Chapter 407

"Yes, it is." "Many advances in science and technology are essentially advances in materials science," the mechanical expert said

"If there is a lack of rare earths, it will be difficult to make progress in materials science, so we will not be able to develop a powerful engine. Even some composite ceramics need rare earth. "

How important are rare earths?

In materials science, as important as oil!

Take the engine as an example: in the era of turbojet engine, the gap between the turbine blade and the casing is wide, the temperature in front of the turbine is low, the deformation of the turbine blade is controllable, and conventional materials can be used.

In the era of turbofan engine, the temperature in front of the turbine is higher and the tip clearance is smaller, so the problem of turbine blade deformation is particularly prominent. The main element to solve this problem is rhenium. Adding rhenium into nickel alloy can significantly improve the creep strength of the alloy and resist deformation well under long-time working.

Without this element, the development of turbojet engines by the taps will never go on. No matter how smart they are, they can't make bricks without straw.

Most of the rare earths that can be used on mobile phones are light rare earths, and the reserves are fairly modest, but there are few heavy rare earths like rhenium.

"The recoverable rhenium resource on earth is only 2500 tons, and the planet may be even less, maybe only 100 tons? It's useless for such a big planet. "

Zhang Yuan can't help asking: "our material technology now has widely used composite ceramics and nano materials, right? There is no rhenium in many materials. Is it possible for them to jump the technology

"It's not possible. There are a lot of materials that still have to use rare earth elements. What's more, we have developed for hundreds of years No, for thousands of years. Sir, we are a third class civilization. " The scientist said: "we have to eat one mouthful at a time, and we have to go step by step. Without the previous achievements, there is no possibility that there will be funds to study the follow-up achievements. "

"If we can't even study the ordinary propeller aircraft and jet engine, how can we make our ramjet engine?"

This is one of the important reasons why the Taipu civilization has not yet developed an aerial vehicle. It's not just the lack of money, it's also the lack of materials.

Of course, the fourth difficulty faced by the Taipu civilization is that the atmosphere is too thick and it is difficult to launch rockets.

The friction coefficient of the atmosphere is directly proportional to the air density. The rocket flying at high speed will suffer more resistance. At the same time, the high temperature of the rocket surface also puts forward more requirements for materials science.

"If this civilization wants to launch rockets, it has to have higher performance materials. However, this difficulty is the simplest one, which can be overcome with great efforts. "

"The above is the objective environment that the taps are facing at present. They are all difficult points."

Hearing this, Zhang Yuan frowned, "compared with human beings, the taps are a very unlucky civilization So, if I'm the leader of the TAPP civilization, it's really quite cost-effective to launch some satellites with the help of human hands. "

Li Zhendong then said: "as for the next few decades, this batch of satellites will be scrapped. It doesn't matter whether there is a next batch of satellites. Anyway, I'm no longer in office. I'm probably retired. People will only read me well. "

"You have a lot of political consciousness."

Well, suppose that the enlightenment civilization really came to this planet 150000 years ago, and they should be able to foresee these difficulties after inspecting the whole planet. How can they help them? In particular, this kind of help may happen hundreds of thousands of years later.

This problem is very complicated. Enlightenment civilization has always been reluctant to give directly.

"If it's human, it's really hard to help without giving technology directly. In particular, the other side was a group of primitive people 150000 years ago High gravity, high pressure, lack of rare earth elements, how to solve it? They don't understand what they say to primitive people about rare earths. "

"The expert said excitedly:" the So we study what happened 150000 years ago, whether it was natural disasters or * *, according to the idea of archaeology. If this event has enough influence, it is bound to find some clues in history. "

"Sure enough

"150000 years ago, a super earthquake broke out from the ocean!"

"Conservatively, the magnitude is at least 13."

A 13 magnitude earthquake!

For every magnitude difference of 1.0, the energy difference is about 32 times. In other words, a 6-magnitude earthquake is equivalent to 32 5-magnitude earthquakes, while a 7-magnitude earthquake is equivalent to about 1000 5-magnitude earthquakes.

Well, a magnitude 13 earthquake is equivalent to a magnitude 6 earthquake!

Such a super earthquake can already cause the crustal plate to move.

At that moment, a huge tsunami was produced!

A large number of volcanoes erupted at the same time, covering the world with dust to block the sun. Then, because of the sharp drop in temperature, brought global heavy rainfall, a small ice age caused by the earthquake, was born.This little ice age didn't last long. It lasted for more than two years. A lot of precipitation made the dust in the sky fall again, revealing the bright sunshine.

Two years is not enough to cause a mass extinction.

However, up to now, the taps have not investigated the specific cause of the earthquake, so they can only attribute it equivocally to the crustal plate movement.

Zhang Yuan couldn't help asking: "well, is this earthquake related to the civilization of the enlightener? Are rare earth elements abundant in volcanic eruptions and earthquakes? It's a little bit possible But it's a little rough Does it explode? "

This is a lot of people's intuitive idea, so that everyone will be a little surprised speechless for a while.

The scientists on the platform also couldn't help laughing bitterly, and then said: "we first investigated the earthquake zone, which is already a deep sea area, and the deepest trench can reach 30000 meters. I think that even if there are huge mineral resources in the deep sea, there is no way to develop the TAPP civilization. "

"Even we can't develop 30000 people's sea water."

The ocean is indeed a huge treasure house. Deep seabed manganese nodule is a famous deep-sea mineral. It contains more than 20 elements such as manganese, iron, nickel, cobalt and so on. It is of great economic value. However, these mineral sources, even if there is no earthquake, will naturally occur.

Most of the seabed mineral mining bases are established in shallow water. The deep water drilling of human generally refers to the offshore operation, the water depth is more than 900 meters, and the extreme water depth is more than 1500 meters.

The deeper the water is, the more difficult it will be. In the deep water area of 30000 meters, even human submarines are a little difficult, let alone large-scale development.

"For the time being, it is not possible to confirm whether the earthquake has an impact on the amount of seabed minerals in the world. According to the computer simulation, there is a certain probability that there will be more seabed mineral resources in the world after a big earthquake because of the submarine volcanic eruption We have no way to measure the specific figures. "

"However, this earthquake also brought a series of chain reactions in the future..."