omnipotent and he tackles the theoretical foundation.
Then they need to research and develop topological insulator materials that can guide phonon flow.
Not done yet; the next step is to create nanodevices that can actively switch or amplify heat flow, achieving precise, electron-like control over heat flow.
The final step is industrialization: scaling up nanodevices, developing quantum phonon thin films that can be attached to the surface of large equipment, realizing efficient, directional heat pumping out.
Every step, even for the professor, is at least twenty years.
But I think, just breaking through the theoretical foundation alone might take hundreds of years.
So, Musk’s going to Mars is still more reliable.
The difficulty of developing atmospheric environment modification systems is much smaller.
So the Moon is just a springboard; Mars is the key to deciding victory.”
“What if?” Yuri insisted.
Zak was stunned for a moment. After rubbing his chin for a while, he answered: “Then we will witness a miracle, an unprecedented miracle. Humanity only needs to provide initial resources, outer space facilities will automatically reproduce infinitely, then bring resources back from space; they can attempt without limits.
The entire operation logic of human society will be subverted, and humanity will truly become cosmic beings.”
“What are you thinking?” Looking at Lin Ran who was dazed in the company canteen, with no breakfast eating movement and stagnant, Pony asked curiously.
Today was the first day of Hong’s large-scale test. Pony had come to the company early; he was expectant and excited inside.
“I’m thinking about how to break the restrictions of Fourier’s Law.” Lin Ran said.
In a sense, Zak is indeed a top-tier aerospace reporter; the biggest technical shackle he keenly captured is consistent with Lin Ran’s thinking result.
“Ah? I only know Fourier Transform; what is Fourier’s Law?” Pony felt there was still a barrier in communicating with scientists.
“Simply put, it’s heat conduction from high temperature to low temperature, a temperature-based random process.
Our goal is to achieve directional, non-random, non-equilibrium thermal energy transmission.” Lin Ran explained.
Pony was stunned. As a pragmatic entrepreneur, he felt Lin Ran’s idea was a bit too sci-fi. “Lin Sheng, why do I feel your idea is like a perpetual motion machine, completely impossible?”
Lin Ran grinned: “No no no, of course this is possible.
At least theoretically, it is possible.
This is an energy conversion and transfer device that requires external power to drive its active function.
It consumes electrical energy to combat heat accumulation, which is completely different from a perpetual motion machine.
Moreover, it already has a theoretical foundation: quantum thermodynamics and near-field effects; this is not baseless conjecture.
The second law of thermodynamics does not prohibit entropy decrease in local regions, as long as the entropy of the entire universe is increasing.
My proposal is a typical non-equilibrium state thermodynamic process: using ordered energy from external energy sources to drive the system, transferring internal disordered energy to the external universe heat sink.
And near-field radiation has been experimentally verified; it can break through the traditional blackbody limit of radiation.
Through metamaterials, extremely high heat flux can be achieved at nano distances.
Our goal is to extend this efficient transmission at nano scale to macro usable scale.
The current obstacle is how to design topological materials or phonon crystals that can precisely control and guide phonon flow, allowing heat to flow out only while preventing external heat from flowing back.
And whether the electrical energy consumed to drive such a device is less than the thermal energy it transfers.
Whether such a structure exists in reality, making the energy to drive the device far less than the thermal energy it transfers.
In short, from theory to experiment, there is still a long way to go.”
After listening, Pony thought thoughtfully: “Should we recruit a group of PhDs in related fields to do this?”
Lin Ran said helplessly: “Recruiting for this level is not something PhDs can handle; even for minimal contribution, the premise is that it must have value and practical significance, not just publishing papers.
At least they have to be at the level that can be called physicists.
If our requirements are higher, hoping for some theoretical breakthrough, that would probably be at Old Yang’s level.
This absolutely belongs to Nobel Prize level breakthrough.
Such talent probably cannot be found just by spending money.”
Pony embarrassedly touched his nose and didn’t mention it again.
He stayed quiet until Lin Ran broke the silence: “Pony, we are all amazed by Hong’s performance in the laboratory. From satisfying user emotional needs, its performance is indistinguishable from human if users don’t focus entirely to catch it; they can’t tell if Hong is human or artificial intelligence.
If Hong were placed 10 years ago, and you told its user, congratulations, you have obtained a system from another world, you can chat with the queen from another world, they probably wouldn’t notice anything unusual.
I want to ask you a question about Hong’s future direction.
In the past, our models were always closed-source, like internet giants, not opening core code to the outside, only allowing external use through API.
For this Hong, should we make it open-source?”
Pony instantly understood the strategic significance of this question.
From Tencent’s perspective, it must be closed-source; how could it be open-source.
Grasp Hong’s closed-source advantage, and through cooperation with Deep Red, effortlessly build one’s own moat.
But the words definitely cannot be said so bluntly.
After organizing his thoughts, Pony answered: “General Manager Lin, if I stand from the perspective of a general platform developer, I would say: must open-source.
Open-source is the fastest path to build an ecosystem.
Just like the success of Linux and Android, open-source can attract global developers and research institutions to participate in Hong’s optimization and application creation.
This can accelerate Hong’s technology iteration speed, while quickly establishing industry standards in academia and consolidating our leading position.”
“However,” Pony’s tone changed: “If I stand from the perspective of a business competitor, I would say: absolutely cannot open-source!”
Lin Ran asked: “Why? Are you worried about technology leakage? The architecture principle is public; those top-tier companies will catch up sooner or later, just like OpenAI’s leading advantage is only three years, Hong’s leading advantage is also likely only two to three years.”
Pony answered: “General Manager Lin, you underestimate the value of know-how.
Public architecture and public code are two different things. We know Nvidia and Intel are also doing neuromorphic chips, but they don’t know how we solved data synchronization and low-latency communication protocol between left and right brains; this is our secret sauce, just like Nvidia’s CUDA; they won’t open-source CUDA’s source code either.
If open-source, competitors can immediately copy and follow, and the technical barrier we spent huge costs to build will become a public technology framework plagiarized by everyone.
My suggestion is: keep the model closed-source, but open API interfaces and advanced customization tools.
Let developers and enterprises build applications on our platform, while firmly grasping the core architecture, scheduling algorithm, and left-right brain communication protocol in our own hands.
This way, we can enjoy the benefits of the ecosystem while ensuring technology monopoly.”
Pony’s suggestion was good; what Lin Ran was thinking was whether open-source could promote technological progress.
If open-source, it can gather global wisdom to jointly push artificial intelligence toward AGI, speeding up the progress bar a bit.
