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

In fact, blood transfusion is of little significance, but when faced with a dying patient, everyone will choose to use all means.

The blood test passed quickly, but Lord Kelvin's blood vessels were not easy to inject at this time. Fortunately, many excellent doctors came.

Dr. Wright of St. Mary's Medical School, University of London, walked out and shouted: "Fleming, hurry, you are the only one who can complete the injection!"

Fleming was already on standby: "I understand, teacher."

Li Yu was stunned for a moment, and Fleming walked past him.

Fleming, who invented penicillin, is now a doctor at Queen Mary Hospital. He has superb medical skills and is born to be a doctor.

Now he is developing arsenophenamine to treat syphilis. Before the birth of penicillin, arsenophenamine was the only way to deal with syphilis.

However, as soon as you hear the name, you know that arsenophenamine is very dangerous. If it is accidentally injected into the muscle, it can cause pain and even amputation.

One of the few and highly respected doctors who knew how to safely inject arsenophenamine was Fleming.For many years, he was the only one in London who could give injections, which shows his superb skills.

Li Yu estimated that more than 500 ml of his own blood was drawn. Fortunately, he was in good health and did not feel any particularly uncomfortable.

Lord Kelvin opened his eyes, and everyone quickly gathered around.

He said weakly: "I seemed to have gone to a very far away place, but when I thought about it, I was still in Scotland."

He was dying, but he was still saying humorous words, and everyone didn't know whether to cry or laugh.

Lord Kelvin saw Li Yu, who was the tallest, and said: "So you are here too... I know, that far away place is probably the east. No wonder it is so far away, as if I had a big dream that I can't wake up from. "

Li Yu said: "Your Majesty, it is better to talk less and rest more."

Lord Kelvin was very calm: "It would have been too late if I didn't tell you. I definitely wouldn't survive today. It's a pity that I didn't make arrangements, otherwise I would like to do an experiment like Lavoisier before I die and contribute my last bit of strength to science."

The incident mentioned by Lord Kelvin is quite famous, and Lavoisier's status in the history of chemistry is quite high.

He was an academician of the French Academy of Sciences, but he happened to encounter the French Revolution in 1789.

French academic institutions such as the Academy, the Academy of Sciences, and the Institute of Weights and Measures were all facing an existential crisis.Some people even said that "scholars are the public enemies of the people, and academic societies are anti-people groups."

Lavoisier appealed to the people through the Education Committee: Many veterans of French education have devoted their lives to the academic prosperity of France, but now, their research institutions have been deprived, their sources of food and clothing have been cut off, and their precious old age has been affected. Poverty threatened, scholarship was on the verge of ruin, and France's honor was tarnished.

But by April 1793, the French Academy of Sciences was still destroyed, and this scientific institution with a glorious history of more than a hundred years since Descartes and Pascal was completely paralyzed.

It was not rebuilt until 23 years later.

And Lavoisier himself was arrested.Because in addition to being an academician of the French Academy of Sciences, he is also a tax collector.All 28 members of the tax farming organization, including Lavoisier, were arrested and imprisoned.

After hearing this, various French academic societies made requests to Congress to pardon Lavoisier and allow him to be reinstated. However, the Congress controlled by the Radical Party ignored these requests at all.

On May 1794, 5, the Revolutionary Court held a trial and sentenced all 7 members of the tax farming organization to death, scheduled to be executed within 28 hours, including Lavoisier.

The next morning, Lavoisier was the fourth to mount the guillotine, and a generation of scientific greats was executed in this way. He was only 51 years old that year.

It is said that before Lavoisier died, he made an agreement with the executioner that after his head was chopped off, he would blink as many times as possible to determine whether the person still felt after the head was chopped off.People saw that after Lavoisier was beheaded, he blinked eleven times in total! ——This is his final research.

Afterwards, Lagrange said sadly: "They can chop off his head in the blink of an eye, but a mind like his will never grow again in 100 years."

At this time Lord Kelvin said again: "It's a pity that I can't see the two dark clouds dispersing. Maybe I can see it in the sky."

Li Yu said: "Mr. Lord, in fact, they have been dispersed. Blackbody radiation passes through Mr. Planck's formula. The constant speed of light is the theory of relativity released not long ago."

"Oh, then I'm really lucky, I..." Lord Kelvin suddenly began to cough violently, and several doctors quickly asked everyone to leave the room.

Ten minutes later, Landsteiner came out and announced regretfully: "Lord Kelvin has passed away."

Everyone was stunned.

Within a few days, the Royal Society contacted Westminster Abbey, who agreed to let Lord Kelvin be buried in the church, just south of Newton's tomb.

The funeral was grand, and scientists from not only the UK but almost all of Europe came to pay their respects.

Including Planck, Boltzmann, Hilbert, Roentgen, Lorenz, Curies, Rutherford, Michelson and other top leaders, as well as younger generations such as Einstein and Laue .

A few days later, this year's Nobel Prize awards also began, and everyone happened to go to Stockholm, Sweden to attend the award ceremony.

However, due to the sudden death of King Oscar II of Sweden a few days ago, the banquet was missing.

Michelson and several other winners only entered the palace to meet the new king Gustaf V, but the king was obviously in a bad mood.

When Michelson came out, he said to Li Yu and others who were waiting: "There is a deathly silence in the palace."

After awarding the award, Hilbert and Planck invited Li Yu to go to Germany. Anyway, Germany is very close to Sweden, so Li Yu agreed.

After arriving in Berlin, Planck first went to attend several university exchange meetings. Taking advantage of this time, Li Yu went to Wittenberg.

Because Li Yu received several letters, most of which were mathematical papers, which were proofs of several propositions in chaos theory.

The sender of the letter has a great background - Cantor, the founder of set theory.

However, it can be seen from the font on the letter that there are many places that are crooked. Li Yu knows very well that this is because Cantor's current mental state is very poor.

Cantor suffered from mental illness 20 years ago and has now developed severe depression.

At the beginning of the [-]th century, there were few treatments for depression. Patients were often in great pain and struggled with intense psychological struggles almost every day.It's hard to describe this psychological feeling, but severe depression is definitely no better than other physical illnesses.

As mentioned before, the second mathematical crisis that originated from Newton's infinitesimal ghost was finally resolved completely in the hands of Cauchy and Cantor after hundreds of years of development.

But with the emergence of Cantor's set theory, the third mathematical crisis quietly came.

The scientific community at the beginning of the [-]th century was undergoing major changes unseen in a thousand years. Many new theories emerged too quickly and had no time to digest.Not to mention ordinary people, mathematicians actually hate infinity.

The physics community says that energy is discontinuous and quantized; time and space are relative and can be shortened or extended. These are shocking enough.

In the world of mathematics, Cantor also said that a part can be equal to the whole. The number of even numbers has a one-to-one correspondence with the set of all natural numbers, that is, they are equal (strictly speaking, it should be called equipotential); a point on a line segment is equal to the entire earth. The points also correspond one to one!
Although these theories were rigorously proven by Cantor, there were a few people who could understand the complex mathematical proofs, and everyone already firmly believed that he was wrong when they heard the conclusions.

Like Boltzmann, Cantor lived most of his life in an environment where his theories were not recognized, which led to a mental breakdown.

Many years ago, the Berlin School of Mathematics strongly opposed Cantor's set theory, believing that set theory was not mathematics but mysticism.

Even Poincaré in his early years did not agree with set theory. He talked about set theory as an interesting "pathological situation" and predicted that "the next generation will treat set theory as a disease, and people have already seen it as a disease." Recovered from it."

Others who hold similar views include the great mathematician Klein and others.

Fortunately, after Hilbert's research a few years ago, he thought set theory was so cool, and he also proposed "Hilbert's Hotel" and other theories about infinity that are easier for the public to understand.

The Hilbert Hotel has an infinite number of rooms. Assuming that it is full, if another guest comes, it is easy to let everyone move to the next room, leaving the first room free.

The mathematical expression is that whichever is larger, the set of natural numbers starting from 1 or the set of natural numbers starting from 2, is obviously the same size.

But what if an infinite number of guests come at this time?

The hotel owner Hilbert said that I can earn this money too!

老板希尔伯特让第1间房的人移入第2间；第2间的客人移入第4间；第3间的客人移入第6间，以此类推，这样所有奇数房间全都空出来了，所有新客人酒都住下了。

Thanks to Hilbert, Cantor was slowly accepted, but his mental state was difficult to repair.

Cantor is currently receiving treatment at the mental hospital affiliated with the University of Halle-Wittenberg, but after knowing that Li Yu was coming, he insisted on changing into a suit and went to a coffee shop next to the hospital accompanied by his daughter.

Li Yu shook hands with him and said, "It's an honor to meet you."

Cantor said: "I am even more honored. Did you see my letter?"

"Yes," Li Yu replied, "Mr. Cantor's proof is of great value to the improvement of chaos theory."

"With my current mental state, being able to contribute to the most interesting mathematical theory is really a rare ray of light in the dark days." Cantor was deeply pleased and continued to point to his head and said, "No need to lie to you, I am mentally ill. Years ago, I could not accept it and thought I was crazy. However, after reading some of Mr. Freud's works eight years ago, I had some changes in my spiritual world and began to accept a more systematic approach. treatment. But in the eyes of the world, I still seem to be considered a madman."

Li Yu sighed: "You can't survive unless you are crazy. There is nothing to worry about if you are crazy for mathematics. Besides, your theory has begun to shine in the entire mathematical world."

"He is indeed a rising star of science who can write science fiction works, and his words are full of Eastern Zen philosophy," Cantor said. "I have read the complete Star Wars series, and it is very fascinating."

Li Yu said: "Thank you very much, Professor."

"There are not many fairy tales written for adults," Cantor said. "When I am not in a good mental state and cannot study mathematics, in order not to put myself into an too painful mental state, I will try my best to enrich myself and study mathematics. theology, literature, and philosophy.”

Li Yu said: "The differences between theology, literature, philosophy and mathematics are quite big."

Cantor said with a slightly painful expression: "Yes, when studying these theories, I found that there are many more disputes than in the mathematics community."

Li Yu spread his hands and said helplessly: "Since ancient times, literati have looked down on each other, and the truth is the same everywhere."

Cantor said: "I really can't understand why there must be disputes no matter what field. If other people's opinions are different from your own, why do you have to compare right and wrong?"

Li Yu said: "Perhaps this is the nature of human beings. Let alone mathematics, physics and literature and philosophy, human beings have been at war for so many years, and there is still no distinction."

Cantor looked out the window at the sky and said, "It's such a gray world."

Then he said to Li Yu: "By the way, I have never studied astronomy, but I know that you have made outstanding achievements in the field of astronomy. I want to ask you a question, is the universe really as you wrote in Star Wars?" If there are other civilizations, will they have a different cultural world?"

Li Yuning eyebrows said: "The size of the universe is beyond imagination. Mathematically speaking, according to probability, other civilizations should exist, but the universe is really too big, and what is even more desperate is that it is extremely empty. Even if there are other civilizations, the possibility of encountering them is only in It exists in theory.”

Cantor asked: "It can't be emptier than a vacuum, right? After all, there are so many stars."

"The distance is too far, and the size of the planet is not worth mentioning on the scale of the universe," Li Yu said. "Estimating the density of the universe is equivalent to only six protons in one cubic meter of space. It is much larger than what humans can The vacuum created is much emptier.”

"Six protons?" Cantor was a little confused.

Li Yu suddenly thought that protons had not been discovered yet, so he changed his explanation: "It is equivalent to a cube box with a side length reaching the distance from the sun to Pluto, with only six small marbles in it."

Cantor, who is sensitive to numbers, thought for a moment and said: "It is indeed much emptier than the vacuum that humans can create. It is really despairing."

Li Yu said: "No, on the contrary, we should not despair."

"Why shouldn't we despair? At such a long distance, human civilization has become an isolated island." Cantor used his mathematical ability and quickly had rough data in his mind. "Think about the possibility of the existence of civilization. When encountering external The chance of star civilization is hundreds of thousands of times lower than the chance of just two small fish meeting in the Pacific Ocean."

Li Yu said: "That's why every human being and every thought is so precious, isn't it? You should feel lucky that you have contributed a spark of thought to the vast universe."

Cantor suddenly laughed: "I have studied philosophy for so many years, but I can't even say a few words like you."

"What is there to study in philosophy? Everyone is a philosopher!" Li Yu was also happy. "My calligraphy is very poor, but I still wrote an ancient Chinese poem for you on the way."

Cantor's mood improved: "And there are gifts? I'm so surprised!"

Li Yu wrote Su Shi's famous sentence "I don't know the true face of Mount Lu, I just live in this mountain" on a folding fan. He explained it to Cantor, and then said: "The calligraphy is indeed a bit bad, but it is true. Written by myself.”

Cantor took it solemnly: "Things given by friends are the most expensive, and it seems that the word is quite good."

"Then you'd better stop looking at other Chinese calligraphy works and keep this feeling," Li Yu said with a smile, "just think of me as thanking you for writing the paper on chaos theory."

Cantor said: "Chaos theory is a very interesting theory, including game theory. Who doesn't like this mathematical theory that looks simple but has profound connotations? When I am in a good mental state, I will hold a pen to verify it."

Li Yu said: "With the support of outstanding mathematicians like you, chaos and game theory can have vitality."

It seems that Cantor has found some psychological sustenance, and he has already received treatment in a serious psychiatric hospital. Although fate has played a trick on him, at least he will not seek short-sightedness.