A Man of Science and Engineering in Troubled Times Wandering in the Late Qing Dynasty

Chapter 114

Li Yu and the others got out of the carriage, ready to stop and watch for a few minutes before continuing on their way. Anyway, the current city is not big, so there will be no delay.

Someone nearby was yelling loudly: "Miracle, miracle! Look at the statue in front of my house, dripping holy water from the Father!"

A group of people surrounded a middle-aged man with oily hair and a big beard, and many of them were women.

The middle-aged man stood in front of a statue of the crucifixion, and talked to the crowd in front of him: "I said long ago that I can predict the future. The land under my feet has received the Gospel, and I am the embodiment of the Gospel! You see, this is the divine water from the Lord, which can cleanse your sinful souls."

The feet of the statue of Jesus in front of him dripped water from time to time, which seemed quite miraculous.

All the onlookers regarded it as a miracle, and stepped forward to collect water and drink it devoutly.

The middle-aged man proudly said: "Pray! Remember, this is the water of God brought to you by me, Rasputin!"

Rasputin!

I'm dizzy, Li Yu didn't expect to meet this super master when he first arrived in St. Petersburg.

Now he hasn't entered the imperial palace yet, but he has already started bluffing around St. Petersburg, the purpose of course is to attract the attention of the nobles.

This kid was born as a peasant and had little education. He was in an Orthodox monastery before, but he often had sex with female believers, and the priest expelled him for the sake of the sanctity of the monastery.

At this time, many Russian nobles were obsessed with theology, and Rasputin frantically created priests, and many people really believed it.

Three years later, he entered the palace of Tsar Nicholas II, cured the crown prince's illness by mistake, and won the trust of the queen.

This kid is really daring, and even put a cuckold on the Tsar again!

Although the Tsar noticed it, he once again gained the trust of Nicholas II through tricks!
Even when Nicholas II was on his own during the First World War, this kid actually controlled the government in the country, and the important ministers changed at will.

The key point is that Nicholas II trusted him very much, and he had to ask Rasputin's opinion before going to war.I don't know how much this kid contributed to the fiasco of Tsarist Russia in World War I.

Rasputin was very lecherous in private, had improper relationships with many aristocratic women, and liked to collect the hair of unbroken women.Later, it was also rumored that after his death, a museum collected his "baby", which is said to be very large.

It's like the Russian version of "The Wheel-Running King" Lai Ai.

Li Yu said to Markov: "Is this person very popular now?"

Markov said disdainfully: "It's just a local ruffian, but unfortunately we can't stop the fanaticism of believers."

Looking from a distance, Zhang Deyi saw that the surface of the feet of the crucifix was indeed dripping, so he said, "It seems that Jesus really appeared."

Li Yu hated gods the most, and he didn't care about the Kazan Cathedral. He looked around the statue from a distance and said to Markov: "You can ask the municipal department to take a look, it's probably because the sewer is leaking. "

Markov didn't see anything strange for a moment, and asked, "The sewer?"

Li Yu nodded: "There is a crack on the statue. I think it's just a sewer pipe underneath. It's probably leaking. Then the capillary siphon phenomenon caused the water to flow to the statue and then drip down again."

Lyapunov next to him couldn't help laughing: "So, what they drink is the sewage from the toilet?"

Li Yu put his finger on his mouth: "Hush! Keep your voice down, exposing him now may cause dissatisfaction among believers."

Markov couldn't stop laughing: "I've long felt that many so-called miracles are wrong, but I didn't expect you to be able to see through them at a glance."

These things have long been dismantled in later generations, and in Li Yu's eyes, they are all bad tricks that can't be played any worse.

It's just that the believers are immersed in the pious state of drinking "holy water", interrupted rashly, and then told them that they were actually drinking toilet water flushed from Rasputin's house, and they would definitely be beaten.

Several people held back their laughter and boarded the carriage, heading again towards Vasily Island where St. Petersburg University is located.

On the road, we also passed the Winter Palace where the Tsar lived. The Winter Palace is located on the shore. After crossing the bridge, St. Petersburg University is very close.

To be precise, the full name should now be St. Petersburg Royal University, which was established together with the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and is the first university in Russia.

Markov first brought Li Yu to the Department of Mathematics and Mechanics.

Since Lobachevsky, Russia has become a major country in mathematics. Until the 21st century, Russian mathematics was second to none in the world.

However, Lobachevsky was too advanced, and the non-Euclidean geometry he created did not attract the attention of the world until 12 years after his death.

In the real sense, it should be the Petersburg School founded by Chebyshev that laid the foundation for Russian mathematics.

Similar to the school of Pythagoras in Greece, Chebyshev led his disciples Markov and Lyapunov to almost completely establish the status of Russian mathematics in the world.

In fact, Li Yu didn't dare to speak in the Department of Mathematics, especially the Department of Mathematics-Mechanics is still the trump card major of St. Petersburg University.

It is as strong as Einstein's later respect to mathematicians Hilbert, Minkowski and others.

It's just that most people should have an illusion, as if since modern times, mathematicians are not as famous as physicists, chemists, and biologists.

The main reason is that some of the content studied by earlier mathematicians can be learned in high school, such as Newton and Leibniz's calculus, Gaussian normal distribution, Euler's identity, Cartesian coordinate system, La Grange's mean value theorem, etc., don't care if you remember it or not, you can always say that.

But the development of mathematics in the middle of the 19th century, almost from the time of Poincaré, or a little earlier, began to move towards fields such as group theory, number theory, and abstract algebra that ordinary people could not understand at all.

Of course, there are some special cases, such as some very simple questions in number theory, which are indeed too famous, such as Fermat's last theorem and Goldbach's conjecture, so simple that countless civil subjects are encouraged by Chen Jingrun to prove it.

In fact, as long as you read their papers a little, you will find that you may not be able to understand them in the next life.

There is also the Riemann conjecture that is now popular, but this is more difficult, so don't think about it.Even many people may not know that this is also a number theory problem, which studies the distribution of prime numbers.

As for many other famous mathematicians in the industry, their reputation in the society is much lower than that of those who study physics, chemistry and biology.Not many people even know that Wiles, who proved Fermat's last theorem, and Perelman, who proved the Poincaré conjecture, are super strong mathematical advances.

However, people in the field of physics, chemistry and biology know that mathematicians are awesome, and they have to ask them for many questions, and Einstein is no exception.

Fortunately, most of the Petersburg School of Mathematics studies are in the field of probability method and differential equations, which are basically subjects that Li Yu is relatively familiar with, and they will be used in physics.

　I made a small mistake before, and the capital of Russia at this time is actually St. Petersburg.It has been changed.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)