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

It is not a big deal to simply return a painting, but this shows Li Yu's attitude. After the report is published in the future, some people may feel ashamed. Maybe they will take the initiative to return one or two paintings. After all, time has only passed. several years.

If hundreds of years had passed before Li Yu traveled, and the lost cultural relics had been passed down for generations abroad, they could only be auctioned.

Moreover, Italy's combat power is not strong. Although he was in the Eight-Nation Allied Forces, Italy, like Austria-Hungary, was completely for soy sauce.

You can only use soy sauce.

It is not for nothing that Italy is called Italy among the European powers.

Ten years ago, Italy had vainly captured Ethiopia like other powers.I didn't dare to fight at first, and played a very cheap and ridiculous word game: the treaty to the king of Ethiopia was inconsistent with the treaty written in Italian.

The treaty obtained by the king of Ethiopia states that everyone is a good brother, but the Italian text says that I am your father.

As for the subsequent battle, it was even more messy, and Italy was a disastrous defeat.

So after the Qing court learned about it through the French minister, it didn't pay much attention to Italy. No matter how weak I am, I can't be weaker than Ethiopia.

At the beginning, Italy also wanted to frighten Li Hongzhang, saying that we are the orthodox Roman Empire and the spiritual center of the world's Catholicism.But Li Hongzhang is not interested at all. The huge Roman Empire has something to do with me?On the ancestors, I am not bad.

Diplomatically, Italy is very funny. The Italian minister wanted to learn from others and bullied the weak Qing Dynasty, but he didn’t realize that he was actually softer. He sent a note to the Qing court to forcibly rent a piece of land. Unexpectedly, the Qing court didn’t even look at it. I looked back and went back.

The Italian minister was immediately angry and told the country.

Then two telegrams were sent from Italy. The first one was to issue an ultimatum to the Qing court, and the second one believed that it was not suitable to issue an ultimatum at this time, so let’s not use force for the time being.

But the old minister made a mistake in the order!Wrong order!
An ultimatum was issued to the Qing court.

As a result, the whole world was in an uproar and sat and watched the show.

The Italian government couldn't come to Taiwan, so it was extremely embarrassed and forced the elder brother of the minister to withdraw the ultimatum and return to China to report on his duties.

And the new minister wanted to save some face, so he wanted the right to build roads. After all, even the small country of Belgium can do it—he may not know that Zhang Zhidong deliberately found a more neutral country.

The Qing court refused again.

The new minister was so embarrassed when he first took office, and he wanted a coal filling station as the next best thing, and without a doubt, he received the Qing court's one-click three times: no discussion!disagree!impossible!
It can also be regarded as a few tough times in the Qing Dynasty.

The key point is that Italy is really good at military and diplomacy, and there will be more such things in the future.

So, all this has led to a relatively equal diplomatic relationship between Italy and the Qing court.

Pius X felt that everyone was not good at military matters, but there were some sayings about culture, and even Pius X said: "In the future, if Mr. Academician can publish articles in our name, any article is fine, and you can donate it One of your Italian paintings from the collection of the Holy See."

The Vatican is very rich and has been at ease for nearly a thousand years. There are countless precious cultural relics in its collection. There are too many masterpieces by Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and other big names in the Vatican Museum of the Vatican.

As the first batch of academicians of the Holy See Academy of Sciences, Pius X performed the award ceremony very attentively one by one. The certificates and medals were very exquisite, and they were more artistic than any of the ones Li Yu had received before.

Then Pius X led everyone to visit a famous painting in the Vatican, and prepared to copy a copy and put it in the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

Li Yu also really wanted to see this painting - Raphael's "School of Athens", that giant mural depicting a group of Greek sages.

The prototype of the academy in the painting is the Academy created by Plato, and later the word "academy" in English is it.

It contains Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Socrates, Ptolemy, Archimedes, Euclid, Diogenes, etc., and the emperor Alexander.I put six or seven hundred characters in one painting in one brain.

An analogy is equivalent to Confucius, Mozi, Mencius, Qin Shihuang, Dong Zhongshu, and Zhang Heng debating in a room.The painter was Tang Bohu (Tang Bohu and Raphael were almost at the same time).

Li Yu even wanted to ask Li Shutong or Wu Changshuo to paint a picture after returning to China, it was very exciting to think about it.

Let a hundred schools of thought contend, let us improve our cultural self-confidence, and let those who clamored for the abolition of Chinese characters and Chinese medicine in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China take a closer look.

Planck saw Democritus in the lower left corner and said, "It's hard to imagine that someone in the Greek period proposed atomic theory."

This sentence immediately triggered a key word, and Mach said dissatisfiedly: "Mr. Planck, please don't reveal your belief in atoms from time to time."

Mach deliberately used the word "faith" as a pun, not only indicating that several people were in the Vatican, but also mocking Planck's insistence that atomism is a religious metaphor.

"Isn't the evidence enough?" Planck said.

"Evidence? It's just a philosophical discussion now! This Democritus more than 2000 years ago, I prefer to call him a philosopher," said Mach. "If you insist on the belief in the existence of atoms, Then I have nothing more to do with my thinking about physics, I am no longer a qualified physicist, and I can even renounce all scientific reputation."

This sentence is a bit embarrassing.

Planck was a relatively introverted person, and he didn't like to argue with others. Pius X quickly came out to smooth things over: "Ahem! Both of you are important figures in today's scientific world. Debate seems to be an effective means of knowledge advancement. Like ancient Greece more than 2000 years ago."

Cardinal Mariano also took up the words: "The two are like Plato and Aristotle in the center of the picture, representing two factions respectively, and the struggle between the factions is not the reason why Greece can give birth to the spark of wisdom. .”

Mach was even more dissatisfied: "Which one of us do you think is Plato?"

Historically, Aristotle was a student of Plato.

Cardinal Mariano realized that he seemed to have said something wrong. In terms of age, Mach was 20 years older than Planck, but if Planck was his student, Planck would definitely not be willing. Planck installed as president of the Holy See Academy of Sciences.

On the first day, there were conflicts, and Mariano was at a loss for a while.

Piano hadn't spoken much before. He and Planck were in the same year, and he had also heard that Planck was a relatively uncontroversial person, so he helped to speak: "The cardinal must mean that Plato and Ariel Stoudemire represents the thought and the world respectively, and does not emphasize the relationship between master and student."

Raphael put a lot of thought into painting the "School of Athens". In the picture, Plato pointed to the sky, representing his philosophical thought: the ideal society that exists in the mind is the most perfect.

Aristotle, on the other hand, turned his hands to the earth. Since he paid more attention to the present world, he believed that the world that is actually touched through the physical senses is the real world. People must have concrete evidence to support their ideas, rather than having ideas first. Then let the present world move closer.

Anyway, the two philosophies are exactly opposite.

The clothes of the two in the painting are also in line with their ideas: Plato's clothes are red and purple, symbolizing the illusory fire and air in the Greek theory of the four elements;

And Aristotle is wearing blue and brown clothes, representing water and earth that are accessible among the four elements.

The two are standing at position C, which just divides the painting into two, and the Plato side on the left is idealized;
The Aristotle side on the right is more pragmatic.

Of course, there are big names on both sides, such as Pythagoras and Socrates on the left.Because humans have always believed that mathematics was born in purely human logical thinking, which is different from physics.

As for Euclid being placed on the right, it may be because geometry is more realistically instructive.

Cardinal Mariano was very grateful for Piano's relief, and immediately said: "Truth does not lie in age, we only discuss the status of sages."

Mach was somewhat satisfied with this, and said: "Why not, just basing the world picture on physics is a kind of prejudice, and I think it is no different from religion."

Seeing that Mach has always insisted on his own point of view, Planck is not good at tearing it apart directly, and said euphemistically: "If Mr. Mach wants to discuss the relationship between metaphysics and anti-metaphysics with me, it would be better another day. You must see that if the atomic theory is confirmed is correct, and there will be many unexpected benefits, please don't lose sight of that."

"I can't imagine an unintended benefit of being able to use physics more to construct a pleasing worldview," Maher said.

"Of course not," Planck said, "I'm not ignoring the importance of the spiritual world."

In Mach’s view, Planck’s words were subdued, so he didn’t go into further details: “The reason why I readily agreed to enter the Pontifical Academy of Sciences of the Holy See is because I don’t want science to completely rule the world, and the spiritual world is always indispensable!”

Planck's forehead was going to grow bigger, "I never said that science would rule the world."

"No!" said March, "you all think so, you just don't want to admit it."

Mach is indeed quite special. Although he is a physicist, he seems to always want to oppose physics, but he is not on the side of the Holy See.

All in all very special.

Pius X was afraid that they would continue to quarrel, and that he would not be able to intervene too much in scientific arguments, so he quickly changed the subject: "The Holy See has prepared a sumptuous dinner to celebrate the establishment of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, everyone, please come and eat with me."

After all, in St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, everyone still has to give the Pope face, so he left the mural room and went to the restaurant.

Everyone is looking forward to it, because the food quality of several southern European countries on the Aegean Sea is obviously higher than that of Western Europe and Northern Europe.