Humanity is missing, luckily I have billions of clones

The difficulty of protium fusion is so high that even massive stars like the Sun and Pegasus V432 cannot achieve it. Even they can only barely maintain it through a near-"cheating" method like quantum tunneling.

But now, having mastered the Grand Unified Theory, possessing a deeper understanding of the strong nuclear force, and even being able to further influence microscopic particles through X and Y bosons, Li Qingsong has truly created an environment in the laboratory sufficient to sustain stable protium fusion!

It is genuine protium fusion, not protium fusion relying on quantum tunneling!

At this moment, within a massive device resembling a mountain, presented before the many clones, a mere few grams of hydrogen have entered a state of fusion.

Because of the excessively high temperature and pressure, the Coulomb barrier between atoms is overcome, and two protium nuclei are forcibly squeezed together, then combined in pairs, undergoing a series of processes, and finally fusing into deuterium, helium-3, and other products.

In this process, a massive amount of energy is released.

However…

Although the energy released by protium fusion is higher, with a mass conversion efficiency as high as 0.7%, meaning that for every kilogram of protium completely fused, 7 grams of mass will be completely converted into energy, twice as high as Li Qingsong's previous main fusion mode, deuterium-tritium fusion, the Q value of this entire system is currently only around 0.5.

That is, Li Qingsong has to input two units of energy to produce one unit of energy.

Overall, it is a loss.

But… it doesn't matter!

Just like when Li Qingsong first mastered nuclear fusion technology, the Q value was also very low.

This is not scary. As long as he has truly mastered the technology of protium fusion, he can iterate and improve it bit by bit, gradually increasing the Q value. When that time comes, protium fusion will exhibit even better performance than deuterium-tritium fusion.

Li Qingsong's heart is full of excitement.

How could he not be excited? Originally, one unit of mass of energy could only contribute one unit of energy, but now, one unit of mass of energy can contribute two units of energy, doubling out of thin air!

It's like people in the Earth era buying stocks, and then the stock price directly doubled. How could they not be excited?

After a major breakthrough in protium fusion, entering the subsequent iteration and optimization stage, another major scientific research project achieved a breakthrough.

High-speed ion propulsion technology!

Still based on a deeper understanding of the strong nuclear force, Li Qingsong finally overcame the key obstacle to increasing the ion ejection speed. Thus, in the laboratory, the ion propulsion engine newly manufactured by Li Qingsong saw the speed of its ejected ions directly skyrocket tenfold from the original approximately 2,000 kilometers per second to the current 20,000 kilometers per second!

Thus, one unit of propellant originally could only provide one unit of thrust, but now, the huge increase in ion ejection speed has led to a huge increase in the utilization efficiency of the propellant. One unit of propellant can now provide ten units of thrust!

This is like people living in the Earth era buying a stock and finding that the stock price has doubled. If that weren't enough, they turn around and find that prices have plummeted to one-tenth of their original value.

Multiplying the two together results in a wealth increase of up to 20 times!

"No wonder only when reaching the strong nuclear stage can the fleet speed be increased to 70% or 80% of the speed of light. So that's how it is…"

Li Qingsong's heart is full of emotion.

At this moment, he understands everything.

The breakthrough in protium fusion technology allows strong nuclear civilizations to obtain more energy.

The development of high-speed ion propulsion technology allows strong nuclear civilizations to utilize energy more efficiently.

The combination of the two allows a fleet to directly skyrocket from a speed of only about 4% of the speed of light in the electroweak stage to a speed of 70% or 80% of the speed of light, a fifteen- or twenty-fold increase.

If the speed is increased to 70% or 80% of the speed of light, then even covering it with 10 layers of plastic sheeting will be useless.

Because the impact of interstellar particles does not increase linearly with the increase of speed, but exponentially.

Increasing the speed by 20 times may increase the impact of interstellar particles by 200 times!

Energy shields are not only extremely critical on the battlefield, but also indispensable in interstellar travel.

Fortunately, Li Qingsong has already mastered the preliminary energy shield technology.

At this moment, with the three necessary factors in place, Li Qingsong immediately began to develop new warships truly belonging to a strong nuclear civilization while further iterating and optimizing related technologies.

Of course, a true warship cannot be without a weapon system.

And conventional electromagnetic cannons are too backward and not suitable for strong nuclear civilization warships.

Then develop energy cannons!

The core technology of energy cannons lies in using X and Y bosons to influence the projectile material, causing it to be in a stable "strong nuclear excited state."

At this moment, within a huge experimental ship, through various complex environmental influences, and the most critical influence of the unified force bosons, a tiny projectile with a mass of only 1 gram is quietly suspended, and then quietly turns dark red, and then turns bright white.

This means that the strong nuclear force inside it has been truly stimulated, and it is now in a strong nuclear excited state!

Before there was time to be excited, the tiny projectile that had turned bright white suddenly exploded, directly destroying the experimental equipment.

If an energy shield had not been deployed outside the experimental equipment, I am afraid that the entire spacecraft would have been affected.

There's no way around it, the overall energy of the projectile in the strong nuclear excited state is too high.

After stimulating the strong nuclear force, the mass-energy conversion efficiency of this projectile reaches about 0.005%, which is about 1/180 of the mass-energy conversion efficiency of nuclear fission.

After 1 gram of projectile explodes, it will lose about 0.05 milligrams of mass. And this 0.05 milligrams of mass, according to the mass-energy equation, will be converted into about 4.5 billion joules of energy, approximately equivalent to the explosion of 1 ton of TNT!

From the perspective of energy source and intensity, it is a genuine miniature nuclear bomb!

The most terrifying thing is that this projectile, with such a huge amount of energy and such high lethality, is only the most conventional and most ordinary weapon of a strong nuclear civilization.

This kind of projectile can be fired at a rate of dozens of rounds per second, and at a muzzle velocity of hundreds or thousands of kilometers per second, like an electroweak civilization's electromagnetic cannons, sweeping like a storm!

Think about it, thousands of miniature nuclear bombs flying over every minute at a speed of hundreds of kilometers per second, what a terrifying scene that would be. I am afraid that even a real mountain would be leveled in a short time!