Chapter 145 The Great Era

Downing's trip to France only went to one city in Paris. Because of an oil craze in Pennsylvania, he returned to the UK in advance. He did not even go to the wedding of the Seine Girl, and then went to Plymouth to plan the British Petroleum Company. In fact, there was another incident that happened not long ago that made him return to the UK in advance. The solar storm broke out, and the aurora of the Arctic can be seen even Cuba.

Thanks to the super solar electromagnetic outbreak, the global telegraph network of British Telegraph Company was completely paralyzed, which triggered panic among the people on earth. The sales of the global Telegraph suddenly soared because everyone wanted to see what god-level scientists think about this incident. It is estimated that even the hard Christians turned to the magicians in front of the powerless God.

The mage did not disappoint everyone, and proposed the theory that the global magnetic field was attacked by the sun, and once again emphasized that light and electromagnetic waves are the same physical phenomenon, but the wavelengths are different. Since the aurora, a phenomenon that should have been seen in the North Pole and the South Pole, can now be seen from such a distance, it means that the interference of radio waves is quite serious. As for why it comes from the sun, it is easy to guess, because the sun is the most active celestial body closest to the earth, and a large amount of energy will be sprayed every moment, and there will inevitably be charged high-energy particles. When these high-energy particles collide, a higher intensity of energy will occur, that is, in the form of light and radio waves.

In order to ensure that today's ability to predict the vigorous activities of the sun in advance, Downing donated a radio fund specifically for observing solar activities to the Greenwich Observatory for the research and development, manufacturing and maintenance of solar observation instruments.

The information security of the Windsor Consortium has become increasingly important. The losses and panic caused by the long-term unavailability of wireless telegraph networks have alerted Downing, and it seems that the fiber optic project must be accelerated.

There is a problem in the manufacturing of optical fibers - there is no problem when there is only one optical fiber, but when a large number of optical fibers are put together, because the conducting medium undergoes major changes, the total reflection effect can no longer be generated, and the optical fiber will fail.

The raw materials of optical fibers are basically the same as glass, all of which are silica, which can be recycled and reused again and again. How to cover the glass drawn into wire at low cost with a layer of total reflective film is the difficulty of the process. The highlight is that the refractive index of high-purity quartz will be different as long as a little impurity is mixed with, which is the direction of the research and development of the Tyndall team.

At present, the experiment can be done by the double-layer pipeline method to create a small amount of optical fiber, but it is obviously not suitable for large-scale use. The finishing touch of Tangning's promotion of fiber industry is not only using such trace impurity media, but also making the production process of this trace impurity completely realized by the temperature change during melting and drawing cooling. That is, when the molten silica is cooled, the outermost layer naturally absorbs a small amount of impurities in the air due to exposure to the air, so that the optical fiber can be drawn on a large scale at low cost.

It is useless for others to have optical fibers (except for "bending light" to detect the inside of the human body), because it must be combined with a photoelectric converter to play a communication role, and this thing cannot be understood as soon as you explain it.

During the process of popularizing science, the people who did not know the truth and even scientists began to worry. It turned out that the selfless sun that we always believed was also tyrannical, just like there were sages and tyrants in ancient times. Will the explosion of the sun's energy be so fierce that humans cannot bear it? Scientists all know that most of the creatures that once lived on the earth were extinct. Will this have something to do with the outbreak of the sun?

Although this worry is redundant, newspapers around the world are discussing this matter and analyzing it with a more rational attitude. Many people who were unable to care about the end of mankind before began to care about it. Populist newspapers like the Times like to cater to the people and create sensationalism.

There is a typical conjecture that the extinction of dinosaurs is related to the great explosion of the sun. Because the dinosaurs are huge and cannot hide in caves, and humans escaped because they can enter caves. This statement is quite interesting. It is basically the same as the collision of asteroids that later generations conjecture, and it is nothing more than guessing the wrong murderer. However, according to the Bible, the universe has only existed for thousands of years, so in the hearts of Europeans, the earth only has a lifespan of thousands of years, which means that their fear of this statement has reached a new peak. Doesn’t this mean that when the sun has another such explosion, humans must hide in caves? Then all civilizations are destroyed, and all humans will become cavemen.

Many earthquakes have preludes before they come. This time, the Northern Lights swept into the tropics. Does such a terrible "prelude" mean that the sun's explosion is close to you? In the face of the doomsday, the sales of the Telegraph have been unprecedentedly high. Before we knew it, everyone has regarded god-level scientists as true gods. Even if he comes out and says "Impossible" such comforting words, it would be fine. Times and others invite unreliable experts to talk nonsense every day, which has already made people feel panicked.

At the beginning, Tangning analyzed that the sun is a very stable celestial body, because light energy is an extreme of energy, and the average distance from the earth is ten to eighth kilometers. The fastest speed of light in the universe also takes about "long" 8 minutes to reach the earth before it can reach the earth. Therefore, the so-called violent fluctuations of the sun will not have a short-term impact on the earth.

There are long-term effects, and there is evidence. Astronomers are asked to look at Mars. Why is the surface of Mars the same color as the Sahara Desert? Because it is as deserted and lifeless as the large desert, and why is Mars not alive? But it is because there is no water on it. The reason for the lack of water is the huge power of the Sun Tyrant. When you are in the North Pole, you will often see the appearance of the huge energy from the Sun - aurora, indicating that the energy wind from the Sun is constantly blowing over, and the earth has a large planetary magnetic field that can deflect the solar wind, but Mars does not have such good luck. After a long geological era, the oceans that Mars may have originally contained were slowly dried by the solar wind, creating what it is today.

How long is this "long"? Although people who care about the fate of mankind have received some comfort from god-level scientists, they are still not completely relieved.

Well, it seems that all the worries are focused on people's concepts of celestial and geological time are too vague, and the scientific mage can only use their big moves. Just as the biggest feeling in the Catholic country France recently was that the negative comments came from his atheistic view. Since the debate has begun, I will give the believers a heavy punch. This heavy punch may be heavier than evolution for some people, because the origin of species is a process that cannot be reproduced in the laboratory, and the time it takes place is also relatively vague, and the word "long" can only be used instead of specific numbers. So, let me, the great, glorious, and correct magician, uncover the secret of this time.

Now the heaviest element on the periodic table is uranium with an atomic weight of up to 92. When revealing the radioactive properties of natural stones, the Great Magician once mentioned vaguely that the source of radioactive radon gas is actually uranium. This time, the Great Magician must completely unveil the trump card - this heaviest element can be transformed.

Uranium in nature exists in the form of three isotopes: uranium-238 (99.2739 to 99.2752%), uranium-235 (0.7198 to 0.7202%), and trace amounts of uranium-234 (0.0050 to 0.0059%). The great magician does not intend to tell everyone the unusual two types of uranium, because it will have a terrible consequence, they can fission under the bombardment of slow neutrons, and if their mass exceeds the critical mass, they will all be

It can maintain a nuclear chain reaction, and the slight mass loss during the nuclear reaction will be converted into huge energy. You should have guessed what this is. Therefore, the uranium mentioned now refers to the vast majority of uranium-238, and its half-life is 4.47 billion years. This means that if you know the initial uranium content and existing amount of an object, you can calculate the longest super-long age of this substance. This billion-level number can already represent the longest celestial and geological age.

So, how can we know the initial uranium content of an object? This brings up a strange crystal - zircon. Gem-grade zircon is very similar to a diamond after being cut, and fraudsters can use it to fool outsiders. Its crystallization process cannot accommodate lead (lead is the final product of uranium decay), but uranium can enter zircon at the beginning, which gives scientists an excellent opportunity to finally have an uranium-containing object that knows the initial value of the decay product, (zero). Monocerite, cylindrite and zircon also have characteristics similar to zircon crystals.

After several months of preparation, the great magician finally threw the bombshell out. There is no doubt that the main paper was published in Nature and also had a popular science introduction in the Telegraph, and a simpler introduction on BBC. The title is - How old is the Earth?

After months of suffering, the poor humans finally ate the fruit they were looking forward to. Whether it is sweet or bitter depends on your personal personality. The scientific explanation of the Telegraph as shocking as the world of creation, first look at the conclusion. The oldest stone found at present is 4 billion years old, and the dinosaurs that everyone is concerned about are basically the rock formations of their fossils 65 million years ago. It can be concluded that a planetary disaster 65 million years ago caused the extinction of dinosaurs.

If this number is confirmed, it is not a question of slapping the face for the Bible, but a question of slapping the head away. The number in the Bible that is no more than 10,000 years old is simply a childish fantasy in the face of the age of the earth and the dinosaurs, and is not much better than Andersen's fairy tale. Please note that this is no longer the vague words such as "Long" left to the church with vague words such as "Long". This entire scientific method can be reproduced over and over again. According to the past records of the scientific mage, this must be true.

Archaeologists at the British Museum are excited to conduct inspections every day. The Telegraph itself has become a must-play content for major newspaper headlines during this period. A new data is measured in every few days. These data are consistent with the expectations of the arrangement of the rock formations and the evolution paths of various ancient biological fossils.

Apart from Downing's laboratory, others do not have the ability to calculate the half-life of uranium, which involves another important technology, how to detect radioactivity?

Radioactive substances can ionize air and generate current, while a mysterious crystal will produce a "piezoelectric phenomenon", that is, when under pressure, a positive charge will form one side of the crystal and a negative charge will form the other side. The checks and balances of the relaxation current and the piezoelectric phenomenon can effectively detect the magnitude of radioactivity. (http:///.).

In order to prevent other scientists from obtaining advanced radioactive technologies to trigger further scientific discoveries, such as discovering uranium isotopes that may produce chain reactions, Tangning sets this mysterious crystal as the "highest secret". The best detection equipment does not have, but ordinary-level equipment that can detect rock formation years is open to all scientists so that universities around the world can verify the correctness of this epoch-making technology.

Now, people finally have a completely new concept of time and are no longer afraid of geological events, because it is too far away and almost impossible to happen in their lifetime.

However, the further severe damage to religious authority also led to a crisis of faith. Christianity experienced a historic defection, especially Protestants, which were originally subject to little restrictions, and there was no secular price to change their faith.

As Dickens famously said in The Tale of the Two Cities: "This is the best time, this is the worst time."
Chapter completed!