Ball Lightning(60)
*
The success of optical detection of unexcited macro-electrons kindled our hopes for more progress, but turned out only to demonstrate the shallowness of our physics knowledge. After the system’s first success, Lin Yun and I made a beeline for Ding Yi.
“Professor Ding, now we should be able to find the nuclei of macro-atoms!”
“What gives you that impression?”
“We haven’t been able to find them because macro-protons and macro-neutrons aren’t excitable like macro-electrons. But now we can locate bubbles directly by optical means.”
Ding Yi laughed and shook his head, as if forgiving two school pupils for their error. “The primary reason we can’t find macro-atom nuclei isn’t because they aren’t excitable, but because we have no idea what they’re like.”
“What? They’re not bubbles?”
“Who told you they were bubbles? The theory postulates that their shape is completely different from macro-electrons, as different as ice and fire.”
I had a hard time imagining that other forms of macro-particles could be floating around us. It lent an eerie feeling to the surrounding space.
Now we were able to excite ball lightning in the lab. The excitement apparatus started off with a bubble contained inside a superconducting battery. When it was released, it was accelerated in a magnetic field, and then passed through ten separate lightning generators. The total power of the lightning produced by these generators was far greater than that of the arc that excited airborne thunderballs. The amount of lightning to produce was determined by the needs of the experiment.
As for weapons production, what we now needed to know was how to make use of the high target selectivity of the macro-electron’s energy release, the most perplexing, terrifying, and devilish aspect of ball lightning.
Ding Yi said, “It concerns the wave-particle duality of macro-particles. I’ve established a theoretical energy-release model, and have designed an observation experiment that will show you something truly unbelievable. It’s a simple experiment: observe the thunderball’s energy release slowed down by a factor of 1.5 million.”
“1.5 million?”
“That’s right. It’s a crude estimate based on the smallest-volume macro-electron we currently have stored. That’s roughly the factor.”
“But that’s...?36 million frames per second! Where are we going to find recording equipment that’s that fast?” someone asked.
“That’s not my concern,” Ding Yi said, as he lit the pipe he hadn’t touched for some time in a leisurely fashion.
“I’m sure the equipment must exist!” Lin Yun said firmly. “We’ll find it.”
*
When Lin Yun and I entered the laboratory building of the State Defense Optics Institute, our attention was immediately captured by a large photograph in the lobby: a hand holding a gun whose massive barrel was aimed directly at the photographer; red flame light inside the barrel and tendrils of smoke just beginning to issue from it. The most eye-catching focal point of the photo was a ball suspended in front of the gun, coppery and smooth: the bullet that had just been fired.
“This is a high-speed photo taken during the Institute’s early days. It has a temporal resolution of roughly one ten-thousandth of a second. Using today’s standards, it’s just ordinary fast photography, not high-speed photography. You can find that standard of equipment at any specialty camera store,” a director at the Institute said.
“So who was the martyr who snapped the picture?” Lin Yun asked.
The director laughed. “A mirror. The photo was taken using a reflected light system.”
The Institute had convened a small meeting with several engineers. When Lin Yun put forward our request, that we needed ultra-high-speed camera equipment, several of them grimaced.
The director said, “Our ultra-high-speed equipment is still a ways away from international levels. It’s highly unstable in actual operation.”
“Give us an idea of the numbers you require, and we’ll see what we can do,” an engineer said.
Shakily, I told them our number: “We need to take around 36 million frames per second.”
I had imagined they would shake their heads, but to my surprise they burst out laughing. The director said, “After all of that, and what you’re looking for is just an ordinary high-speed camera! Your notion of ultra-high-speed photography is stuck in the fifties. We’re up to as much as four hundred million frames per second now. The top standards at the world level are around six hundred million.”
After we’d relaxed a bit, the director led us on a tour of the Institute. He pointed to a display and said, “What does this look like to you?”
We looked at it a while, and Lin Yun said, “It looks like a slowly blooming flower. But it’s strange—the petals are glowing.”
The director said, “That’s what makes high-speed photography the gentlest of photography. It can turn the most violent of processes gentle and light. What you see is an armor-piercing shell exploding as it strikes its target.” He pointed to a bright yellow stamen in the flower, and said, “See, this ultra-high temperature, ultra-high-speed jet is piercing the armor. This was taken at a rate of around six million frames per second.”
As we neared Lab 2, the director said, “What you’ll see next ought to satisfy your high-speed photography requirements. It shoots at fifty million frames per second.”