11 Roland's Public Lecture Part 2

Professor Newton was silently contemplating the shocking statements of the Immortal King in the midst of all the uproar and chattering.

He was a governmental retiree and a current senior academician in the Royal Neverwinter Academy. His lectures were highly sought after while he himself remained humble and sagely; garnering a popular following between the young scholars of the empire. He was even more popular than the current superstars in the entertainment industry.

What he was proud and valued most, was his family name.

It was coincidentally similar to the Newtonian mechanics introduced by the Immortal King 3000 years ago. A lot of information under the Newton series disseminated in the Physics' textbooks had made his family very popular for generations. In addition, through the efforts of his ancestors, his family had contributed greatly to the advancement of academics' study of many fields and thus established themselves as distinguished scholars and academicians.

This morning when he was having his routine morning tea, the Roseberry tea leaf inside his mug floated vertically.

He knew something good might happen today. It has been a series of bad news for months; Newton was having a heartache every day when he read the Graycastle Electronic Bulletin daily on his old dusty gray contactor. He was one of the few people who rejected the implantation of the Neural Connector, saying he's too old for it already. Nobody forced him since he had just retired from his governmental position at that time.

During noon, he got a message from his old colleague through his faithful contactor. The Immortal King himself was going to give a lecture!

He immediately cancelled his class which was scheduled after lunch and even made an announcement telling his students about the upcoming public lecture.

Good things should be shared.

A panicked student sitting beside him asked in a whisper, "Are we going to die Prof?!"

"Hush, little one. Let's listen first. The Immortal King never betrays our expectations." He patted the little girl's head. She was the genius girl who topped his class for two years consecutively.

He concentrated and focused on Roland's voice.

The immortal king's voice reverberated again after everyone has calmed down and refocused on him. "We have two options that we can consider." He raised two fingers, showing a 'peace' sign.

"First option; a mass fleet of space carriers carrying everyone inside."

"These carriers speed must be able to exceed the speed-of-light to make the journey possible within our lifetime. The carriers' body or more accurately the surrounding forcefield must be strong enough to withstand bombardment from space particles such as debris, asteroids and such, while maintaining the high velocity. It must move out of the sun's explosion range before the 50 years was up. Currently, we don't have the technology to make a spaceship with this speed and capabilities because this is an unexplored region."

"To achieve this, I have come up with a theoretical calculation that might make it possible. Let's call it the Alcubierre Warp Drive, or simply a Warp Drive." Newton saw his idol smiled bashfully and was curious why.

[Is this Alcubierre Warp Drive spoken by His Majesty got some problems maybe?] Newton pondered.

Truthfully, he was someone who was very interested with what's beyond their home planet and had derived several postulates based on his long-term understanding of physics.

Newton saw the immortal king passing a tablet-like device to their crown princess, Princess Linneia, and asked her to project the information for all the audience to see. It was scribbled with strings of mathematical formula, the main Alcubierre metric and its modified derivatives.

Seeing the string of formula, Newton's hand trembled! He closed his fingers into a fist.

"Prof?! Are you alright?!" The lovely girl beside Newton realized something was wrong with their class' favorite lecturer. Deep down she was worried this old professor might got a heart attack under her care. She was beginning to panic again.

Newton ignored her and stared at the projected formula with seriousness while contemplating something.

[This is the completed version of my postulates! Fascinating! I never know it could be derived this way!] Newton was getting more and more excited.

"The Warp drive utilized negative energy to contract the space in front the spaceship while expanding the space behind simultaneously. The region moves along while carrying the spaceship as the spaceship stays in a normal region within the region. This region will be generated by White's warp ring in the shape of a torus."

The immortal king gestured to Princess Linneia to switch the diagram to how a warp-bubble evolved into a warp-ring reduced the energy needed to be powered with new sets of equations as accompaniment.

"Some of you might notice from these equations, their questionable relevancy. I will tell you the truth. The equation present here was merely theoretical. There will be a lot of problems arises from them. It will be up to you to verify and make it possible."

Newton nodded subconsciously. "It needed a specialized material. If not, this might not work." He whispered to himself regretfully. Is migrating through space will just happens in his dreams? He wondered.

The immortal king paused again.

[He was quite melodramatic, I must say.] Newton commented amusingly in his heart.

What came next from His Majesty's mouth was music to Newton's ears.

This erudite immortal king begun to introduce a series of special materials, which he termed as exotic matter to the audience. These materials were not composed of baryon, as opposed to other normally occurring matter. The most astonishing of all, these materials exuded negative energy; when applying positive forward force on this particular matter, it will produce an acceleration on the opposite direction. This characteristic was ideal for initiating the 'warping effect' of space-time according to the equations.

The benevolent immortal king even painstakingly explained in detail about the negative mass and complex mass along with dark matter, antimatter and mirror matter to enrich the masses of the new kind of knowledge; an innovative way of viewing physics.

Newton glanced around the hall to see familiar faces showing signs of comprehension similar to him. Professor Rogers from a few seats away noticed him and gave him a congratulatory nod. They both understood that they had managed to gain enlightenment and inspiration from this public lecture.

"To date, I could not say there is an exotic matter present naturally. However, our team of experts have found a way to artificially create one." The next statement by the immortal king finally made everyone behaved like people being injected by chicken blood. Surprise exclamations were heard from the crowd everywhere and it became noisy again.

The immortal king gestured them to calm down.

Newton didn't hear anything else anymore.

He planned to immediately apply to join the research team responsible for building the Warp Drive after the lecture was over.

He knew his inspiration right now will definitely contribute substantially towards the device's development.

...

Roland was feeling hopeful when he looked at the crowd.

He could see unfeigned understanding from various faces, especially the older ones. He felt extremely gratified and proud.

The empire he built with his own two hands has truly come far.

He continued, "Let's talk about the second option present for space migration."

"Another way to travel across the universe is by making a teleportation device, the Interstellar Gate. It has the effect of making an artificial wormhole which links two separate points in spacetime. This needed more work. However, the basis of powering up the portal similarly might fall on the same exotic matter discussed earlier."

"I believe there is no need to start from scratch for this technology. Although we might not have background knowledge on this matter, we already have a lead for this technology. The team main responsibility will be to research how to utilize this gate including the energy mechanism. I have a feeling that the same theory will greatly help our research in this area"

"So, hope is not lost, everyone!" Roland increased his volume, exuding a confident stance. He knew, how he viewed things will affect the mindset of the masses.

"Both methods are potentially possible, but needed time to be realized, which we're lack of. So we must substitute it with human resource. You all." He gestured to everyone present.

"We needed the help of all of you to make this a reality. Let's work together to make the survival of the inhabitants of this planet possible. If you think you could and should contribute, please join the teams that you're interested in to make it a reality."

As Roland stepped down from the podium, a thunderous clap were heard.

The professionals of Graycastle stood up from their seats and saluted Roland reverently. Everyone's gaze was filled with hope and positivity.

A standing ovation ensued.