Reborn and become a Great Scientist

Chapter 309 48 roads lead to Rome

Milan's most famous landmark building is, of course, the world's largest Gothic cathedral, Milan Cathedral, which took five centuries to complete and where Napoleon held his coronation ceremony as King of Italy.

Of course, in this era, people's behavior in the square in front of the main entrance of Milan Cathedral was quite civilized. There were no "thieves" who committed crimes in gangs and relied on violence to directly steal things, nor did they forcefully tie the so-called lucky bracelets on your wrists. On the wrist, he then changes hands and asks for a few euros from you, and won't let you go until you give him the money.

——This is more advanced than those "college students" who sell a box of pens for 100 yuan to others under the banner of "college student entrepreneurship". It has risen to the level of forced buying and selling.

Well, there is no Tony Leung who flies to Europe to feed the pigeons when he is in a bad mood and then flies back that night.

In addition to the Milan Cathedral, there is another building in Milan that will be very famous in later generations. It was also completed in 1926, the year before Chen Muwu's visit to Italy, and that is the San Siro Football Stadium in the suburbs of Milan.

Later, the football stadium was renamed Meazza in commemoration of the famous Milan star. It is the home stadium shared by the two Serie A giants Milan and Inter Milan.

Chen Muwu suddenly thought, when he comes to Milan now, will he be able to see Meazza fighting and galloping on the green field on behalf of Inter Milan?
But after consulting the tour guide around him, he learned another fact about football.

Today's Italian football matches are divided into regions.

The regional champions are first selected, and then these champions are organized to compete. The final winner can become the Italian champion of that year.

Like the later Serie A system, eighteen or twenty teams were divided into home and away teams to organize round-robin matches, and the team points rankings in a season were used to compete for who would be the champion, runner-up, and who would be the unlucky one who would be relegated to the next league. , has not appeared yet.

In the UK, Chen Muwu had already set his sights on the FA Cup final a few years ago, but when he came to Italy, his desire to watch a mini World Cup could not be satisfied.

There was not even a World Cup in this era. It would have to wait until three years later, in 1930, for Uruguay on the South American continent to host the first World Cup.

Just like the centenary anniversary of the modern Olympic Games failed to return to Athens, the centenary anniversary of the World Cup failed to return to Uruguay and chose to pay tribute in a very funny way.

So whether it’s feelings or commemorative significance, it’s all nonsense. Atlanta is more commercial than Athens, and Europe is more profitable than South America. These are the key reasons why the very childish organizing committee decides where the event will be held.

Yes, Chen Muwu did not come to Milan alone this time. He did not speak Italian and was lucky enough to have a foreign tour guide, the same Fermi who memorized the tour guide mechanically on the shores of Lake Como a few days ago.

Fermi's job is as a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Rome. He came to the Como Conference on the one hand as a representative figure among young Italian physicists, and on the other hand because he knew multiple languages ​​and was able to come back to attend the conference. to communicate with physicists from other countries.

Now that the meeting is over, it makes no sense for him to stay in Como.

But Chen Muwu did not specifically invite Femi to go to Rome with him. The two met by chance when they got off the platform at Milan's Central Railway Station.

After hearing that Chen Muwu said that he would stay in Milan to wait for Hubble, and that after the two of them met, they would go south to Rome together, Fermi also volunteered to stay.

Not only did he take Chen Muwu to the popular tourist attraction Milan Cathedral, but he also went to the Church of Our Lady of Grace, not far from here.

Compared with the majestic Milan Cathedral, the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, which was built nearly a century later, is much simpler.

After arriving in Milan, Chen Muwu visited two churches one after another, not just to refresh himself on religious knowledge before meeting the old man, the Pope.

It's because in the humble building of the Church of Our Lady of Grace, there is actually a world-famous painting stored there. The famous mural "The Last Supper" painted by Leonardo da Vinci himself on the wall of the church restaurant.

Although the mural "The Last Supper" is also very famous, it is not the painting that people first think of when they mention Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo da Vinci's world-famous representative work is of course the "Mona Lisa" hidden in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France.

At this point, Italy is similar to China now, that is, many of its own country's national treasures are stored in museums in other countries.

No wonder people have always said that Italy is the China of Europe. The reason why everyone can say this is not only that the national football teams of these two countries cannot enter the World Cup.

However, when the time entered the [-]th century, the "Mona Lisa" hanging on the wall of the Louvre once encountered an incredible theft case.

It disappeared from the Louvre in 1911, and it was not until two years later, in 1913, that the painting "Mona Lisa" reappeared on the market in Italy.

The truth of the matter was gradually discovered. Vincenzo Perugia, an Italian painter at the Louvre, took advantage of the closing time one day to secretly take the painting off the wall without knowing it. It was shipped back to Italy from France.

Perugia declared in the newspaper that he went through hardships and returned the national treasure for the sake of the country, and became a national hero in Italy at that time.

In the end, he was sentenced to six months in prison by the authorities. For Italy, which had not abolished the death penalty at that time, this sentence could be regarded as very respectful and very light.

As for where the world-famous painting "Mona Lisa" ended up?
Three years ago, in 1924, when Chen Muwu participated in the Olympic Games in Paris, accompanied by de Broglie, he entered the Louvre and saw the original of this painting with his own eyes, which can explain everything.

This is because after the Italian government obtained the lost "Mona Lisa", it held emergency closed-door consultations for two days and two nights, and finally decided to "return the painting to its original owner."

Although Italy is already a member of the "Eight-Power Allied Forces" and one of the powers that had concessions on the lands of the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China.

But when facing a power like France that was stronger than itself, Italy could only choose to bow its head again.

Some people also say that the painting "Mona Lisa" was not ranked highly among Leonardo da Vinci's works or in the collection of the Louvre at first, just because it was "lost and recovered" this time. The theft made it famous and became a world-famous painting.

The overseas "Mona Lisa" is preserved in the Louvre, but the condition of the mural "The Last Supper" left on the wall of the Church of Our Lady of Grace in China is even worse than the "Mona Lisa."

It is said that the paint on the walls began to crack in the second year after Leonardo completed the painting.

Later, the lazy monks in the church, in order to make it easier to enter and exit the restaurant, opened a small restaurant door on the wall with murals, which can lead directly to the church kitchen.

Then Napoleon's France sent troops to attack and occupy Italy. The Church of Our Lady of Grace became a garrison for French troops, and the restaurant of the church became a stable for horses.

The soldiers didn't care who was Leonardo da Vinci, who was Jesus, who was Judas, or who were the remaining eleven disciples.

The "Last Supper" painted on the wall just became the object of everyone's venting when they were bored.

They used the faces on the murals as targets for throwing stones. Whoever threw stones more accurately and hit them more times would win more cheers.

If the country blew up the Bamiyan Buddhas, it can be said to be due to different religious beliefs.

But these French soldiers stoned Jesus in the face, which was more or less...

After the French left, the city of Milan also organized people to repair the "Last Supper", but the results can only be said to be better than nothing.

The real Leonardo da Vinci that Chen Muwu saw on the wall of the Church of Our Lady of Grace was much uglier than the photos he saw in art textbooks.

As for the use of light and color in this painting mentioned in the book, I'm sorry, I can't see it at all.

Within a day, Fermi took Chen Muwu on a tour of Milan, briefly browsing several well-known local attractions, and then they finally arrived at Hubble, which was belatedly arriving.

Hubble came to Milan by train from Brak, the capital of Czechoslovakia.Prague was the last stop on his tour of European holy lands. Tycho, the great astronomer wearing a prosthetic nose, spent the last period of his life in Prague.

Tycho also accepted a student here who had a bad relationship with him, Kepler, who was also a great astronomer who inherited his legacy.

Because Chen Muwu once quoted Hubble's observation data at the Nobel Prize award ceremony.

So although he is not popular in the United States, he still has a certain reputation on the European continent.

After picking up Hubble on the platform of Milan Central Station, Chen Muwu introduced him and Fermi, future good friends, to each other.

Hubble didn't have time to visit the attractions in Milan. They could only visit the old Milan train station. The new station started construction ten years ago, but due to the poor economy in Italy during World War I, It was shelved indefinitely. It was not until the tough-minded Mexican Prime Minister came to power that the construction of the new Milan station resumed. Li simply drank a cup of coffee, ate a panettone, and got on the train to Rome again. .

During the Como Conference, the issue that impressed Fermi the most was not the particle accelerator brought by Chen Muwu, nor the theoretical paper on two-word mechanics jointly published by a group of young physicists, but Chen Muwu's efforts not to He was asked to recite the translation and asked the question "Do aliens exist?"

After parting ways on the shores of Lake Como that day, Fermi had always wanted to estimate a number to see how many planets similar to Earth in the galaxy where humans live have advanced life on them.

But firstly, as a theoretical physicist, he did not know enough about astronomical data, and secondly, he could not easily access the literature in the resort town of Como, so Fermi never made progress in this area of ​​work.

He originally planned to wait until he returned to Rome to search for specific data in the university library.

But when he heard that Chen Muwu would be waiting for an astronomer from the United States in Milan, Fermi felt that it was like being handed a pillow when he was sleepy, so he decided to ask Hubble for relevant questions directly on the train.

After he had just settled down on the train, Fermi showed his enthusiasm, which made Hubble, an American also known for his enthusiasm, a little uncomfortable.

Moreover, Fermi’s first few questions were quite normal, such as “Approximately how many stars are there in the Milky Way?” and “What is the probability that there may be planets in a star system?”…

But as time went on, the questions the Italian asked became more and more bizarre.

“What is the probability that life could evolve on a planet?”

"What is the probability that these life forms can evolve into intelligent higher organisms?"

"What is the probability that higher organisms can travel to the stars?"

"What is the average lifespan of higher organisms?"

"Is it long enough to exceed the time it would take them to travel to the stars?"

……

None of these increasingly perverted questions could be answered by Hubble. However, seeing Fermi’s eyes full of curiosity and Chen Muwu saying that he was a good young physicist in Italy, Hubble could only He could have the patience to help Fermi conduct a blind analysis in a serious manner.

Fermi was not the first physicist Hubble met, but he was the first Italian he met.

Could it be said that all Italians are as out-of-the-box as he is?Hubble, who was talking all kinds of "nonsense", was a little unsure.

Fermi and Hubble were beside them chattering away in English on various profound "cosmological issues", which did not affect Chen Muwu, who was leaning on the back of his seat with his eyes closed and thinking about the problem.

Because this is neither Britain nor France, but Italy on the Apennine Peninsula.

The discussion between Fermi and Hubble can be considered quite quiet. Even in the first-class carriage with the most expensive fares, these noble Italian upper class people will not reduce their speaking voices at all.

Of course, Chen Muwu was not thinking about serious physics or astronomy issues, but was thinking about the inspiration he suddenly gained after visiting "The Last Supper" in Milan. He was thinking about whether he could convert the book "The Da Vinci Code" into two books. Century, and then sell it to Penguin Publishing to earn a royalties.

The rail distance between Milan and Rome is less than [-] kilometers, and the journey theoretically only takes half a day.

When the train just started, Chen Muwu also told Fermi about the punctuality problem of Italian domestic trains under the new Prime Minister, but the latter just laughed and said nothing.

As a result, when the time on the train schedule was supposed to arrive in Rome, the train they took happened to stop at the platform of a station.

The station name written on the station building also has four Latin letters. The last letter is still "a", but the first three letters are somewhat different from "Rom".

"Professor Fermi, are the Latin letters you Italians use different from those in the UK? Does the letter 'R' in the name of Rome also have that letter? Or will you write it as an English letter? 'P'?"

Chen Muwu's question made Femi confused. He simply put his head in front of the train window and followed Chen Muwu's gaze.

"Dr. Chen, you really made a great joke. This is not Roma, but Pisa."

Pisa, the legendary place where Galileo threw the iron ball, is also where Fermi's university is located.

Hearing what he said, Chen Muwu looked out of the car even more excitedly.

Fermi once again saw through Dr. Chen's intention and told him that the Leaning Tower of Pisa was on the other side of the carriage.

As a result, when Chen Muwu turned around, he found that the window on the other side of the carriage was completely blocked by a train. His desire to overlook the Leaning Tower of Pisa was in vain.

The whole journey was just over halfway, and Chen Muwu couldn't hold on any longer. He was so sleepy that he lost consciousness and fell asleep.

This also gave Fermi enough time to calculate the probability of alien existence on the train.

The three of them left Milan after breakfast in the morning, but they didn't arrive in the Italian capital until the sky was filled with stars.

After being shaken awake from his sleep, Chen Muwu finally saw the Roman letters on the platform and prepared to get off.

But Fermi, who woke him up, said something else.

"Dr. Chen, Dr. Chen, I have calculated that extraterrestrials should exist! Should we jointly write a paper and announce this contradiction to the world?"

So just like that, the Fermi Paradox has been calculated on the train more than 20 years in advance - perhaps it should be called the "Fermi-Chen Paradox" now.

Chen Muwu, who had just woken up, was reluctant to talk more and just vaguely agreed to the matter.

"But I don't think any physics journal would be willing to publish such a ridiculous conclusion if you write a paper, even with my name on it. I suggest you wait until you get to Rome and find the most famous one in Italy." Newspapers, tell reporters what you found—that’s what they love to hear.”

Hubble, who had also just woken up, stared at the two young people next to him with extremely incredible eyes.

That Italian named Fermi went crazy and said that aliens may exist. Dr. Chen, why are you going crazy with him?
(End of this chapter)