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

A few people discussed and let Zou Rong enter the Patriotic Society first, followed by Cai Yuanpei and Zhang Shizhao, who are progressives anyway, chat with some, and then find an opportunity to travel east to Japan.

When Li Yu returned to Nanjing Road, Xie Yuxi had already returned from Jing'an Temple West.

Hartung's face was full of glory and he was very happy: "Ms. is really generous. You want to buy such a large piece of land for education."

Li Yu asked Xie Yuxi: "Have you already chosen a place?"

Xie Yuxi said: "I don't like to procrastinate. After looking at the map, Mr. Hartung drove me around again. It seems that the best place is next to the 20 acres of land you bought back then."

Well, my choice can be regarded as helping her point the way.

Li Yu asked, "How much do you want to buy?"

Xie Yuxi said: "About 300 mu on the west side, I want it together."

Li Yu smiled and said, "You are really ruthless. Buying land is like going to a vegetable market to buy vegetables."

Xie Yuxi is not stupid: "I have inquired about the land price, and it is already very low."

Hartong said: "The price I gave to Ms. Xie is lower than what I gave you at the beginning, after all, the area is so large. 420 taels per mu of land, minus the odds, the total land price is 13 taels."

It is indeed much more expensive than in Tianjin.

With such a large piece of land, a primary and secondary school can be built, and then an elementary university can be built.

As for the more than 20 acres of land that Li Yu bought before, Li Yu plans to build a small scientific research base for his own use, and private space is still needed.

Of course Hartung was happy. With 13 taels, the taxes and fees alone would be about 6 to 2 taels, plus the cost of supporting facilities and unspoken rules and relationships, it would be close to [-] taels that just went into his pocket.

So the actual cost will be more than 25 taels, which is close to 50 US dollars.

It can be said to be the largest expenditure.

The procedures required for such a large investment are rather cumbersome. Taking advantage of Xie Yuxi's vacancy in the initial procedures, Li Yu was going to the Commercial Press to find Zhang Yuanji, whose textbooks were about to be printed.

Seeing Li Yu, Zhang Yuanji said happily: "I have sent sample books to almost all the new schools I can contact, and they like it very much! In less than half a month, I have received orders from dozens of schools." , there will definitely be more in the future.”

Li Yu said with a smile: "It's so popular, we must pay more attention to details in future reprints."

Those who read these introductory textbooks must be children or people who are beginners in science. Regardless of their absorptive ability, at least they can't lead in a wrong way.

One of the people in the room heard that Li Yu was in front of him, and immediately stepped forward and said, "You are the emperor's master, Mr. Li Yu, a master of science?"

Li Yu asked, "Your Excellency?"

"I am Wang Jilie, and my name is Jinyu. I am currently compiling a college book on physics. After hearing Mr. De's writing, I am really shocked!"

The most important contribution of Wang Jilie is that he has done a lot for the spread of modern physics in China.

Although Wang Jilie did not major in physics, he had a good understanding of the importance of science early on, so after winning the Juren, he started to translate physics books.

Five years ago, in 1898, Wang Jilie and the British Fryer translated a physics book published in the United States: "X-Ray, or Photography of Invisible Rays and Its Importance in Surgery".

This is a modern translation method. Wang Jilie's Chinese translation at this time is actually "Physical Power".

This book provides a fairly comprehensive introduction to X-rays.Introduces in detail the discovery history of X-rays, the characteristics of circuits and electrical components needed to generate X-rays, the structure, installation, and operation of X-ray machines, the principle of X-ray photography and its application in medicine, with human hands and fish bones More than 30 X-ray photographs of other objects.

But what is really interesting is that Wang Jilie pointed out in the book, "Aix is ​​the word'tian' used in Chinese algebraic formulas. Today, because the meaning of the word 'Tianguang' is too obscure, it was changed to 'Tongwu Dianguang' in translation. '."

In fact, this reflects a major problem in translating scientific books at this time: the lack of scientific terms.

Therefore, Wang Jilie could only directly transliterate the letter "X" into "Aix"; X-ray was translated into "Tongwu Dianguang" according to his own understanding.

Fortunately, neither "Aix", "Tianguang" or "Tongwu Dianguang" have been really used.

Although this aspect is a bit different from later generations, Wang Jilie was still the one who truly translated the word "Gezhi" into the more general "physics" since then.

China's first physics textbook "Physics" in the sense of a university is also written by him.

This "Physics" is translated from Japan.The original editor was a lecturer at the University of Tokyo named Iimori Tatsuzo. He compiled this book based on German physics books, and it was also his lecture notes in class.

Since Iimmori Tatsuzo himself was not up to the standard in mathematics, he mainly focused on physical concepts when compiling his lecture notes, and seldom did mathematical deduction.

But it is precisely because of this that the difficulty of this book is greatly reduced, and he added a lot of illustrations, so it is very popular in Japan.

Later, Toyohachi Fujita, a Japanese who was teaching in China, recommended this book and cooperated with Wang Jilie to translate this book into Chinese.

Fujita Toyohachi originally wanted to use "Gezhixue" as the title of the book, but Wang Jilie advocated using the translated name "Physics" that existed in ancient China and has been adopted in Japanese.

The term was indeed quickly accepted by Chinese academic circles, and "Gezhi" as a translated name for physics also withdrew from the historical stage.

If you read it, you will definitely feel your scalp tingling like reading the Qing Dynasty calculus textbook.

Because although the three volumes and 20 characters in the book do not sound like much, it is written in classical Chinese, and the symbol system still uses Li Shanlan's set of heavenly stems and earthly branches instead of abcd.

Even Li Yu, a person with high scientific accomplishment, looks very painful.

In fact, the reading threshold has been increased.

Li Yu saw Wang Jilie's version of "Physics" on the table, which had already translated volumes [-] and [-], and said, "Brother Jinyu's perseverance is truly admirable."

——It is a bit embarrassing for a person who has no scientific foundation at all to translate this kind of college physics textbook.

But Wang Jilie said: "I have been deeply worried since I saw the Western notation system used in the introductory textbook compiled by the Imperial Teachers. If this is the case, won't it be incompatible with the textbook "Physics" I wrote for colleges?"

Li Yu said with a smile: "If you want to go out into the world, using this new symbol system is inevitable."

Wang Jilie shook his head and said, "No, no, it's so radical, I'm afraid the students won't be able to accept it."

Li Yu definitely couldn't change the correct way back, so he said: "Mr. doesn't seem to have done physics problems. If it is calculated, it is much more convenient to use letters and numbers."

Wang Jilie said: "I can also count, and I don't find it difficult."

Li Yu asked, "Then if you want to solve an equation, how about doing force analysis?"

Wang Jilie really didn't know much about in-depth physics, so he said vaguely, "I think it's okay."

Li Yu said: "If the master tried to solve a mechanics problem, he would not say so."

Toyohachi Fujita behind Wang Jilie said: "Mr. Li Yu is right. I also said before that we should use the Western-style notation system. After all, students who study physics must learn English, and it will not be an obstacle."

Wang Jilie was a little hesitant. He felt that his awareness of progress was enough, but it was still difficult to accept this point. "Isn't this a complete Westernization route? How can we embody the idea of ​​learning from the middle school and learning from the West."

After all, Wang Jilie was Zhang Zhidong's aide, and he couldn't get rid of this set of educational ideas.

Li Yu said: "Since it is for Western learning, it is natural to use it more comfortably. It is precisely this symbol system that is the most comfortable in scientific calculations. And you must understand that this set of "Physics" is just a textbook. Going a step further, there are still more things to learn, and what you have to read at that time is first-hand Western literature, and you have to get in touch with the alphabet after all.”

"It seems... there is some reason," Wang Jilie looked at the textbook in front of him, "The emperor is the most scientific person in China. You mean to use the alphabet of foreigners?"

Li Yu said firmly: "It must be so!"

Li Yu helped him make a decision, and Wang Jilie said: "The emperor is so determined, I have no choice but to go back and revise it."

The status of Emperor Teacher is really useful!
Although Li Yu disdains this title, it has to be said that it is very easy to use in many cases and saves a lot of unnecessary trouble.

If it is promoted abruptly, the resistance is not yet known.

Moreover, as a time traveler, he really understood what the so-called "Chinese learning is for the body and Western learning is for application", which is different from the understanding in the late Qing Dynasty.

Chinese itself, as a unique isolated language in the world (simply put, it does not have the grammar and word forms in English, and completely depends on the context), is too compatible, far surpassing languages ​​​​such as Japanese, and is not afraid of various foreign words at all.

Li Yu found out the book Introductory to Mathematical Symbols that he compiled and wrote, and handed it to Wang Jilie: "Sir, you can use it for reference."

Wang Jilie flipped through the book, it was a thin book, but the organization was very clear.

Li Yu is indeed at this level. As a man of science and technology, he doesn't talk too much nonsense. If he didn't write a Star Wars book, he wouldn't ask Lu Bicheng to polish it.

Although he also thought about learning Hemingway's writing skills of concise writing and short sentences, the so-called "no skill is the best skill".

It turns out that people are actually swords that turn invisible, let alone learn from them.

But there is nothing wrong with Li Yu's scientific books written at such a dry level. They are textbooks anyway, and they don't need rhetoric or literary level.

Wang Jilie bowed deeply: "Sir, you are a great talent. You are both an emperor's teacher and a master of science. Your advice must be followed."

Of course, Wang Jilie is somewhat traditional in his heart, otherwise he would not take the Jinshi examination next year.

The key point is that after so many years of scientific translation, they actually passed the Jinshi exam again.

Of course, next year's imperial examination will also be the last imperial examination in Chinese history.

Li Yu hurriedly said: "You are too polite, sir! It is not easy to compile Western science books, and I also admire your spirit."

Wang Jilie said: "Today I will take my husband's textbooks and continue to improve my set of "Physics."

Li Yu cupped his hands and said, "Sir, you've worked hard."

It is possible to persuade him to use alphabetic symbols, but it is impossible to change him to vernacular in a short time.

Now through Zhang Yuanji's publicity, not only the school is ordering, but some people in the society are also eager to buy it as soon as possible, and even directly find the commercial printing house.

When Li Yu was discussing the content of the book with Zhang Yuanji, someone approached him.

"Shopkeeper, I want to buy a book!"

Zhang Yuanji raised his head and said, "How much do you want?"

"One hundred sets, I want to display them in my scientific instrument hall," the other party said, and then he was taken aback for a moment, "Are you, Mr. Li Yu?"

Li Yu said, "That's right!"

"Oh! I ran into it! Great! I'm sightseeing in Xiazhong, and I'm building a scientific instrument museum in Shanghai."

Well, it turned out to be the great botanist Zhong Guanguang.

In the field of Chinese botany, the name of Zhong Guanguang is absolutely unavoidable.

He was the first scholar to extensively study plant taxonomy with scientific methods in China, and also the pioneer of modern botany. He later served as a professor at Peking University and Zhejiang University.

Li Yu had heard his name before, "Mr. Zhong, hello!"

Zhong Guanguang was very excited: "It's not easy to meet you. The library in my library is full of your works, but I admire you very much!"

Li Yu is considering the purchase of scientific instruments after the school building is established in the future. After talking with him for a while, he found that his scientific instrument hall can handle this matter, so it is necessary to go there.

Zhong Guangguan had been admitted as a scholar before, but after the Sino-Japanese War, he deeply felt that the Qing court was corrupt, which led to repeated foreign aggressions.It is believed that in order to avoid foreign aggression, it is necessary to develop science and set up industries in order to seek the revitalization of China.

So he resolutely decided to study science by himself, bought a lot of science books compiled by Li Shanlan and Fryer of the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, and even did experiments according to the books.

In order to be able to learn the latest scientific and technological progress, he taught himself Japanese and asked someone to buy mathematics, physics and chemistry books from Japan.

In the year before last, in 1901, he co-founded the Shanghai Scientific Instrument Museum.

However, it was originally a business name, not a science and technology museum in the later sense of the exhibition hall.

Because he didn't have much money to run this kind of public welfare organization at that time.

Since it is called the Science and Technology Museum, the products on display have nothing to do with people's daily necessities of life. The Scientific Instruments Museum sells scientific instruments imported from Japan.

At that time, there were very few people studying science, and Zhong Guanguang didn't know how to publicize, so the instrument hall was left in the cold.It has been open for more than a month, but there is only one customer, selling goods for ten yuan, which can be said to be a miserable operation.

Fortunately, there is no unparalleled road. In September of this year, the Qing government issued the "Xingxue Edict", requiring the establishment of new schools in various places. Scientific instruments and specimen models suddenly became the necessities of the new schools.

In just two years, the Instrument Hall has been able to supply physical and chemical instruments, measuring supplies, specimen models and stationery atlases required by various schools.

And with the increase in the variety of supplies, a workshop has also been set up in the museum, which can imitate imported products and engage in instrument repairs.

Since then, the business of the instrument hall will continue to expand. Since getting rid of the predicament when it was started, it has started to develop steadily with the help of policy dividends, and opened branches in Shenyang and Hankou.

So if you want to buy scientific instruments for teaching, you can go through Zhong Guan's Shanghai Scientific Instrument Museum.