Reborn and become a Great Scientist

Chapter 245 193 Rutherford: I Want It All
With Rutherford, the director of the Cavendish Laboratory, in charge, the command power in this small space certainly does not fall to Chen Muwu.

However, there is nothing to command. The particle accelerator team, in name, was delegated by Rutherford, and Chen Muwu led the whole process.

But basically, it was Zhao Zhongyao and Cockcroft who were busy, from design to procurement to construction.

Both Chen Muwu and Oppenheimer came here occasionally, and there was very little they could do to help.

Of course, the final completion of the motor can not do without the credit of Pauli.

Thanks to him staying in the European continent during this period of time, he did not visit Cambridge University, took a vacation in time, and did not choose the UK as his destination.

Rutherford's only command was to tell Zhao Zhongyao and Cockcroft to be careful when installing the charge conveyor belt on the generator, and not to cause any damage to this hard-won machine.

His words are completely commonplace.

Rutherford attached great importance to the function of the particle accelerator, hoping to find the electrically neutral particle in the nucleus on it.

But for Zhao Zhongyao and Cockcroft, this generator is more precious than anything else. In their hearts, the status of the particle accelerator will only be higher than that of Rutherford, second only to their own lifeblood.

How could these two people not understand that they must be careful when installing it?
The installation work in the room is proceeding in an orderly manner.

After inspecting around, Rutherford stood in the open air outside the door, smoking a bag of cigarettes without saying a word.

Chen Muwu stood tens of meters away from him. He was also very concerned about the success of the particle accelerator in his heart, and he was no less nervous and apprehensive than the few other people related to this machine.

Even though he had done so many experiments before, and none of them failed, it could not offset his current anxiety at all.

Building a large-scale machine is completely different from doing an experiment. Although the principle has already been known, there are more external influencing factors.

And before that, Chen Muwu's success rate in building large machines was zero percent.

He asked Rutherford to help him apply for the patent of the electron microscope in 1924, but two years later, due to various reasons, the behemoth of the electron microscope still only exists in the design blueprint.

Furthermore, Cavendish Laboratory's need for electron microscopes is far less intense than that of particle accelerators.

Even though the magnification of the electron microscope is significantly higher than that of an ordinary microscope, it cannot see the internal structure of the atom after all, nor can it find the kind of electrically neutral particles that Rutherford was looking for.

This has led to the fact that the laboratory is not as eager to press the electron microscope as the particle accelerator, and its advent is still in the foreseeable future.

Chen Muwu had already stood under the shade of a tree and performed a set of Tai Chi. Finally, the door of the room opened again, and Cockcroft and Zhao Zhongyao came out from inside.

"Mr Chao, Mr Cockcroft, how, how?"

Rutherford was more impatient than Chen Muwu, he rushed forward with a pipe in his mouth.

"Director, everything is perfect. The generator has been completely assembled now, and it can be regarded as a complete body."

It is not enough to assemble it successfully, the next step is to test the voltage of the generator to see if it can reach the designed value.

Zhao Zhongyao's design potential difference is 150 million volts, and Chen Muwu thinks that it can reach two-thirds of the level, as long as it can break through six figures, it will be considered a success.

On the stopwatch on the car dashboard, it is also marked that the speed can exceed [-].

If you dare to speed up to [-] on the highway, you will be fined to death if you are caught by the electronic eyes!

Everyone came to the office next to them and changed into insulated and anti-static protective clothing and protective shoes.

Then through a small door, I came to the room where the generator was located.

"Okay, Mr. Zhao, Mr. Cockcroft, let's try it out. Let's see what the effect of this big guy who has gathered everyone's hard work for so long is!"

It was not Chen Muwu's turn to give orders, nor was it his turn to do the hands-on work.

He just needs to obediently be a mascot and stand aside.

After Rutherford finished speaking, Cockcroft pressed the power switch.

The axle of the electric motor rotates, and the east-west conveyor belt moves slowly.

A DC power supply switched on at the same time also continuously passes through the brushes, depriving electrons from the conveyor belt, thereby making it positively charged.

What followed was a long waiting time. Like Chen Muwu, everyone stood in a safe place in the room like a mascot, quietly watching the only part of the motor that could be seen to be running.

I don't know what other people think, but Chen Muwu only hopes that this conveyor belt will not get stuck, and it will not be stretched too tightly and suddenly break.

About seven or eight minutes later, Zhao Zhongyao was ready for the next step.

According to previous calculations, this time is enough for the charge on the spherical electrode to reach saturation, that is to say, the speed at which the charge is lost from the upper spherical electrode into the air is the same as the speed at which the conveyor belt transports the charge to the electrode, thus reaching an equilibrium state .

The next step, of course, is to measure the voltage, and success or failure depends on it.

If it is possible to obtain a high voltage of a million volts on this generator, then using it to accelerate charged particles will no longer be a problem.

Of course, for the high voltage of one million volts, the black box voltmeter used in middle school physics experiment class must not be used to measure the specific voltage value on the spherical electrode.

Regardless of how difficult and unrealistic it is to build a voltmeter with a range of one million volts, the method of connecting the spherical electrode, the voltmeter and the ground alone can measure voltage, but it can also make the spherical electrode The hard-earned and accumulated electric charge can pass through the circuit in an instant and be transferred to the earth.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, the particles have not been accelerated yet, but the voltmeter is accelerated first.

Therefore, the detection method used by Zhao Zhongyao is to use a probe to measure the strength of the electrostatic field near the electrode without touching the spherical electrode, and then calculate the specific voltage on the electrode through numerical calculation.

To be on the safe side, he measured and recorded multiple sets of data, and then gestured to Cockcroft to stop the running machine.

The data has been obtained, even if the motor is turned on, it will be useless.

Everyone went back to the office next to them and changed out of their protective clothing. Rutherford, who was sweating profusely, let out a deep breath.

In that room, he has been holding his breath, feeling nervous, staring at the machine intently, not even daring to make a sound.

Catch up with the hot summer weather again, trapped in the not very ventilated protective clothing, everyone is uncomfortable.

Zhao Zhongyao, Oppenheimer, and Cockcroft each held a copy of the data they had just measured in their hands, brought them into the formulas that had been copied on paper, and calculated the results separately.

Although the machines were already in a state of shutdown, the heart hanging in Rutherford's stomach did not drop a single bit.

He really wanted to know the calculation result as soon as possible, or in other words, wanted to know a calculation result that satisfied him.

But when the matter came to an end, Chen Muwu suddenly looked away.

It's good if you succeed, but if you don't succeed, it's useless to regret and regret.

He still has so much unspent funds in his hand, whether it is improvement or rebuilding and building a new one, it is completely fine.

If it doesn’t work, just launch the cyclotron project. If the 26 pounds of funds can’t be found, Feng Fu can go back to the old way, spend 26 pounds to build a cyclotron model, and continue to beg for money everywhere!

Whether it was Rutherford's nervousness or Chen Muwu's idea of ​​starting anew, they all disappeared immediately after Zhao Zhongyao was the first to get the calculation result.

Thanks to the ninety-nine multiplication table, his calculation speed is much faster than the other two.

But when Zhao Zhongyao reported the specific data, he made a mistake and made a big and small oolong.

As the person who participated in the whole process and witnessed the creation of the electric motor from scratch, he was also very excited at the moment.

Then Zhao Zhongyao put down the pen in his hand and shouted: "It's 130 million volts! It's a success, it's a success!"

Rutherford was taken aback at first, and then hurriedly asked Chen Muwu beside him, "What did Zhao say?"

"Teacher, the voltage of this generator can reach 130 million volts, we succeeded."

The reason why Chen Muwu was asked to do this translation is because Zhao Zhongyao, who was silently reciting the nine-nine multiplication table in his heart, blurted out Chinese after he got the answer.

Later, both Oppenheimer and Cockcroft gave the same result.

The development of the generator was finally considered a success.

In this situation, no one will care about why the design of the generator can reach 150 million volts, but the actual level is only 90.00% of its theoretical value.

Although there was a doctor who didn't want to be named among the people present, he wanted to pretend to be calm, but everyone was more or less happy for this success.

Rutherford, the oldest, hurriedly took out his pipe from his clothes, wanting to share his happiness and excitement with his old friends.

At the beginning, Cockcroft wanted to celebrate with his partner who had been working together for so many days. His arms were already open, but Zhao Zhongyao was as shy as his compatriots and couldn't let go.

This made him turn around. Fortunately, the American Oppenheimer cooperated enough, and the two hugged each other tightly with howls.

Only Chen Muwu is still paying attention to the follow-up work of the successful development of the generator.

After Rutherford finished smoking, he went to the teacher: "Teacher, now that the generator has been built, should we continue to block the news, or announce the result to the public? If we announce it, we will find a reporter and write a paper." , or apply for a patent?"

"Chen, is there any need to choose?" Rutherford suddenly tilted his head, and put his head next to Chen Muwu's, "Of course I want it all."

This situation reminded Chen Muwu inexplicably of an old man with a white beard wearing a red hat.

"Also," Rutherford continued to instruct the work, "There is no need for my name to appear in papers and newspapers, after all, it was created by you young people.

"Remember that reporters don't look for that Crowther who waits in the laboratory to report the news every day. I don't like the position shown by that person during the strike."

Although Rutherford did not talk to him about Chen Muwu's publication of an article in the "British Worker" before, he still tried to beat him with this method of killing chickens and monkeys today.

"As for the distribution of patent fees, I don't worry about this kind of thing, you and James will study it later.

"Chen, I only care about one thing now. Since the potential difference of this generator has achieved the desired effect, when can it be used to accelerate particles?"

Chen Muwu took it for granted that he would blurt out the words "every minute".

With a sufficient potential difference, wouldn’t it be necessary to accelerate the particle, the particle source, the vacuum tube and the target, to complete the whole process of the particle from acceleration to bombardment?

By the way, the particle source.

Alpha particles can be found from natural radioactivity, and their energy is not low. Putting it in an accelerator and accelerating it once, it feels more or less superfluous.

Then the only positively charged particles to be accelerated are protons.

Protons... how do you get them?

Chen Muwu's brain didn't react for a while, he thought that it could be easily obtained from cathode rays like old Thomson discovered electrons.

But on second thought, that doesn't seem to be the case.

If you want a proton source, you must start with hydrogen, first turn the hydrogen into a plasma of hydrogen, protons and electrons, and then use the method of applying voltage to separate the protons from it.

The degree of difficulty of this matter is not too big or small.

But it certainly cannot be said that just building a generator today can be used to accelerate protons and bombard various target elements tomorrow.

So he can only give Rutherford an ambiguous answer: "Now there is only one proton source missing, and after the development is successful, the protons can be accelerated for the first time.

"However, if you want to experiment, teacher, we can also try to accelerate alpha particles, and reproduce the nuclear transmutation that Blackett discovered in the photographic film before."

"I don't think there's any need for that. It's nothing to worry about. You just hurry up and get the proton source out, the sooner the better!
"If there is no other work in the future, let's leave today! In the evening, everyone will go to the Eagle Bar for a drink, and I will treat you!"

"Long live!"

"Long live the director!"

With his hands behind his back, Rutherford walked out of the house dedicated to building accelerators.

He is still very satisfied with Chen Muwu's work. A good student can always come up with brilliant ideas and put them into practice.

Now that we have a big killer that can accelerate protons, we no longer need to guard the alpha particle source every day to bombard particles in a lucky way.

After this particle accelerator is fully put into use, starting from deuterium, what helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, these lighter nuclei, I will bombard them one by one!
With Dr. Chen working so hard, it's time to apply to the college or the school for a professorship.

Otherwise, he has graduated for two years and still holds a doctorate title every day. What if other schools in the world use high-ranking officials and generous salaries to poach his corner, what should young people do if they can't resist the temptation?
At the same time, Old Thomson, his teacher who had a good heart with him, also prepared a new proposal for the upcoming Cambridge University Senate.

(End of this chapter)