Chapter 516 Lighthouse Revelation

Chapter 516 Lighthouse Revelation

Chapter 516 Lighthouse Revelation
The rhythm of a movie is always interesting when it has ups and downs. If it is straightforward and smooth, it will always lack some fun.

So after the team was assembled and went through the initial smooth period, the "Morning Light" project was like a ship sailing on a rough sea. It soon hit a reef and got into trouble.

During the long six months, Chen Ang and Ding Yi were like tireless ascetics, plunging headfirst into the endless ocean of consulting classics, calculating data, and designing experiments.

Every time I start an experiment with great expectations, what I get is always frustrating failure.

As the days passed, the leaves outside the window turned yellow and then green, and then green and then yellow again. Their faces quickly became haggard due to the high-intensity work and continuous setbacks, and a layer of short and messy beards appeared on their originally smooth chins.

As the helmsman of the entire project, Lin Yun has a lot of pressure on her shoulders.

Every day the team operates, a huge amount of money is consumed like water, not to mention the expensive experimental equipment and materials that are like gold-devouring beasts.

Long hours of hard work and high mental tension made her look haggard. Her originally bright eyes were now bloodshot, revealing deep fatigue.

"No, this mathematical model is completely wrong! The data here doesn't match up, and the derivation logic there is also wrong!"

Chen Ang's face was full of anxiety, his eyes were bloodshot, and he stared at the document in front of him.

"This is the most accurate model I can construct! I have verified it countless times, and the calculation process is absolutely correct!"

Ding Yi's face flushed, veins popped out on his forehead, and he argued loudly and unyieldingly, arguing for the results he had achieved with countless efforts.

"But in this field observation, the actual performance of ball lightning is completely different from what your model predicted! Did you know that because of this deviation, a helicopter crashed at the scene and all the soldiers on board died!"

Chen Ang stood up suddenly.

"Then what do you want me to do? Mathematics is rigorous and will not lie. I can guarantee it with my academic reputation! Why don't you reflect on whether there are loopholes in your observation and recording methods!"

Ding Yi also stood up suddenly, clenched his fists, and glared at Chen Ang. The tension between the two became increasingly intense, as if a fierce conflict was about to break out in the next second.

"Enough!" In the conference room, Lin Yun slammed the table hard. The loud noise instantly broke the tense atmosphere. Chen Ang and Ding Yi woke up as if from a dream, stopped arguing, and sat back in their seats.

They all knew very well that the other party was not at fault, but dozens of failures were like heavy boulders, pressing down on their already exhausted mental world, making their hearts extremely tense and anxious.

This fierce quarrel was nothing more than their helpless act of seeking release under tremendous pressure.

"The funds I have can barely support the team's operation for three months. The two of you should stop arguing about these meaningless disputes and devote yourself to research without being affected by external interference."

Lin Yun took a deep breath and tried to make his voice sound calm and firm, so as to comfort the two emotional scientific research backbones.

"What about three months later?" Ding Yi looked directly at Lin Yun with a sharp gaze and raised this sharp question that everyone knew but dared not mention easily.

Lin Yun was silent for a moment, then raised the corners of his mouth slightly, revealing a slightly bitter but firm smile, and said softly:
"Even if that happens, the project will not be cancelled immediately. It will just be a budget cut. With concerted efforts, we can always find a way to overcome the difficulties. Don't worry, I will never give up on this project like I did before."

Whether Chen Ang and Ding Yi could really let go of their worries, no one knew, but many people at the base tossed and turned in bed at night.

When they looked out of the dormitory window at the wide lightning test field outside, they could see the small sparks on Ding Yi's pipe flickering.

In the darkness, it flickered lonely, just like the glimmer of hope that they were clinging to in the face of adversity.

Time flies, and in the blink of an eye, the camera switches to another two months. This time, Lin Yun and Chen Ang lead the research team to an island in the South China Sea.

The meteorological department accurately predicted that a large-scale thunderstorm was about to hit this place, and the purpose of their trip was to capture the possible ball lightning and uncover its mystery.

"I am not as professional as you in basic theoretical research. But I know in my heart that Lao Ding has really tried his best for this project and devoted his whole heart to it."

While sorting out the information in his hands, Lin Yun whispered to Chen Ang beside him.

"I didn't say that Ding Yi had a problem. It's just that the difficulty of researching ball lightning is beyond imagination. Repeated failures are bound to make people feel discouraged."

Chen Ang sighed. He and Lin Yun sat side by side on the rocks by the sea. Not far away, team members were busy and orderly setting up various observation and experimental equipment, and securing them firmly to prevent them from being swept away by the approaching typhoon.

As for the sky above everyone’s heads, the thick black clouds were like surging black waves, pressing very low as if within reach.

The air was filled with suffocating silence. The seagulls that usually chirped and made so much noise were nowhere to be seen. The whole world seemed to be shrouded in an invisible haze, which made it hard to breathe.

The storm is coming.

"And if even a top physicist like Lao Ding can't solve the basic model problem of ball lightning, who else in China can do it?"

Chen Ang looked at the rough sea in the distance with some helplessness, and his voice revealed a deep sense of powerlessness.

At this moment, a beam of light shot out from behind him, illuminating the sea surface that was dark due to the storm clouds. It was a lighthouse on the island.

In the darkness, it stands alone, emitting a faint but firm light, like a fire of hope in the darkness.

“And you!
When I first saw you on the top of Mount Tai, I felt that you were very special.

You can definitely solve this problem.”

Lin Yun suddenly turned her head and looked at Chen Ang firmly, her eyes revealing undisguised trust and expectation. Her voice was crisp and powerful, like a ray of warm sunshine, penetrating the thick haze in Chen Ang's heart.

Chen Ang was stunned and stood there for a moment, not knowing how to respond.

And when Lin Yun's slender hand covered with thin calluses gently placed on his palm, Chen Ang felt a loud bang in his head, as if a thunder exploded in his ears, shaking his heart and mind.

No, it was really thunder exploding in the sky!

In an instant, heavy rain poured down, the wind howled, and the raindrops as big as beans hit the body like bullets, causing severe pain.

Chen Ang and others hurriedly hid in the sturdy outpost on the island. Outside the outpost, thunder roared, and strong winds and heavy rains raged, as if they were going to destroy the entire world.

Chen Ang and his companions stared at several monitoring devices, not daring to relax for a moment, fearing that they would miss the ball lightning that might appear. A tense atmosphere immediately spread in the small sentry post. During this process, monitoring equipment was destroyed by the strong wind from time to time. Fortunately, they had considered these before setting up the equipment, and there were redundant equipment in each place.

Finally, a colleague pointed excitedly at one of the monitors, his voice shrill with excitement and nervousness: "There it is!"

Chen Ang and others quickly locked onto the orange-yellow fireball with a radius of 40cm based on the position and angle of the camera.

Sometimes it soars freely in the sky like a free dancer, displaying its charm on the stage of storms; sometimes it glides quickly close to the ground, like a mysterious light and shadow, fleeting; sometimes it circles leisurely around the reefs, as if the storms outside have nothing to do with it, free and unrestrained.

When the power of the storm weakened slightly, Chen Ang, who was fully equipped, was almost the first to rush out, running towards the direction of the ball lightning in the face of the wind and rain.

His figure seemed a little thin in the wind and rain, yet extremely determined, as if he was fighting a desperate battle with nature.

"Be careful of danger!" Lin Yun shouted loudly behind him, but his voice was soon drowned out by the merciless wind and rain. Chen Ang acted as if he did not hear it, and rushed to the place where the ball lightning appeared with his colleagues as fast as possible.

But when they just saw a vague shadow, the orange-yellow fireball disappeared into the air with a "pop" like a fragile soap bubble, leaving no trace, leaving only the crowd full of loss and frustration, standing there stupidly, looking at the empty front.

Failed again.

This time they only took some video footage of ball lightning, and none of the originally planned experimental projects were completed. The carefully prepared equipment and the plans that took countless efforts seemed so powerless in the face of this fleeting mysterious phenomenon.

Lin Yun, who was following behind, saw Chen Ang's lonely back, and hurriedly walked forward, gently patted his shoulder, and whispered to comfort him:

"It's okay. The weather department said there will be thunderstorms in the next two days. We will wait on the island. There will always be a chance. At least this trip was not in vain."

Chen Ang didn't say anything, but turned around and walked back silently. His steps were heavy and slow, and every step seemed to carry endless fatigue and loss.

When I returned to the outpost, the sky was already pitch dark. The wind and rain outside were still going on, but the thunder was no longer as frequent. However, the occasional muffled sound still made people feel upset.

Chen Ang lay in bed, tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep. He simply opened the curtains and looked at the lighthouse on the island outside, hoping that its regular lighting would help him calm down and fall asleep.

In the flickering dim light, his consciousness gradually became blurred and he began to snore softly.

But suddenly, he woke up with a start, sat up at once, his eyes wide open, as if he had seen some shocking secret in the darkness. Then, without even bothering to put on his clothes, he ran out of the room shirtless and knocked on Lin Yun's door next door.

"Lin Yun, go back, go back now!" Chen Ang's voice trembled slightly with excitement, revealing an unquestionable urgency.

"What are you doing?" Lin Yun opened the door sleepily and looked at Chen Ang with a puzzled look, not understanding why he was so out of control. "Aren't we waiting for the thunderstorm in two days?"

"Of course, it's to study ball lightning! I just thought of a key clue, which may lead to a major breakthrough in our research!" Chen Ang's eyes lit up, as if he had discovered a new continent, and his excitement was beyond words.

"So you think that the existence of ball lightning has nothing to do with electromagnetic energy?" In the base conference room, facing the excited Chen Ang, Ding Yi asked calmly.

"Yes, we may have gone astray before, always hoping to design an equation and come up with a mathematical model to explain the phenomenon of ball lightning, but my intuition tells me that it is not true."

Chen Ang spoke in a high-pitched voice and with bright eyes, as if he had found the key to the truth.

"Indeed, the selectivity and penetration of its energy release cannot be explained by traditional physical theories."

Ding Yi nodded, agreeing with Chen Ang's point of view, and at the same time fell into deeper thinking.

"So we should let go of our imagination and abandon our inherent cognition," Chen Ang said excitedly while gesturing, "Why must ball lightning be made of 'lightning'? Is it a structure that has already existed in nature?"

"You mean... the lightning just ignited or stimulated it?" Ding Yi was stunned at first, then he immediately reacted and continued, sparks of thought constantly colliding in his mind.

"Yes, just like the current lights up the light bulb, the light bulb itself has already existed, but it is not normally on!"

Chen Ang gave a vivid analogy, trying to make everyone understand his ideas more clearly.

"This..." Ding Yi smoked his pipe, his eyes becoming more profound in the smoke. "Well, what you said does make some sense. Most of the ball lightning we have discovered so far is accompanied by natural lightning."

"Great! It looks like our project will finally have a breakthrough."

Lin Yun also interrupted their discussion at this time. She had a sharp mind and quickly caught up with the pace of the two.

"As you said, the ball lightning we discovered before has nothing to do with the meteorological parameters that produce them. It's just because that structure happened to be there, so it was stimulated!"

"Yes! That's right!" Chen Ang and Ding Yi nodded at the same time.

"Then the mistake of previous research is obvious: we should not try to 'generate' it, but to 'find' it! 'Capture it'!
This means that our previous experiments were also wrong. When simulating lightning, the key is not the nature, structure and intensity of the lightning itself, nor the external factors such as magnetic fields and microwaves, but to make the lightning cover as large a space as possible!"

Lin Yun became more and more excited as she spoke, and Chen Ang and the other two were the same.

"So what should we do next?"

Lin Yun looked at the two excited partners and raised a question that everyone was concerned about.

"Build a lightning array!"

Chen Ang excitedly suggested: "Use the lightning weapon that you developed before your new concept as a lightning generator."

Ding Yi had already started calculating subconsciously, muttering to himself.

"If we use that, to achieve results in a short period of time, the area should be no less than 25 square kilometers. According to the calculation of a single coverage area, more than 1 lightning generators should be installed in this area to have a chance of capturing the ball lightning structure."

“Then it comes down to the question of money.”

Lin Yun instantly wilted, his excitement just now being extinguished by the cold water of reality.

(End of this chapter)