Reborn and become a Great Scientist

Chapter 349 88 Eddington’s Good Luck

Chen Muwu explained every step of the chemical experiment he was about to conduct to Eddington in detail, and after a lot of talking, he finally persuaded Eddington to agree to use only nitrogen and deuterium to synthesize deuterated ammonia, and the remaining hydrochloric acid and Distilled water is always available, rather than being prepared one by one.

Accepting the idea does not mean that Eddington agrees with this approach. In his heart, he still insists on the simple idea, that is, the more deuterium atoms on the ammonium chloride target, the better. The more deuterium atoms are bombarded by accelerated deuterium nuclei, the better. The probability is greater.

He had no idea that Chen Muwu wanted to complete both deuterium-deuterium fusion and deuterium-protium fusion. This was to kill two birds with one stone.

Fortunately, Eddington did not persist stubbornly. Otherwise, even if Chen Muwu produced almost [-]% pure deuterated ammonium chloride NDCl and then bombarded it with accelerated deuterium nuclei, there would be no way to find Eddington. Want to know the equation for the nuclear fusion reaction inside the sun.

Although bombarding a deuteron with a deuteron will produce a radioactive tritium-3 nucleus T, and the radioactive tritium nucleus will undergo beta decay and release a beta particle into helium-3,

Ｔ→He+e.

However, the half-life of tritium is 12 and a half years, and it is unrealistic for a large amount of tritium generated in the deuterium-deuterium fusion reaction to decay.

Now that everything was designed, Eddington began to urge Chen Muwu to go to the chemical laboratory bench to make ammonium chloride targets containing deuterium atoms.

He also believed that the particle accelerator was a sophisticated experimental instrument, and he could just not be allowed to touch it. For a simple chemical experiment like the one he was about to conduct next, Chen Muwu had no reason to refuse his help.

Chen Muwu really couldn't stand Eddington's warm-heartedness, so he finally agreed to his invitation.

He assigned Eddington the simplest task, which was to produce nitrogen.

The way to obtain large amounts of nitrogen in industry is to separate various gases in liquid air with different boiling points.

In the laboratory, nitrogen is generally obtained by heating a mixture of saturated ammonium chloride solution and sodium nitrite.

NHCl + NaNO = heating = NaCl + 2HO + N↑.

There is basically no danger in this chemical reaction from reactants to products, and the required reaction conditions are just heating, which should be very easy for Eddington.

The only dangerous point is that the nitrogen generated from the reaction must be dried before collection to eliminate the water vapor generated by heating to obtain purer nitrogen.

After helping to install the flask, separatory funnel, alcohol lamp, tripod, asbestos net and other experimental equipment, Chen Muwu repeatedly told Eddington not to touch the drying bottle containing concentrated sulfuric acid.

Under Chen Muwu's guidance, Eddington completed the experiment with great enthusiasm and collected enough relatively pure nitrogen.

Then Eddington, who felt full of participation, could finally stand aside quietly and watch how Chen Muwu used the nitrogen and deuterium he produced to synthesize trideuterated nitrogen, and how he made deuterated ammonia. , and react with hydrochloric acid, and finally ammonium chloride crystals containing deuterium atoms are purified and crystallized from the resulting solution.

Eddington was satisfied and Chen Muwu was sweating profusely.

His theoretical knowledge of chemistry is not lacking, but his practical experience is like "a big girl getting on a sedan chair—for the first time."

Fortunately, the experiment was completed without any danger, and deuterated ammonium chloride that could convert deuterium atoms into solid was finally obtained.

So far, the laboratory they are going to do has only achieved one stage of success, and the next step is the highlight.

Even if Eddington beside him didn't urge him, Chen Muwu couldn't open the champagne here for half the game.

He worked non-stop to polish the ammonium chloride crystal that he had obtained with great effort and made it into a target that could be placed in a particle accelerator. Then he and Eddington carefully escorted this precious crystal target from the card again. The Vendish Laboratory returned to the laboratory where the particle accelerator was installed.

"If I had known that doing experiments was so interesting, I should not have left the Cavendish Laboratory in the first place."

Walking on the road, Eddington switched back to the excited state again.

“But compared with what we had back then, today’s laboratories are completely different from what they used to be. Experimental instruments are richer and the scope of experiments is wider.

“I remember that under Sir Thomson, we could only study two subjects, either thermal science or electricity, and electricity could only study two things, one was cathode rays and the other was anode rays.

"Dr. Chen, your generation is happier."

Looking at the state of Eddington next to him, Chen Muwu always felt that he could see the shadow of a primary school student walking on the spring outing in him, and his whole body exuded a state of excitement.

"Professor, you can't say that."

After arriving at Cambridge University, the old Thomson, who had taken a back seat, helped him a lot. He even took him to play golf and watch cricket matches with him.

He, Chen Muwu, could be regarded as the only direct descendant of the old director among the new generation of the Cavendish Laboratory. Of course, he had to defend his master, the Dean of Trinity College.

"Without the efforts of Sir Thomson and the predecessors in the Cavendish Laboratory, we would not have known that the rays emitted from the cathode are actually a bunch of electrons, let alone start with electrons to further understand the nucleus. internal structure.

"No matter how many floors a physics building has, it must be built layer by layer from the bottom. You can never skip a certain floor and directly build the upper floor. Our contribution to physics is also Built on the foundations of our predecessors.

“If Galileo hadn’t invented the astronomical telescope for the first time, astronomers today would have been no different from those of Tycho and Cape Town, still using the simplest method to observe the stars in the sky with the naked eye.

"And without the funding that Sir Thomson helped apply for from Lord Kelvin's Foundation, we at the Cavendish Laboratory would not have been able to build this particle accelerator, let alone the fact that we would use this machine today. Let’s do experiments and explore what the source of energy is in the sun.”

I don't know if Eddington could hear what he said in defense of old Thomson, but as he spoke, the two of them had returned to the particle accelerator laboratory that had just collapsed today.

The sun is setting in the west and the sky is getting late. In this summer in Cambridgeshire, even if Chen Muwu wants to follow the rule set by Rutherford, the director of the Cavendish Laboratory, that he must leave work at [-]pm every day regardless of whether the experiment is completed or not, Eddington would certainly be the first to disagree.So he simply didn't say anything that would ruin the experiment until tomorrow, but prepared to stay up all night to take all the photos of the cloud chamber.

There is deuterium in the particle source, and now there is a solid target. What to do next has become familiar to Chen Muwu. He no longer has to face the familiar and unfamiliar particle accelerator with his eyes blankly blank like before. .

He put the ammonium chloride handle containing deuterium atoms that he had finally obtained after all the hard work into the position of the target, sealed the entire experimental device, and applied a thick layer of milky white Vaseline to the interface, and then The vacuum machine was started and the inside slowly became more and more vacuum.

After the vacuum degree reaches the standard, start the power supply of the generator, and let the charge conveyor belt continuously transport the charge provided from the DC power supply to the spherical electrode of the generator.

He used an electrometer to detect that the voltage of the electromotor had risen to a certain height. Then he turned on the power and valve of the particle source again, extracted the deuteron nuclei from the plasma formed by deuterium nuclei, electrons and deuterium molecules, and launched them into an accelerated orbit. , after being accelerated by a high potential difference, collided with the ammonium chloride crystal on the target position, and then quietly waited for the impact product to enter the cloud chamber modified by Blackett, and took one photographic film after another. .

What Chen Muwu has to do is to wait at any time to change the film in the camera, and then occasionally repressurize the electromotor electrodes that have dropped in voltage after several accelerations.

What Eddington has to do is to observe everything Chen Muwu does inside through the glass in the preparation room.

I don't know how long it took, but the sky outside the brightly lit laboratory had already turned dark before Chen Muwu finally finished taking some of the photos they had prepared in advance.

He turned off the particle source, turned off the machine, short-circuited the generator, and released the charge accumulated on the spherical electrode in an instant.

Then he opened the machine and took out the ammonium chloride target inside. If the experiment was unsuccessful, the target would continue to be used. After carefully putting it away, he walked out of the laboratory with the stack of photographic films and returned to the laboratory. Eddington's side.

"How about it, was the experiment successful?"

Chen Muwu was used to the fact that the other party was more interested in this experiment than he was. He just shook his head: "I don't know whether the experiment was successful or not. Anyway, so many photographic films were taken. If I can capture any of them tomorrow, If new substances other than deuterium nuclei are found in the negatives, it will mean that our experiment may have been successful.

"If successful, we may have to go further to find more experimental data; if not successful, we will continue to return to this laboratory and redo today's experiment until it succeeds or continues to fail, and then redesign New experiments.”

"Why tomorrow, can't we see better now?"

Chen Mu yawned pretendingly, and Eddington closed his mouth angrily.

Except for the production of nitrogen using sodium nitrite and ammonium chloride in the chemistry laboratory, most of the remaining experiments today were performed by Dr. Chen alone. He was indeed very excited to see it, but if you think about it in another way, For a moment, you can feel how tired Dr. Chen is, who is not stopping at all.

Eddington felt that as an elder, he seemed to have forgotten Dr. Chen's identity as a world-famous physics rookie. Instead, he only regarded him as a young man of the younger generation and squeezed him a little too much. This made him He felt a little guilty in his heart.

But this guilt lasted for less than one night.

Eddington spent the whole night thinking about the sun on the back of the earth and didn't sleep well. When it was dawn the next morning and the sun had just risen, he couldn't wait to ring the bell belonging to Chen Muwu in Trinity College. The door to that room.

"Good morning, Professor Eddington."

The sleepy-eyed Chen Muwu poked his head out of the crack in the door.

"Dr. Chen, good morning."

After the door opened, Eddington was not polite and pushed the door directly in. He was still holding a few photos taken yesterday.

This made Chen Muwu feel that this person was really perseverant. Could it be that he stayed up all night watching the film last night, and could he still be so energetic today?
"Did you find helium-4 nuclei produced by nuclear fusion on the photographic film last night?"

Even though his head was still not clear, Chen Muwu deliberately asked the wrong question.

However, Eddington’s answer was even better: “No, no, no, Dr. Chen, I brought this to you.

"I couldn't sleep last night, so I tried to look at the photographic films, and then I realized that I didn't seem to have the ability.

"But I still discovered something from these negatives. For example, some tracks have thick lines, and some tracks have thin lines. Some tracks have high curvature, and some tracks have low curvature. Because I really can't be sure, so I just brought it over early in the morning for you to take a look at.

"I have already told the servants in the college to bring breakfast and tea - Chinese green tea, not the Indian black tea that you don't like - to this room, but before that, I hope you can finish reading this. A few photos. After breakfast, we will go to the laboratory to look at the rest of the negatives."

Eddington's abacus beads were crackling and almost splashed into Chen Muwu's face.

"Professor, I'm going to take a quick wash first to wash off all the dirt on my face, and then I'll take a look at these photo negatives you picked out."

Eddington, who didn't hear the teasing in the words, nodded in agreement.

After putting his head under the water pump and giving his brain a forced reboot, Chen Muwu finally woke up a little.

He took a few carefully selected photos from Eddington, who had already entered the room and was sitting on the sofa, and sat down at his table to look at them carefully.

The trajectory of particles in the cloud chamber has various indicators such as thickness, length, and straightness, which are all related to the charge, mass, and velocity of the particles when they are incident.

I have to say that Eddington still has two brushes, and his luck is really good.

Chen Muwu didn't even use a ruler to measure and use pen and paper to calculate. He just took a rough look at the radius of the trajectories in the magnetic field. He felt that Eddington had a tritium nucleus with one positive charge and a helium-3 nucleus with two positive charges. They were all found.

(End of this chapter)