Reborn and become a Great Scientist

Chapter 322 61 Kapitsa’s Useless Efforts

It did not take long for the Cavendish Laboratory to receive telegrams from several well-known private and public universities in the United States, as well as deposits for particle accelerators sent through remittances from major banks.

It seems that Professor Compton, who went to Italy to attend the conference, did the University of Cambridge a big favor this time.

In addition, it is probably related to the articles published by Zhao Zhongyao and Cockcroft in the German "Annals of Physics".

Being able to artificially accelerate charged particles is still very shocking to physicists in this era.

Before this, if everyone wanted to bombard, they had to use a natural radioactive particle source. After collimation, a magnetic field was applied to separate the alpha particle beam inside.

Not to mention that the preparation work before doing the experiment is already very troublesome. Just talking about this alpha particle, there are many shortcomings and shortcomings in it.

It relies on natural radioactive sources, so the intensity and quantity of its emission cannot be controlled.

And because of the accelerating electric field, the alpha particles when bombarding the base cannot have higher energy.

But even with many shortcomings, alpha particles were still the only type of particle that scientists conducted bombardment experiments for a long time.

But now there are suddenly alternatives that are better, easier to operate, and offer more possibilities. Who can do physics experiments but not be tempted?
And another advantage of these universities in the United States is that no matter whether the thing is useful or not, and whether the machine will be used after buying it back home, it must be bought back first. Even if it is placed on campus without doing anything, the right As a decoration, it can also be used to brag to others.

This is just like when the nouveau riche built their villas. Regardless of whether they knew how to play or not, they always had to put a grand piano with the lid up in the hall on the first floor of their home to highlight their elegance.

——The life of rich people is so simple and boring.

Chen Muwu was happy to receive the telegram, and Chadwick was even happier to learn the news.

Now all he can think about is how much money can be made from one machine; how much money can be made by adding so many machines together; if he sells a few more machines to the outside world, he can save enough funds to build a new laboratory...

When Director Rutherford, who had been complaining about the aging Cavendish Laboratory's inability to do this or that, came back from New Zealand, he gave him a big surprise.

A few days ago, he heard Chen Muwu talk about his plan to sell several particle accelerators to European universities at a reduced price. Chadwick was still a little hesitant at the time, fearing that if he made such a move, he would lose his wife and lose his troops.

But these days, when he saw the telegraph orders coming to Cambridge University like snowflakes, even Chadwick, who always showed his seriousness, the corners of his mouth kept rising unconsciously, and he couldn't control it.

Last time, he was cautious and doubtful about Chen Muwu's suggestion. However, these orders gave him courage. Chadwick even began to urge Chen Muwu to sell the particle accelerator to Europe quickly. It didn't matter even if the price was reduced, as long as it was As long as you can make money.

As for the largest country in Eastern Europe, which has been blocked by Western powers because of ideological differences?

Wouldn't it be great if advanced and high-end gadgets like particle accelerators were sold?

Please, that has nothing to do with our science. After all, science has no borders.

Moreover, Germany, which had previously not allowed its scientists to participate in international conferences, has now been readmitted to the international order.

So why can't the particle accelerator be sold to Sulian?

Su Lian has been sending representatives to various recent international academic conferences.

However, due to some messy things, Chadwick's plan to sell the particle accelerator to Su Lian caused various unexpected problems after it was put into action.

In the coming May, the police from Scotland Yard in London, the capital of the United Kingdom, first broke into the office of the Soviet Union's trade delegation in the United Kingdom and conducted various searches for no reason in an attempt to find a list of Soviet spies stationed in the United Kingdom. As well as evidence that they supported the workers' strike last year and wanted to overthrow the British royal family and subvert the British government.

Then on the 24th of this month, the British government announced that it would break off diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and abolish the "Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement" signed in 1921, completely cutting off diplomatic and economic exchanges between the two countries.

However, this time the British government made a miscalculation. They slightly miscalculated their influence and felt that Britain was still the same empire it had been a few decades ago, the kind of empire that the sun never sets in the Victorian era with control over the entire world.

The British feel that as long as they raise their arms and raise the banner of "anti-Soviet and anti-G", then their younger brothers all over the world, including France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United States, and Austria, will immediately respond to them. , successively broke off diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, pursued and intercepted it, and finally brought this country to destruction, avenging the death of the cousin of the current British King and his family.

As a result, all the major powers around the world agreed with Britain's "righteous act", but when it came to severing diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, they all stopped talking.

Not only that, they also invited Sulian to attend the League of Nations meeting that year, which was a slap in the face to Britain.

The only major country that responded to the British initiative and immediately severed diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union was in the Far East. However, it was not Japan, which had territorial disputes with the Soviet Union, but the Tingjing Government of the Republic of China, which had territorial disputes with the Soviet Union. .

It’s rare for Lao Cao to become a masculine man. I don’t know whether it’s due to the influence of the UK and feeling that he can really compete with his neighbors in the north, or because Xiao Cao, who was studying in Sulian, made a public statement scolding him in a newspaper, so he became angry. Finally decided to do this.

How do you say that?A grain of ashes in the era becomes a mountain when it falls on everyone's head.

Although the severance of diplomatic relations between Britain and the Soviet Union did not cause much change in the international order, it affected the Cavendish Laboratory's money-making plan to a certain extent.

The particle accelerator, which had already been built and was ready to be packed and shipped to Lezhigrad, had to temporarily stop all steps of shipment.

Time is money. If Cambridge University does not deliver this particle accelerator on time, then after understanding the principles of the accelerator in detail and feeling that they have been cheated, the Germans are likely to reverse engineer and imitate the Cambridge machine and make Bring out German models and sell them to Su Lian to get some blood.

Therefore, Chen Muwu and Chadwick immediately found the Sulian people in the laboratory. Kapitsa, who had a strong voice in Sulian because of his status as a British student, asked him to quickly follow up with him through his own channels. Get in touch with the country and get this matter resolved.

Kapitsa has been busy getting married recently, often traveling between England and France.This was nothing to do originally, except for the fatigue caused by traveling back and forth.

But since the British severed diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, as a Soviet Union, I have also begun to follow suit.

On the one hand, because of his identity as a relatively well-known Soviet citizen still in the UK, he began to be suspected and monitored by the British government and police to prevent him from also belonging to the Soviet Union and being placed at the highest university in the UK. spy.

But on the other hand, because of the academic achievements and reputation Kapitsa earned in the UK, the British also wanted to see if they could win over this Russian who was born in Tsarist Russia and whose family background was a high-ranking official in Tsarist Russia. It would be best if he gave up the Soviet Union. In addition to my identity, I obtained a British nationality for my use.

So he has been in trouble recently. After discussing the matter with Anna, he happily returned to the UK from Paris.

As a result, we got off the ship in Dover and when we were queuing up to go through customs, we were stopped by the customs staff who had carefully checked Chen Muwu's luggage and told him that only by eating more beef could we be strong and "defeat the Germans". He was informed that his passport was not recognized due to the severance of diplomatic relations between Britain and the Soviet Union.

The smile on Kapitsa's face stopped abruptly at this moment. He moved out to various identities, such as a PhD from the University of Cambridge, an academician of Trinity College, the head of the Magnetism Division of the Cavendish Laboratory, etc., look As the British officials across the street made and answered various calls in a hurry, he was locked up in a small dark room at the customs for several hours before he was finally let out.

Before leaving, Kapitsa specifically asked if he would need to go through the same procedures as today if he went through customs again in the future, and was told by the other party that he still needed to do so.

Last winter, on the ship from Dover to France, Kapitsa was still laughing at the embarrassment of Chen Muwu being detained in a small dark room at the Polish border customs because of a language barrier.

As a result, retribution should not come too soon. In less than half a year, he had personally experienced what this kind of pain felt like.

Moreover, Chen Muwu only experienced it once, but he had to experience it once after passing customs until the two countries established diplomatic relations again.

But even so, Kapitsa did not choose to accept the British suggestion, allowing him to give up his Soviet nationality and become a British citizen, becoming a subject of His Majesty King George V.

The only time he had this thought was in Paris, France, when he asked Valerian Dovgalevsky, the Soviet Union's plenipotentiary in France, about the process of marrying his girlfriend abroad.

But because her girlfriend Anna was able to stay in France for a long time, she did not receive permission from the Soviet government like Kapitsa. She took a Soviet passport, but a Nansen passport.

In 1921, the Soviet Union government announced that the citizenship of Russians living abroad would be revoked. Anna, who came to France to take refuge due to the Russian Civil War, happened to be among the Russians whose status had been revoked.

Therefore, when Anna and Kapitsa got acquainted, they should be considered stateless people, and they had the Nansen passport specially set up by the international community for these stateless "refugees".

The Sulian government does not recognize the nationality of these people, and naturally it will not recognize Nansen's passport as legally valid.

Kapitsa's request to marry Anna made Dovgalevsky very embarrassed, because he had never dealt with this situation before.

So the reply from Sulian's office in France was that they could not get married in Paris unless Anna could obtain Sulian nationality or the nationality of another country.

But when Kapitsa asked how this "refugee" from Tsarist Russia could legally and legally become a Soviet citizen, Dovgalevsky was again vague.

Although Kapitsa, who attached great importance to this marriage, suppressed his anger, he could no longer stand the other party's attitude.

After receiving the answer, Kapitsa, who was in Dovgarevsky's office, made a request to the plenipotentiary, that is, to borrow the phone in the office.

The other party felt that Kapitsa might want to contact his fiancée to discuss what to do if she was rejected, so he agreed to Kapitsa's request.

As a result, Kapitsa called the British Embassy in France directly and asked his Trinity College alumnus, the British Ambassador Robert Marquess of Crewe-Milnis, a Soviet native, and his fiancée, a Nansen passport holder. , what are the requirements and procedures for becoming a British citizen.

This behavior of NTR in front of the Soviet Union plenipotentiary did not anger Dovgalevsky, but made the other party realize the seriousness of the matter.

The day after Kapitsa visited the Soviet Embassy in France, the embassy staff called Kapitsa again and asked him to bring his fiancée's photo to the embassy to collect her Soviet passport.

Since then, Kapitsa has never considered becoming a British citizen.

Listening to Kapitsa complaining about how tortured he was in the small dark room of the customs, Chen Muwu felt funny at first, and also remembered such an incident that happened when he got married in the future.

However, he could not persuade Kapitsa, a patriot, to give up his Soviet nationality and join the United Kingdom. He could only say that otherwise, Kapitsa should be like himself and obtain a status in the Royal Society or other royal organizations, so that he would not be able to do so again in the future. Suffered this shit at UK customs.

Unlike Chen Muwu, who has side jobs in astronomy and chemistry, Kapitsa is just a pure physics researcher.

If you want to join a more important association in the UK, the only one left is the Royal Society.

From then on, everyone at the Cavendish Laboratory recommended Kapitsa in the annual selection of new members of the Royal Society.

In order to increase the weight of his selection, Chen Muwu even went to London to persuade Old Prague to let the director of the Royal Institute put Kapitsa's name behind the position of director of the Monds Laboratory that he did not want.

It has to be said that there are people in the court who like to be officials. Rutherford is the president of the Royal Society, and everyone in the Cavendish Laboratory is the backbone of the Royal Society.

Everyone began to recommend Kapitsa in 1927. By New Year's Day in 1929, he became a new member of the Royal Society. From then on, he would no longer be blocked by officials when passing through customs.

However, it was also in this year that the Labor government, which came back to power, restored diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, which had broken off diplomatic relations for two years.

Kapitsa went around in a big circle with great effort, but the result was useless, exactly the same as doing nothing.

(End of this chapter)