Reborn and become a Great Scientist

Chapter 331 70 Doctoral Dissertation Defense

After returning to the Cavendish Laboratory, Chen Muwu was still overwhelmed with things, more than the number of cousins ​​in Li Tiemei's family.

The particle accelerator, which had been idle for several days, finally completed its "overhaul" work and was reopened to professors, teachers and staff in the laboratory. This small room outside the Cavendish Laboratory once again returned to the flow of people. An endless state.

Chen Muwu is still the only designated operator of this machine. In order to make up for the fact that the particle accelerator was unavailable a few days ago due to his own reasons, he even worked overtime and tried his best to complete experiments designed and proposed by others.

——Although these experiments, as he and the Curies said, are just using existing proton sources to bombard various target metals, they are basically useless efforts that repeat a lot of work. .

In addition to operating machines every day, Chen Muwu also took time to participate in two doctoral thesis defense meetings. The protagonists of these two defenses were a Russian who has been studying magnetism in the laboratory with Kapitsa in the past few years and has grown into a Russian. His right-hand man, Shi Ruwei, and Oppenheimer, who has not been seen for a long time.

Zhao Zhongyao was supposed to graduate this year, but he was sent by Chen Muwu to Germany and Sulian to install particle accelerators, so he could only postpone his graduation until he came back from the European continent and then re-apply in the Cavendish Laboratory. A doctoral thesis defense.

—The same goes for Cockcroft.

However, the defense of their doctoral thesis can basically be regarded as a mere formality, because the successful construction of the particle accelerator was a major achievement and was the most important achievement of the Cavendish Laboratory in 1927.

At the moment when this particle accelerator was used to successfully accelerate hydrogen nuclei and complete artificial nuclear reactions, Zhao Zhongyao and Cockcroft received their doctoral diplomas and had no problem wearing their doctorate hats.

Those who do not answer the question are just going through the motions and changing their names to be more legitimate.

Let’s talk about Shi Ruwei and Oppenheimer’s graduation.
If one only looked at his identity, Dr. Chen Muwu should not have been qualified to appear on the judging panel of these two defense meetings. He could only be an observer in the audience and could not participate in the defenses.

But fortunately, when Rutherford left the school, he designated the temporary manager in his absence. This not only caused Chen Muwu's workload to increase sharply in recent months, but also finally allowed him to sit in two defense meetings legitimately. Jury seat.

Although Kapitsa is a carefree, enthusiastic and outgoing person, his academic level is excellent enough. Otherwise, no one would invite him to repair hydraulic presses, and then helplessly offer a thousand pounds with both hands to guide students. I also do my duty when I work.

At the same time, Kapitsa also spoke very highly of Shi Ruwei. He even secretly showed off to Chen Muwu when he was alone several times, saying that Chen used Shi Ruwei to replace Koklov from him. Te, helped Chen design and build the particle accelerator. It seemed that Chen got a big deal and had an extra right-hand man to work with.

But in fact, he was the one who wanted to thank Chen Muwu for sending Shi Ruwei. The cooperation between him and Shi Ruwei was tacit enough, and the feeling of being at ease, not to mention Chen and Cockcroft, even Compared with his inseparable follower Oppenheimer, he is not inferior.

Although Chen Muwu also made great achievements in magnetism research, he discovered the magnetic effect of superconductors in the superconducting state.

But that can only be regarded as his part-time job, and it is only related to magnetism.

Once he encountered more professional magnetism knowledge, he started to learn more about it.

What should he do if he was asked to ask a question after the thesis presentation was over?
Chen Muwu, who felt guilty, glanced at the people sitting on both sides of him at the judging table. Whether it was Chadwick or Old Thomson, both of them were calm, with no anxious look on their faces.

Chadwick's expression showed whether he was confident or not. Chen Muwu said it was not good.

But Chen Muwu suddenly felt much more relaxed when his master, Old Thomson, put on such an expression.

As the former director of the Cavendish Laboratory and the dean of Trinity College, Thomson Sr. was highly respected in the laboratory, but that was all.

Some people say that for physicists, or all scientific workers, the prime time to produce research results is before the age of 40.

After the age of 40 and entering middle age, people begin to become more and more conservative and self-contained. It is easy to form a circle with the knowledge they have and are unwilling to accept new things.

When it comes to Einstein, what is reflected is his doubts about quantum mechanics from the beginning to the end until his death.

The same applies to old Thomson.

As the discoverer of the electron, Old Thomson not only did not accept Chen Muwu’s wave mechanics, Bohr’s atomic nucleus model, he even did not accept Rutherford’s solar system model. He always believed that the plum pudding model he proposed was the most correct and unbreakable of.

It is estimated that Old Thomson did not know much about magnetism.

Since he can be calm and relaxed, why can't he?

After Shi Ruwei finished his report, the cowardly behavior that Chen Muwu imagined did not happen.

They were all members of the Cavendish Laboratory, and Shi Ruwei was brought to England by Chen Muwu to study under Kapitsa.

Chen Muwu and Kapitsa were the two most popular and highly academic among the younger generation in the laboratory. Needless to say, the abilities of the people they favored were high, and everyone was willing to give them face.

After the defense, no one at the judging panel asked any difficult questions. Everyone just asked a few symbolic questions, and Chen Muwu followed suit.

Only Kapitsa seems to have asked questions about a few key points in the paper, but this paper was entirely written under his guidance. His questions are basically equivalent to asking and answering questions on his own.

Because Chen Muwu had to defend his thesis, the particle accelerator at Cambridge University was once again shut down for a day.

His main task today is not to make things difficult for these two students so that they cannot successfully obtain their doctoral diplomas, but as the acting director of the laboratory, after everyone's defense is over, announce the final results of the defense and lead Everyone applauded and celebrated.

So amidst the applause of the whole hall, Shi Ruwei passed the doctoral thesis defense without any controversy, and got a doctoral hat for himself at Cambridge University, the best university in the UK and the world.

Shi Ruwei was able to successfully pass the thesis defense, but he did not make a good start for Oppenheimer who was ranked behind him, so that he could relieve his nervousness, and even made Oppenheimer more nervous.

Because when he first entered the Cavendish Laboratory, he had some unsatisfactory reputation. After being rejected by Rutherford several times, he found the relationship with Old Thomson through his family and relied on Chen Muwu's package. Tickets, and finally entered the laboratory after twists and turns.That is to say, from the moment they first entered the laboratory, Oppenheimer and Director Rutherford have been refusing to deal with him.

According to rumors, Rutherford once persuaded Chen Muwu countless times, all of which were to find a reason to expel Oppenheimer from the laboratory if his performance was unsatisfactory.

Fortunately, Dr. Chen withstood the pressure from above, allowing him to stay in the UK without any danger in the past few years, and finally reached the final hurdle of graduation.

Rutherford, who had returned to New Zealand to visit relatives, was not at Cambridge University, which gave Oppenheimer some peace of mind.

But he was still afraid that Chadwick and Fowler, who were sitting on the review bench, would raise some unexpected questions to make things difficult for his paper. After all, one of them was Rutherford's right-hand man, and the other was his. The husband of an only child.

I hope that Dr. Chen and Dean Thomson, who are sitting on the other side of the review table, can ensure that there will be no problems in their defense.

With this complicated feeling of excitement and apprehension, Oppenheimer walked to the defense table.

It can only be said that the sensitive Oppenheimer was a little too sensitive.

He felt that Shi Ruwei was able to pass the doctoral thesis defense so easily because he was a student of both Chen Muwu and Kapitsa, so everyone at the review table was able to follow the trend and be open-minded.

But Oppenheimer never thought that it was actually because Shi Ruwei's research direction, magnetism, was slightly unpopular for the Cavendish Laboratory, which currently focused entirely on radioactivity and particle physics.

Then looking back at Oppenheimer, although his paper was not a relatively niche branch of physics such as magnetism, it was quantum mechanics, which is currently popular.

But what he gave was a purely theoretical paper. For the Cavendish Laboratory, which is famous for experiments, it is no less popular than the magnetism that Shi Ruwei just did.

Among the five judges sitting in the audience, old Thomson is purely the mascot who comes to the show; Chadwick and Kapitsa are good at doing experiments and are slightly lacking in theory; and Dr. Chen is his teacher. He will definitely not make things difficult for himself; the only person who may cause problems is Rutherford's son-in-law Fowler.

Fowler is the second best person in theoretical physics in the Cavendish Laboratory after Chen Muwu.

Moreover, he also tutored a doctor named Dirac, who was also Oppenheimer's tutor for his doctoral thesis.

——This is another bridge that Chen Muwu created. On the one hand, Oppenheimer wanted to write his doctoral thesis, and on the other hand, he had too many things to do and had no time to care about the progress of his thesis, so he put this aside. This matter was entrusted to Dirac, who was also good at theoretical research.

If you calculate it this way, there is a thin layer of affection between Oppenheimer and Fowler. Fowler shouldn't embarrass himself too much, right?
Chen Muwu, who was sitting on the judging panel, didn't know what Oppenheimer was thinking at this time, otherwise he would definitely think that he was making unfounded worries.

As long as his thesis is correct and there is no problem with the result, and he is upright and not afraid of slanted shadows, can others find any problems?Physics is the most practical discipline.

Oppenheimer nervously stood in the C seat of the conference room and began the most important thesis presentation in his first half of life.

The people at the judging panel were all smiling and relaxed, and occasionally even chatted with each other.

"Chen, in the blink of an eye, even Oppenheimer from the United States is about to graduate with his Ph.D.. My memory still remains a few years ago, when you first arrived at Cambridge University and showed up in the Cavendish Laboratory. Moment. In a few years, how many results have you achieved? Even this laboratory has undergone earth-shaking changes."

It was Old Thomson who expressed this emotion.

The great man said that there is no faction in D, and there are all kinds of strange things.

There are also factions in the Cavendish Laboratory, which can be divided into old people who worked in the laboratory when Thomson was the director, such as Wilson and Aston; and those who worked in the laboratory after Rutherford took office in 1919. Newcomers who have just entered the laboratory will not be listed here.

But regardless of whether there was any discord between the two factions, they all regarded Chen Muwu as one of their own.

Hearing them talking about this topic, Fowler leaned over and echoed: "I also remember what happened at that time. Professor Eddington received a telegram from Professor Einstein and went to London in person. I got Dr. Chen's thesis manuscript from the "Journal of Philosophy" and brought it back to Cambridge for us to look at it together.

“After reading the paper on gamma ray scattering, I thought that Dr. Chen was also a master of experimental physics, and it would be just right for him to join the Cavendish Laboratory.

"Shortly after the results, I read the paper about general relativity again, and I realized that you are not only a master of experiments, but also have a very good level of theoretical physics. As I learned more and more deeply, I realized How much physical energy does Dr. Chen contain in his body?"

It was originally Oppenheimer's doctoral thesis defense meeting, but it turned into Chen Muwu's fancy rainbow fart.

By the time Oppenheimer finished his reading, the voices in the judging panel almost surpassed that of today's protagonist.

Although Chen Muwu was not very involved in Oppenheimer's graduation thesis, the topic was chosen by him.

In the original time and space, this thing was called the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, which was something Oppenheimer came up with when he was studying for his PhD with Born at the University of Göttingen.

But now Oppenheimer did not poison Blackett, nor did he go to Paris to see a psychiatrist. He finally went to Germany to complete his Ph.D., so now this approximation should be called the Oppenheimer approximation, or it can be added Dirac's name.

After Oppenheimer finished speaking, everyone's reaction was similar to that of Shi Ruwei just now. After asking a few symbolic questions, they all looked at Chen Muwu, which meant do you have anything else to say.

Having been pushed to such an extent, Chen Muwu had no choice but to speak: "Can you treat me to a treat at the Eagle Bar tonight?"

"No problem at all!"

The conference room in the Cavendish Laboratory was once again filled with cheerful air.

(End of this chapter)