In physics, energy exists in many forms, but in real-world systems, it most commonly reveals itself as heat.
Thus, it was inevitable that, as Seoha completed his theory, he would think of the problem of heat.
‘What kind of structure must a material have for heat to be discharged most efficiently?’
The most common solution in heat dissipation is to increase surface area. But that comes with spatial constraints.
Heat in reality does not move along a single path.
Conduction, convection, and radiation all act simultaneously, and if a bottleneck occurs in even one of them, overall efficiency drops sharply.
‘Theoretically, it seems possible.’
Seoha thought of an encyclopedia.
The structures in nature that dissipate heat best.
The movable skeletons of coral, mammalian alveoli, the reticulate veins of leaves. All of them maximize surface area while not fixing flow in a single direction.
Their fine branching structures are designed to avoid bottlenecks on their own.
“Fractal—a form in which a single pattern continues endlessly, changing only in scale.”
A structure that maintains the same properties even when the scale changes.
If every path for heat to move through could be opened, it could be made to flow on its own toward the direction of least resistance—in other words, toward the minimum energy point.
“This is interesting.”
Seoha smiled brightly.
In that it chooses the path that reaches equilibrium fastest under given conditions, the movement of heat was, in essence, no different from an energy optimization problem.
‘Then what properties should the metal have?’
Sssrk.
Matter always tries to move toward the most comfortable state. Mathematically speaking, that is the point where the gradient becomes zero—the global minimum.
But in real systems, countless local minima exist, and heat is easily trapped there. That is when bottlenecks appear.
“To solve this...”
As Seoha trailed off, a retort burst out from one side of the conference room.
“Wait a minute!”
Jane raised her hand.
In the main conference room of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, professors and postdocs were seated around Seoha.
At the news that Seoha had come here, everyone had stopped what they were doing and rushed over.
“I understand heat getting trapped in local minima. But isn’t saying you’ll solve that with a material unrealistic?”
The postdoc beside her also nodded.
“Heat doesn’t move like a mathematical formula. Real metals aren’t that obedient.”
Jane adjusted her glasses.
“Fractal structures are only possible in living organisms. Metals have clear process limitations. Even if you make a fine branching structure, it will ultimately be blocked at the interface.”
Seoha nodded.
The conference room fell quiet for a moment.
“That’s right. That’s why I’m not saying we should make fractals in metal. I meant spreading heat through the whole material the way those do.”
Seoha walked to the board and picked up a pen.
Sssrk.
“The problem isn’t the shape, but the nature of the path.”
He drew the structure by which metal transferred heat.
Then he pointed to one of the arrows at the boundary surface.
“Here, the movement of heat is blocked. But heat wants to move. It was only stopped by the interface because there was no physical path.
While studying minimum energy theory, I found that if several conditions are met, this problem can be solved.”
‘Solved?’
The professor’s eyebrows twitched.
Heat generation was the biggest obstacle in semiconductor processing. As integration density increased, the heat emitted by each individual transistor rose exponentially.
Even with heat sinks and fans, and even liquid or nitrogen cooling, this had been a problem with clear limits. If this could be solved...
‘Clock speed limits disappear.’
“Hrk!”
The professor let out a groan.
All the knowledge of semiconductor processing he had built up was overturned at once. Designs abandoned because of heat, performance cut away in the name of securing stability.
Perhaps those sacrifices would no longer be necessary.
He looked urgently at Seoha and asked,
“What are those conditions?”
“Eliminating the boundaries that obstruct the movement of heat.
So that energy can continue smoothly inside the metal.”
The engineers’ expressions darkened.
“...Composition gradient.”
FGM—Functionally Graded Material.
One of the most difficult metals to make.
Because different physical properties had to be designed and implemented without discontinuity, it was difficult from the very beginning.
The production difficulty was the highest, as even the slightest adjustment error could not be allowed.
“Yes. An alloy whose composition—the elemental ratio—changes little by little. A structure in which alloys in subtly different states coexist continuously.”
The professor suddenly came to his senses.
“Then heat...”
As if he had been waiting, Seoha took out the materials.
“Here are the results I calculated. Please make a metal that satisfies these conditions.
In this alloy, whenever heat moves, it can always find a better state.
An alloy satisfying the minimum energy conditions. Theoretically, among existing materials, it is the metal that accumulates the least heat.”
Rustle.
The professor’s eyes moved quickly as he scanned the pages.
Though he was one of the world’s foremost scholars in the field of metals, it still took him no small amount of time to understand the documents Seoha had handed him.
Everyone watched him with bated breath.
“My God!”
His eyes widened, and his breathing began to quicken.
Based on fractal thinking, Seoha had designed functions in which thermal conductivity, coefficient of thermal expansion, and electrical resistance inside the metal changed continuously according to space.
In this structure, as heat moved, it always encountered a path of lower resistance and did not become trapped in local minima. Bottlenecks, stress, and hotspots were fundamentally eliminated.
It was a difficult problem whose end could not be known—indeed, whose very existence was uncertain—but Seoha had solved it.
The professor stared at Seoha with distant eyes.
Seoha misunderstood that gaze.
“Was this perhaps too difficult a request? Then I suppose I should go to metallurgical engineering—”
“No!”
The professor shouted urgently.
As he was normally a gentleman who rarely showed his emotions, the postdocs flinched in surprise.
“We can do it! No, we must do it!”
A function for designing the optimized ratio of thermal conduction in metals. Because this was a structure impossible to design around, it was a patent that could only become an industry standard.
Before long, the entire semiconductor industry, worth thousands of trillions, would be hanging on this.
“Really? Thank you.”
Seoha brightened, stood up, and bowed deeply.
“This is a sensitive matter, so it would be best to draw up a contract first.”
The deans of the two departments gathered.
Thanks to Seoha, Whitman had recently had many occasions to meet with other departments, and he found it enjoyable. Especially from a position of overwhelming advantage.
At a meeting attended by the legal team and the technology transfer office, the equity ratio and scope of rights were decided.
“The share for materials science will be this much.”
The head of the legal team wrote down the number.
“That’s fine.”
It was the minimum level, but surprisingly, there was no opposition. The technology to create FGM was certainly important, but the core of this patent did not lie there.
Seoha, of course, was also present. Silently, he turned the pages of the document.
‘This isn’t a theory I completed alone.’
His hand reached the final page.
Sssrk.
Seoha left his signature.
‘Team Apex.’
Economic freedom.
Through this, Seoha hoped his teammates would gain the opportunity to make freer choices.
***
The dean’s office of the Department of Mathematics.
A cup of chamomile tea was placed before Seoha.
Clink.
“Thank you.”
“Not at all. These days, thanks to you, I feel as though I’ve returned to my youth.”
Whitman laughed in a low voice.
With bright eyes, he asked about Seoha’s recent situation for quite some time.
The team members were busy preparing their papers. Minimum energy theory had undergone its final organization and would soon be published first in Science.
Even after that, the three of them had to prepare follow-up papers. They were truly drowning in work.
“Read this.”
Slide.
Seoha picked up the document Whitman held out.
“Huh?”
[Patent Application]
—Dynamical conditions ensuring the existence and convergence of global minimum energy solutions in multipath energy transfer systems.
A question appeared in Seoha’s eyes.
“Didn’t we decide to just release this?”
“We did.”
Whitman nodded.
“But this is...”
“‘There is no patent on the sun.’ Do you happen to know who said that?”
Seoha shook his head.
“It was Dr. Jonas Salk, who developed the polio vaccine. He gave up the enormous sums pharmaceutical companies offered him and released the patent for free.
As a result, the incidence of polio patients today has decreased to about one percent of what it was before Salk. Just how many people did that decision save?”
Seoha listened to him in silence.
“After you all left, I discussed it with several people. And this is the conclusion we reached.”
“B-but...”
“Many professors shared the same view. The conclusion was that your theory is like sunlight. No advanced industry that exists in the future will be able to avoid it.”
Whitman paused for breath.
“Seoha, the choice you made was noble, like Dr. Salk’s. But please do not underestimate human malice.
If you do not own it, thieves will surely appear. The same is true even if you release it for free. There will be attempts to distort it by claiming they thought it was a public theory, or to file derivative patents.”
It was a kind of violence Seoha had never even imagined.
Seoha’s mouth fell open.
Whitman had left the royalty section blank on the last page of the patent application. Seoha looked at it and spoke hesitantly.
“Do we have to receive money?”
“Ownership alone can do nothing. Enforceability comes from the licensing agreement. This is a measure meant to protect everyone.”
Seoha nodded as if he had made up his mind, then picked up a pen.
Sssrk.
“One Cent.”
Whitman watched for a long time as Seoha wrote the amount, signed, and left.
“I’m sorry, as an adult.”
For failing to create a better world.
The fact that he could protect the young scholar’s purity only in this way weighed heavily on his heart.
But this, too, was something he had to do as an adult who cared for him.
***
A few days later, the news spread faster than anyone had imagined.
It was industry that moved before academia.
At first, there was confusion.
The legal teams of each company received the patent documents and looked at one another’s faces.
They checked the number, rechecked the unit, and reread the sentence again and again.
“One Cent.”
“Isn’t this a typo?”
“No, it really says USD 0.01.”
“That’s practically free, isn’t it?”
But the moment they turned to the next page, their expressions changed.
MIT’s legal team was a group thoroughly seasoned in handling patents. There, short and clear clauses were written.
—This license requires adherence to the minimum energy convergence conditions without modification.
—The filing of derivative patents that damage, weaken, or circumvent the conditions of this theory is prohibited. However, separate patents shall be recognized for implementations, materials, structures, and processes that faithfully satisfy the above conditions.
—Licenses shall not be recognized for users who do not agree to these conditions.
Only then did everyone realize.
This was not a cheap patent.
“In other words, the one cent is an admission fee.”
The head of legal at a certain semiconductor company muttered.
“That’s right. It’s not money—it’s a signature agreeing to the order he created.”
Companies could not make money with patents that modified the theory.
Nor could they muddy the market with tricks such as intentionally degrading performance. With these few lines, he had ended the “design-around competition” that had continued as an industry practice for decades.
“Isn’t this a monopoly?”
Someone fumed.
“No, it’s the opposite. It prevents monopolies.”
And in the industry, this patent came to be called the following:
“SH’s One Cent Law.”
Using the theory was free.
But they now had a law they absolutely had to follow.