Chapter 666 - Miniaturization Breakthrough!

In the end, Luo Wenxuan still didn’t accept Lu Zhou’s proposal. He said he would bring the Clay Institute cheque back and hand it straight to Lu Zhou.

Lu Zhou thought about it carefully and felt like his proposal was indeed a bit ill-judged. Therefore, he went to the finance office of the Institute for Advanced Study and gave Luo Wenxuan US$100,000 in travel expenses. He also wished Luo Wenxuan a good time at the red-light districts.

Luo Wenxuan didn’t refuse this money. He even took a month-long holiday.

Looks like Luo Wenxuan plans on spending all of the money...

However, Lu Zhou didn’t really care.

Many people had congratulated him over the past few days.

Some were from his students and colleagues at Princeton, and some were from people he met from academic conferences, as well as close friends.

Like Tao Zhexuan.

Lu Zhou worked closely with Tao Zhexuan when he was still researching the Goldbach’s conjecture. They had always remained in contact. Both of them were the type of mathematician that was fluent in many fields, so they had a lot to talk about.

During their phone call, Tao Zhexuan said, “Congratulations, another Millennium Prize Problems solved by you. Clay Institute should update their list of problems. By the way, can you tell me what problem you’re working on next?”

Lu Zhou: “I probably won’t research pure mathematics for a while. I’ll probably focus more on applied mathematics.”

Tao Zhexuan: “Like the moon landing?”

Lu Zhou: “That’s one of them!”

Tao Zhexuan: “This sounds very exciting. My wife works at NASA. She always tells me about her work, which is very different from my field of study. If you succeed someday, remember to save me a seat, I haven’t been to the moon yet.”

Lu Zhou jokingly said, “If that really happens, I’ll host an academic report on the moon.”

After the call ended, Lu Zhou got up from his office chair and was about to go to the cafeteria for some lunch. However, the second he put his phone in his pocket, it started ringing again.

Lu Zhou looked at his phone and saw Sheng Xianfu was calling, so he immediately picked up the call.

“Hello?”

“Professor...”

Sheng Xianfu sounded a little off, so Lu Zhou immediately asked, “It exploded again? Did anyone get hurt? The equipment I borrowed is fine, right?”

Sheng Xianfu gasped and said, “What do you mean exploded again! We’re not making bombs in here, do you really have to say that?”

Lu Zhou: “...”

I mean, fusion energy is scarier than bombs, right?

But...

At least they’re safe.

Lu Zhou was speechless. He said, “Then why are you being so mysterious?”

Sheng Xianfu touched his nose and said, “I’m excited.”

Lu Zhou: “Excited?”

“Yeah...” Sheng Xianfu nodded while holding his phone. He said in a trembling voice, “I think... we did it.”

The phone went silent for two seconds.

Lu Zhou composed himself and took a deep breath.

“I’ll come over right away, we’ll talk in person.”

Lu Zhou ended the call and called Wang Peng.

“Pick me up at the mathematics department.”

Wang Peng only responded with one word.

“Ok.”

After a twenty-minute drive, a black car with a red flag parked at the entrance of the research institute.

After Lu Zhou got out of the car, he passed the security check and walked straight toward a corner of the building.

Ever since the last security incident, the miniaturization of the controllable fusion laboratory group moved from the corner of the building to a temporary warehouse on the side of the institute. Even then, people would try to stay far away from the warehouse.

Lu Zhou walked to the laboratory entrance. Before he could open the door, he heard loud cheers coming from inside the laboratory.

“What is going on?” Lu Zhou quickly walked into the laboratory and saw how ecstatic Sheng Xianfu was. Lu Zhou immediately asked Sheng Xianfu, “What is going on?”

“The method of using liquid metal as a working solution works! According to our experimental data, when we used liquid lithium as the working solution, we were able to apply a greater sound pressure on the bubble through the ultrasonic emission device! This bubble collapse volume is also more stable!” Sheng Xianfu said in excitement. His shoulders were shaking from the adrenaline.

When Lu Zhou heard that his idea worked, he couldn’t help but smile.

However, he was more concerned about how they were able to succeed.

“Why did we fail last time?”

Sheng Xianfu replied excitedly, “Last time, we tried to increase the power of the ultrasonic generator, but the neutron fluence rate didn’t increase. Then we found out that the problem was the deuterium gas mixture!”

Lu Zhou: “What did you guys do then?”

“We warmed up the gas!”

Lu Zhou immediately said, “You ionized and heated the gas?”

Sheng Xianfu’s face was full of joy as he said, “That’s right!”

Lu Zhou nodded, like he had a rough idea of what they did.

They heated and ionized the deuterium gas mixture and injected the liquid lithium through the air inlet. Even though the ionization temperature was only a few thousand degrees, which was nothing compared to the tens of millions of degrees when the bubble collapsed, the ionized gas expanded when driven into the liquid lithium. This gave it a higher surface area, which meant the energy transmitted by the sound to the bubble became larger.

Therefore, the bubble’s instantaneous collapse temperature increased, which allowed them to meet the conditions of deuterium-tritium fusion!

Professor Li Changxia was standing next to Sheng Xianfu. He said with excitement, “We just found a more stable way to achieve controllable fusion! Once again, we’re leading the world in fusion technology!”

“Yeah...”

Lu Zhou was staring at the black container in the middle of the laboratory. He couldn’t help but feel fascinated.

The design of the Hall-effect thruster was taken from Debris No.3. Also, the five-axis CNC machine tool was stationed at the space shuttle assembly center. Xiao Ai could handle all of the production work. Now that they solved the miniaturization of controllable fusion, there was nothing to stop Lu Zhou from achieving his plan.

Of course, this “reactor bubble” was very simple. Both its energy efficiency and power output were far less than the large scale magnetic confinement fusion Pangu reactor. Because it was non-reusable, it also had higher costs.

However, this kind of miniaturized fusion energy device wasn’t used for mass-energy production, so it didn’t really matter.

Because of its high energy density and various advantages over traditional fission batteries, the pros outweighed the cons.

With the Hall-effect thruster design he got from Debris No.3, he could revolutionize the space industry, much like how the gunpowder revolutionized the military industry.

It was not an exaggeration to say that the entire world would change because of their discovery...