Chapter 22 Chapter 21

"Mr. Langdon, I think you've heard of antimatter?" Victoria looked at him carefully, her brown chestnut skin contrasted sharply with the white laboratory. Langdon looked up, suddenly froze. "Yes, oh... know a little bit." A slight smile flitted across Victoria's lips. "Then do you see ①?" Langdon blushed and replied, "Well, my students quite like it..." He frowned. "I remember, the American shipping company inside seems to use antimatter as fuel?" She nodded. "Brilliant science fiction is always based on wonderful high technology."

"So antimatter does exist?" "This is an objective phenomenon in nature. Everything has its counterpart. Protons correspond to electrons, and up quarks correspond to down quarks. The subatomic layer embodies a wonderful symmetry. Antimatter is 'yin', which corresponds to the 'yang' of matter. This A balance of the physics equations is reached." Lang registered Galileo's famous dualism. "Since 1918," continued Victoria, "scientists have proved that two kinds of matter were created in the Big Bang. One is the matter we see on the earth that makes up rocks, trees, and human beings; .”

Kohler said, as if he had figured out what was going on, his voice seemed to tremble suddenly: "But in practice, storing antimatter is very difficult, and there are mutual offset effects?" "My father built a polarity-reversed vacuum. Sucks the antimatter positrons out of the accelerator before they decay." Kohler frowned. "But the vacuum also sucks matter out. There's simply no way to separate the two particles." "My father also built a magnetic field. Under the magnetic force, matter particles follow the magnetic field curve to the right, and antimatter particles to the left. They move in two completely opposite directions."

Suddenly, the doubts in Kohler's mind dissipated.He looked up and looked at Victoria in surprise.Suddenly, he coughed uncontrollably. "Unbelievable..." He wiped the corners of his mouth, "But..." It seemed that he was still unwilling to accept this view. "Even if the polarity reversal vacuum works, these reservoirs are still made of matter after all. How can antimatter be stored in a reservoir made of matter? Once the antimatter hits the container, it will instantly and quickly—" "The sample doesn't touch the walls of the container at all." This question played into Victoria's hands. "It's suspended in the container. We named these reservoirs 'antimatter traps,' because the traps literally trap the antimatter particles, forcing them to hang in the center and at a fairly safe distance from the walls of the container."

"Levitation? Then...how is it possible?" "Under the interaction of two crossed magnetic fields. Come over here and look." Victoria walked across the room and fetched a large electronic instrument.The ingenious contraption reminded Langdon of a toy ray gun—a wide, cannon-like barrel with a scope attached to it, and a tangle of electronic devices hanging from it.Victoria pointed the observation port at one of the storage tanks, squinted her eyes and carefully looked at the eyepiece of the instrument, and calibrated the lens with her hands while watching.Then, she leaned out of the way and motioned Kohler to come over.

Khloe looked a little at a loss. "Have you stored visible antimatter?" "Five thousand nanograms," Victoria said, "a droplet containing several million positrons." "Millions? No matter where you are, it is absolutely impossible for you to collect so many." "It's xenon," said Victoria flatly. "He accelerates the stream of particles through a jet of xenon, removing electrons. Father insists on doing this procedure under covert conditions, but at the same time injecting pure electrons into the accelerator." Langdon was so confused that he wondered if they were talking in English.

Kohler was also dumbfounded, and the wrinkles on his forehead suddenly deepened.He let out a short breath, paralyzed as if shot by a bullet. "Theoretically, this could be..." Victoria nodded, "Yes. A lot of antimatter is generated in this way." Looking at the storage device in front of him, Kohler straightened his body, turned his eyes to the viewer suspiciously, and stared intently.For a long time, he said nothing.Finally, he sat down, cold sweat broke out on his forehead, and the wrinkles on his face stretched out.He whispered, "My God...you really did it."

Victoria was quite proud, nodded and said, "My father did it." "I... I really don't know what to say." Victoria turned to Langdon. "Do you want to see it too?" She stood by the instrument. Langdon stepped forward, thinking to himself, what would he see?Standing two feet away, the reservoir looked empty.Whatever it contained must be pitifully small.Langdon turned his eyes to the viewer, and for a moment the image became clear. He saw it. This little thing didn't stay at the bottom of the container as he imagined, but floated in the center—suspended in mid-air—a small ball glistening with mercury, as if under the influence of magic, hovering in the air , turned over, its surface has a metallic luster flashing.The image reminded Langdon of water droplets in weightlessness he had seen on video before.Although he knew that the ball was small, he could see every undulation of the small drop suspended in the air as it slowly rotated.

"It really...floats." He said excitedly. "It's best to float," Victoria replied, "antimatter is extremely unstable. From the perspective of energetics, antimatter is the mirror image of matter. At the moment of meeting, the two will immediately annihilate and cancel. Therefore, isolating antimatter from matter is A big challenge. And everything on Earth is made of matter, so when we store antimatter, we have to make sure it doesn’t touch anything—even air.” Langdon was taken aback.Works in a vacuum. "These antimatter traps," Kohler rubbed the bottom of a storage container with pale fingers, interjected with surprise, "are they all designed by your father?"

"In fact," said Victoria, "they were my designs." Kohler raised his head in surprise. Victoria said humbly: "After my father produced the first batch of antimatter samples, he had a headache for a long time about the storage problem. Later, he adopted my suggestion and stored the antimatter in a vacuum-sealed nano-synthesis container. Electromagnets with opposite magnetic poles are placed at both ends." "It seems that your father's brain is not enough." "That's not the case. I just borrowed this method from nature. When preying on prey, nicknamed the Portuguese battleship, it uses nematocysts to inject venom into the prey's body, and then surrounds it with tentacles. And the antimatter trap's The principle is the same. Each reservoir has two electromagnets, one at each end. Their magnetic fields with opposite poles cross in the center of the reservoir, holding the antimatter and suspending it in mid-air."

Langdon glanced quickly at the storage.The antimatter really floats in the vacuum without touching anything.Kohler is right, this is a work of genius. "Where's the power supply for the magnet?" Kohler asked. Victoria raised her hand and pointed, "It's in the support under the storage. The base of the storage is continuously supplied with power to ensure the normal operation of the electromagnetic field." "What if the magnetic field is out of power?" "It's very simple. The suspended state is destroyed, and the antimatter falls to the bottom of the container, annihilating instantly." Langdon pricked up his ears. "Annihilation?" The word does not sound very pleasant. Victoria didn't look worried. "Yes, antimatter hits matter, and the two instantly cancel each other out. Physicists call this process 'annihilation.'" Langdon realized. "Oh!" "This is the most common phenomenon in nature. The collision of matter particles and antimatter particles will release two new particles - namely photons. To the naked eye, photons are tiny clusters of light." Langdon had read a bit about photons, photons—particles of light—the purest form of energy.He wanted to ask Captain Kirk how the photon torpedo was attacking, but he held back. "That is to say, if the antimatter falls, a tiny cluster of light will be released?" Victoria shrugged. "It depends on how small you think it is. Now, let me demonstrate." She reached for the holder and twisted it, trying to remove it from its base. Kohler was shocked, and rushed forward with lightning speed, pushing Victoria away.He yelled, "Victoria! Are you crazy!"

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Notes: The series is one of two major American sci-fi cultural phenomena (the other being Star Wars). In 1966, novelist Gene Roddenbery created the novel.The novel focuses on the exploration of the starship Enterprise in the vast universe in the 23rd century, and describes various civilizations and various unknown life forms.The novel was later adapted into TV dramas and movies, and computer games and various toys were derived... Several generations of loyal sci-fi fans have been cultivated. One of the four core races in theCaptain Kirk is one of the main characters.