One hundred million years passed quietly, until today, this magnetic monopole, in its day-to-day flight, silently passed through the superfluid helium-3 chamber of one of the magnetic monopole detectors built by Tom.

Like a wanderer, it passed through a field of flowers without touching a single petal, causing almost no real-world impact on the superfluid helium-3, merely causing their magnetic fields to fluctuate slightly.

Afterward, it re-entered the universe without looking back, continuing its long cosmic journey, possibly never stopping until the end of the universe.

What happened in this ordinary star system was merely a tiny fragment of its almost endless life, not even worth remembering.

But even this tiny disturbance was recorded by Tom, becoming the key support for Tom's breakthrough in technological barriers.

Looking at the river of stars, Tom seemed to be chasing the figure of the magnetic monopole that had long since departed, his gaze fixed for a long time.

"I've finally truly detected a magnetic monopole, and finally have sufficiently solid evidence to prove its real existence..."

In this instant alone, on a scientific level, what Tom gained was almost more than all his previous research combined over all past time.

This is because it is a huge discovery and a huge breakthrough in fundamental physics. Fundamental, as the name suggests, it is the support for all subsequent scientific research and applications.

No words can adequately describe the significance of this discovery.

First, Tom scientifically verified for the first time that the Strong Nuclear Force must be unifiable with the electroweak force.

This is scientific evidence, not the previous sociological evidence based on the reality of a Strong Nuclear Civilization existing in the universe, which had led Tom to confirm the unifiability of the Strong Nuclear Force.

This is because magnetic monopoles were born in the extremely early universe, at approximately 10^(-36) seconds during the Big Bang. At that time, the Strong Nuclear Force must have been unified with the electroweak force, only later differentiating into two forces.

In scientific terms, this is described as SU(5) ---> SU(3) × SU(2) × U(1).

It was this process that led to the birth of magnetic monopoles. Thus, Tom can directly conclude that the Strong Nuclear Force must have been unified with the electroweak force in the early universe.

This is considered direct evidence.

It is direct, not indirect. Its proving effect far exceeds that of indirect evidence.

In addition to proving that the Strong Nuclear Force can be unified, it also proved another theory.

The cosmic inflation theory.

Tom's scientific system believes that the universe is continuously expanding and has numerous observational pieces of evidence, such as redshift.

However, these are only observational pieces of evidence, whereas the discovery of magnetic monopoles can scientifically prove the cosmic inflation theory.

The reason is very simple. According to existing theories, the number of magnetic monopoles should have been extremely large in the early Big Bang. But why are there so few now?

It can obviously only be due to one reason: cosmic inflation.

The universe continuously expands, diluting the density of magnetic monopoles, which is why they have become so rare today.

It's like a drop of water merging into the ocean.

Thus, by measuring the density of magnetic monopoles, Tom can deduce many things and study various changes in the universe throughout its evolution.

Furthermore, as technology advances in the future and the measurement of magnetic monopoles becomes more accurate, Tom might even be able to use magnetic monopoles as a means to detect and interpret changes in extremely distant galaxies, further increasing his understanding of cosmic evolution.

Now, the tasks Tom needs to do are clear.

Through existing data, he needs to further study the various characteristics of magnetic monopoles to supplement the existing theoretical framework. At the same time, he needs to continue operating these magnetic monopole detectors to observe more magnetic monopoles and obtain more information about them.

This single observation, while significant, is clearly not enough.

However, this is a long-term endeavor, as magnetic monopoles are too rare, and Tom cannot expect to observe too many in a short period.

At this stage, there is another equally important task that can be done first.

That is proton decay detection.

Proton decay detection, magnetic monopoles, and neutrino mass can be regarded as the three pillars of the Grand Unified Theory. All three are equally important and indispensable.

Magnetic monopoles can prove the symmetry breaking in the early universe and reveal topological defects;

Proton decay detection can prove the unification of quarks and leptons at the unified energy scale.

Neutrino mass can prove the non-conservation of lepton number.

Missing any one of them would make the Grand Unified Theory incomplete and prevent it from being considered truly unified.

Among these three, the study of the origin of neutrino mass is closer to the theoretical level and does not require the investment of too many large scientific instruments.

The discovery of magnetic monopoles is also somewhat related to the study of the origin of neutrino mass, but it has a greater relationship with proton decay.

This is because after the discovery of magnetic monopoles, a considerable part of the existing theoretical framework can already be supplemented. And based on this supplemented theory, Tom's research on proton decay also quickly achieved theoretical breakthroughs.

Now, Tom knows that he has probably figured out why he built so many proton decay detectors yet still could not detect the proton decay phenomenon.

The latest theoretical research shows that the proton's lifespan is indeed not infinite, with an approximate lifespan of 10^37 years.

Calculating with this lifespan, the many detectors he built should have already detected the corresponding phenomenon.

But... although he had previously predicted the approximate range of the proton's lifespan correctly, he had made a mistake about one thing.

The mode of proton decay.

Based on the true existence of magnetic monopoles and the current characteristics of magnetic monopoles, after correcting the theoretical framework, Tom discovered that the path of proton decay does not produce photons as he had previously predicted, but rather a completely new type of particle.

A photon-like particle with zero rest mass and traveling at the speed of light.

This particle also possesses extremely strong penetrative power, and because proton decay events are extremely rare, the number of such particles produced is also very small. Even in a proton decay detector, which can perform neutrino detection, the probability of him detecting it is extremely, extremely low.

After all, tens of millions of billions of neutrinos enter a single detector per second, and such a huge number only results in a comparatively mere few dozen collision events per day.

And how few are these particles?

Relying on a proton decay detector to detect collision events of this particle would likely mean waiting until the end of time.

So,

how should proton decay be detected?

Tom was stumped.

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