1840 Indian Rebirth

Chapter 191 [Perpetual Motion Machine]

"Thank you for your reminder, Professor." Ma Whistle smiled.

Professor Smith said no more, and led a few people to the residence arranged for them by Cambridge University.

As the top university in the world, the material conditions of Cambridge University are naturally very good. Ma Shao even tasted tea imported from the Qing Dynasty here.

And it's not just an ordinary imported tea, the Chinese on the package made Ma Shuo fascinated for a moment.

"Yi He Xing..." He silently recited these three words.

"The tea in Jardine House is the best tea in the world." Thomson does not understand Chinese, but obviously knows Jardine House.

"It's rare that Cambridge University is so generous. I didn't have this kind of treatment before." Joule took the freshly brewed tea carefully and couldn't help complaining at the same time.

Thomson said with a smile: "Haha, you are almost becoming a member of the Royal Society."

"Mashao, what's the matter with you?" He noticed that Mashao's expression seemed a little strange.

"Nothing." Horse Whistle said perfunctorily, turning his eyes away from the Chinese characters.

Thomson frowned slightly: "Do you understand Chinese characters?"

Ma Shuo hesitated for half a second, then smiled: "I understand a little bit. In fact, I have learned many languages. English is one of them, and Chinese is also."

"Really?" Thomson and Joule asked in surprise, "Show us, to be honest, I'm a little curious about how you speak Chinese."

"Let's talk about it later, our priority now is the next meeting." Ma Whistle said.

Soon, with the arrival of physicists from all walks of life, this academic conference kicked off at Cambridge University.

The meeting was held in a grand auditorium, which was filled with scientists from the UK and Europe, and of course teachers and students from Cambridge University, as well as some journalists. There were thousands of people in total.

In an era without microphones, such a scene is obviously extremely unfriendly to the speaker.

Among the thousands of people present, seat C was unsurprisingly Michael Faraday, a thin old man with gray hair and bags under his eyes.

Looking at Faraday surrounded by the crowd, Ma Shao suddenly thought of a photo of a later generation, which is also a scene of an old physicist surrounded by a large crowd, but the protagonist is Yang Zhenning.

Originally, nascent thermodynamics was only one of the topics of this academic conference, not even the most important topic.

However, since the whole of Britain was discussing the horse post, one of the founders of thermodynamics, discussions other than thermodynamics were inevitably ignored. It can even be said that almost everyone was waiting for this Indian to speak on stage.

That's especially true of Professor Mackintosh, and indeed that's why he's here at this conference.

He wanted to see if the Indian who had humiliated him was not a disgraceful academic liar--preferably.

"Oh, it's finally his turn, that Apache guy." A burst of discussion rang out, cheering up Mackintosh, who was almost sitting in the back row, and looked at the podium in front of the auditorium.

"Let us welcome Mr. Horse Whistle." Professor Smith presided over the meeting.

There was not much applause in the auditorium, and more people put their energy into stretching their necks so that they could see the appearance of the Indians walking towards the podium.

It's a pity that many people didn't see some of the scenes they imagined, such as a wild man in a fur suit.

At this time, the horse whistle is completely dressed as a British gentleman, in a neat black dress, if it is not for the skin color of other participants, he looks like a young teacher teaching here.

"Ladies and gentlemen..." The horse whistle made a joke as soon as it opened its mouth.

This is a very common opening statement, but the problem is that there seems to be no lady here.

It was an academic meeting, and a rather important one at that, in 1848 it was almost impossible for a woman to be present at such an occasion.

There was some laughter in the auditorium, but the whistle didn't pay attention.

"Not long ago, my friend and I proposed the name 'thermodynamics' in a paper as the name of a new subject. Maybe some people feel disapproved of this, but I can completely understand, after all, this subject is so immature, like a baby..."

Faraday, who was sitting in the first row, couldn't help smiling when he heard the words.

More than ten years ago, in a similar scene, he also compared his discoveries in the electromagnetic field to a baby.

"Although thermodynamics is as immature as a baby, I believe that the birth of this subject is inevitable for the development of physics, and it will also grow into one of the most important branches of physics, just like mechanics and electricity." Ma Shao continued to tell .

"In fact, the gestation of thermodynamics has been going on for a long time, especially in recent decades, with Earl Rumford's discovery, people have gradually realized the nature of heat..."

As a physics teacher, for him, speaking physics on the podium is simply an instinct, just like eating and drinking water.

After a while, he was fully in the mood, talking eloquently, and even had a professional habit.

"Look at the blackboard." After writing down a few lines of formulas on the blackboard, Ma Whistle tapped on the blackboard and said at the same time, which made the professors in the audience look at each other in dismay.

"He seems to regard us as students..."

"What an arrogant fellow!" Some professors couldn't help feeling annoyed. "No one dares to talk to me like that!"

"Sure enough, a savage!" Mackintosh was naturally even more annoyed, but this angry curse sounded unfounded, because no one could deny that the content of the horse whistle was very good.

Some audience members praised: "To be honest, I think his speech is perfect. After listening to what he said, I was completely convinced by him—thermodynamics must be one of the most important branches of physics."

"He was indeed a physicist, an Indian scientist, and it was wonderful..."

People were talking.

Ma Shao talked about the history of physics for half an hour. Even the lay reporters listened with gusto. They might not understand those formulas, but they could understand the stories of physicists.

As the narrative progresses, he speaks of the law of conservation of energy.

Ma Shao: "I think most people here have accepted the 'Law of Conservation of Energy', or the 'First Law of Thermodynamics'."

"This law tells us that energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be transformed from one form to another... From this we can be sure that perpetual motion machines cannot be made, and everything about perpetual motion machines All attempts are doomed to failure.”

Before the words were finished, there was another burst of intensive discussions in the auditorium.

Perpetual motion machines are a hot topic.

Due to countless failed attempts by predecessors, most scientists have basically realized that perpetual motion machines cannot be made.

But until recent years, with the discovery and popularization of the law of conservation of energy, scientists have really given up on this idea.

"It's really a pity that the law of conservation of energy has pronounced the death sentence of perpetual motion machines, and it is impossible for us to obtain this dream device..."

"Maybe we can imagine another energy device, such as letting the temperature of seawater drop to extract energy..."

In these discussions, it was no surprise that Mashao heard some remarks about the second type of perpetual motion machines.

So he went on to say: "Since energy can only be transferred, can we design such a device that although it cannot create energy, it can extract energy from things with huge energy, such as the ocean, we only need Let the world's sea water drop by one degree Celsius, and the energy obtained may be enough to keep the train running for 10 years."

"That sounds good..." people said.

"What do you think?" Joule looked at Thomson beside him.

"Hmm... My intuition tells me that this seems impossible." Thomson mused.

The horse whistle let people discuss for a while, and then said: "However, I regret to tell you that such a design is also impossible to exist. In fact, I think this design can be called a 'second-type perpetual motion machine'. It's as absurd as a perpetual motion machine of the first kind."

(End of this chapter)