Speed is the most wonderful thing in this world. Without the advantage of speed, we cannot travel to the first corner of the earth and cannot really understand the earth. Without the advantage of speed, it is impossible for human beings to go out of the earth and see the real universe. Also without the advantage of speed, human beings will not be able to continue in the future. The reason is very simple. The resources in the limited space are limited, only being able to walk. Throughout the universe, resources are relatively infinite, and human civilization can last longer.
In the same way, speed does not only allow us to broaden our horizons and go deeper into the starry sky. According to Einstein’s theory of relativity, speed can affect space and time. The “time dilation effect” tells us that when the speed of an object is infinitely close to the speed of light, time will also be infinitely close to a stop. If you sit in such a spacecraft, then the time in the spacecraft has only passed a few minutes, while the time on the earth may have passed thousands or even tens of thousands of years.
The special theory of relativity states that the speed of an object can only be infinitely close to the speed of light, and it is impossible to reach it, and it is impossible to exceed it. If the speed of an object cannot exceed the speed of light, it theoretically means that humans will never go to the interstellar and will always be trapped within a limited range. The reason is not complicated, that is, the life span of human beings is very limited, only a short century or so.
The speed of the object is limited to the speed of light, so is it impossible for us to go to the interstellar and explore the mysteries of the universe? The answer is NO. The speed of the object is indeed limited, but the beauty of speed is not so simple. The “time dilation effect” gives us the hope of going interstellar.
Speed can slow down time. As long as it can be infinitely close to the speed of light, the time in the spacecraft can become very slow, and we sitting in the spacecraft have a life span of thousands or even tens of thousands of years. You can easily get out of the solar system and go to the more distant depths of the universe.
It is precisely because speed is very important to mankind that scientists have been exploring breakthroughs in research speed, which means a breakthrough in human civilization. For the current level of human technology, a spaceship that is infinitely close to the speed of light is undoubtedly an unattainable dream. It takes a long way to reach such a height. If you are optimistic, it will be realized in hundreds of years. , Pessimism may not be realized for tens of thousands of years.
Speaking of human’s super-fast spacecraft, many people will think of Voyager 1. It is an interstellar exploration spacecraft launched by NASA in 1977. At first, it was not fast, but after many orbital accelerations, it is currently The speed reached 17 kilometers per second.
So is the speed of Voyager 1 the fastest flying vehicle for mankind? Of course not. Before the Parker Solar Probe was launched, it was indeed the fastest detection spacecraft for mankind, but after the Parker Solar Probe was launched, it could only rank second. The Parker solar probe launched in 2018 reached a speed of 70 kilometers per second, which is currently the fastest spacecraft for mankind.
This speed is about 206 times the speed of sound, so is the fastest object created by mankind first realized by the Parker? The answer is no, there is an object that created the fastest speed in history because of a mistake by a scientist, then what is this object? In fact, it is often seen in our daily lives, and that is an inconspicuous manhole cover.
An extreme speed creator turned out to be a small manhole cover, which really surprised people. So what is going on here? Speaking of this, we have to go back to the night of July 26, 1957. On this day, the United States conducted an underground nuclear explosion test code-named “Pascal-A”.
Speaking of nuclear explosion tests, I believe everyone is familiar with it. Although the nuclear explosions used by humans for actual combat have only been used once in history, that is, the two atomic bombs that the United States dropped on Japan at the end of World War II, but the human test related to nuclear explosions. It has been done many times, basically in the desert, ocean or underground.
The underground nuclear explosion test, as the name implies, is an experiment in which a nuclear bomb is placed underground to detonate, and then the power of the explosion is calculated. The experimenters placed the nuclear bomb at the bottom of a pit with a depth of 150 meters and a diameter of 1.2 meters, and then placed a small manhole cover of about 10 cm at the mouth of the pit.
The purpose of placing this small manhole cover is to detect how powerful the shock wave generated after a nuclear explosion is. Therefore, the manhole cover is equipped with various detectors that can observe and record the data of the shock waves generated by the nuclear explosion.
In the eyes of scientists, there is nothing mysterious about placing a manhole cover for experiments at the opening of a nuclear blast. Under normal circumstances, the shock wave generated by the underground nuclear explosion experiment does not allow the manhole cover to fly far. But this time I haven’t seen it. Due to an unintentional calculation error by a scientist, it has created a result that people can’t believe.
The shock wave from the explosion caused by the mistake was more than 50,000 times higher than expected. Under such a strong impact, the manhole cover at the mouth of the pothole was fleeting, leaving only one frame under the high-speed camera lens at the time, and then completely disappeared. Got without a trace.
After the nuclear explosion, the experimenters began to look for the manhole cover, but they have not been found. Some people even think that it may no longer be on the earth, but rushed out of the earth to the starry sky. Such a result undoubtedly shocked the researchers, but at the same time excited, because this time the mistake may bring new inspiration to the scientists.
With the help of ultra-high-speed cameras, the researchers finally calculated the accurate speed of the manhole cover, which is about 240,000 kilometers per hour, which is 70 kilometers per second. This speed is comparable to that of the Parker Solar Probe, which is 6 times the escape speed of the Earth and 3 times the escape speed of the solar system.
A small manhole cover creates an astonishing speed, which can not only leave the earth, but also leave the solar system. So many people think that it may no longer be on the earth, but the physicist Robert Brownlee put forward the opposite opinion. He thinks that although the manhole cover has achieved extremely high speed, because the earth is not a vacuum environment, but there is Thick atmosphere.
When the manhole cover passes through the atmosphere, there will be strong friction, resulting in a very high temperature. This temperature may cause the manhole cover to melt and disappear into the atmosphere, so it does not leave the earth. Regardless of the ultimate fate of this manhole cover, it has created history, allowing mankind to see the powerful power of nuclear energy. Perhaps we are inspired by this and can increase the speed of the spacecraft to this level in the future.
According to the calculations of scientists, the initial theoretical speed of the manhole cover has reached one ten thousandth of the speed of light at the moment when the shock wave of the nuclear explosion arrives. This is a peak that all man-made objects reach. If our aircraft can reach this speed, then the solar system will become the back garden of mankind, and mankind will truly enter the space age.