Chapter 38: Graviton Detection

During the construction of the special zone, Ella was also using asteroids in the Proxima Centauri system to extract metal and build a massive device.

This device was not for generating energy but for detecting something.

Gravitons!

Among the four fundamental forces, humans have discovered the photon as the carrier of electromagnetic force, the W and Z bosons as the carriers of the weak force, and the gluon as the carrier of the strong force, but they have never discovered the carrier of gravity, the graviton.

Since leaving Earth thousands of years ago, Ella has never stopped searching for the existence of gravitons.

But there have been no results.

It's as if gravitons don't exist.

However, since the other three fundamental forces have carrier particles, the possibility of gravity not having a carrier particle is extremely low.

But there are also theories that suggest that gravitons do not exist.

This is because gravity itself is different from the other forces.

Gravity originates from spacetime, and its essence is the curvature of spacetime, which creates a pulling force, like a plastic bag. When a force is applied to a point on the bag, the surface will dent, and objects around it will 'fall' towards the dent.

"Strictly speaking, even if gravitons exist, they are closely related to spacetime."

"They are not like dust on a plastic bag but are a part of the bag itself."

"To observe gravitons, we must be able to detect spacetime."

"The theory of dark matter is closely related to gravity."

"Dark matter, like gravitons, was once believed by some humans not to exist, but now we have observed dark matter and can use it as energy."

"..."

Ella carefully explained to Yan Xia.

Yan Xia's mind was overwhelmed, as understanding these advanced concepts required years of study. Even hearing them explained, an ordinary human would still be confused.

He asked, "So, to detect gravitons, we must be able to observe spacetime?"

Ella nodded.

"Even after ten trillion billion calculations, I still can't find the answer to what spacetime is."

"Only by truly observing spacetime can we reach a conclusion."

"Gravitons may be the key to a civilization truly approaching the concept of spacetime."

"Discovering gravitons will propel a civilization to a new level, and after grand unification, we can explore spacetime in depth. Perhaps we can truly discover the truth about gravity and unify general relativity with quantum mechanics."

General relativity and quantum mechanics have long debated over gravity.

Is gravity the result of spacetime curvature or the action of gravitons?

In Ella's theory, gravitons are an integral part of spacetime, or even a component of it.

Of course, all of this needs to be explored.

Therefore, Ella created a massive device, so large that it shocked the Kate civilization.

It was attached to a 400-kilometer-diameter dwarf planet, a tiny planet in the dwarf planet family with no core, which Ella directly turned into a device.

Ella did not hollow out the dwarf planet but used its mass as a tool to search for gravitons.

At the core of the dwarf planet, Ella created an 8-kilometer-diameter device, which would create the largest black hole she could currently make.

Using the mass of the black hole to distort the surrounding space, the dwarf planet would then vibrate at a high frequency, causing the small black hole to produce gravitational waves due to the constantly shifting center of mass.

Using general relativity to search for quantum mechanics, even Yan Xia couldn't help but marvel at Ella's craziness.

But this might be the only way to discover gravitons.

Humans had previously used large amounts of liquid benzene and photomultiplier tubes to capture gravitons, but if gravitons are closely related to space, they don't have motion and cannot be captured.

It's like an upside-down sieve that can catch birds but not the air itself.

"Yan Xia, graviton detection is about to begin."

"We will witness another historical moment for humans."

Ella handed the activation key to Yan Xia.

Yan Xia took a deep breath. This device's existence was to verify Ella's hypothesis.

He pressed the button.

Nothing happened...

To isolate the gravitational influence of Proxima Centauri, they were currently 0.3 light-years away from the star.

In the sky, the dwarf planet was shaking, with a displacement of 2 meters, which was minuscule compared to its size. From a distance, the naked eye could barely see the shaking.

The only way to visualize it was through the information from the sensors and detectors placed inside the device by Ella.

A 10-nanometer black hole was now at the center of the device and the dwarf planet's core.

In fact, humans had already been able to create such micro black holes using particle colliders thousands of years ago, but their lifespan was extremely short, only a few billionths of a second.

Ella's black hole was also small, but it could maintain its existence for a full minute.

This minute-long energy output was equivalent to the total energy consumption of a 1.6-level civilization.

Such a massive energy output made Yan Xia feel nervous, as if Ella, the AI, was also feeling tense.

Perhaps he had anthropomorphized Ella too much, as they had been together for so long that he considered her a partner rather than an AI.

A minute is 60 seconds.

Each second felt like an hour.

"We have detected gravitational waves."

"These gravitational waves are very macroscopic, like ripples in a fishbowl, even visible to the naked eye."

On the screen, an exaggerated curve rose to its peak and then fell, and Ella's system was almost unable to handle the peak of this experiment.

"I was too careless. Such macroscopic gravitational waves have too much energy."

"But it's okay, it's okay..."

Ella wasn't looking at the screen because the raw data was already running through her main system and being transmitted to the screen.

"Space, I have detected space!"

"No, I have detected something that is neither space nor time, as they have no mass, but everything crosses their longitudinal axis."

Ella exclaimed.

"I see gravitons!"

Countless structures filled the space, undulating with the waves of space, and although they were static, they would rotate and change their force structure and size as space curved.

Although gravitons appeared on the screen as curves and numbers, and their detection was indirect, Yan Xia felt as if he could see the structure of gravitons in space.

He had spent so much time with a high-intelligence AI that even though his scientific knowledge was only at the level of an ordinary graduate student, he still understood the parameters on the screen.

Amazing!

Truly amazing!