American: Native Empire

Chapter 194: Semiconductors.

After that, innovative ideas continued to emerge. 

There was a reason why the so-called experts gathered together, and it was also thanks to Golden Lake, who clearly presented the problems that had to be solved first.

But the decisive reason for shortening the time was the competitive spirit.

“Damn. The other parts are already showing such results, what are we doing?”

For space exploration, all parts of the research had to achieve results. 

If there was a part that lagged behind, the time would be delayed accordingly.

The experts joined this research with a promise of a hefty salary. 

That meant they were famous people. 

But being behind others was hard to accept for the experts who had pride.

Once the atmosphere of the research institute burned up, innovation was achieved.

“So far, the rockets have been very inefficient because thermal energy is discharged through the exhaust port. If we can only utilize this wasted thermal energy, the power of the rocket engine will change dramatically.”

The rocket engine part worked hard to utilize the wasted thermal energy and created a supersonic nozzle. 

When attached to the combustion chamber of the rocket engine, the nozzle could eject the hot gas from the combustion chamber as a jet stream.

“Oh!”

“This was the answer. At least it seems like the thrust has increased by twice, right? The engine efficiency has skyrocketed, hasn’t it?”

Eventually, in the rocket engine part, Golden Lake’s suggestion of dramatically increasing the efficiency of the rocket engine was achieved.

Not only that, but they also finally made a gyroscope that kept the axis of rotation in the same direction even if they tilted their body in another direction, and finished all the basic launch preparations.

With this, Golden Lake asked earnestly to the researchers before launching a formal launch experiment.

“You all know this, but rocket launch experiments are very dangerous. During a moment when a huge amount of fuel loaded on a rocket is combusted in large quantities, even a small defect in one part can cause the rocket to explode on the spot. So I will not allow any carelessness during launch. We all have to share the glory of achieving the first space exploration. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir!”

Despite Golden Lake’s worries, the rocket was launched.

“…5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Launch!”

Receiving everyone’s attention, finally, the rocket engraved with all the blood and sweat of all researchers flew up loudly into the sky.

“Oh!”

“It’s flying high!”

The first launch experiment seemed to mock countless worries and flew up to the distant sky.

But…

Boom!

The launched rocket ended its life by exploding brilliantly in the atmosphere.

At this, the researchers bowed their heads sadly.

“Ha… Is it a failure?”

“The most expensive fireworks show in the world. How much is that?”

“Well. It went pretty high for a first try.”

But Golden Lake and the researchers thought positively. 

Flying high in the sky was half a success and it was very rare for research to be successful at once.

Anyway, this research had very abundant funds like an inexhaustible spring. T

hey could just do it again.

The researchers continued to improve their rockets based on research data obtained from launch experiments.

***

Golden Lake was directly involved in all parts. 

And he also suggested many decisive ideas.

The gyroscope also started from Golden Lake’s idea.

But there was a part that Golden Lake cared about most.

It was none other than the calculator part.

From the beginning, Golden Lake clearly stated in front of mathematicians and mechanical engineers who were called experts.

“We will create an all-purpose calculator that has never existed in the world before.”

“A calculator… Well, mechanical calculators used now are not very good in performance. If such a thing is made, it will be easy to do a lot of calculations needed for rocket launch.”

“That’s right.”

Golden Lake admitted calmly.

In fact, not only rockets but also excellent calculators were very much needed by Earthbound Group.

Earthbound Group was a leader in aviation industry. 

And airplanes also required a lot of calculations.

Isn’t there an increase in demand for aviation across empires and globally? 

The scale of calculations that will be entered in future will increase day by day.

‘There are too many aviation accidents due to minor calculation errors.’

Due to nature of aviation accidents, it is very difficult to find survivors once they crash. 

Even though death rate from aviation accidents was lower than car accidents, people were anxious about airplanes because of this reason.

To popularize airplanes more than now, they had to lower accident rate and eventually needed an excellent calculator again.

Golden Lake had roughly finished his idea while preparing for research. 

So he declared confidently.

“We will use a huge amount of vacuum tubes to make an electronic calculator.”

“Us… Using vacuum tubes?”

“Yes.”

“How many vacuum tubes do you plan to use…”

“At least we have to use more than ten thousand tubes to make calculations possible as much as we want, don’t we?”

“Hmm…”

At this time, vacuum tubes were used in many ways. 

Everything used in radios and televisions was a kind of vacuum tube. 

The experts gathered here couldn’t not know about vacuum tubes.

That’s why they sighed.

“…Is that realistic? The weight and volume will be huge, and the power and heat generated will be no joke.”

“That’s probably true. But I think it’s worth trying. So that when a better material is developed in the future, we can apply it right away.”

Golden Lake didn’t not know the problems of the electronic calculator he was trying to make now. 

But Golden Lake thought it was better to try first.

“If you don’t challenge, innovation won’t happen.”

Golden Lake’s life had been a series of challenges. 

That was how he achieved great innovations in various fields, from automobiles to aviation, from advanced materials to electronics.

He eventually connected a huge number of vacuum tubes and created an electronic calculator.

At the same time, Golden Lake also conducted other experiments.

“I need to make something that can replace the vacuum tubes.”

None of the researchers thought that the electronic calculator they were making would be popularized. It was too inefficient for that.

Therefore, the development of a substitute for vacuum tubes was essential for the dissemination of electronic calculators.

The data from the development of the cutting-edge material, duralumin, was very helpful for this.

 At that time, they had obtained data on various materials.josei

Golden Lake poured a lot of money into the development of electronic calculators and vacuum tube substitutes.

The first thing that was made was an electronic calculator.

“…This is amazing.”

This was Golden Lake’s first impression when he saw the completed electronic calculator.

Later, Golden Lake’s electronic calculator, which was called the first electronic computer, was born.

It used 20,000 vacuum tubes. 

It was 30 meters long and weighed over 30 tons.

After that, Golden Lake tried to operate this monstrous calculator in earnest.

And the expected problems came out one after another.

“The performance is not bad, but…”

The sight of a huge number of vacuum tubes glowing red and working at the same time was quite beautiful. 

However, it consumed 150KW of electricity per operation, and a huge cooling device had to be used to cool down the enormous heat.

The biggest problem was the lifespan of the vacuum tubes.

“Damn. It’s broken again?”

“Where is it this time?”

“Over there!”

“Ugh… This is a waste of money.”

The vacuum tubes had a short lifespan and broke easily. 

As a result, many people had to wait for the replacement of the vacuum tubes.

As a result, the time spent repairing this electronic calculator was four times longer than the actual usage time.

“As expected.”

Golden Lake shrugged his shoulders as he looked at this unnecessarily large electronic calculator.

“But thanks to this, I collected a lot of data. And I saw the potential of electronic calculators.”

Golden Lake tried various things with mathematicians using this device.

At first, they used an external program method, where they had to manually insert wires for each calculation command.

But Golden Lake soon found another way.

“It seems more efficient to make a memory device and store the program in advance.”

Based on this, he made a memory device. 

And he performed one program instruction at a time from the primary memory device where he stored the program and data.

He also adopted binary system and verified its possibility.

“It’s not bad for what it is.”

He encountered many problems through trial and error, but the performance of the calculator itself was quite good. 

Thanks to this, it helped a lot with the calculations needed for rocket experiments.

***

Opportunity comes to those who are prepared.

At first glance, Golden Lake’s research method seemed like a waste. 

The huge budget that he had wondered if he could use it all before was rapidly decreasing. 

That was proof of that.

But because of that, a historic invention was made at Golden Lake’s laboratory.

“This is a very interesting material.”

As mentioned earlier, Golden Lake encountered various materials since the development of duralumin. 

Among them, germanium gave him a fresh feeling. 

It had a characteristic that electricity flowed or did not flow depending on external stimuli.

“Hmm. If I use this well…”

Golden Lake felt something intense from germanium. 

So he used germanium for various experiments.

He continued his experiments while making an electronic calculator with vacuum tubes. 

But he also improved it.

And his efforts paid off.

“This is!”

“Oh my God!”

It was none other than a transistor made with germanium. 

The researchers were greatly impressed by its performance and role.

Golden Lake was also surprised by the transistor he made.

And he started to find out more about its properties.

The results were amazing. 

It could amplify weak signals and use the characteristics of semiconductors to switch roles.

Golden Lake focused on the latter among these two performances.

The transistor was much smaller than the vacuum tube. 

That meant that it could greatly reduce size, power consumption, and price.

Of course, the first developed transistor had many problems, but Golden Lake and his excellent researchers improved it intensively.

And finally they reached the point where they could replace vacuum tubes with transistors.

“Hahaha! This is incomparable to what I made with vacuum tubes!”

“With this… I can do not only calculations but also various other tasks.”

The computer made with transistors was much smaller than the one with vacuum tubes. 

And it consumed much less electricity.

Most importantly, it was more reliable because it broke less. 

It was a great success.

Thus, the era of second-generation computers opened, and the history of semiconductors began.

After that, semiconductors changed the world little by little. 

Ironically, this invention had a much greater impact than the main research of space exploration.

Thanks to this, Golden Lake became the developer of the first computer and semiconductors.

Not long after the second-generation computer was commercialized, he also launched a rocket beyond space for the first time. 

He was comparable to Kim Ki-woo’s achievements.

He built a huge tower of gold.