Player Reload - Chapter 690 - Living Brain Cells (17)

Chapter 690 - Living Brain Cells (17)

Words : 972 Author : Complete darkness

Chapter 769 of "Player Reload" opens introducing characters: "Countdown timer: approximately 1 hour and 21 minutes remaining. On the upper level of the... Find out more!

"Countdown timer: approximately 1 hour and 21 minutes remaining. On the upper level of the ’Xinxiang Base’, in the medical room on the desk, we—Su Nisheng, Hydra, and I—discovered a lunar calendar."Li Cheng calmly said, "The format of the lunar calendar is quite interesting, from January 2070, when the ’New Hope’ spacecraft departed from Earth, to March 2071. These 15 months of lunar calendars are all hand-drawn,

and each square is subtly lengthening.

February, 1.02 times.

March, 1.05 times.

April, 1.09 times,

until March 2071, when it becomes 1.4 times."

Dir paused for a moment, then realized, "The calendar squares represent the effects of time dilation as the spacecraft travels away from Earth at near-light speed."

"Bingo."

Li Cheng snapped his fingers silently and calmly said, "When an object’s speed approaches the speed of light, the flow of time around it slows, and the spatial dimensions shrink.

The New Hope spacecraft, moving away from Earth and the Solar System at near-light speed, inevitably experiences a slowdown in time compared to Earth’s native timeline.

However, there is an issue here.

The length of each square in the lunar calendar keeps increasing month by month.

That means, from January 2070 to March 2071, the spacecraft was continuously accelerating."

Su Nisheng stood still, while Dir asked, bewildered, "Is there something wrong with that?"

"Of course, it’s wrong."

Li Cheng said, "Laughing God claimed he found a vector control device in the lower level of Xinxiang Base that can modify regional gravity, and the dome shield is also generated by this device.

Hence, I assumed that the New Hope spacecraft’s flight principle utilized vector control technology to artificially generate gravity fields in front or behind the spacecraft.

Like the ’curvature engine’ in sci-fi TV shows, it flies at near-light speed.

But I was wrong."

Su Nisheng continued, in a low voice, "...If it were a curvature engine, the New Hope spacecraft shouldn’t have an acceleration phase.

Or rather, there shouldn’t be such a prolonged acceleration phase lasting a full 15 months."

Their conversation left Dir completely baffled, "What are you talking about? The New Hope spacecraft isn’t on HD996A planet, what does it have to do with our situation?"

"Calm down."

Li Cheng pressed both palms in the air lightly and said cheerfully, "There is a core formula about time dilation in special relativity.

The time measured in the moving reference frame (moving time) equals the proper time measured in the stationary reference frame (stationary time), divided by the square root of (1 minus the ratio of the square of the object’s speed to the square of the speed of light).

In February 2070, the time dilation factor γ was 1.02,

March, γ was 1.05.

April, γ was 1.09.

With the time dilation factor γ, the spacecraft’s flight speed and acceleration speed can be deduced.

That is, from a third-party observer’s perspective, using Earth’s lunar calendar, the spacecraft, after 15 months of flight, accelerated to 70% of the speed of light.

From the spacecraft crew’s perspective, using spacecraft time, after 9.2 months of flight, it accelerated to 70% of the speed of light.

The acceleration is 9.8m/s²."

This speed is precise and subtle, and the first concept that arises in the mind is...

"Earth’s gravity."

Su Nisheng said in a low voice, "The acceleration, consistent with Earth’s gravity."

"Exactly."

Li Cheng nodded, "Perhaps it’s a technology limitation, or perhaps it’s meant to keep the alert crew’s physical and mental health intact.

In any case, from the perspective inside the spacecraft, they can feel normal gravity, as if on Earth’s surface.

And this leads to another clue."

Li Cheng flipped his hand, like performing a magic trick, and pulled out a piece of children’s drawing from the gap between the back of the spacesuit and the life support backpack, depicting a cigar-shaped long spacecraft found in the entertainment room.

"In 2070, Earth’s art education was quite developed, and this children’s drawing clearly depicts the spacecraft being 1000 meters long with a diameter of 200 meters, only having an exhaust at the tail for propelling light beams."

Li Cheng gestured lightly and said cheerfully, "Earth and HD996A planet are 80 light-years apart, even at near-light speed it’s excessively distant. It would take two entire generations to traverse.

Hence, the spacecraft must have many hibernation pods.

After accelerating to a certain extent, the engines reduce power or shutdown, gliding at near-light speed.

Activate the shield function throughout the journey to prevent micro-meteorite collisions.

Most crew enter hibernation pods, leaving only a few or no people awake, relying on artificial intelligence, onboard AI, and such to maintain the basic operation of the spacecraft."

Li Cheng paused imperceptibly, when mentioning "artificial intelligence," some fragmented memories inexplicably flashed in his mind.

What about artificial stupidity, junior-high textbooks, cyborgs vaping electronic cigarettes...

What’s all this nonsense?

Suppressing the doubts in the depths of his heart, Li Cheng continued, "Due to acceleration in the first half of the flight, we can understand that Earth’s technological level still has a qualitative gap from the curvature engines in sci-fi shows.

Acceleration implies deceleration; when the spacecraft arrives at the Constant Star System where HD996A is located, deceleration must commence from a distance.

While the New Hope spacecraft only has an exhaust at the tail."

The Central Control Hall was eerily silent, with only the weak electrical hum from the sentry robot in standby mode, and the gloop, gloop sound of the out-of-control body slowly leaking green slime.

"The New Hope spacecraft is shaped like a cigar."

Su Nisheng broke the silence, softly saying, "In vacuum, flight objects don’t need to consider aerodynamics; they can glide as they wish.

But to prevent micro-meteorite impacts at near-light speed, the most reasonable gliding method is absolutely to align the inertial reference frame, seeking the smallest collision cross-section.

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Chapter 690 - Living Brain Cells (17)

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