CHAPTER 896: CHAPTER 141: THE MATRIX OF TALISMANS

It is said that when humans dismantled that complete alien machine, they didn’t encounter any obstacles.

There were none of the "unable to restore once disassembled" special structures commonly used in machine manufacturing by humans. The simplest and most straightforward assembly process was adopted; all parts could be easily removed, and most of them shared specifications with the complete parts on those small machines outside, with almost identical processing techniques.

Perhaps the aliens didn’t care if their technology was replicated by the civilization of other planets?

Or, it could be because these machines could only be manufactured and assembled to this extent?

Moreover, the imitation process was also very smooth.

When the aliens designed it, they seemed to follow a design philosophy of "making the machine work in an environment with large part tolerances," and the materials for the entire machine were exceptionally uniform.

Sometimes, a precision instrument, even if each of its parts is dismantled and placed in front of another group, allowing them to scan and record each piece, is still difficult to replicate fully.

Some machinery is indeed complex to the point that "it’s hard to disassemble completely without blueprints," and some parts indeed have issues like "easy deformation during disassembly affecting measurement results." But even without considering these, replicating unknown machinery presents a huge challenge.

Because reality is not ideal.

The design of a part includes dimensional requirements, but after the design dimension, there is often a "± ** mm" kind of mark. Although the design size of this part is a fixed value, in real machining, it’s impossible for all parts to be exactly this size; there must be some error. In the overall design of the machine, the errors of other parts interacting with this part will be considered, i.e., "tolerance."

As long as a part’s error is within the tolerance range, then the part is qualified.

All parts of the machinery have such tolerances. Even if humans acquire an unknown machine, they can only measure the precise dimensions of the parts on this machine, and it is difficult to know the range of tolerances.

And then there’s the material. Many parts have different demands on the strength, toughness, and elasticity of the material; knowing the dimensions is not enough to replicate them.

It is probably a 3D printer—only probably because humans currently haven’t figured out what some parts are for. But judging from the laser emitting device, feeding device, and crystallization cooling liquid delivery device, as well as the magnetic field and sound field generators, it is indeed a mature machine.

At this point, humans have also confirmed one thing. This unknown alien civilization shares more or less the same logic with humans.

Humans can clearly see the design thinking of these components from the creations of the alien civilization, see their inherent logic—of course, some parts are too foreign to human civilization. Perhaps they arise from blind spots in human thinking, and humans temporarily can’t see their exact function.

Thus, the next question facing human civilization is also very obvious.

Namely, "how does this machine operate" and "what exactly is recorded inside the alien copper coins."

These two questions might be distilled into one question—"How does the machine use the information in these alien copper coins to maintain its work."

Anyway, the amount of information on these copper coins is really too little.

Even though those aliens used special symbols to increase the information density on the copper coins, if those symbols were stored by a computer, they would only be about a few hundred MB.

Does a few hundred MB of information include a complete industrial production system?

It’s unlikely no matter how you think about it.

But in reality, those aliens almost succeeded.

Although the mechanical activity inside this spaceship ceased thousands or even tens of thousands of years ago, before that, they successfully operated for a longer period.

The age of the mechanical debris, this 3D printer, and the spaceship’s main structure are all worlds apart.

Humans even observed many repair marks on the spaceship’s primary structure.

It’s evident that these robots even knew how to maintain this spacecraft.

Their design blueprints, assembly techniques, material information, and AI, when combined, only amount to a few hundred MB.

That’s probably only the data volume of a dozen photos.

A few hundred MB...

Regarding this, Ingrid’s comment was: "I don’t think these symbols can be measured in ’code.’ They are obviously not code. Code, like human language, is linear and one-dimensional. But these are at least a two-dimensional symbol system, if not a three-dimensional one."

Xiang Shan immediately leaned over to Ingrid: "Tell me in detail, tell me in detail."

"Language is a linear thing because time is linear. Human speech organizes words and sentences along time. In fact, the symbolic system of writing, when placed on paper, does not have to be linear." Ingrid pondered for a moment: "There used to be ’Pan Zhong Shi’ and ’Xuanji Map’ on the East Asian continent, which are nonlinear word games. Especially the Xuanji Map, which is truly exquisite."

A large question mark seemed to hover over Xiang Shan’s head.

"Uh... Sorry." Ingrid hastily added an explanation: "Xuanji Map is a special type of... Is it called palindrome poetry? Something like that. The original poem consists of eight hundred and forty characters, with twenty-nine vertically and horizontally, the center being empty; the square array can be read vertically, horizontally, diagonally, interactively, forward, and backward, or by stepping a character back, and rearranging characters can form poems with three, four, five, six, or seven lines. Today, it is estimated that it can form about seven thousand nine hundred and fifty-eight poems."

"In such a matrix of characters, the spatial relationships between symbols and symbols in two dimensions are also meaningful. Language is one-dimensional, where a word is only related to the area before and after it. The first word of your first sentence and the second word of your second sentence, and the third word of your third sentence cannot connect into a new sentence in someone else’s consciousness. But the written text on a two-dimensional medium doesn’t have to follow this rule."

Seeing Xiang Shan still in thought, Ingrid said: "Perhaps... if I said ’crossword puzzle,’ you might understand a little better?"

"Hiss..." Xiang Shan nodded: "You’re underestimating me; I fully understand."

"The reading rules of those alien steles might be even more complex." Ingrid stated: "If there is a symbol in the characters meaning ’the next stop symbol is invalid,’ then the reading rules for this stele can become even more terrifying. This is simply like a maze. Even if we can decipher each line and each group of symbols, it might still be difficult to make the machine truly operational."