Reborn and become a Great Scientist

Chapter 14 14 Selection of the Twelve Great People

In the past few days when he became a man of the office, Chen Muwu's writing of his second thesis progressed slowly, and he managed to type out the English version of the paper with the exact solutions of the three field equations.

The next job is to translate the English version of the paper into German word by word while flipping through the German-English dictionary.

German is barely regarded as a bonus skill included in his time-traveling gift package. Chen Muwu is not yet proficient in mastering it, so he can only use this stupid method.

When communicating with Einstein, he simply made a draft in advance and memorized it by rote.

Fortunately, there is finally no trivial matter to slow down Chen Muwu's speed, because every day new hot spots appear, and his enthusiasm in the office quietly subsides.

On January [-]th, the latest issue of "Miller's Review" was freshly released.

Originally, this kind of weekly magazine published in pure English, the main readers were either foreigners in the concessions all over the country, or foreigners who lived abroad but wanted to understand China, and their influence in the circle of Chinese people was limited.

It's just that today's issue is different, because a very topical voting result was published on it.

On October [-]th last year, the "Miller's Review" published an announcement in a prominent position, and at the same time distributed "election tickets", asking readers to vote for "China's twelve great people today."

This questionnaire survey can be regarded as the first large-scale voting conducted strictly in accordance with social survey norms in history, thus attracting the attention and participation of many people.

"Miller's Review" also won the essence of the talent show 100 years later. The newspaper is published once a week, and the number of votes and rankings of each candidate is also published once a week.

But the current audience is quite normal, there are no idiot fans who buy a lot of drinks and pour them into the sewer in order to vote for their little brothers and sisters.

Those who have voted once will pass on the votes published in the next newspaper issue to their relatives and friends, asking them to vote for the twelve important figures in their hearts.

During the voting period, Hu Shi also published the article "Who Are the Twelve Big Figures in China Today" in the "Kind Work Weekly" hosted by himself, criticizing the ongoing election.

He believes that "Miller's Review" is an English-language weekly newspaper, which is mainly marketed among Americans living in China and other English-speaking people, "so this kind of vote can only show the tendency of this faction, and it is not worthy of any serious attention." .

I don't know if this great writer really wanted to criticize this vote, or if he wanted to jump out and brush up his own sense of existence.

Anyway, since the publication of Dr. Hu's critical article, he has been "a blessing in disguise", and his ranking on the rankings has also risen, from No.13 to No.12, and has remained in this position until the end of the voting.

On the first day of the new year, that is, the day when Einstein gave a lecture at the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, voting closed.

Then, after a week of intensive statistics, with the publication of the new issue of "Miller's Review" today, it is time for the final voting results to be announced.

Chen Muwu was not very interested in the voting results, but he was very interested with other colleagues in the office. Everyone held up the newspapers and discussed with each other the discrepancies between their voters and the final results.

That situation gave him a sense of déjà vu like everyone holding a lottery ticket and looking at the lottery draw information in the newspaper to redeem the prize.

Out of a trace of curiosity in his heart, Chen Muwu also glanced at the voting results. Among the top twelve big figures on the list, eight of them were warlords, politicians and officials [1].

Among the remaining four, besides No.12 Hu Shi, Peking University President Cai Yuanpei ranked sixth, great industrialist Zhang Jian ranked eighth, and religious figure Yu Rizhang ranked tenth.

Chen Muwu originally thought that this vote had nothing to do with him, and planned to continue to dawdle in the work unit.

It never occurred to him that he would soon have contact with some of the above-mentioned characters.

……

On January [-]th, Chen Muwu finally typed the last period of the German thesis on the typewriter.

After the inspection was correct, he took two sealed western-style envelopes and walked to the North Railway Station Sub-branch of the Central China Postal Administration that was closest to his work before going to work, and completed the letter sending business at the counter.

The two letters remained the same, one to the British Journal of Philosophy and the other to the German Annals of Physics.

Apparently Chen Muwu didn't know about the shitty mess that happened in the editorial department of "Philosophical Journal", otherwise he would never have submitted any more manuscripts to this low-minded journal.

Some people may ask, why didn't he contribute to the two top physics journals in later generations, Modern Physical Review and Physical Review Letters?
Come on, in this day and age, the former has not yet started a publication at all, and although the predecessor of the latter, "Physical Review", has been published for nearly 30 years, it is still just a small periodical of Citigroup.

The center of physics in the world is still in Europe. The United States wants to have no say in theoretical physics. It has to wait until Germany persecutes Jews on a large scale, and Mustache blitzed Poland, rekindling the war on the European continent.

The postage for the two letters, together with the cost of sending the registered mail and express mail, cost Chen Muwu Dayang a total of one anise.

You must know that just this year, Lu Xun bought a small courtyard with six rooms at the foot of the Son of Heaven, the Xisantiao Hutong in Fuchengmennei Xisantiao Hutong, the first place of goodness, and only spent 800 yuan in silver dollars.

The cost of sending an international registered letter in 2022 is: postage 16 yuan, registration fee 22 yuan, adding up to 2 yuan for a letter, and [-] letters are less than [-] yuan.

Not to mention the city center of Beijing, even in Pinggu, Miyun, where housing prices are the cheapest, or even Yanjiao, you can’t even afford a square meter.

The purchasing power of Dayang during the Republic of China was really complicated. If Chen Muwu hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, no one in the future would have imagined that the cost of sending [-] international letters was equivalent to the price of buying a yard.

He left the post office, took today's newspaper and just walked into the office and sat down. Before he had time to make a cup of tea, the concierge of the unit barged in with a telegram: "Engineer Chen, there is a letter from you."

The concierge has long memorized the names and faces of every employee in the Railway Administration, in order to be able to run errands for everyone on weekdays and earn some money to buy wine.

Chen Muwu was also well versed in how to do it, so he took out the two dimes from the counter that he had just found when he sent the letter from his coat pocket, thought for a while, and then quietly put one back, and put it in the concierge's hand: "Thank you Here you go, take this."

"How embarrassing this is!"

"You're welcome! Accept it."

"Then, thank you, Engineer Chen!"

*****
[1] Author's note: I don't know which of these people can be said and which is not, so the specific list is omitted, and interested readers can look it up.

(End of this chapter)