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

Chapter 639 Director
As the status of science continues to rise in the twentieth century, some people must be unhappy. In the United States, there are Protestant fundamentalists who continue to incite anti-scientific movements.

The recent "New York Times" not only published scientific reports by Li Yu, Millikan and others, but also a very amazing article "God and Evolution". Yes, many people in the United States have always opposed the theory of evolution.

To be honest, the theory of evolution has never stopped since the day it was born...

Moreover, the movement in Europe and the United States is much stronger than that in China. After all, the domestic attitude towards science is quite respectful, and China happens to be a country without widespread religious influence.

The fundamentalism of Protestants is quite fanatical, and they have even established a "World Christian Fundamentalist Federation", which organizes missionaries from all over the world to attack the theory of evolution. The bandits also launched an offensive against the school's biology textbooks.

Their purpose is probably to attack the entire science, and the starting point is still the clichéd theory of evolution. There is no way, these people can only barely understand the theory of evolution. They can't even oppose Newton, Euler, Gauss, and Maxwell. They can't even understand it.

The New York Times took the opportunity of the annual physics conference to interview these physics experts.

The main target is Millikan, because Millikan has a constant feeling of giving up on religion.

As for Li Yu, Michelson, Haer and others, they didn't want to pay attention to the noise of those Protestants.

The reporter had obviously investigated Millikan. After a few simple greetings, he opened a small book and said: "Professor Millikan, you are a great physicist, but I found that you personally hold the philosophy of physics Guan has always refused to accept the theory of pure matter and has its own set of 'evolutionary theories of elements'."

Millikan said: "Yes, since the work of a large number of scientists such as Thomson, Rutherford, and Li Yu, the nature of matter has become increasingly clear. Atoms are no longer marbles for blind people to play with. Current theories show that The atom is an extremely complex organism, with many interconnected parts, exhibiting many functions and properties, such as energy properties, radioactivity, wave characteristics and many others. These properties are as mysterious as anything in the name of 'spirit'. Unpredictable.”

Li Yu was a little curious about his thoughts, so he said: "The theory of evolution is not directly related to mystery. It should be said that it is unknown."

Millikan said: "We have long known from years of studying radioactivity that lighter elements can be transformed into heavier elements. This is a kind of evolution, the theory of elemental evolution."

The reporter's next question was more pointed: "Professor Millikan, do you think God is included in the theory of evolution?"

This is a very clever question, trying to affirm God and evolution at the same time.

Millikan said: "The theory of elemental evolution is a lofty concept about God provided by science, and it is also highly consistent with the highest ideals of religion. In extremely long and ancient times, the earth, as the cradle of mankind, has continued to develop and change. God has long given It is God who manifests himself through matter composed of elements and which cultivates spiritual essence and God-like power within human beings.”

“God has long given life to matter composed of elements,” repeated the reporter, “and I suppose this is your view of natural theology.”

Millikan did not deny: "Scientific practice echoes Christian faith. Science governed by religious spirit is the key to human progress and the hope of mankind."

For a big-name scientist, Millikan's views are quite rare.

His reputation was resounding, and Li Yu was quite worried that this view would spread back to China. During the Republic of China, there was considerable admiration for the West. It was an all-round admiration for every detail from science to religion, from language and culture to clothing, food, housing and transportation.

After all, China is the country with the largest population. Even if the missionary work of Western missionaries for hundreds of years has been extremely unsuccessful, there are still many people who believe in Christianity. In the first few years of the founding of the Republic of China, China sold almost four million copies of the Bible every year, close to Circulation quantities worldwide in the early nineteenth century.

Therefore, Millikan's statement may become a weapon for many people who have little knowledge.

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After the interview, Li Yu gave a lecture to Chinese students and then boarded a cruise ship to Europe.

The first stop was in London, where Li Yu went to Cambridge University to meet Rutherford.

As soon as he set foot in London, Li Yu felt the haze of World War I that had not yet dissipated. London had only recently resumed street lighting and baking of pastries after fearing that the light would become a target for German airship bombing.

London, as the capital of the so-called world's most powerful country, the Empire on which the sun never sets, still needs to ration food.

The situation at Cambridge University was not optimistic either. During the war, 2162 people in Cambridge were killed and nearly 3000 injured, accounting for one-third of the soldiers. These people were basically the elite.

In four years, a total of about 80,000 wounded soldiers were transported by train to Cambridge for medical treatment, so the air here is filled with the smell of disinfectant.

It may be many months before Cambridge returns to its pre-war proportions.

"Welcome to Wasteland Paradise." Rutherford joked after seeing Li Yu.

Li Yu congratulated: "Congratulations to Professor Rutherford for being promoted to the fourth director of the Cavendish Laboratory."

Rutherford said: "I was surprised to receive this appointment, because the director of the Cavendish Laboratory has always been a tenured position. After Professor Thomson was hired as Dean of Trinity College and President of the Royal Society, he was unable to juggle so many tasks. I had to quit my job, otherwise I would have no chance.”

The director of the Cavendish Laboratory is the most important physics professor position in the UK and represents the highest status in the British physics community. There is nothing wrong with Thomson choosing Rutherford.

Maxwell founded the Cavendish Laboratory and did not receive a Nobel Prize during his lifetime.

The second director, Rayleigh, won the Nobel Prize in 1904;

The third director, Thomson, won the Nobel Prize in 1906;
Rutherford, the fourth director, won the Nobel Prize in 1908, but it was a somewhat unexpected chemistry prize.

Their award-winning years are exactly two years apart, and each one is younger than the other when he won the award.

In short, the director of the "Nobel Prize Kindergarten" has officially taken office.

Li Yu asked: "After four years, the work in the laboratory should have almost stopped. Have all the researchers returned?"

Rutherford suddenly thought of the sad past again: "Moseley can't come back, otherwise we should be able to continue the research of atomic physics together."

"It's really a pity." Li Yu said with regret.

Rutherford said: "Fortunately, Chadwick spent several years in a German prisoner of war camp and returned to Cambridge unscathed, except that he obviously lost a lot of weight." "Germany's wartime material supply was so much worse than that of Britain. It's normal to lose weight, and it's okay if you are fine," Li Yu said.

Leonard, the "sodium brittle scientist" who won the Nobel Prize in 1904, later complained that it was the Allied blockade that caused his son to die of kidney disease at a young age.

"There are also Aston and Blackett. Although they also joined the army, they were both in the relatively safe logistics and technical departments. After the war, they returned to Cambridge," Rutherford said. "Aston returned to isotopes and mass spectrometry. instrument research; Blackett will take over from Moseley and work with me on radioactive research.”

Aston won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922.

Blackett won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1948. Had Rutherford not died early, he would have shared the award with Blackett. It was Rutherford himself who might have made a joke again because the award was for chemistry.

Li Yu asked again: "Where is the professor's assistant Geiger who has worked with him for more than ten years?"

"He has been in Germany, serving in the German army to be precise, and is our enemy on the battlefield," Rutherford said. "But he just sent me a very sincere letter saying that hope is over. The war will not affect the friendship between scientists, and he feels extremely distressed and regretful that he has neglected his scientific research work. "

"When you wake up from a nightmare, it's morning after all." Li Yu said.

"Yes, I don't mean to blame him. Geiger must have been unable to help himself in Berlin," Rutherford said.

Geiger, who is famous for his Geiger counter, participated in Germany's atomic bomb program with Heisenberg during World War II, but the plan aborted.

Thomson came to the laboratory at this time: "Mr. Li Yu, long time no see. I read your article on cosmic rays and am preparing to work with Wilson to improve the cloud chamber for more detailed detection."

Li Yu wondered: "You still want to work in the laboratory? Aren't you already the president of Trinity College and the president of the Royal Society?"

Thomson explained: "I have worked here for thirty-five years and couldn't live without it, so I asked the school to allow me to keep a few laboratories, as well as some assistants and experimental personnel."

Rutherford smiled: "As the director of the laboratory, I will not have jurisdiction over Professor Thomson's private domain."

Thomson behaved very generously: "I know you must also want Wilson's help. Don't worry, he will be in charge of your work most of the time."

Li Yu knew what Rutherford wanted to do: "Evidence of atomic transmutation is difficult to find. We must improve the cloud chamber and take hundreds of thousands of photos before we can find one or two strong evidences."

"I've made plans with Blackett to spend five years on it," Rutherford said.

The transmutation experiment of elements is actually still a derivative of Rutherford's alpha particle scattering experiment.

——If you don’t mention Rutherford, you will inevitably say that this experiment has a too high status. It is not worthy of being one of the ten most beautiful experiments in physics.

Rutherford's idea about the transmutation of elements is that in the past, all attention was paid to what alpha particles hit, so where did the alpha particles used as cannonballs go? Has it turned into another substance?
He put forward two speculations: one possibility is that it is combined with the target nucleus; the other possibility is that it bounces off the target nucleus.

The specific experimental work was completed by Blackett.

The principle is not complicated, just observe the reaction in the cloud chamber, because the performance of the two situations is completely different. If the alpha particle bounces off the target nucleus, then the cloud chamber will show three trajectories emanating from the collision point, namely, alpha particles, Traces of protons and recoil nuclei;

In contrast, if the alpha particle and the target nucleus form a composite nucleus, only two trajectories will appear: the proton and the trace of the composite nucleus.

Based on this principle, Blackett took more than 1925 cloud chamber photos, and then carefully selected them. Finally, in 8, he found photos showing two bifurcated trajectories, thus proving the elements produced by alpha particles bombarding nitrogen nuclei. Transmutation is actually a synthetic process.

即α粒子被氮核吞并了。氮核吞并了1个α粒子后，质子数由7变成9；在合并时，它同时射出1个质子，质子数又由9降为8。这个质子数为8的复合核就是氧元素。——氮元素N因为α粒子的撞击变成了氧元素O。

But it was Rutherford who later became famous for this work. After the news media reported it extensively, some reporters who like to catch rumors once again wildly boasted that Rutherford was a "modern alchemist" and wrote a lot of articles such as "The Midas Turn into Gold No Longer" myth! "O Sir Rutherford, master of elemental magic! ” and other articles.

At that time, traffic was also important. Many reporters did not necessarily have deep scientific knowledge, and the articles they wrote inevitably had scientific loopholes. Gradually, the public began to think that Rutherford was a magician wearing a gold crown and a bright red cape. And his assistants became apprentices who waved cattail fans and stared at the gold coming out of the glass bottle with wide eyes.

Many melon-eating people mistakenly believe that turning rocks into gold is "scientific", so they dream of getting rich overnight and study the process of turning rocks into gold.

Anyway, public opinion is getting more and more violent, but it is also getting further and further away from the essence of science.

For this matter, Rutherford frequently wrote articles to newspapers to clarify the matter.

However, he himself sometimes couldn't explain it clearly, because it was strictly confirmed many years later that using alpha particles as cannonballs can only bombard the nuclei of light elements and is powerless against heavy elements.

The nuclei of heavy elements have a strong positive charge and have a strong repulsive force on positively charged alpha particles. Heavy metals are all heavy elements. For example, the atomic weight of gold is 79.

There is also a hidden "little easter egg" here: mercury, that is, the atomic weight of the mercury element is 80, which is next to gold. In a certain sense, there is the possibility of transformation.

Historically, the alchemists and Taoist alchemists from the East and the West could not have known the periodic table of elements, let alone the atomic weight, but they all chose mercury to refine gold. It is a wonderful coincidence.

Anyway, the experiment conducted by Blackett required a lot of care and patience, and fortunately, it was exactly what Rutherford and the Cavendish Laboratory were good at.

Li Yu met Blackett in the laboratory. He was only 22 years old, very young.

This person is actually quite powerful, but he doesn’t seem to be very famous. Maybe everyone thinks that he only conducts research under Rutherford’s experimental theory and experimental framework.

Moreover, elemental transmutation was completely overshadowed by artificial nuclear fission, which would become even more awesome a few years later.

Nuclear fission is like a mushroom cloud. This thing directly affects the world structure. There is really nothing you can do if you are overwhelmed by it.

(End of this chapter)