Reborn and become a Great Scientist

Chapter 307 46 TeX Typesetting Prototype

Compton's generous support allowed Chen Muwu, who had just proposed at the Como Conference that Cavendish Laboratory should sell particle accelerators, to start smoothly. It also allowed Chen Muwu to start on the train the day before the conference. Planck's wishful thinking of how to bring down the price of accelerators came to nothing.

Ever since they knew that Americans would attend this meeting, Rutherford and Chen Muwu already knew that the particle accelerator that they had deceived by their packaging and touted to the sky would be able to sell.

Sir Doyle's words are true. The Americans on the other side of the Atlantic are an example of "people are stupid, have plenty of money, and come quickly."

Whenever you are short of money, you should go to the United States for a walk. You are right!

The financial statements of Penguin Publishing House can also illustrate this point.

Although the British have a strong love for popular novels, the sales and profits of the few George Chen books published by the publisher in the United States are actually higher than those in the United Kingdom.

Even though the elder cousin hates the younger cousin for being arrogant and the younger cousin hates the elder cousin for being senile, the cultures of the two families have the same origin after all, and everything printed in the books and spoken is English.

The English books published by Penguin Press do not need to sell copyrights or hire translations at all, and can directly enter the American market for circulation. There is no simpler "cultural invasion" than this.

In later generations, when the famous "Harry Potter" series written by J.K. Rowling entered the United States, they had to take into account the habits of American readers and changed some of the words used in the books from the British. Common words are replaced with common American words. For example, "Philosopher's Stone" was changed from "Philosopher's Stone" to "Sorcerer's Stone".

That was also because the United States was very powerful at the time, while the United Kingdom was in trouble.

But although there are a few bad guys in the United States today, culturally, the East Coast of the Atlantic still follows the lead.

Nowadays, you can make a lot of money just by selling a few particle accelerators, which also supports the above point of view.

If Chen Muwu, like his predecessors in European physics, had received invitations from various universities in the United States to make a fortune by giving a lecture tour there, I don’t know how much money he would have made.

And with this kind of lecture tour, there is absolutely no need to do everything yourself.

He could shamelessly learn from the star singers who held touring concerts in later generations, hire a few more singers, oh no, guest speakers, and even imitate the song-requesting process and just sit on the stage without hesitation. , just wait for the audience to raise their hands and ask questions.

But for now, just think about this thing. The top priority is to sell more goods. After all, the money earned this time will be in your hands soon.

Compton originally graduated from the University of Chicago, so it makes sense for him to order a machine for his school.

As for the rest, Princeton is the school where Compton received his doctorate and where his eldest brother currently teaches, while Harvard is the most famous, richest, and highest-quality university in the United States.

Chicago, Harvard and Princeton are all in the northwest corner of the U.S. map. In order not to favor one over the other, Compton also mentioned the University of California, which dominates the southeast, in his words. The key is that the University of California is also very rich.

"Thank you, Professor Compton. After this meeting is over, we will send someone to negotiate with you. We will definitely sign the contract as soon as possible, and then we will study how to safely transport the particle accelerator to the United States and start it quickly. Installation work.”

Einstein did not come to the Como Conference, so among the physicists present, except for Bohr, who devoted himself wholeheartedly to studying theoretical physics, other highly respected people still held the view that experiments were more important than theory.

Quantum field theory is not a major innovative theoretical achievement, it is just developed on the basis of quantum mechanics.

Therefore, among the two achievements brought by Chen Muwu, quantum field theory is far less important than the particle accelerator that opened up a new battlefield for experimental physics.

However, attention must be paid to it, but at the end, after Chen Muwu finished the live broadcast and put the goods on the small yellow cart, there was only a small response, and there was no grand event of placing orders.

Except for Compton, who came from the United States with a lot of money and placed an order on the spot, the rest of the reactions were basically the same as Planck's previous reaction, that is, they all knew to wait and see, and said that after returning to China, they would study and discuss with the school to get a solution. For clear results, contact the Cavendish Laboratory.

Accompanied by warm applause from the audience, Chen Muwu left the podium at the conference and immediately found Compton.

It was not that he was impatient to sign a contract with Compton, who represented the University of Chicago, but he had another thing to ask him:
"Professor Compton, in addition to the universities you just mentioned, can you contact other universities in the United States? For example, Yale? It's not easy to cross the Atlantic. We want to transport a few more machines at one time. .”

The other universities mentioned by Chen Muwu were all pretexts, and Yale was the purpose and focus of his search for Compton.

Of course, Yale University is also a well-known and good university in the United States. Chen Muwu will definitely feel uncomfortable if he does not get some benefits from such a wealthy private university.

In addition, Yale University also has a well-known alumnus in nuclear physics. Of course, it is not Homer Simpson’s Montgomery Burns, the boss of the nuclear power plant in Springfield, but the same name as Chen Muwu’s teacher Rutherford. Nobel Prize winner in physics, Ernest Lawrence.

Lawrence is the inventor of the cyclotron, which is more widely used than the two electrostatic accelerators. He was also educated at Yale University. I don’t know whether he is currently a Ph.D. student or has graduated with a degree and remains in school as a teacher.

Selling his own electrostatic particle accelerator to Yale University was also part of Chen Muwu's plan.

Although being exposed to particle accelerators in advance will shift Lawrence's attention to research in this area in advance.

But things always have two sides, and there are disadvantages and advantages. Maybe the emergence of electrostatic accelerators can make Lawrence's research go astray. All he can think about is how to build a larger, more insulated spherical electrode to use The voltage of the generator is increased to a level of a higher order of magnitude.

The Atom Smasher can still appear in the continental United States, it just needs to be in a slightly different location.

Regardless of the pros and cons, this step must be taken.

Chen Muwu would inevitably have interactions with Lawrence in the future, so today this time was all about asking for directions and getting information.

In such a relaxed atmosphere of "drinking and banqueting in the morning and playing and singing every night", the first Como Conference came to a successful conclusion according to the specified date.

A group of physicists who came from all over Europe and the United States to attend the conference not only fully affirmed the contribution of the Italian physicist Volta to the development of mankind and physics at the conference, but also, together with their colleagues from all over the world, They exchanged views on various advances made in several frontiers of physics in recent years.

What a triumphant meeting!

The Italian reception staff did not go away to have tea after the meeting. On the contrary, the dinner on the night after the meeting ended was the most sumptuous meal of the entire meeting.

It's time to say goodbye soon, and everyone attending this dinner has their own thoughts.

Many young physics students in Italy also came to the scene. They all wanted to try their luck and catch up with the trend during and after the dinner. As long as they could get any opportunity to study abroad, Going to Germany, the UK, France, the Netherlands, even Denmark and the United States is better than staying in Italy.

Some people wanted to take advantage of this dinner to continue their relationship with Chen Muwu and see if they could get him to intercede with Rutherford to lower the price of the particle accelerator a little.Anyway, the Cavendish Laboratory has already made a lot of money from the Americans, and everyone uses the thicker rice from Europe, so it is slightly cheaper, so it shouldn’t be impossible, right?
The banquet is no longer like the allocation of rooms in accommodation, where participants are grouped together according to their nationality.

There is no distinction between host and guest, no distinction between high and low, everyone can choose their own seat at will.

——But Chen Muwu can't.

As soon as he entered the dinner hall, he heard the familiar Nordic-accented English calling his last name from his seat.

"Dr. Chen, here, here!"

Chen Muwu had long discovered that Bohr was a little unusual during the meeting.

When he took the stage to deliver his speech, he mispronounced his name several times.

When others were on stage to give speeches, Bohr was absent-minded the whole time, always lowering his head, as if he was thinking about something.

Not only that, he often kept picking up a pen and writing and drawing on the paper in front of him.

What is this situation?

Could it be that Bohr went to all the trouble and made all the preparations in advance just to give himself a big reckoning at the dinner on the last day?
Chen Muwu could only walk to Bohr honestly, took out his chair and sat down.

"Professor Bohr, good evening. What do you want from me?"

"It's nothing important. You are very popular these days. The two results produced by the Cavendish Laboratory are also very excellent."

Generally speaking, the more you say this, the more serious the matter is.

Chen Muwu didn't know why, so he had no choice but to continue listening.

"Dr. Chen, I wonder if you have discovered such a problem?"

"what?"

“The invention of the telegraph and telephone greatly shortened the time for information communication between people.

“It turns out that if a letter is sent from Denmark to England by ship between the two countries, it will take at least a week one way.

“But with the advent of telegraphs and cables across the ocean floor, one day was enough to send messages from one corner of the earth to any other corner.

“And after the invention of the telephone, people in two places can communicate in real time with a very short delay.

"The telegraph and the telephone were both great inventions, but they each had their own shortcomings.

“First of all, let’s talk about telephone calls. Not only will long-distance calls cause serious distortion, but the price per minute is even higher than that of telegraph.

“After so many years of development, the price of telegraph has dropped to a range that is acceptable to most people.

"But for us physicists, telegraphs can only transmit some simple information, but they cannot completely transmit a physics paper full of various symbols and formulas.

“If you want to send the entire content of a paper from Copenhagen to Cambridge, you still can only use an ancient but very effective way, and that is to write a letter.

“So the communication between these two places takes nearly half a month, and the fastest is only more than a week.

“This time limit has seriously hindered academic exchanges between everyone and hindered the progress and development of physics.

"For example, at this Como Conference, I came to Italy and listened to the speech of Dr. Dirac, and then I understood what new results you had made in theoretical research.

“Of course I very much support young people like you making new achievements in quantum mechanics.

"But if you can send your new paper to Copenhagen as soon as you write it, maybe I can prepare a corresponding speech to make everyone attending the conference pay attention to this new branch of science. Unlike now, you just ignore this result because you are a group of young people.

"So these days I have been thinking about how to design a telegram-based paper formatting and transmission system, and now I have a basic prototype."

Bohr spoke without giving anyone a chance to interrupt, just as he did in his office in Copenhagen.

But he finally finished his long speech, picked up a few pieces of paper that had been placed on the table, and handed them to Chen Muwu.

On the paper are written how to distinguish between uppercase and lowercase letters, how common mathematical physics symbols such as differentials, summations, integrals, and circular integrals should be expressed, as well as various things such as superscripts, subscripts, matrices, and tables. .

Good guy, Chen Muwu felt that Bohr simply created a TeX typesetting system with his bare hands based on the current telegraph system.

Although it is much more complicated than TeX on the computer, it is also a relatively good solution under the current situation.

As Bohr said, sending letters is a waste of time.

But in this era, everyone adopts this method, and the accuracy can be guaranteed to the greatest extent.

Moreover, if you use TeX to input on a computer, error messages will appear from time to time during operation. If you use Telegram to send a paper, these errors will only be more, not less.

Even though the speed has improved a lot, it still takes a lot of time to correct those errors over and over again. It's not much more convenient than sending a letter, isn't it?
Why did Bohr do this?

(End of this chapter)