"Principal Liu, I have just joined the Natural Science Foundation. As you know, I have just graduated. This is my first job. I know nothing about Chairman Yu's background, but he must have a good background."
Fang Hong looked at Vice Principal Liu and said with a smile. He paused for a moment and then continued: "To tell you the truth, I was surprised to be her assistant. I was promoted by her within two days of joining the job. "
He is full of nonsense and lies without blinking an eye.
But his words undoubtedly made Vice President Liu think more and more. He couldn't help but secretly look at Fang Hong and found that this young man was really handsome. Even though Yu Qiu was the top leader of the Natural Science Foundation, She is also a woman, and she is still a young girl. It is not ruled out that there will be some sparks with the handsome young man in front of her.
Finally, Fang Hong said: "Principal Liu, do you have any other questions?"
After hearing this, Vice-Principal Liu put away his thoughts and shook his head. He was not going to ask any more questions. If he wanted to know, Fang Hong probably wouldn't answer. Forcing him to ask would make things difficult for him. Vice-Principal Liu also accepted it as soon as he could.
"Student Fang Hong, let's go over too, please." Vice President Liu made a gesture of invitation. After all, Fang Hong came to the school as a staff member of the Natural Science Foundation, so the two of them moved toward Li Kang and Yu Qiu. Go in their direction.
…
After two or three minutes, Fang Hong and Vice Principal Liu entered a conference room. Yu Qiu, Li Kang and others were in this room.
During the conversation just now, Yu Qiu made it clear to Li Kang and others that she was not an expert in specific scientific research, but this did not affect the Natural Science Foundation's support for basic scientific research, and she also expressed that professional matters should be left to professionals. People do it.
Fang Hong entered the conference room and soon saw Yu Qiu. He also walked over slowly and sat down next to her.
Vice Principal Liu sat down next to Li Kang and chatted with him privately. Fang Hong couldn't hear the whispers between them, but a look of surprise suddenly appeared from Li Kang, although it disappeared quickly. But Fang Hong still caught him, and he could probably guess what they were talking about.
At the same time, the person speaking in the conference room at the moment was Ning Xingqing, an astrophysics major at Xincheng University and an experimental physicist. He was talking about laser interferometers.
"The laser interferometer equipment is quite sophisticated, but its principle is actually very simple." Ning Xingqing immediately drew a horizontal line segment on a blackboard in the conference room, and then drew another horizontal and vertical line segment at the end of the right side of the line segment. Line segments, and then draw a small line segment at the end and intersection of the two line segments to represent the lens.
Ning Xingqing pointed at the drawn picture and gestured: "First of all, this is a laser that emits a beam of laser light. This laser beam passes through a 45-degree semi-transparent mirror. Because it is not fully reflected, half of the light will be directly reflected. After passing through, another part of the light will be reflected at a 45-degree angle, so a laser beam will be divided into two vertical beams."
At this time, Ning Xingqing pointed to the ends of the two vertical line segments and said: "Put two reflecting mirrors at the end positions to reflect the laser back. The two reflected laser beams will converge into one direction through the semi-lens mirror, so Two laser beams will produce interference fringes."
Having said this, Ning Xingqing looked back at Fang Hong and others and said: "Because light itself is also a wave, so just like water waves, if two waves are superimposed together, the part where the two wave peaks or wave troughs meet will be The waves intensify, and where the crests and troughs meet they cancel each other out, creating stripes of light and dark, which can be imagined as the ripples of water created by two hands lapping at a calm lake."
"The interference phenomenon is extremely sensitive. As long as there is a slight change in the position of the two laser beams, the relative positions of the wave peaks and wave troughs will change, causing the interference fringes to also change significantly, so this phenomenon can be used to Make ultra-high-precision distance measurements.”
Ning Xingqing turned back again and traced the lines drawn on the blackboard and said: "To be specific, if the distance between the reflector and the light source changes even a little bit, then the positions of the peaks and troughs of the reflected light will change. "
Ning Xingqing continued: "Because the two beams of light are perpendicular to each other, if a gravitational wave passes by, the vertical and horizontal directions will be affected by the gravitational wave differently, so the distance changes will be different. Different distance changes will make the two beams re-center." The concentrated laser light produces changes in interference fringes, based on which it can be determined whether gravitational waves are found."
Speaking of this, Ning Xingqing finished explaining the principles and basically introduced the working principles of the Laser Gravitational Wave Interferometer Observatory in a popular science style, which was very easy to understand.
At the end, Yu Qiu looked at Xian Ning Xingqing and asked: "Professor Ning, I would like to know whether it is technically possible for China to achieve autonomous technology in building a laser gravitational wave interference observatory?"
Ning Xingqing nodded affirmatively: "There is no technical problem."
Obviously, the main problem is that no one invests money in it. It is not cost-effective to spend so much money just to prove a prediction made by Einstein a hundred years ago, so no one is interested at all.
On the one hand, this kind of scientific research project is far away from the general public, and it is difficult to get attention and understanding. At most, they will just watch when the project plan is announced. On the other hand, some leaders may not fully understand its importance and significance.
To put it bluntly, basic research is often not recognized.
At this time, President Li Kang who was present at the meeting said: "Ms. Yu, the scale of this scientific research project is extremely large. It requires at least hundreds of scientists and the cooperation of many parties to be possible. A team of hundreds of scientists may be a conservative estimate."
The implication is that Xincheng University's scientific research strength is not enough and it will definitely not be able to handle it. Li Kang did not rely on this.
Yu Qiu nodded and said: "The Natural Science Foundation's plan for this project, in terms of technology, we hope to let Xinda take the lead in cooperation, and in terms of scientific research, let you professionals do it. We are mainly responsible for providing financial support. You Take responsibility for making it happen.”
These words cheered up the spirits of Li Kang, Ning Xingqing and others present. Even if people from Fudan University in the north of Qing Dynasty came to this project, they would have to listen to Xinda.
Facing Li Kang and others who were older than her, Yu Qiu always showed confidence and calmness in her speech and behavior, which also made everyone look at her with admiration and the stereotypes in their hearts disappeared a lot.
Think about it, being able to be the top leader of the Natural Science Foundation is definitely not a fancy role.
"Let me talk about the requirements of the Natural Science Foundation for this project. You may understand that there are some deviations." Yu Qiu looked around at the people attending the meeting and said in an orderly manner: "Our idea is not to build a ground-based laser interference detection similar to the LIGO of the Chinese people. Observatory, but a space gravitational wave detection observatory.”
As soon as these words came out, everyone was stunned for a moment. Ning Xingqing couldn't help but said quickly: "Ms. Yu, are you referring to a project similar to the LISA system?"
The so-called LISA system was a space laser interference gravitational wave detection project jointly conducted by European Space Agency and NASA in the United States in the 1990s. However, the progress was extremely slow.
Yu Qiu sorted out what Fang Hong had explained to her in the car when he arrived, and then said in a clear and coherent manner: "We named this project the 'Sky Mirror' project, and it will be deployed at an altitude of about 100,000 kilometers in the Earth's orbit. 3 identical satellites. These 3 satellites will form an equilateral triangular array with a side length of about 170,000 kilometers. This will form a space gravitational wave observatory to carry out space detection of gravitational waves and carry out frontier research in astrophysics, cosmology and basic physics. Research."
Everyone present at Ning Xingqing was shocked. This was definitely a big deal.
Before they could react, Yu Qiu made a request that shocked them. She said in an orderly manner: "The Natural Science Foundation has spent huge sums of money to carry out the 'Mirror of the Sky' project. I want to know one thing clearly, and also Our requirement is to put it into full operation by early 2015."
Ning Xingqing said in shock: "Early 2015? Ms. Yu, this is probably an impossible task. The Western LISA system was launched in the 1990s, and now there has been almost no progress in the past 20 years. By the beginning of 2015 It is almost impossible to put it into full operation and complete it from scratch in just four years.”
Yu Qiu immediately asked: "Is it technically impossible? Or is it theoretically impossible?"
…
(End of chapter)
