Alice clearly remembered that they rushed into the fog in a lifeboat and then encountered cannibals on the island. Mrs. Larry perished as a result, and Pardik and the other sailors were eaten by the cannibals. Only she and Anderson survived.
She had told Qingmu and Su Huilan everything, so there wouldn't be any problems. But how many days had actually passed? She had never calculated it precisely; it just felt like a few days.
But suddenly she was unsure; her memory became hazy, as if she had just had a dream.
Alice's face showed pain as she murmured to herself, "Why can't I remember? Why can't I recall it?"
Su Huilan, supporting her swaying body, said, "That's because there are no standard sunrises or sunsets on the island, and the lengths of day and night are also unstable. Our brains only keep track of time according to their own biological clocks. Objective memory not only doesn't help us understand time, but it also confuses our thinking. So when you don't think about this problem, you intuitively feel that several days have passed, but if you think about it deeply, you'll find that there's no memory of time at all; the brain has already determined that this is invalid information and thrown it into the information garbage dump."
Situ nodded and said, "That's right, so it's difficult for us to estimate the exact time we spent on the island. I said it took several months because I simulated an atomic clock in my dream."
"An atomic clock?" Su Huilan exclaimed in astonishment, "You can simulate the decay of microscopic particles in your dream? That's incredible!"
"Actually, it's not difficult. You can do it too. The only problem is that you need to understand the principle of atomic clocks and know the resonance frequency of the atom you're going to use during energy level transitions." Situ waved his hand slightly and said, "Coincidentally, I participated in the design of the world's first cesium atomic clock and witnessed its success firsthand."
"The first cesium atomic clock was built in the late 1950s, so you must be...?"
Su Huilan hesitated whether to ask Situ about the person in her dream. He looked too much like the person her father left in her dream, but he was too young. If what her father said was true, that he was the most outstanding member of the younger generation of the Alliance and the successor of Master Nanke, then it meant that he was already an outstanding young man when Master Nanke was alive, and that Master Nanke disappeared during World War II.
If Situ really did participate in the design of the first cesium atomic clock, then the timeline would match up. But she simply couldn't imagine that this dashing, handsome man with superstar charisma was already in his Old Eight.
"That's right. The atomic clocks of that era were so bulky that they required a large house to house them, and building them was no easy feat." Situ neither denied nor confirmed Su Huilan's words. "But in a dream, it's much easier. We can even omit the tools and steps used to cool or heat the cesium atoms, and we don't need the lasers that support the cesium atoms or the sensors that capture them. Everything is done by consciousness."
All we need is a suitable energy field to allow cesium atoms to repeatedly pass through and transition between two different energy levels, so that its resonance frequency reaches 9,192,631,770 Hz. In this way, a consciousness atomic clock can be made.
Atomic clocks are the most stable timekeeping devices. The definition of a second has existed in human history for a long time, but it has been impossible to measure and calibrate it accurately until 1967. At that time, people redefined the second as 9,192,631,770 times the period of the electromagnetic wave emitted when the ground state of the cesium-133 atom transitions between the two hyperfine energy levels. This definition is equivalent to the second defined by ephemeris time in astronomy, and it will only have an error of about one second every 20 million years.
However, the environmental requirements for atomic clocks are extremely high. Cesium atoms need to be cooled to near absolute zero and remain stationary. Furthermore, magnetic field interference is not allowed during the entire energy level transition process. In the real world, the universe is filled with magnetic fields and radiation. But all of this is different in dreams. The dream space is constructed by the subconscious and can shield against all interference.
Qingmu finally understood how Mo Yu others felt when they listened to Situ's fantastical tale about how mirrors capture light. He knew absolutely nothing about atomic clocks, but after listening to Situ's explanation, it seemed plausible. However, even with Qingmu's Mental Power, he couldn't build one himself, even in a dream. Atomic clocks were far more complex than Situ made them out to be. Without a deep understanding of atomic physics and personal experience in designing atomic clocks, simulating such a thing was impossible. It was like trying to simulate a nuclear explosion in a dream—not difficult—but simulating an atomic reactor was beyond the capabilities of anyone but a professional.
Even he was puzzled, let alone the others. Mental Power, dreams, consciousness, and so on were like a fairy tale to Alice and the others.
Su Huilan was the only one among them who could understand, but she still had doubts. "Mr. Situ, I still don't understand. The resonant frequency of cesium atoms is fixed in nature, but in dreams, everything is created by consciousness. The cesium atoms in your atomic clock were also created by your subconscious, so isn't its frequency also arbitrarily variable? How can you be sure that your definition of a second is correct?"
Situ said, "The so-called vibration frequency is actually the radiation produced during energy level transitions. It's a wave, and waves can be captured by consciousness. They can interfere with our Mental Power Mental Power, which also exists in the form of waves. I've felt the pulses of cesium atoms in an atomic clock at a stable frequency, so I can replicate the same pulses in my dreams."
"I never imagined you could unify the things of the conscious world and the physical world so perfectly. I've never tried anything like this before." Su Huilan listened with great admiration.
"It's not difficult. Combining dreams with professional knowledge is a method we often use. Engineers can use dreams to design blueprints, physicists can use dreams to simulate celestial movements. In the pre-computer era, things that were difficult to visualize on a two-dimensional surface could be created through dreams, it's just that it consumes a lot of Mental Power. Many geniuses I know have done this, and you can too."
Situ smiled at Su Huilan as he spoke, "However, Professor Su is a philosopher, so she may not have much experience with physical simulations. But many philosophers throughout history have used this method. For example, Kant once tried to simulate God in a dream, but of course, the dream failed because in the dream he himself was God, and one world cannot tolerate the existence of two God. In addition, he also simulated the evolution of the Solar System in a dream, and this time it was very successful, which led him to propose the nebular hypothesis, which he wrote about in his * Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens *."
Su Huilan couldn't help but admire Situ's erudition. This line of thinking did indeed inspire her. The subconscious can create the world, but it cannot be separated from memory. However, Madman like Kant wanted to create God in his dreams. This was not just a wild idea, but also a kind of innovative wisdom and rebellious courage.
Of course, Su Huilan wouldn't be easily led astray by Situ. She returned the question to the atomic clock and asked:
"However, Mr. Situ, the time in dreams is not the same as in reality. There is a China idiom called 'a dream of Huang Liang,' which tells of a person who experiences a tortuous life only to find out at the end that he has just had a dream, and when he wakes up, the rice in the pot is not yet cooked. The length of time in a dream depends only on the speed of the transmission of neural signals in our brain. How can you determine the time in the real world through the atomic clock in a dream?"
Situ laughed and said, "Don't you know Real-Scene Dream?"