Reborn and become a Great Scientist

Chapter 350 Products of 89 deuterium-deuterium reaction

Under Eddington's eager gaze, Chen Muwu, who already knew the specific results, still pretended to take out a ruler, paper and pen, measured and recorded the data seriously, and then carefully calculated on the scratch paper. stand up.

Basically, they are all simple four arithmetic operations, which are not difficult for Chen Muwu, a problem solver.

The movements of his hands were carefree, but the expression on his face pretended to be in great pain.

This left Eddington, who was standing beside Chen Muwu and observing the situation on the paper, unsure of his decision. He could only pray in his heart that his and Dr. Chen's efforts would not be in vain, hoping to obtain some positive results.

The valet of Trinity College had already brought the prepared tea, coffee and breakfast including bread, bacon and fried eggs, but one of the two people was trying to calculate, and the other was trying to watch others calculate, and no one touched it. After two breakfasts, the hot drinks inside gradually dropped to the same as room temperature, stopping heat exchange.

After a long while, Chen Muwu finally put down the pen in his hand, frowned and raised his head.

"Professor Eddington, I'm afraid we have to go back again."

After hearing this, Eddington suddenly became anxious: "What's wrong, Chen? I didn't find what you wanted in these photo negatives, so do you have to go back and look at other photos? But I What do the trajectories found mean? Are there not even a single alpha particle in them?"

"Don't worry, Professor, that's not what I meant."

Chen Muwu pushed the several photographic films back to Eddington along the tabletop of his desk.

While pointing out some of the tracks on the film with his finger, he continued to explain to the grumpy gentleman opposite:

“It’s not that we didn’t find it, it’s that there were too many newly generated particles.

"Professor, if you look at this one, it is obviously a proton.

"It may be a hydrogen atom on the ammonium chloride crystal target, which was knocked out of the ammonium chloride by the accelerated deuterium nucleus that hit the target;
"Of course, it is also possible that the deuterium nucleus collided with other atoms, knocking the proton out of some unknown atom X.

"——Just like the experiment done by Mr. Blackett a few years ago. He used alpha particles to bombard nitrogen atoms. The two particles fused to form a new oxygen-17 nucleus, and another one was emitted from it. Proton.

"Although there are no alpha particles in our experiment, there are accelerated deuterium nuclei, and there are also nitrogen atoms in the ammonium chloride crystal. Maybe these two particles can also undergo a nuclear reaction and knock out the protons inside.

"..."

"Is there another possibility?"

Eddington, who had been thinking along with Chen Muwu's explanation, interrupted what he was about to say before he could say it.

“That is, the accelerated deuterium nucleus first collided with the deuterium atom in ammonium chloride, and the two particles were combined together and turned into an alpha particle;

"Then the alpha particle reacts with the nitrogen atom in the ammonium chloride, and as you said, it combines to form an oxygen-17 and releases a proton.

"The alpha particle in the first step of the reaction is essentially a helium-4 nucleus.

“Then doesn’t this prove that two deuterium atoms can indeed undergo nuclear fusion to produce one helium?

"The mass loss before and after this reaction can be converted into a large amount of energy according to the mass-energy equation - Chen, we have successfully cracked the mystery of the sun's continuous outward function!"

The more Eddington spoke, the more excited he became, and the more excited he became, the more he spoke. In the end, he wanted to burst into flames.

Chen Muwu didn't think so much about it at first. He first pointed out the protons from the photographic films in the cloud chamber in order to use protons for comparison later and tell Eddington what the masses of the two newly discovered particles should be like protons. times, and how many times the charge it carries should be that of a proton.

And he also knows that the source of this proton is a by-product of the nuclear fusion of deuterium and deuterium. When a tritium is generated, a proton is also generated.
D+D→T+p.

He did not expect that Eddington could actually ingeniously believe that the intermediate product alpha particle was first generated, and then the proton was generated through nuclear transmutation with the nitrogen nucleus.

Chen Muwu was speechless for a moment, and after his brain was running rapidly for a few seconds, he reluctantly gave his answer: "But, professor, I did not find even a single trace of oxygen-17 nuclei in these photographic films."

"Then let's go look for the remaining films in the laboratory to see if there is oxygen-17. Once found, won't we be able to determine the source of energy in the sun?"

Eddington couldn't wait.

While he was anxious, his mind remained clear:

"There is another situation. If oxygen-17 does not appear in the cloud chamber, it may be stuck in the crystal lattice because it is too large and cannot be bombarded out.

"——At that time, we will have to think of other methods to see how to detect the oxygen-17 doped in ammonium chloride."

Eddington seemed to be analyzing things lucidly, and the look in his eyes seemed to be hinting to Chen Muwu not to be stunned and to quickly go to the laboratory with him to look at the remaining photographic films.

Chen Muwu could only try his best to comfort him: "Professor, don't worry, let me finish analyzing the photos on hand first, and it won't be too late for us to go to the laboratory to look at the others."

"Haven't we already found the proton? What else do we need to analyze?"

"Please look here,"

Chen Muwu pointed his finger at another track on the photo:
"Using the just-discovered proton as a reference, after my simple calculation of this trajectory, its electric charge should be the same as that of the proton, and its mass is about three times that of the proton.

“There’s another one here that should be twice as charged as a proton and also about three times as massive.

"These should be two different particles. Except for the proton in front, they are also new particles that appear after the bombardment collision reaction."

What Chen Muwu pointed out this time were tritium nuclei and helium-3 nuclei.

These were the two particles that he recognized at a glance after receiving the film before he pretended to do the calculations.

"The mass is three times that of a proton? Chen, you calculated correctly, right?"

Eddington did not have a divine perspective like Chen Muwu. The emergence of new particles with a relative atomic mass of 3 made him feel a little confused.

And one has a positive charge, and the other has two positive charges.

"Of course the calculation is correct, because I also found the original deuterium nucleus on the film that did not collide. Here it is." Chen Muwu's finger pointed to another place, "The charge of this particle is still the same as that of the proton. The same goes for the first particle, which has a mass about twice that of a proton.

"These three types of particles have the same charge and a mass ratio of one to two to three. Thinking that they are protons, deuterons and an unknown particle is the most reasonable explanation at present."

"Then what should this new unknown particle be?"

Chen Muwu's words indeed tempted Eddington to raise this question naturally.

"The relative atomic mass is 3, and the charge it carries is a positive charge. I think this is a new isotope of hydrogen atoms.

“If deuterium was called heavy hydrogen when it was first discovered, then according to this naming method, this new isotope should be called superheavy hydrogen.

"As for how to name him in Latin, I don't know much Latin, so I won't name him."

"A new hydrogen isotope?"

Before doing the experiment, Eddington only wanted to find nitrogen formed by the polymerization of two deuterium nuclei. Unexpectedly, there was an unexpected surprise.

"So where does this superheavy hydrogen come from?

"Is it because the deuterons bombarded the hydrogen atoms in the ammonium chloride crystal, and then a related fusion reaction occurred?
"A deuteron, a hydrogen nucleus, and an electron create a new atomic nucleus with a charge of 1 and a relative atomic mass of 3?
"Is there any way to measure the precise mass of this superheavy hydrogen?

"Did the total mass before and after the reaction increase or lose?"

On this basis, he raised a series of questions in one breath.

"This...I don't know."

In fact, Chen Muwu, who knew better than anyone in his heart, began to pretend to be confused.

"Do you think there is a fusion reaction between deuterium nuclei and hydrogen atoms? We can design another experiment to compare. For example, we can still use the ammonium chloride crystal containing deuterium nuclei that we made yesterday in the particle accelerator. , then change the gas in the particle source from deuterium to hydrogen, bombard the target with accelerated protons, and see if it can produce a fusion reaction with the deuterium atoms in the target.

“If this superheavy hydrogen nucleus also appears in that reaction, it means that they have indeed undergone a fusion reaction.

"But the precise atomic mass of this superheavy hydrogen atom is a matter of expertise. We still have to hand over this work to the person in the Cavendish Laboratory who is most accurate in measuring the precise atomic mass, Professor Aston."

It is also necessary to use accelerated high-energy protons to bombard ammonium chloride crystals containing deuterium atoms.

As long as the trace of "superheavy hydrogen" tritium cannot be found in the experimental cloud chamber photos, it can be explained that the fusion reaction of deuterium atoms and hydrogen atoms will not produce tritium nuclei.

But this reverse experiment will produce another particle with two positive charges and a relative atomic mass of 3, which is a helium-3 nucleus.

When the time comes, we can use accelerated deuterium nuclei to bombard pure ammonium chloride NHCl without deuterium atoms, and still get helium-3 nuclei, which will completely prove this point.

"Chen, what you said makes sense. Then you have to go to the particle accelerator to do one more experiment. After breakfast, let's set off!"

"No hurry, no rush," Chen Muwu, who talked too much, picked up the cup and took a sip of herbal tea, "let me finish analyzing this second new particle first. The charge is +2, the relative atomic mass is 3, Eddington Professor, what do you think this particle is?"

"Yes, is it helium-3?"

The isotopes just mentioned opened Eddington's mind a bit, but he was still a little unsure.

"I also think it's helium-3. Where do you think it comes from?"

According to Eddington's original idea, the fusion of two deuterium nuclei with a mass of 2 and a charge of +1 will produce a helium-4 nucleus with a mass of 2 and a charge of +4, which is an alpha particle.

By analogy, the fusion of a deuteron with a mass of 2 and a charge of +1 and a proton with a mass of 1 and a charge of +1 should produce a helium-3 nucleus with a mass of 2 and a charge of +3, and It is not the superheavy hydrogen nucleus with a mass of 3 and a charge of +1 that Eddington just imagined.

Eddington put forward his own modifications with some guilt: "Could it be that... some reactions involve electrons, so they become superheavy hydrogen nuclei, while other parts of the reactions do not have electrons involved, so they become superheavy hydrogen nuclei?" Where are the helium-3 nuclei?"

Chen Muwu, who tried his best to suppress his laughter, shook his head: "I don't know, so we have to continue with the next experiment. What do you think will happen? Is there still two types of superheavy hydrogen and helium-3 nuclei?" New particles?”

"I think what happens is not important. What is the result of the experiment is the most important. Let's have breakfast first. After that we will do the experiment."

A few hours later, the two people returned to the laboratory with the particle accelerator.

Chen Muwu followed the gourd's trick, emptying out the deuterium gas in the particle source and filling it again with the hydrogen gas he had always used.

He returned the ammonium chloride target made yesterday to the corresponding position, then started the machine one after another, and began to take photos one after another of using accelerated protons to bombard the ammonium chloride target containing deuterium atoms.

Estimating that the number of negatives was almost used, Chen Muwu turned off the machine one by one, then took the negatives to the darkroom for development, and finally brought a new stack of developed photographic negatives to Eddington.

However, his move was just to announce that he had basically completed the new experiment.

As for the subsequent work of searching for new particles on the photographic film, Chen Muwu still had to do it alone.

Although he was anxiously waiting for the results of the experiment, he was afraid of disturbing Chen Muwu's search progress. Therefore, it was not until he put down the last film in his hand that Eddington asked: "How is it, how is it, have you found it?" ? Will the two experimental products, superheavy hydrogen nuclei and helium-3 nuclei, also appear?"

"Unfortunately, Professor Eddington, I looked at all these negatives carefully, even every corner, but I only found one kind of particle in them."

"What kind?"

"Helium-3, the nucleus of superheavy hydrogen disappeared in our experiment. The reason for this phenomenon is that I think the generation of superheavy hydrogen and the generation of helium-3 are two reactions, not whether electrons are involved.

“It is more likely that superheavy hydrogen is not produced by the fusion of deuterium and hydrogen, but is a new substance produced from the reaction of deuterium and deuterium.

"Because if we compare the two reactions before and after, only the deuterium-deuterium reaction did not occur."

(End of this chapter)