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

Chapter 606: Be a scientist accurate to six decimal places
Affected by the war in Europe, communication was very laborious, and it was usually necessary to wait until many letters were squeezed before they could be forwarded uniformly.

Li Yu unexpectedly received a letter from Tsiolkovsky from Russia:
"I recently read the newly published book "Alien" by Mr. Academician, and I liked it very much. I am very attracted to the concepts mentioned in it, such as interstellar spaceships. Comparing it with some of my past research, it rekindled my yearning for cosmology.

"In addition, I also did some research on the theory of relativity of the Swiss scholar Einstein. Sure enough, at extremely high speeds, my formulas will not be suitable. Unfortunately, my exposure to the theory of relativity was too short and I was not able to understand the theory of relativity. This formula is corrected.

"I don't know Mr. Einstein, but Mr. Li Yu is also someone who understands the theory of relativity, so I hope you can help my formula adapt to the theory of relativity."

The generalized Tsiolkovsky formula is based on the theory of relativity and is applicable to interstellar travel at high speeds.

Tsiolkovsky naturally thought of high-speed situations through the spaceships described in Alien and the terrifying aliens mentioned therein.

During the war years, it was not easy for a science fiction novel to reach Russia, and it was much slower than in normal times.

However, Li Yu's name is there after all, and if there is demand, there will be a market. Although the process is a bit troublesome, Russia still published the "Alien" series.

Tsiolkovs himself writes science fiction novels, and of course he also likes to read the popular "Alien".

It was probably because of the declaration of war between Russia and Germany that Tsiolkovsky called Einstein a "Swiss scholar" - of course there was no problem with this, because Einstein was already a Swiss national.

Tsiolkovs' formula is sufficient for conventional rockets, and it is not difficult for Li Yu to continue to expand the theory of relativity.

He completed the derivation easily.

Li Yu wrote back a letter to him and wrote the formula:

"The above is the complete formula under the theory of relativity, and when the speed is low, it is your formula.

In addition, I would like to sincerely ask how your husband is doing lately. During the war, supply problems, both minor and severe, occurred throughout Europe. I hope everything is well for you, sir. "

Although it would be fast to take the Siberian Railway, the situation in Russia is really not optimistic. He doesn't know when this letter will be sent to him.

The scope of Russian conscription is quite large and a little confusing.

During the war, Russia mobilized tens of millions of troops. This was a very terrifying number, but by the time of the February Revolution, more than half of them had been lost!

——This is an even more terrifying figure, accounting for almost half of the entire Allied military losses.

What's even more terrifying is that Russia's military officers are very bureaucratic and have uneven command capabilities. As a result, most soldiers did not die in grand battles, but died of hunger, plague, wound infection, etc. It can be said that they died quite a lot. Cowardly.

In addition to the misfortune of the soldiers on the front lines, the ordinary people in the rear were not much better.

Russia is really not very strong among the great powers. Even though it achieved a wave of high industrial growth with French loans before World War I, its industrial structure was quite uneven.

A large number of military orders have squeezed out people's production capacity, and prices have risen sharply.

Anyway, the situation in Russia is very bad. From a macro hindsight perspective, this war cannot be fought at all. The longer it fights, the more serious the problem will be.

World War I was not World War II, and it would be difficult to achieve a breakthrough on the battlefield.

But Russia persisted in fighting because Russia issued a large amount of public debt, business owners made crazy profits, and the entire upper class almost fell into a carnival.

The generals and soldiers are half dead in front of them, but the beauties are still singing and dancing under their tents.

By the way, this situation exists not only in Russia, but also in France.

However, Russia's industries are concentrated in the hands of monopoly plutocrats and are very fragile. Monopoly plutocrats also lead to the concentration of workers, making it easy to unite...

Anyway, the country Russia is dead.

Although the reborn Soviet Union repeated many of the mistakes of World War I, it finally found a new path.

The newly established Soviet Union attached great importance to Tsiolkovs and elevated him to the highest position in the entire Russian scientific community.

A few months later, Tsiolkovs received a letter from Li Yu. He was very grateful for Li Yu's concern and was even more moved by his appreciation of his achievements. He wrote another letter of thanks and sent it to Li Yu. But it took even longer to receive.

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Communication in Europe was cumbersome, but in the United States it became much faster. Because now the number of ships traveling to and from the United States from Shanghai, Tianjin, and Guangzhou has nearly doubled compared to before, and all kinds of materials are being transferred frantically through the United States to Europe.

Li Yu saw the latest issue of "Physical Reviews" magazine, which published an article by Millikan called "Direct Determination of H"

h is Planck’s constant.

Do you remember Einstein’s photoelectric effect equation: E=hv-w
Electron kinetic energy = photon energy - work function

hv is the energy of the photon, which is the core of Einstein's photoelectric equation.

Millikan designed a very ingenious experiment to measure the slope h of this linear equation of one variable.

Millikan irradiated a small piece of alkaline metal in a high vacuum, and then used a knife controlled by an external magnet to continuously scrape the surface of the metal to prevent the formation of an oxide film.

The electrons escaping from the metal are collected using thin sheets of copper oxide connected to an electrometer.

Millikan plotted the relationship between potential difference and frequency, and the results confirmed Einstein's photoelectric effect equation.

Finally, he used his own measured electron e value to measure the h value very accurately, which corresponded perfectly with the theory.

Millikan's experimental ability is really high and absolutely top-notch.

It is said that there is a happy ending here, but Millikan just does not recognize quantum theory.

In the article he wrote:
“Although I thought I had evidence that was inconsistent with the photoelectric effect equation, I found that the longer I studied it, the cleaner the errors were eliminated and the more consistent it was with the observed results.

“But I guess it’s just a coincidence.

“Although Einstein’s equation for the photoelectric effect was, on the face of it, a complete success, the physical theory it attempted to state was so untenable that I believe even Einstein himself would no longer insist on it.

“Among the people who adhere most to quantum theory in the world, there are also several very influential ones, such as Li Yu, who won the Nobel Prize for classical physics.

"I've always been skeptical of what theoretical physicists put on paper.

“So I came up with a new theory based on my own experiments, and got the same conclusion that fits well.

"I hope Mr. Einstein or Mr. Planck or Mr. Li Yu can explain this." At this time, Planck and Einstein were in Berlin. It's hard to say when they saw this article. I can rely on Li Yu.

He took a closer look at Millikan's theory, which generally means that there are a large number of oscillators with one or more characteristic frequencies in matter, and a small number of oscillators with other frequencies.

If light of a specific frequency shines on the material, it can be assumed that the oscillators inside the material that are consistent with the frequency of the incident light continue to absorb energy until the energy reaches a critical value and explode, emitting a particle with energy hv.

Only when the energy of the escaped particles escaping from the atoms is greater than hv will they leave the metal surface. However, when the external frequency is consistent with the "natural frequency", this escape will occur in large quantities...

This theory is basically consistent with Planck's theory. The energy that particles can take away when escaping from atoms can be greater than hv.

It may seem a bit convoluted at first glance, but if you only focus on a few key points, such as "explosion" and "oscillator", you can find that it completely falls within the scope of classical physics.

So it can be understood that he is "guessing".

The way to refute is very simple. Li Yu only needs to use the theory of quantum mechanics to make some deductions. However, Millikan, who was born in experimental physics, may not like to look at these complicated and troublesome mathematical formulas.

Therefore, Li Yu also wrote in the article: "Physics that integrates mathematics is a more complete physics. These are not simple 'guesses' like Mr., it has a very solid theoretical foundation.

“And your experiment perfectly tests the theory.

"I appreciate the experiment you conducted very much. It undoubtedly gives the most firm and practical evidence for Planck's constant h."

Millikan obviously didn't like such "praise" very much, and it was too late to write a letter. He directly sent a message to Li Yu by radio:

"First of all, I want to express this attitude: experiments should be ahead of theory, or to be precise, experiments should be more complete.

"Guided by faulty theories, experiments discovered what seemed to be the most important relationships, but for reasons that are still not fully understood.

“This puts the whole of physics in a position where we have built a perfect edifice and then completely undermined its foundations without letting it collapse.

“It remains intact and has clearly withstood the test, but has no visible foundation pillars.

"I believe that such pillars must exist, and the most tantalizing question in modern physics is to discover them."

The telegram was received very quickly. After Li Yu read it, he found that Millikan clearly understood the current dilemma of physics. After more than ten years of development, two dark clouds have covered the entire physics. The theory of relativity has seen a glimmer of victory. And quantum theory is still a long way off.

It's just that Millikan didn't believe in quantum theory at all.

Due to Millikan's experiments, Einstein successfully won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921 for "the discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect."

Swedish scientist Arrhenius, winner of the 1903 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, said when presenting the award to Einstein: "Einstein's law of the photoelectric effect was accurately tested by the American Millikan and his students, and was extremely successful."

This is a Nobel Prize in Physics in the field of quantum theory, not Einstein's famous theory of relativity.

Einstein won the prize inseparable from Millikan's contribution.

But until two years later, when Millikan won the 1923 Nobel Prize in Physics, he still could not fully accept the quantum hypothesis of light.

Li Yu sent him a call back: "The development of physics has reached the most innovative era, and new theories will inevitably be confirmed step by step in experiments. So I think there is no need to argue about who is ahead, experiment or theory. It’s like a chicken or egg paradox, but both are equally important.”

Millikan called back: "Innovation is necessary, but not the most important. I have been fighting vigorously against the theory that any scientist's theory is nothing more than a fleeting phenomenon and that things are never-ending. As part of the process of change and flow, this generation completely abandons all the hypotheses that the previous generation believed to be reliable, and the next generation will also abandon all the theories that this generation believed to be valid.

“I worry that too many people who are not directly working in science foster this dangerous view.

“There are already a lot of people excited today by the revolutionary discoveries that newspapers are constantly promoting.

"This is very dangerous!

“Even including the exciting discoveries of the internal structure of atoms in recent years, the entire subatomic world has begun to open up to explorers, which in my opinion is not a revolution.

"Because all this is exactly the same as before, the chemists are not disturbed in the slightest, because their laws are still as precise as before. In general, the development of science is only a process of gradual accumulation and not achieved by revolution."

Millikan was something of a conservative.

But his "conservatism" is not a derogatory term, but a perseverant person.

Li Yu respected Millikan's philosophical view very much, and there would be no problem in applying it a hundred years later.

——If innovation is strictly done for the sake of innovation, it is not innovation.

Quite a few biographies on the history of science have a clear tendency, and most of them are more concerned with scientific revolutionaries.

But Millikan's conservatism and rigor also played an important role in the success of the physics revolution.

Revolutionaries are like kites, flying higher and higher, touching the higher world of physics. And people like Millikan are the strings of the kite. Without them, the kite cannot fly.

"I am reminded of Mr. Michelson's words, to be a scientist accurate to six decimal places," Li Yu wrote in his reply. "In the field of science, we can assert that many theories can stand the test. And with experience What can be tested is what has been accurately experimented or measured, for without them there would be no science.

“Mere guessing and trying to justify it is not science, and it cannot produce real knowledge.

"The so-called scientific revolution is not to overthrow, but to supplement what is already established.

“It is true that we need to discover new relationships, but retain most of the original ones.

"This is not contradictory."

Mi Ligen was just doing some normal scientific discussions with Li Yu, and it was also about very basic philosophical propositions such as innovation and conservatism.

Seeing that Li Yu had supportive views on him, Millikan happily called back:

“I have always considered myself a progressive conservative. I firmly believe that the history of physics has clearly shown that the only correct path for the advancement of physics is a middle path between respecting known truths and pursuing new truths.

"Just now I was thinking hard about how to describe this only correct path of progress, and then I suddenly thought of a Chinese word - moderation."

Li Yu was a little surprised when he saw Millikan's call back. He didn't know when he had also secretly learned Chinese culture, and even explored one of the core elements of "gold mean".

"I can only say that Mr. Millikan can definitely come to China."

Millikan replied jokingly: "If I knew Chinese, I would definitely test your talents."

Li Yu really wanted him to come to China. The several Nobel Prizes in physics that Li Yu planned to cultivate in the future were all inseparable from experimental physics. Although I have good experimental ideas, I am not that good at the experiment itself. If I let Millikan guide me, the results will definitely be much better than my own.