Chapter 27 (Pressure Cooker 1): Expansion Bolt

65 million years ago, Venus

Nikola Tesla's so-called method could only be described as a last resort. Dean Abbott felt no joy at all; he knew that while the entire plan seemed theoretically feasible, its implementation would face countless difficulties and enormous risks.

Jupiter was relentlessly drawing near, Venus’s rotation slowing, and the humans of Venus would soon have nowhere to hide within the solar system. Tesla’s proposal, though perilous, offered at least a chance of success. It was better than waiting for annihilation.

The core of the plan involved a drastic measure: shattering Mars. The surface crust would fracture, launching a vast quantity of debris into space. Nearly a million fragments of varying sizes and icy chunks would form a belt-like structure, standing between Jupiter and Mars as they orbited the Sun. The larger pieces would become what could be called asteroids, and this belt—the “Asteroid Belt.”

“Nikola, including Mars, the planets formed in the early solar system through the collision and aggregation of matter within the protoplanetary disk. Current theories don’t support the idea of planets splitting apart,” Abbott said.

“Yes,” Tesla replied, “once a planet forms, its own gravity firmly holds the surface material in place. But if massive energy from superluminal waves is directed into Mars’s core, repeated cycles of heating and cooling will change the situation.”

“Injecting extra energy would disrupt Mars’s equilibrium, making rupture possible. I don’t doubt your theory,” Dean Abbott said, calculating silently as he spoke. “But we must determine the total energy required, its intensity, and the specific region and volume that would fracture.”

Nikola Tesla offered a vivid metaphor: boiling an egg for seven minutes will cook it, but peeling a freshly boiled egg is difficult because the shell and the egg have heated evenly and are almost fused together. A clever trick is to take the egg from boiling water and immediately drop it into cold water. The shell cools rapidly while the inside remains hot, making the shell crack more easily and separate from the egg.

Dean Abbott’s analogy was equally intriguing: like making soup in a clay pot—if you suddenly pour in a large amount of cold water after the soup boils, the pot may burst.

To obtain precise data, Tesla connected with his external brain via the lightning sphere. The external brain excelled at memory, searching, and logical analysis based on calculations, while the human brain’s strength lay in divergent thinking, expanding concepts, and linking seemingly unrelated events.

In recent years, Nikola Tesla had deliberately trained his external brain so that it could not only provide accurate mathematical answers, but also output probabilistic solutions based on scenario analysis, making it more like the human brain.

Yet, during this connection about the Mars rupture problem, Tesla hoped for precise data from the external brain, but it kept guiding him toward a technical challenge, not other quantifiable information.

Nagging at Tesla’s mind was the realization that to make Mars rupture, it had to become a “pressure cooker.” Mars, a sphere with multiple layers, could be simplified to a metallic liquid core, mantle, and crust.

Injecting energy would heat and expand the metallic core, with the mantle and crust expanding as well; when energy injection stopped, the crust would cool faster than the mantle and core. Repeating this cycle would produce multiple cracks in the crust, eventually causing it to rupture—just as a pressure cooker will explode if the pressure becomes too great, but only if its lid is tightly sealed and not leaking.

“What does it mean for the pressure cooker to leak?” Abbott asked.

“We plan to build a superluminal wave power station at a volcanic crater, channeling all received energy into the underground magma. But this crater and its surrounding area act like the pressure release valve of a cooker,” Tesla explained.

“Once energy is injected into the core, molten metal will erupt from the crater, preventing Mars from becoming a high-pressure cooker,” Abbott realized.

Mars had four major volcanic craters: one large at Olympus Mons, and three smaller ones lined up, all on the planet’s plateau region.

Tesla’s goal was to rupture Mars. The previously conceived “vein” power station encircling Mars was no longer suitable. Now, he needed to construct a structure 180,000 kilometers tall directly above the main crater of Olympus Mons, longer than the wavelength of superluminal waves, allowing full absorption of the waves’ energy.

The absorbed heat would no longer be used for power generation, but directly injected into Mars’s metallic core. As the core heated, searing magma would erupt from the crater—how could this be prevented?

Tesla furrowed his brow, then suddenly understood the answer hinted by his external brain, muttering to himself, “Expansion bolts. Expansion bolts.”

“What do you mean? Expansion bolts? What has that got to do with rupturing Mars?” Abbott asked, puzzled.

“Our aim is to give Mars’s crust enough strength to contain the immense pressure generated by the heating core. If we ‘screw in bolts’ around the crater, the problem would be solved,” Tesla said.

Abbott finally understood Tesla and his external brain’s solution. Expansion bolts were obviously a metaphor—not the small hardware screwed into walls.

The volcanic crater, though on the surface, was the weakest point where the crust and mantle were thinnest, directly connected to the molten core. To prevent this weak spot from prematurely releasing the core’s pressure, it had to be reinforced.

There were many ways to fortify it—driving long, deep piles into the ground around the volcano, whether of wood or metal.

Abbott immediately saw another problem: “That’s not feasible. We don’t have enough long wooden stakes or metal rods, and even if we did, how many powerful pile drivers would we need?”

Tesla smiled mysteriously. “That’s why we call them expansion bolts, not piles. We need only drilling machines, not pile drivers—the engineering is much simpler.”

With help from his external brain, Tesla devised the answer: in and around the volcanic crater, within a radius of several hundred kilometers, drill countless holes ten thousand meters deep into the rock and fill each with a highly expansive polymer.

These dense columns of polymer would expand when heated, greatly increasing the strength of the surrounding rock, reinforcing the mountain centered on Olympus Mons into a lid capable of withstanding extreme pressure.

“So the pressure cooker won’t leak anymore. Did your external brain offer any other advice?” Abbott, recalling the external brain’s unique way of thinking, asked, “Last time it said the humans of Venus had no right to exterminate the dinosaurs, didn’t it?”

Tesla admired Abbott’s memory. “The external brain definitely thinks differently. As humans and the solar system itself face destruction, no one would care about dinosaurs, but the external brain has its own logic.”

Regarding the dinosaurs, the external brain guided Tesla’s thoughts with a classic philosophical thought experiment.

Suppose someone can foresee the future and stands beside a railway track as a train speeds toward the right-hand turn, where it will cause an accident resulting in fifty deaths. If this person pulls the track switch, the train will divert left, causing only one death. Should he pull the lever?

People have different answers, leading to ethical and legal dilemmas.

For example, if he pulls the lever, does he commit murder against the one who dies? Or, to save more lives, is it justified to sacrifice one for urgent rescue?

If the person on the left track were replaced by a group of dinosaurs, this is the dilemma facing Tesla’s external brain now. Its answer exceeded Tesla’s expectations: pull the lever, disregard the dinosaurs.

Because, in this situation, not only are the fifty people on the right track at stake, but also the railway, the station, the train—everything.

Law, morality, ethics—even philosophy itself—have prerequisites and boundaries. After humanity’s extinction and the solar system’s collapse, these are rendered meaningless.

Thus, for the external brain, this so-called moral predicament is simple—no need to agonize.

Epigraphic Verse:

Life and death are not as we wish—Ming, Xue Xuan
Originally there was nothing, nor any return—Ming, Wang Ao
In the smooth course of human relations, joy and sorrow are shallow—Qing, Liu Yi
The old art of slaying dragons is already obsolete—Yuan, Ni Zan