Reborn and become a Great Scientist

Chapter 217 165

"How much do you say, Mr. Cockcroft? Twenty pounds?"

Hearing this quotation, Chen Muwu's first reaction was that the Englishman was dishonest and deceived himself by treating him as a winner.

However, the figure of twenty pounds is too low, isn't it?

What kind of person cheats money, cheats twenty pounds?
Even if he cheated twenty pounds as he wished, what can he do with the money?
The imported bananas and imported pineapples that Oppenheimer bought before cost several pounds!

Chen Muwu couldn't figure it out.

Moreover, he also saw Cockcroft's determined eyes, and his face seemed to be covered with the three big words "seeking praise".

This time he was completely unsure. Could it be that what this person said was the truth?He didn't fool himself?

To Chen Muwu, who had already realized the freedom of wealth, twenty pounds really didn't seem to be worth much.

But for Cockcroft, twenty pounds is undoubtedly a huge sum of money, fully two-thirds of the scholarship provided to him by St. John's College every year!

The scholarship that Dirac received from St. John's College before was seventy pounds a year.

For a Puritan ascetic like him who doesn't smoke, drink, and socialize, seventy pounds a year is not enough to support life at Cambridge University, and an additional 140 pounds scholarship from Bristol University must be added.

Cockcroft, on the other hand, only had thirty pounds a year, and if he wanted to survive at Cambridge, he needed not only some support from his family, but also some means of earning money in his spare time.

Especially after getting married this summer, his living expenses suddenly became larger.

After entering Chen Muwu's group, Cowcroft realized that this Dr. Chen actually paid Zhao Zhongyao out of his own pocket, so some subtle thoughts arose in his heart.

If he performed well enough, Dr. Chen would probably be able to send him some money, right?

Seeing Chen Muwu's expression of disbelief, Cockcroft immediately reflected in his heart, did he overquote the price of this generator?

He quickly took out the budget sheet he had prepared long ago, and explained to Chen Muwu: "Dr. Chen, I have kept the budget as low as possible this time, and the price will not fluctuate by more than [-]% compared with the final price.

"If you want to continue to cut, you can only start with the screws, nuts and rivets that connect the machine.

"If you don't buy these small parts, but directly use the Cavendish Laboratory, you can save a few shillings in the funds. Other than that, there is really no further reduction."

Chen Muwu never expected that he had pried such a sincere person from Kapiza this time.

He is really thinking about himself, thinking about how to save money.

"John, you misunderstood. I don't think you gave too much budget, but that he was too little.

"At first I thought that hundreds of thousands of pounds would not be enough to build a generator, so I had to beg for money.

"It never occurred to me that it would cost only twenty pounds to build an electrostatic generator capable of high voltages of 150 million volts.

"Guess how much money I got now? Six thousand pounds! According to the budget you gave, it should be enough to build three hundred electrostatic generators!
"So there is no need to save me money at all, everything is the best!"

"But, Dr. Chen, in my budget, all the materials used are already the best materials."

Hearing the figure of six thousand pounds, although Cockcroft was shocked, he still said frankly.

His hand holding the budget sheet was still hovering in mid-air, which meant that he insisted on showing Chen Muwu what was written on it to prove that what he said was true.

Eighty-centimeter spherical electrodes, two-meter-high brackets...

Wait, doesn't that mean there's no need to build a multi-story accelerator like Westinghouse's particle pulverizer?

As long as it is in a laboratory room that is slightly higher than the usual room, can this million-volt generator be produced?

From this point of view, twenty pounds seems to be quite enough.

Whether it is iron, tin, or glass, the materials themselves are not expensive.

Even if they are made into a specific shape, it is just a little more processing fee.

By analogy, it is like the vacuum pump that General Electric sold to Chen Muwu before.

It's just a few glass tubes, a few one-way valves, a few milliliters of mercury...

The cost of these materials together will not exceed ten pounds.

But they dare to sell you the price of [-] pounds. The material cost is [-] pounds, and the technical fee costs you [-] pounds. What can you do to me?
want it?Just obediently pay for it if you want it!
It is estimated that General Electric also knows that the deal on vacuum pumps is a one-shot deal, so they dare to ask for such a high price and must.

This is indeed the case. Since Chen Muwu finished the electron diffraction experiment, the vacuum pump was handed over to Professor Aston.

He has now succeeded in replicating a more precise and faster vacuum pump for use in his mass spectrometer.

Chen Muwu felt that if Cambridge University released this "Kelvin-Chen type generator" in the future, it would probably face the same result as the General Electric vacuum pump.

Therefore, the price of this generator must not be too low. General Electric dares to sell it for [-] at a cost of [-] pounds. If I cost [-] pounds, how can I sell it for [-] pounds to get back the cost?
Although Cockcroft said that 20 yuan was enough, Chen Muwu couldn't really just give them [-] pounds.

Lions open their mouths when they ask for money, but when they take out money, they search and search.

If this matter really gets out, won't I be looked down upon by others?
So in the end, Chen Muwu asked Oppenheimer to give Zhao Zhongyao and Cockcroft [-] pounds from the funds, and let them try to do it themselves.

He also specifically told Oppenheimer to take out the two hundred pounds from "funds", not from his own wallet.

If the No. [-] test of the two people fails, then continue to increase funding until it succeeds.

But if their experiment is successful once, and they really produce a high voltage that can reach 150 million volts, then Chen Mu can report to the teacher.

Spent £[-] and left £[-].

Chen Muwu would definitely not take this money alone, but it would not be returned to Chadwick's account book either.

He wanted to continue to increase the potential difference that this electrostatic generator could achieve on the basis of 150 million volts.

Now the navies all over the world are doing the "big ship and giant gun doctrine", so they can follow suit and create a "big electrode high voltage doctrine"!

Americans still have a set of names, and the name "atom smasher" is very domineering.

I don't know how much this naming right can be sold at a high price, and how much research funding it can bring me.

My old Chen is really a little genius who makes money!
……

Zhao Zhongyao and Cowcroft, who received funding, began to slowly transform the generator from paper to reality in the Cavendish Laboratory according to the design plan on the drawings.

Chen Muwu did not participate in it, because he had the last few lectures left, and he would have fulfilled his obligations as an academician of Trinity College this semester after speaking.

Next year, there is no way to teach such a simple class, and we have to give strength to the group of the proud sons of Cambridge University.

Entering December, one night, Kapica went to Chen Muwu's room to be a guest again.

They both lived at Trinity College, and it was convenient for them to visit each other.

Kapica came this time to find out where Chen Muwu was going during the upcoming winter vacation.

He still maintains the habit of going back to St. Petersburg every year, and now he has changed his name to Lezugrad to visit relatives, but he always arranges his family visits in summer.

Russia in winter is really too cold, and there is no desire for people to go back.

Last year, I went to Stockholm with Chen Muwu, which reminded him of the fear of being dominated by cold winter in high latitudes.

"I'm going to London to give a Christmas lecture before Christmas. After the lecture, I should go to France."

"Chen, what are you talking about? Christmas lectures? I remember you don't even believe in religion, right? The priests of any church in London would not think about it, please go and preach to them?"

"Uh...Peter, I really don't believe in religion. But is it possible that the one who invited me was not some priest, but Sir Prague? This year's Christmas lecture at the Royal Institute, I am the keynote speaker."

Invisible pretentiousness is the most deadly, even the number one chatterbox in Cambridgeshire was choked and speechless.

Chen Muwu's strength and fame are all there. He is completely qualified to hold this Christmas lecture.

The Russian could only change the subject nonchalantly: "Okay, okay, you said you were going to Paris, right? When will you leave?"

"It should be right after the lecture, probably on the 21st. I don't know which day Robert helped me buy the boat ticket. I'll ask him tomorrow."

"You have bought the ticket! I still want to go to Paris with you!"

The previous pleasantries were all prepared by Kapitsa.

All he really wanted to say was the last sentence.

Kapitsa has been getting sullen since he made Chadwick best man at Liverpool this summer.

He thought of his deceased wife, and imagined that if it hadn't been for the damn Spanish flu, he would have already had children around his knees, singing in harmony.

The more he thought about it, the more aggrieved he felt, and before Cambridge started, he ran to Paris alone to relax.

Then, when he came to Kapitsa in France, he met a person who made his heart beat again.

Anna Alexevna Krylova was a Soviet student studying in Paris, France.

Her father, Alexei Nikolaevich Krylov, was a Soviet mathematician who served the Tsarist Russian Navy in St. Petersburg and was the first to translate "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy" from English to German.

He translated the book in 1915, and Newton wrote it in 1687.

As an aside, the first Chinese edition of this book was even 16 years later than the Russian edition.

It was not until 1931 that the Commercial Press published the complete works translated by Zheng Taipu.

Kapitsa and Anna met at a ball held by the Souren embassy in Paris. Both of them are from Leugrad, and both are unaccompanied foreign students studying in Western Europe, so they fell in love at first sight naturally.

"Do you want to go to Paris too?" Chen Muwu asked knowingly, "It doesn't matter, just ask Robert to help you buy a ticket. Anyway, around Christmas, the ferry on the English Channel will definitely open more, and he has been running to London every three days recently!"

Oppenheimer travels between London and Cambridgeshire every day, not to help Chen Muwu with academic and work matters.

He had already bought a boat ticket back to the United States before Christmas, and in the 20 days before he left, he wanted to buy more British specialties to take home.

Oppenheimer's style is no different from that of college students who leave their parents for the first time to study abroad.

It's just that he accidentally bought a lot of Made in USA things.

With the support of the Ford system and the Taylor system, the United States has left other countries in the world by a large margin in terms of production efficiency.

Since World War I, they have dumped their products to various European countries.

Although the war is over now, Europe's dependence on American goods has long been deeply rooted.

……

Chen Muwu finished his last linear algebra class, and Cambridge University also entered the winter vacation.

As the festival gets closer day by day, the Christmas atmosphere across the UK is getting stronger day by day.

Walking on the streets of London with Kapitsa, Chen Muwu suddenly remembered a family movie, "Love Actually".

It's also in London, and it's also Christmas, but it's more than 90 years earlier.

Knowing that this year's keynote speaker is Chen Muwu, and it coincides with the [-]th anniversary of the Christmas lecture, the BBC plans to use the not-so-perfect live broadcast technology to broadcast the lecture in real time throughout London.

In this way, the target of the lectures has changed from teenagers who love and yearn for science to the entire audience in front of the radio in London.

The content of Chen Muwu's lecture can only be changed temporarily, and the old Prague told him that it must not be too esoteric or too niche.

Neither quantum mechanics nor low-temperature physics are quite suitable. After thinking about it, only the theory of relativity is the most suitable.

Einstein's most classic joke more than ten years later was ruthlessly taken by Chen Muwu for himself.

"It feels like time passes quickly when you are in front of a beautiful woman, but it feels like time passes slowly while sitting on the stove. This is the theory of relativity."

Such a wonderful opening remark won warm applause and laughter from the audience, and also filled the entire London with the radio waves.

Chen Muwu's Christmas lecture was a great success, and it was no surprise that it was on the front page of the "Daily Telegraph" the next day.

When this newspaper was delivered to thousands of households by the early postmen and newsboys, Chen Muwu and Kapiza were already sitting in the ferry, floating on the calm sea of ​​the English Channel.

(End of this chapter)