Even though Lu Zhou was curious about how Luo Wenxuan exposed the cheating girl, he was too embarrassed to ask.
The two continued to eat while talking, and somehow they went from talking about their New Year’s Day plans to talking about Riemann’s hypothesis.
“I am certain that, as long as we solve the Riemann hypothesis, we will be able to find out the hidden secrets behind the Riemann zeta function. Even just thinking about it makes me excited. These concepts are centuries apart, but somehow, they’re connected!
“Do you think there’s a possibility that Riemann was actually a time traveler? Otherwise, how else do you explain the pairwise correlation function of the eigenvalue for the random Hermitian matrix is consistent with the non-trivial zero points of the Riemann zeta function? Quantum mechanics didn’t exist in the 18th century!”
Lu Zhou laughed at Luo Wenxuan’s joke and casually spoke.
“Then how do you know that our past is actually a modified future? Changing the past doesn’t change the present.”
“So, if the past were changed by a time traveler, does that mean the past is actually our future?” Luo Wenxuan said. He suddenly stood up and said, “I have an idea, I’ll do it after New Year’s… Or should I do it now!”
Because his voice was too loud, the people around him started to give him looks.
Lu Zhou awkwardly coughed and signaled him to calm down.
“Calm your a** down.”
Luo Wenxuan realized that he was in a public setting, so he awkwardly sat back down.
However, his embarrassment only lasted for half a second.
He placed his hands on the table and looked excitedly at Lu Zhou.
“Do you know what I just thought of?! I can guarantee you’ll be surprised by my idea! I’m a f*cking genius!”
Lu Zhou looked at Luo Wenxuan and sighed.
“… No matter what the idea is, I hope you don’t include my name in the thesis.”
Luo Wenxuan had a smug smile on his face.
“You’re going to regret that.”
Lu Zhou chuckled.
“Haha, I bet I won’t.”
The time-traveling stuff was obviously a joke.
Lu Zhou was certain that plenty of people have written theses on the paradoxes of time.
That was how theoretical physics research was.
First, they would assume that string theory could work, then they would create a new theory. After that, they would assume that string theory couldn’t work, and they would explain why the new theory couldn’t work as well.
This type of self-affirmation and self-denial research was becoming more and more common.
This showed that Einstein was a genius.
He predicted the nature of black holes, as well as the existence of gravitational waves.
All of the achievements made by the physics community since his death hadn’t deviated from his theoretical framework.
Even to this day, the experimental physics community hadn’t been able to fully test his theories. These scholars had been stuck, with nowhere to go…
Wait a minute…
Lu Zhou suddenly began to contemplate.
Einstein wasn’t the only person like this.
Time-traveling was obviously a joke, there wasn’t enough evidence to support its existence.
But, how could Lu Zhou prove that the history he was familiar with wasn’t the result of time travel?
There’s no way to prove it…
Suddenly, he thought about the system.
Emmmm…
“Interesting…”
Lu Zhou rubbed his chin and began to think of all of the possibilities. He muttered to himself as he was lost in thought.
“… Hm, I heard what you’re trying to say. Interesting, do you want to work together?” Luo Wenxuan said to Lu Zhou.
“You must have heard wrong.” Lu Zhou tried to act unfazed as he said, “As for working together… Let’s do that after we’re done with the Riemann hypothesis.”
“Okay,” Luo Wenxuan said. “Should I celebrate then? You didn’t refuse.”
Lu Zhou immediately said, “Just pretend like I did then.”
Luo Wenxuan: “…”
…
On the 2020 New Year’s Day, the light from the Pangu fusion reactor illuminated the future of controllable fusion.
On the New Year’s Day of 2021, China’s first ion thruster propulsion system spacecraft “Skyglow” achieved its first successful test flight. This paved the way for China’s subsequent landings on the Moon.
The New Year’s Day of 2022 was rather boring. Other than the entire semiconductor industry being disrupted, as well as the Quasi Riemann hypothesis proof, nothing revolutionary happened.
On the first day of the new year.
An unexpected visitor came to Lu Zhou’s house.
Because Director Li from the State Administration for National Defense had some work to do at the Jinling high-tech zone and high-tech aerospace industrial area, he came to visit Lu Zhou.
Director Li happened to come around lunchtime, so Lu Zhou ordered some food from a hotel nearby. He opened a bottle of wine with this old companion of his.
The international news was being broadcasted on TV.
Coincidentally, the content of the news broadcast was the same as what the two were talking about…
“… According to separate announcements from NASA and the White House, NASA will launch their Lunar Gateway project this year.
“The project is part of the lunar exploration plan NASA announced in 2018. According to the disclosed plans, NASA will launch propulsion and launch devices into lunar orbit in early 2022. These components will be the first components of the Lunar Orbital Platform Gateway plan.
“However, the most optimal orbiting track is occupied by the Moon Palace space station, thus NASA is considering using an elliptical orbit with a larger orbit radius.
“Reports show that the project was approved by the Congressional Budget Office in 2021 and has now entered the launch preparation. According to a statement released by a NASA spokesperson, just like the Moon Palace, the Lunar Gateway would serve as an international space station. According to analyses from international relations experts, this project is an attempt from the White House to regain their aerospace dominance…”
Due to the success of the Skyglow spacecraft, NASA had actually been preparing for this project since the middle of last year.
However, because of the Ares program, the public began to distrust NASA. Over the past six months, NASA, Space-X, and other aerospace companies had been keeping it lowkey.
Now that the new year was here, it was time for a new beginning.
Lu Zhou obviously didn’t believe that one mistake should end America’s aerospace ambitions; otherwise, this fight would be too boring.
The US would learn from their failures and become even stronger. This competition had only just begun.
“The Americans really don’t want to be behind,” Director Li said while watching the TV. He ate some braised duck and sighed.
“No one wants to fall behind, and this type of competition is healthy.” Lu Zhou smiled while looking at Director Li. He said, “Speaking of which, why did you suddenly decide to visit me? Are you not busy with work?”
“I am, but I still have time to see my good friend.” Director Li smiled and said, “I heard that you are planning to go back home for Chinese New Year, so I decided to visit you in advance. I hope I didn’t bother Mr. Chief Designer?”
When Lu Zhou heard the words from his good friend, he felt a little weird.
They had been working closely ever since the controllable fusion project, but there was a big age gap between them.
He felt the same way when he talked with Professor Faltings. It was as if older people treated him as the same age.
I’m still a lot younger than you, okay?
I’m not even in my thirties…
Lu Zhou coughed and casually said, “Of course not. I still have time to celebrate New Year’s Day.”
“Good, I just didn’t want to disturb your work. I hesitated for a long time before I decided to come.” Director Li put down his cup and looked at Lu Zhou. He said in a solemn tone, “I’m sure you know that I came to Jinling with a purpose.”
Lu Zhou nodded and said, “Someone told me about it.”
Director Li nodded and continued, “The US’ Lunar Gateway program has already begun, and according to NASA, that their budget is more than US$100 billion. This is far larger than the original estimate of US$21 billion.
“Experts from the Chinese Academy have analyzed that the White House’s plan isn’t as simple as we think. Their true intention is to reunite their allies through economic and diplomatic means, to separate the countries into two sides. This is similar to what happened in the Cold War.”
As for why the US was doing this, it was obvious that the US was trying to rebalance China’s rising dominance.
China finally gained its international advantage due to the controllable fusion energy and aerospace breakthroughs. This was going to be a new challenge for them. Even though the semiconductor industry clusters were going full speed ahead, Lu Zhou could sense that the focus over the next decade was definitely going to be the aerospace field.
Lu Zhou began to think as Director Li spoke solemnly.
“The United States has opened the door to us and invited Chinese aerospace companies to participate in this US$100 billion project. Do you think we should export our aerospace services to them?”
This was an interesting problem.
If they decided to export their services, this meant that Star Sky Technology, as well as the two giant state-owned aerospace companies, would participate in the construction and launch of the Lunar Gateway program.
Lu Zhou contemplated for a while and asked with a smile, “If Huawei had the opportunity to sell Apple computer chips, would you stop them?”
“Of course not.” Director Li smiled and said, “As long as they’re willing to buy it for the right price, we’ll do anything we can to let Huawei sell to them.”
Lu Zhou smiled and said, “Yeah, the only problem is if Apple doesn’t pay the right price.”
Director Li understood what Lu Zhou was trying to say. He nodded.
“I understand what you mean.”
Lu Zhou smiled and continued, “The Lunar Gateway isn’t a big threat to us. It’s just a space station. The real competition isn’t in their space stations or spacecraft, but rather the ability to launch these devices into space.
“If we can take over the launch missions from Space-X, Blue Origin, Boeing, etc., we can weaken their market competitiveness in the long run and further expand the gap.”
Ever since the opening of the Jinling high-tech aerospace development area, as well as the successful development of the Magpie Bridge, China’s aerospace transportation technology was on a whole new level. Their lunar transfer orbit launching cost was at least a magnitude lower than other countries.
This meant that, for every price Space-X was offering, Star Sky Technology could reduce that by 10 times.
Therefore, Star Sky Technology could steal a giant piece of the pie that originally belonged to American aerospace companies.
“… Maybe in the future, their colony in a distant galaxy will need our spacecraft to send supplies. Even if they send their space station to Mars and their colonists to the edge of the solar system, they will still need our help.”
Director Li was a little doubtful, and he said, “What if the White House knew about this? Why do you think they’re asking us to work on the Lunar Gateway project?”
“Maybe to balance their costs… Even if they wanted their local companies to fill the demands, the local companies can’t fill the demand,” Lu Zhou said with a smile. He then continued, “This is good, this means they’re aware of how crucial we are.”
We’re getting closer and closer to complete space domination…
