Alchemy has been humanity's dream since ancient times. Throughout history, countless sorcerers have dedicated their entire lives to the field of alchemy, but none have ever succeeded.
Unexpectedly, during this spacefaring escape, Li Qingsong unintentionally achieved this.
"Refining" gold from hydrocarbons might seem strange, but the principle is actually quite simple.
Nuclear fusion, nuclear fission, and other material changes at the atomic nucleus level aren't as high-tech as one might think, requiring sophisticated equipment to achieve.
Interstellar space is filled with high-energy radiation and particles moving at extremely high speeds and kinetic energy.
With Li Qingsong's fleet traveling at 8% of the speed of light, particles that wouldn't normally possess such high kinetic energy are passively imbued with it upon impact, leading to more frequent high-energy collisions.
As a result, the carbon and hydrogen nuclei that make up this special plastic sheeting are likely to be struck by these particles, either gaining or losing protons. This manifests externally as nuclear fission or nuclear fusion.
Indeed, during this voyage, within the material that makes up the plastic sheeting, these changes capable of releasing enormous energy are occurring every second.
Consequently, their elemental composition is altered, and materials originally composed only of carbon and hydrogen atoms now contain dozens of other elements.
After refining and purification, they become gold bars, iron blocks, tin blocks, and the like, placed before Li Qingsong.
Of course, the higher the atomic number of an element, the less of it is formed, because the higher the atomic number, the more difficult it is to form.
According to Li Qingsong's estimation, under the current conditions, an average of about 30 grams of gold will be produced out of thin air each year.
Of course, if the speed continues to increase, leading to more frequent and intense collisions with high-energy interstellar particles, the efficiency of this "alchemy" will increase again.
"Use it for industrial purposes."
After a moment of contemplation, Li Qingsong tossed these materials into various factories. The plastic sheeting, riddled with holes from being "eroded" by these impurities, was reshaped and produced as new, then placed in the warehouse to await use.
In addition to the "alchemy" that surprised even Li Qingsong, many other peculiar phenomena at 8% of the speed of light caught his attention.
He noticed that the myriad of shining stars ahead of the fleet seemed to have changed color slightly.
They seemed to have become slightly bluer.
The magnitude was very small. Even the clone, with its enhanced vision after countless genetic optimizations, barely perceived it.
Behind the fleet, the colors of the stars turned slightly redder, again by a very small amount.
Li Qingsong knew this was due to redshift and blueshift.
Light waves have properties similar to sound waves. When moving forward, the wavelength of light waves shortens, and the frequency increases. When moving backward, the wavelength lengthens, and the frequency decreases.
The color of light is determined by its wavelength.
Because his fleet was traveling at approximately 24,000 kilometers per second, the colors of the stars changed.
Using the Doppler formula corrected by relativity, Li Qingsong calculated that the color of the stars in front shifted blue by about , while the color of the stars behind shifted red by about .
The magnitude was so small that it was no wonder the clone could barely perceive it.
Of course, for instruments and equipment, this change was extremely obvious.
In fact, in addition to the color changes perceptible to the naked eye, those stars exhibited even more changes due to the current high-speed travel.
Stars typically radiate electromagnetic waves across the entire spectrum, differing only in energy levels. However, some electromagnetic waves, due to being too long or too short, have frequencies beyond the observational limits of scientific equipment.
However, these specific wavelengths of electromagnetic waves may carry many secrets about the internal workings of stars.
Previously, they could not be observed, but now it was different.
Because in front of the fleet, those previously unobservable electromagnetic waves with wavelengths that were too long and frequencies that were too low, were now blueshifted, shortening their wavelengths and increasing their frequencies. As a result, they moved from the unobservable region to the observable region and could be captured by radio telescopes.
Similarly, behind the fleet, the redshift effect could bring those electromagnetic waves with wavelengths that were too short and frequencies that were too high into the observable range.
As a result, signals that Li Qingsong had previously been unable to observe or capture entered the equipment in large quantities, revealing the secrets hidden behind numerous veils.
Li Qingsong vaguely felt that he had pioneered an unprecedented field of astronomy.
"Beyond visible light astronomy, infrared astronomy, X-ray astronomy, neutrino astronomy, gravitational wave astronomy, and other fields, this field... could it be considered high-speed astronomy?"
Li Qingsong knew that he had gained another means of exploring the mysteries of the universe.
In addition to these peculiar phenomena, there was one phenomenon that troubled Li Qingsong.
That was the effect of time dilation and length contraction.
Simply put, the flow of time changes during the motion of an object.
At low speeds, the change in the flow of time is so small that it can be ignored. Therefore, Newton's laws of motion can be used to calculate the motion of objects.
However, at a speed of 8% of the speed of light, the change in the flow of time is no longer negligible, and using Newton's laws of motion would result in many errors.
For example, Li Qingsong had been using neutron star positioning technology to locate the fleet.
By observing the relative positions and angles of several neutron stars with pre-determined coordinates, the precise coordinates of the fleet in the cosmic sky could be indirectly determined.
But now, due to the high speed, the flow of time had changed.
According to Li Qingsong's calculations, the flow of time for his fleet was now about slower than the flow of time outside.
That is, when 365 days passed outside, only about 364 days passed in his fleet, one day slower than outside.
This led to significant errors in the positioning system. Moreover, changes in the flow of time would cause a series of problems and even affect the accuracy of scientific observation data.
Fortunately, this situation was not impossible to solve.
After introducing relativistic formulas as corrections, the "distorted" data was converted into the original data, and the fleet's operations were free from interference.
Surrounded by these peculiar phenomena, the massive fleet continued to advance at high speed.
After a period of preparation, various large-scale scientific devices could finally be put into operation.
