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

Chapter 172 The Unique Observatory
At the beginning of the [-]th century, the astronomical research in the United States had already reached the top level in the world, and it will become more and more powerful.

Of course, this requires conditions, and the countless observatories alone are the envy of European countries.

At present, almost all well-known American universities have observatories.

After the U.S. industry became stronger, many entrepreneurs naturally gave back to education, made various donations, and the cost of building an observatory seemed like a drizzle to them.

European universities are the most envious, rich and self-willed!

In addition, Li Yu is now well-known, and he is almost the hottest person in the astronomical circle. As soon as the invitation from the president of the American Astronomical Society, Newcomb, was sent out, many university observatories enthusiastically invited him.

On this day, someone came to the hotel early in the morning.

Several middle-aged men in suits entered the hotel, came to the front desk and asked, "Is there a Chinese named Li Yu in your hotel? We are from Johns Hopkins University and would like to meet him."

At the front desk was a tall, blond beauty who looked less than 20 years old. She replied: "I'm sorry sir, you have found the wrong hotel. Please go to the Waffle Hotel in the next block."

People from Johns Hopkins University thought it was unlikely to go wrong, so they said, "Isn't it here?"

The beauty said: "Sir, this is not Baltimore, but Washington, of course I am more familiar with it."

They thought about it for a while and it seemed reasonable, so they apologized and said, "I'm sorry, ma'am, let's go to another block."

The beauty breathed a sigh of relief, and as soon as she relaxed, someone came up again: "We are looking for a Mr. Li Yu, we are from Kangnai..."

The beauty said directly: "I'm sorry, sir, you also went wrong. People from Johns Hopkins University have gone to the Waffle Hotel in the next block just now. I think there is still time for you to catch up early."

The person from Cornell University immediately thanked: "Thank you ma'am!" and then ran out.

The blond beauty suddenly stuck out her tongue, smiled to herself, and then left the front desk.

"Boom boom boom!"

There was a knock on the door, and Li Yu opened the door. Outside stood a tall American woman with blond hair, fair but not so fair complexion, and black eyes, a mixture of east and west.

The beauty said, "Are you Li Yu?"

Opening his mouth and speaking fluent Chinese, Li Yu asked in surprise, "You are?"

The beauty smiled slightly, showing her shallow white teeth, "My name is Sierra, and I am from Radcliffe College of Harvard University. I heard that you want to use the observatory. I am here to invite you on behalf of the Harvard University Observatory."

"It came really fast," Li Yu said, "Harvard University, since you are the first to come, it's okay, then the Harvard University Observatory."

In addition to a few observatories on the West Coast in the United States, the Harvard Observatory is indeed quite good.

Sierra said: "Then let's set off as soon as possible, otherwise a lot of people will come after us in a while."

"Who?" Li Yu asked.

Sierra said, "Never mind, let's go."

At the door of the hotel, they got into a carriage and went to the railway station.

Harvard University is in Boston, and it takes half a day to go there by train.

On the way, Li Yu asked, "Why do you feel a little oriental?"

Sierra smiled and said, "You can finally see that I am about a quarter of Chinese blood."

"No wonder you speak Chinese so well." Li Yu said.

"Of course, I was born in Singapore with a British mother and a Chinese grandmother who taught me Chinese since I was a child," Sierra said.

"I see."

This kind of situation is not particularly uncommon. After all, there are too many British people in Singapore, India and other places, and there are many people who choose to settle down.

"Are you a student at Harvard University?" Li Yu asked.

Sierra shook her head: "No, I'm at Radcliffe College. Although the professors are all from Harvard, it can only be counted as a women's branch."

Except for some universities on the west coast, such as Stanford University and the University of California, which have already started coeducation, these private universities in the eastern United States basically do not enroll women, especially Yale University is a super typical one.

Harvard University did not accept female students, but some professors began to teach some women at Radcliffe College outside, and Harvard had to accept the existence of this special women's branch.

Li Yu said, "Sierra is your first name. I don't know what your last name is?"

"Carnegie," Sierra said.

Li Yu turned his head for a while, and suddenly felt a little immobile, "Carnegie?! Are you from the Carnegie family?"

Sierra said, "What's wrong?"

"Is it Andrew Carnegie?" Li Yu asked.

Sierra said, "That's my uncle."

Sure enough, he is of Chinese descent, and Sierra can still distinguish these generations. If he is an American, the elder brother called grandpa is still called grandpa. There are not so many names.

But I didn't expect that she really came from the Carnegie family.

Due to the literature of later generations, many people think that Carnegie is a success scientist. In fact, at the beginning of the [-]th century, this Carnegie was an absolute big entrepreneur and philanthropist, but his reputation was not as good as another Carnegie.

If we talk about the top four consortiums in the United States at this point in time, steel magnate Carnegie is definitely on the list.Although his assets may not be comparable to Rockefeller and Morgan, but at this time, Carnegie is definitely not far behind when it comes to the dollar cash in hand.

Because just two years ago, he sold his company to Morgan for $[-] million.

5 million US dollars at the beginning of the [-]th century, what a concept!
From then on, Carnegie began to only do charity, slowly dissipating his family wealth.

This kind of life pattern is really indescribable.

Carnegie has very few descendants, but his younger brother Tom, who co-founded the Carnegie Steel Company with him, has many descendants.

Li Yu must know about Carnegie, and said with a smile, "If Harvard doesn't want you, just buy it!"

Sierra chuckled: "Grandpa doesn't have that idea, but he has created a university himself."

Li Yu must know this, and blurted out: "It's Carnegie Mellon University."

Sierra frowned: "No, it should be Carnegie Institute of Technology."

It seems that the Mellon consortium has not invested in the shares yet, Li Yu said, "I misheard."

Sierra has great confidence in Carnegie: "I believe that sooner or later it will be a university."

Of course, the future generations of Carnegie Mellon University are amazing.

"One more little thing, do you have a Chinese name?" Li Yu asked.

Sierra shook her head: "No, my grandmother originally said she would give me a Chinese name when I was 16 years old, but she passed away early and only had a Chinese baby name, but..."

Li Yu smiled and said, "I know, I won't inquire about this."

Sierra also smiled and said, "Thank you."

Li Yu said again: "I really didn't expect that Harvard would send a female student this morning."

"This!" Sierra said, "When you get to the Harvard University Observatory, you will understand that there is no man except the director."

Li Yu muttered in a low voice: "This director is too cool."

Sierra asked, "What did you say?"

Li Yu waved his hand: "It's nothing, I mean, why do you want to study astronomy?"

Sierra said: "My maternal grandfather was a professor of physics at Cambridge University. I have been studying physics since I was six years old."

"Well, you are earlier than me." Li Yu said.

"And my maternal grandfather also inherited the title of Baron Raleigh, but by then he was in decline," Sierra said.

Li Yu felt that this girl was too talkative. Although she was influenced by American culture, the American culture at this time was still very different from the American culture in Li Yu's last life 100 years later.

But Li Yu also understood Sierra's life experience.There are more declining nobles in Europe, Americans are rich now, and many of them are willing to marry the descendants of nobles to improve their wealth.

It just so happens that Carnegie himself is from England (Scotland to be exact), and he has a high sense of identity with the British aristocracy.

And even if it fell, Baron Raleigh was at least a professor of physics at Cambridge University at the time. The Carnegie family at that time was not as prominent as it is now. After all, Carnegie's rise was too fast.

After coming to the Observatory of Harvard University, Li Yu finally understood what he said on Sierra Road: They are really all women!

This is too incredible!Looking at all the observatories around the world, I am afraid there is no such thing.

The director of the Harvard University Observatory is called Pickering, and he personally greeted Li Yu and shook hands with him: "Welcome! All the staff of the Harvard University Observatory send our highest blessings!"

A dozen or so women behind applauded together, and Li Yu said with a smile: "The director is too polite, and I am also very honored."

The current facilities of the Harvard University Observatory are relatively advanced, and the personnel are also really advanced!
It's also interesting to talk about.

Almost 20 years ago, Director Pickering was about to carry out a huge stellar spectrum classification work, but his assistants were slow and often made mistakes, so Pickering said angrily: "My maids are better than you. !"

As a result, Pickering really called his maid Fleming, and it turned out that Fleming was really awesome, and he was more rigorous and meticulous in his work, much better than the previous male assistant.

Then Pickering fired the male assistant.

Although Fleming doesn't know astronomy, it doesn't matter. Pickering will take good spectral photos, and then let Fleming sort and summarize. In short, the work is progressing much better.

Affected by this, Pickering recruited all female workers afterwards.

Of course, women's salaries are much lower than men's at this time.

Pickering's salary is 30 cents an hour, which is much better than other jobs, so he has gathered here almost the best group of female astronomers in the United States.

This has also become a major feature, and people have nicknamed it "Pickering's Harem".

Pickering said: "I didn't know you would come this morning. Who would have thought that a top scholar in the literary world would suddenly visit today."

Li Yu asked in surprise, "Didn't you send her to find me?"

Sierra coughed and said, "I'm acting as a substitute, but it's always a good thing."

Then winked at Pickering.

Pickering quickly changed the subject: "Come in and see our observatory."

Although Li Yu felt a little weird, let's put it aside for the time being, after all, it is the real Harvard University Observatory.

The female astronomers at the Harvard University Observatory returned to their stations to continue their classification work.

Surrounded by women, Li Yu felt a little uncomfortable.

The stellar spectrum classification currently being carried out by the Harvard University Observatory is a very important thing. One of the tools that humans rely on most to measure the universe, analyze the composition of stars, and the physical and chemical properties of various stars is actually the stellar spectrum.

The research results of the Harvard University Observatory mainly show that the temperature and color of stars can be known through the spectral type of stars.

A little more, the so-called spectrum can be understood so simply:
First of all, the continuous spectrum is the complete spectrum, which is emitted by an ideal black body, and also emitted by a hot solid, such as a desk lamp.

The element can then either emit its own emission spectrum, or at the same time absorb the spectrum it can emit.

For example sodium, its spectrum is just two bright yellow lines.

If you put sodium vapor around the lamp, you get a spectrum without those two lines.

That is to say, there are two corresponding dark lines on a continuous spectrum.

In this way, people can know the elemental composition of stars.

This is a very ingenious method, and it is the most typical way of interpreting nature with the scientific method.

After all, only in 1830, Comte, the founder of French positivist philosophy, said in his book: "Humans will never know the chemical composition of stars, because you can't go to the stars to detect them."

But he never imagined that within a few years, humans would do it.

Helium was even discovered by analyzing the spectrum of the sun, and even in 1895, Scottish chemist Ramsey actually found helium on Earth.

Of course, Fraunhofer and Kirchhoff have to be mentioned in spectroscopy. Although the two gentlemen have passed away, they told the world with practical actions that human beings can explore the distant universe through science!It is indispensable.

It's just that although Kirchhoff understands spectroscopy, he doesn't understand why elements have the property of emitting a specific spectrum and absorbing a spectrum.

This is what quantum mechanics can explain later.

Although these female astronomers at the Harvard University Observatory drew the earliest one-dimensional classification method in stellar spectral classification, they have revealed the relationship between stellar temperature and color.

In fact, not only astronomy, but also the problem of black body radiation in the two dark clouds is also studying the problem of temperature and color:

For black bodies at different temperatures, their radiation curves correspond to a different peak wavelength.To put it simply, it can also be understood as judging the color by temperature, or conversely judging the temperature by color.

In fact, people began to study such a simple matter, but they did not expect to come up with quantum mechanics for this purpose.

After all, the sun is an ideal black body.

Some people have started to classify stellar spectra before, but the classifications done are very few and not very representative.

The Harvard University Observatory has great ambitions. They want to classify the spectra of more than 20 stars!
This is an era without computers, all relying on the naked eye and manual classification, basically done by these female astronomers.

Now that astrophysics is getting a lot of attention, Li Yu can just use the Harvard Observatory to make some big moves and do something on their territory, so as to persuade the Yankees to obediently return the Boxer indemnity early.

A year earlier is a good thing.

Anyway, what Li Yu is most competitive with now is his brain, and he can only rely on this.

It just so happens that he has a lot of reserves about astrophysics or astronomy in his mind, and it is also one of his housekeeping skills.

Yankees, take a good look!
(End of this chapter)