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

Chapter 20 Who is Yu Li
Lord Kelvin came over: "Let me see how he proved it."

He directly moved a chair and sat next to President Huggins.

Lord Kelvin has a wide range of research fields, not only the most famous thermodynamics, he has made contributions in the fields of electromagnetism, fluid mechanics, geophysics, engineering applications and so on.

President Huggins majored in astronomy and spectroscopy.Being able to achieve the position of president of the Royal Society must be a real talent.

When the two of them finished reading the thesis, they were quite shocked. President Huggins first said: "It is indeed a remarkable thesis, more than enough for a doctoral dissertation."

Lord Kelvin said: "It's more than that! I haven't seen a few papers of this level in so many years."

Huggins turned to the part of the paper about predicting that X-rays are electromagnetic waves and using crystals to diffract. "This scholar's physics and mathematics are really solid, but I always feel that he seems to be hiding something."

"Are you aware of it too?" Lord Kelvin lit his pipe, took a deep breath, and said, "At first I thought it was because he was too knowledgeable, and he didn't discuss it in depth after he stopped in some places. But this one is called Yu Li's Chinese writing style is obviously very confident, even though he has done it very quietly, I can still vaguely feel that he deliberately withdrew his hand, as for why, I can't figure it out."

The editor on the side, Jorsen, said: "Could it be because of the length? Because we have limited the length of the article in our call for papers."

President Huggins nodded: "That's the only way to explain it. But as far as these two points of view are concerned, if it is true, it is also at the level of two Nobel Prizes."

"Unbelievable." Kelvin pondered while holding a pipe. "As for whether he can win the prize, it depends on whether the verification experiment he mentioned can be done. An experiment with such precision is not easy."

The two masters had already guessed what Li Yu was thinking. He did hide it deliberately, but he did not escape the eyes of the top scholars.

The reason? Of course, he didn't want to shock the world too much.

In fact, the Nobel Prizes in Physics in 1914 and 1915 were indeed awarded for the study of X-ray diffraction and X-ray crystallography.

It's just that Li Yu is not good at doing this kind of experiment. Such a high-precision experiment needs to pay attention to a lot of details and adjust a lot of equipment.At that time, many more papers will definitely be needed.

So if the Nobel Prize is awarded, he will be nominated at most. Even so, he is still a first-class scholar echelon, T0 level!

Besides, this was just Li Yu's small test of the waters.

But President Huggins and Lord Kelvin can't take this as a test of the waters!For them, it is indeed very advanced.

President Huggins said: "My lord, why don't you write a letter to Professor Roentgen, who is an expert in this field, and ask him to read it too."

Lord Kelvin put down his pipe and said, "It is necessary!"

The two quickly wrote a letter jointly.

Roentgen is now a professor of physics at the University of Munich. After seeing Lord Kelvin's letter, he was really shocked by the attached paper, and immediately wrote back:

"This paper has pushed the research of X-rays to a new level, and the viewpoint is extremely forward-looking. I fully support and agree with this paper..."

Soon, Rontgen's praise and Li Yu's paper were published in the "Proceedings of Natural Science" of the Royal Society.

One stone caused a thousand waves, because of Roentgen's strong endorsement, most of the scientific community in Europe saw this paper.

At this time, Europe benefited from the superiority brought about by the powerful science and technology, and was very enthusiastic and respectful of science. Soon, the British "Times" also published an article to report, titled: "Insight from the Kingdom of the Dragon · Cutting-edge Rays" , words of praise.

Of course, Li Yu doesn't know this yet, because he is working hard to learn Japanese and German.

On this day, Sir Sa Daoyi, the British ambassador to the Qing Dynasty, came to the Zongli Yamen.

Yikuang immediately felt dizzy when he saw him: Could it be that he came to ask for money again.

Sa Daoyi signed the "Xin Chou Treaty" on behalf of the United Kingdom back then, so it is relatively early to contact Yikuang.

"Mr. Minister, it's not that the repayment date has not yet been reached, besides, HSBC has already collected the money." Yi Kuang said.

Sa Daoyi shook his head: "I didn't come here for this."

He put a copy of The Times and a telegram on the table, and continued, "I'm here to find a Chinese named Yu Li."

When Yikuang heard that he was not here to collect debts, he relaxed a lot and asked, "Yu Li? Why haven't I heard of it? Who is it? Could it be that someone wants to surround the legation again?"

Sa Daoyi pointed to The Times and said: "Now newspapers in the UK are reporting on this person, saying that his attainments in the field of radiation have reached or even surpassed that of Professor Roentgen."

Ah!The newspapers are really exaggerating a bit.

"Ah?" Countless question marks popped up on Yikuang's forehead, but he had never heard of Ray or Roentgen, so he could only say, "There are people like this. Could it be that they are overseas students we sent? I'll ask the Tongwen Library to check."

Tongwenguan was very close to the Zongli Yamen, so Yikuang immediately ordered his translator, Ruizheng, to look for Ding Weiliang next door.

Yikuang picked up the newspaper and was amazed: "I didn't expect it! I didn't expect it!"

"Not only that," Sa Daoyi held up the telegram, "This is also a telegram that just came from our country yesterday. It was jointly sent by Lord Kelvin and Sir Huggins, the president of the Royal Society. The content of the telegram is to ask our embassy to help find This is a man called Yu Li."

For such a long-distance telegram, the price per word is extremely high.

The Times has deep pockets and doesn't care about the money.But the telegrams received by the embassy were personally sent by Lord Kelvin and President Huggins.

Yikuang didn't know what kind of people Lord Kelvin and Huggins were, but the president of the Royal Society sounded like he should be a position in the Imperial Academy Jijiu, or a little higher, that is, from the fourth rank or the fourth rank.

But the lord is a bit powerful, after all, the title must be conferred by the royal family.Lord Kelvin is actually a baron. In the Qing Dynasty, he was from the second rank or the second rank, that is, the rank of almost six servants.

Regardless of the fact that the baron is the last of the fifth ranks of Duke, Marquis, Bo, Zi, and male, it is already very powerful.

Hong Chengchou, the rebel general of the Ming Dynasty who made illustrious military exploits at the founding of the country, was only a third-class light chariot captain. From the third rank, he was a whole class lower than the baron.

And the famous governor Liu Mingchuan is only a baron.

The three fierce men Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, and Zuo Zongtang are relatively tall, and these three are marquises.

For the Qing Dynasty, the position of the second rank is already very powerful, and the general ambassador is not so high.

"Yu Li, Yu Li..." Yi Kuang slapped his thigh, "Oh, why did I forget that your names are read upside down, could it be Li Yu?"

　Created a small group, put it under the introduction, if you have nothing to do, you can join in and brag.

　　In addition, please recommend tickets, please collect, haha.

　　


(End of this chapter)