Chapter 749

The living room.

“The experiment was conducted on May 15th; today is the 24th, nine days since the experiment.”

Jia Fei verified the official website of the Beijing Materials Research Institute again; there was no doubt—the comment section had exploded. The Weibo post, published at 8 p.m., had already garnered over two thousand comments in just half an hour.

“First ignition, and it immediately reached 100 million degrees Celsius and 1100 seconds?”

“Someone big-time explain what this means.”

“Just awesome, that’s all.”

“Xu Qingzhou: We’re back, flipping the table again in the field of controlled nuclear fusion.”

“Achieving this goal required EAST nineteen years of iteration, meaning Xu Qingzhou’s team reached world-class levels on their very first run.”

“The words ‘awesome’ are already worn out.”

“Wait, last week my advisor and I were saying Xu Shen couldn’t produce results in such a short time—now he’s slapped us in the face?”

“If we remember correctly, only a year has passed since Xu Qingzhou announced he’d pursue controlled nuclear fusion—is this normal?”

“Used to it.”

“Wait, Xu Shen didn’t even boast about it on his own Weibo first? Bad review!”

Of course, besides the admiration, there were still many skeptical voices.

“I’m a researcher in nuclear physics—I’m telling you clearly, the authenticity of this news remains unverified. As far as I know, Spain’s SMART’s negative-triangle design spent half a year just on magnet pre-cooling; how could the Institute’s ‘Qiankun No. 1’ bypass physical laws?”

“That’s true.”

“Just a stunt—100 million degrees Celsius for plasma? Impossible to achieve so easily.”

Science Island.

Xiao Chenghan knocked on the office door, walked in, and saw Li Gang staring in shock at his computer screen. “You’ve seen the news from Beijing too?”

“Mm.”

Li Gang nodded, gazing at the technical report released by the Materials Research Institute, and sighed: “If I didn’t know Professor Xu’s character, I’d doubt the authenticity of this news myself.”

With current technology, achieving Xu Qingzhou’s announced goals on first ignition was nearly impossible.

Yet this information came from the Materials Research Institute.

“This world has truly become unrecognizable.”

Li Gang let out a bitter laugh.

He had seen this news for several minutes already, yet he still felt as if in a dream.

“These people hid themselves too well—until now, not a single hint had leaked out.”

Xiao Chenghan’s expression was complex, equally awed: “Achieving such a feat on first ignition—it’s nothing short of a miracle. I can’t imagine how they did it.”

“I have a feeling Qiankun No. 1’s progress might outpace ours,” Li Gang mused.

“That’s hardly possible.”

Xiao Chenghan paused; his heart skipped a beat, but after careful thought, he dismissed the idea: “They’ve only been working on controlled nuclear fusion for a year at most—how many years have we been at it?”

“True.”

Li Gang nodded.

Controlled nuclear fusion, to some extent, is a contest of foundational strength. Although the spherical tokamak has unique advantages, it’s still in its infancy, while the conventional tokamak has been developed for decades—its technological maturity far surpasses that of the spherical tokamak.

This young man doesn’t follow the usual path, but going from first ignition to fusion triple product is an enormous threshold.

Take us, for example—we achieved 1066 seconds of operation long ago, yet without Xu Qingzhou’s superconducting film, we might have been stuck on that barrier for years.

Li Gang sipped his tea, thinking of Xu Qingzhou’s achievements: “The scientific world hasn’t produced such an extraordinary figure in decades.”

At 24, he won the Fields Medal, the Wolf Prize, and finally the Nobel Prize.

“Yes, who still remembers he originally worked in mathematics? But at least such a person has appeared in our Xia Nation.”