Reborn and become a Great Scientist

Chapter 359 98 An old man and a young man, two foxes
There was nothing wrong with Oliphant being indeed Australian, and indeed following Rutherford's instructions in conducting a series of proton bombardment experiments in the Cavendish Laboratory.

What surprised Chen Muwu was that he felt that Olyphant came to the UK a little early.

If all the things he did in the UK could not affect Adelaide, an island in the South Pacific far south of Australia, then this time Olyphant would follow the same trajectory as the original time and space and obtain the 1927 title in 1851. After receiving the exhibition scholarship, I came to Europe to study.

Since he had already arrived in Cambridge and entered the Cavendish Laboratory in 1927, how could he only produce results in 1933 and 1934, and he had been unknown before that?
But after thinking about it, Chen Muwu quickly figured out what was going on.

The prerequisite for the success of Oliphant's experiment was that before him, the American chemist Yuri had already discovered the existence of deuterium, the first isotope of hydrogen, with a relative atomic mass of 2.

In addition, Cockcroft and Walter of the Cavendish Laboratory invented the world's first Cockcroft-type particle accelerator for use in the laboratory at the University of Cambridge.

With the raw materials needed for target shooting and the equipment that can shoot, Oliphant was able to conduct those experiments and discover the first nuclear fusion in human history, as well as the second hydrogen atomic mass with a relative atomic mass of 3. Isotope tritium.

If no one else had laid the foundation for these natural experiments before him, then Olyphant's experiments would not have gone so smoothly, and he would not even have been able to design and conduct the experiments at all.

This led to him remaining dormant in the Cavendish Laboratory for five or six years, accumulating accumulated knowledge until he finally became a blockbuster.

It is precisely because his achievements are basically based on other people's experiments. Therefore, although Oliphant completed the first nuclear fusion and discovered the isotope tritium, he did not complete the human experiment like Blackett, who did the first nuclear transmutation, and Uri, who discovered deuterium, the first isotope of hydrogen, won his Nobel Prize in Physics or Chemistry.

After understanding this, Chen Muwu suddenly felt less guilty about robbing Olyphant of two of the most important physics experimental discoveries in his first half of life.

In his lifetime, he first braved the severe cold in the David Faraday Laboratory in London to discover the hydrogen isotope deuterium, and then built the world's first particle accelerator at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge.

With these two results laying the foundation, it is undoubtedly a matter of course for Chen Muwu to conduct the following experiments.

Moreover, the particle accelerator has been fully open to teachers from the Cavendish Laboratory and the University of Cambridge, but none of them has tried to conduct an experiment of bombarding deuterium nuclei with accelerated protons, let alone thinking about using them in the particle accelerator. The particle source is changed from hydrogen to deuterium, and the accelerated particles are changed from protons to deuterium nuclei.

Only Rutherford once mentioned it to Chen Muwu, his most proud and best student, but that time his good student found an excuse and hurriedly denied it.

So these experiments dragged on for more than half a year, and it was not until Chen Muwu came to attend the Solvay Conference and left Cambridge University that he finally completed these experiments.

After greeting Chen Muwu, Oliphant, who had been sitting in the corner of the room without saying a word, made up a random excuse to leave Rutherford's room.

After he boarded the ship from Adelaide, during the several months of sea voyage to Europe, the only person he knew who accompanied him day and night was Rutherford, who was returning home from visiting relatives in New Zealand.

Olyphant had fully seen Rutherford's enthusiastic, cheerful and loud-voiced side, which made him become much more reserved than before during the more than two months of ship travel.

He felt that Chen Muwu had just arrived in Brussels from England. Instead of going to his room to rest and adjust, he came directly to Rutherford for a visit. He must have something important to discuss with his teacher.

Both emotionally and logically, he should not stay in this room, so Oliphant wisely withdrew.

After he left, Rutherford did not forget to comment to Chen Muwu about himself as a fellow countryman: "Mr. Oliphant is a very hard-working and obedient person. The dean of the Department of Physics at the University of Adelaide emphasized to me many times. I have verified this myself after several months of getting along on the ship. Chen, I believe he will be of great help under your hands."

If Chen Muwu hadn't been familiar with the fact that his teacher's voice was so loud, he would have thought that Rutherford had deliberately raised his voice to speak to Oliphant, who had just left the house and hadn't taken a few steps away.

"I also believe this. Teacher, you have a very vicious eye when looking at people. The Cavendish Laboratory can reach today and achieve so many achievements, and it is inseparable from your discerning eyes, teacher."

His skill in saying compliments has been honed to a very high level, and he is able to flatter people without being able to do so.

"Dr. Chen, I haven't seen you for a few months, but you are still so good at talking. I am not being humble. What you said is indeed good. Basically, you can say without shame that I have a lot of experience in understanding people.

"In the nearly ten years since I entered the Cavendish Laboratory, including when I was in Manchester and in Montreal, Canada, I have only made the mistake of looking wrong once. That was four years ago, when you just entered my office. That time in.

"Before you, there were no Asian students in the Cavendish Laboratory. The work that Mr. Blackett once did to improve the cloud chamber was previously done by a student of this class.

"I was very curious about you at the time. I felt that since you were recommended by Professor Einstein through a cross-continental telegram, and he was full of praise for you in the telegram, there must be something shining in you that could impress Professor Einstein. .

“Moreover, Professor Eddington also brought the paper that you were rejected by the Journal of Philosophy. The research work he was engaged in is also consistent with that of our laboratory and is very suitable to my own taste.

"So before the two of us have met, my judgment for you is that you should be a young man who is better than the person you were before in the Cavendish Laboratory, but not much better."

"But the results you have achieved during the years you spent in the Cavendish Laboratory have made me deeply realize how big a mistake I made in my earlier judgment.

"But you are also the greatest achievement I have achieved in my management career. If I am not ashamed to say that Sir Thomson's last contribution to the laboratory was to appoint me as his successor; then I am very grateful to him. The greatest contribution the laboratory has made is that it agreed to accept you as a member of the Cavendish Laboratory."

The words in Rutherford's mouth became more and more disgusting, and his expression became more and more excited when he spoke.

——You can’t speak louder and louder, because Xinjiang has already reached its peak from the moment you open your mouth.

Within a few minutes of meeting, they received such a true confession. People familiar with the situation knew that it was Rutherford and Chen Muwu who had not seen each other for several months and expressed their inner feelings.People who are not familiar with the inside story must have thought that Rutherford encountered some major changes during his stay in New Zealand. Such unscrupulous revelation of his true feelings is almost like asking for help.

"Teacher, you are serious. Without your careful training over the past few years, teacher, I would not have reached the height I am today."

Chen Muwu quickly found a gap in his words and interrupted Rutherford who wanted to continue speaking.

He was afraid of not seizing this opportunity.I didn't know what weird topic to talk about next, so I forcibly changed the content of the discussion between the two.

"Teacher, before the Sowell Conference, Professor Eddington and I conducted several small experiments in the laboratory. Do you know about this?"

"Of course, of course! To be honest, when I left the laboratory to you and James, I just wanted you two kids not to cause any big trouble for me.

"Unexpectedly, I just arrived in Europe this time, and you gave me a return gift.

"First, when I disembarked in the port of Marseille, France, I saw the boring theory that the American astronomer said in the newspaper a few weeks ago in order to cause panic among the people, and I also saw your criticism of his statement. He also said that he would do experiments to simulate the reactions that occur inside the sun.

“Because I was in a hurry, I didn’t look for specific physics journals locally. It wasn’t until I arrived in Belgium that I saw the first two issues of Nature.

"I thought you were just joking, but I didn't expect that you actually performed the experiment.

"Tell me, what's going on with your experiment? Also, the newsletter you published in Nature was too brief and perfunctory. You can't write like that again in the future!"

Xiao Chenxin said that it was written so briefly on purpose.

He told Rutherford all the ins and outs of his experiments with Eddington's "cooperation", and also explained that the reason why he was vague in the Nature magazine was to leave the complete version to the Solvay Conference. speech on.

After listening to the students' reports, Rutherford looked very satisfied.

But even so, he still did not forget to hear a few words of criticism with a straight face at the end:
"Chen, you have done a very good job in this experiment. But I have to say a few more words. The first experiment you did, using accelerated protons to bombard deuterons, was as early as 1925. After you discovered deuterium in [-], I immediately thought about it with you?
"And after the particle accelerator was built, I told you about it again, and even wanted to make it the first experiment we conducted on the accelerator, but you used various excuses to make it the first experiment we conducted on the accelerator. I brushed it off.

"However, what is the result now? The result is that this experiment did obtain positive feedback. Although it did not meet expectations, using protons to bombard the electrically neutral particle in the deuterium nucleus was a blessing in disguise, and helium was obtained from it - 3 already?

"Dr. Chen, Dr. Chen, if you had listened to me earlier, you would have carried out this experiment long ago!"

Rutherford was still very proficient in the ways of serving his subordinates. Of course he was very happy as Chen Muwu continued to produce experimental results.

But these last few words of criticism can effectively knock off the tail of young people who are easily complacent before they have time to raise their tails, and prevent them from becoming complacent because of the praise they just gave.

Although he knew that Chen Muwu was definitely not that kind of person, he still wanted to say these words.

He is not trying to knock down the mountain and re-establish his prestige in front of the students who are getting more and more outstanding achievements, but he is really doing it for the good of the students.

Faced with Rutherford's last few harsh words, Chen Muwu had 1 reasons to quibble, and he could even refute Rutherford speechless, but he did not choose to do so.

The easiest way is to say this directly, "Teacher, how do you know that I also found neutrons in the Cavendish Laboratory?".

But Chen Muwu was not stupid enough to reveal his trump card in advance just for the sake of being quick-tongued.

Moreover, Rutherford did it entirely for his own benefit, so he pretended to be a good student in front of the teacher and deeply reviewed the mistakes he made during the experiment:

"Teacher, you are very critical. In fact, I just deliberately concealed the mistakes I made during the experiment. That is, the reason why I was unwilling to do this experiment before was because I had not thought about how deuterium should be used as a gas. It can be placed in a particle accelerator as a target element to be bombarded.

“After reading papers published by others in the laboratory, I learned about the method of using the crystallization of inorganic compounds to fix gas molecules into solids.

"If Professor Eddington hadn't forced me, I might not even read other people's papers, and still take it for granted that deuterium gas cannot be put into a particle accelerator as a target.

"I have to review this matter. Maybe it's because after I became the acting director and gained power, my enthusiasm for academic research slackened. There is a saying in China that learning is like rowing a boat against the current. If you don't work hard, If you make progress, you will be pushed back by the current.

"Only by sitting on the chair of the laboratory director can you know that it is full of thorns. Fortunately, you have returned to China in time. Professional matters should be left to professionals.

"I will never be as lazy as I have been in the past few months. I must consider myself a newcomer who knows nothing before every experiment. I can no longer use past experience to make judgments. Otherwise, this time What happened at the particle accelerator will be repeated again and again."

While reviewing his mistakes in this experiment, Chen Muwu quietly handed over the rights of the Cavendish Laboratory back to Rutherford.

In this room of the Solvay Palace, two foxes, an old one and a young one, were having a chat.

(End of this chapter)