Reborn and become a Great Scientist

Chapter 393 132 Lively Chinese New Year

"Children, don't be greedy. After Christmas, it's the New Year."

After Christmas and New Year's Day, time continued to enter 1928.

Sweden's award ceremony is more grand than the Nobel Prize in terms of location selection. It is no longer the Stockholm City Hall, which has remained unchanged for thousands of years, but directly comes to the nominally most noble place in Sweden - the Swedish Royal Palace.

Chen Muwu changed his outfit. It was a traditional Swedish aristocratic dress that was made in the past few days. It was similar to the tuxedo, but with some minor changes.

China's charge d'affaires in Sweden, Third Secretary Lei Bingyang, once again appeared as a representative of China at the investiture ceremony at the Swedish Royal Palace today.

However, the expression on his face today was completely different from the time he attended the Nobel Prize dinner more than half a month ago. His facial features showed a kind of relief from the bottom of his heart that a problem had been solved.

Before the investiture ceremony, Chen Muwu had already exchanged more than 30,000 Swedish kronor and received from him an IOU signed by Lei Bingyang and stamped with the official seal of the Embassy in Sweden.

Chen Muwu did not keep this IOU worth more than two thousand pounds too carefully.

He still had the same view, thinking that it was unlikely that this IOU would eventually be converted into cash. It was more likely that he would imitate Meng Changjun's subordinate Feng Xuan, who was always playing swords and singing, and use a torch to torch those IOUs that had not yet been paid. Burned to ashes.

Although during the two or three months in Stockholm, he had a heated relationship with his good friend, the Crown Prince of Sweden.

But this was the first time that Chen Muwu saw the Swedish Crown Prince's father, the Swedish head of state, His Majesty King Gustaf V in person.

According to China's age calculation method, after the Gregorian New Year, this old man wearing a military uniform would have turned seventy years old.

But he himself is still in high spirits, and his noble status also allows him to exude a heroic spirit that is not angry or authoritative from the inside out.

As a member of the Royal Order of Seraphim of the King of Sweden, the Royal Order of Seraphim, the highest-level medal in Sweden, is personally awarded and crowned by the King of Sweden himself.

As for the second-class Royal North Star Medal, as well as other various medals awarded in the name of the royal family, my asking to come forward is just a process.

He will follow the instructions and read out the names of those who were awarded this year from the list.

As for those people's medals, they are awarded by other ceremonial officials.

After the investiture ceremony, there was a dinner held at the Swedish Royal Palace as usual.

Royal dinners basically focus on ceremony but not on taste, whether in China or in the West.

The emperor of the Qing Dynasty would distribute the meat used in sacrifices to the princes, elder brothers and ministers every now and then, euphemistically saying that he wanted to spread the good luck and blessings prayed from the gods and heaven to the ministers, so as to achieve the same goal. The people enjoy themselves together.

However, the name of this kind of pork belly sounds high-end and classy, ​​but the actual method is just to cut the pork into large pieces and cook it in a large pot without any condiments.

Not only is it boiled meat, but also mostly fatty meat.

Also, after the sacrifice, the fat meat cooked in white water has already cooled down.

It was cold, fat, greasy, and tasteless, and the ministers had to eat it all in front of the emperor.

This kind of meat doesn't look like a reward from the Ninth Five Supreme Being, but more like a kind of criminal law.

There are policies and measures to counter.

Later, every time I came to the emperor to distribute the sacrifices, the experienced ministers would wet the sleeves of the court clothes with salt water in advance, and I would secretly hide several pieces of marinated dried tofu to give this piece some fat. Taste, so that I can barely swallow it.

This honors banquet in the Swedish Royal Palace was slightly stronger than the Qing Dynasty's braised meat, but the degree of strength was very limited.

Because we have to prepare food for many people, most of the dishes served are cold dishes.

In the dead of winter, in Sweden, which is located in freezing northern Europe, it is quite a challenge for the stomachs of those attending the banquet.

This forced Chen Muwu to take matters into his own hands and add a small stove for himself after returning to his station near the Prince's College after the honors dinner.

If it were a hundred years later, he would definitely cook himself a pack of instant noodles and throw it away.

However, in this era, there is not even instant noodles, so what he makes by himself are some inconvenient things.

Unfortunately, Sweden, located at a high latitude, is not a country that can produce large amounts of wheat.

Otherwise, Chen Muwu would definitely tell Marcus to let his family invest in building a food factory to specialize in the production of instant noodles.

Not only is it good news for lazy people, it might also be purchased by other countries as military rations during World War II, thereby making a huge war fortune.

The only thing they were afraid of was that the Americans would plagiarize the technology of instant noodles and build factories in North America, which was further away from the war.

The United States itself is a major agricultural country, and its wheat and flour output is many times higher than that of Sweden.

Moreover, they also have a relatively mature domestic food industry system. Once this capitalist machine is in full operation, Sweden may not be their opponent even if it uses the strength of the whole country.

After receiving Sweden's Royal Polar Star Medal, it was already mid-January, and it was time for Chen Muwu and Zhao Zhongyao to leave Stockholm.

With the experience of making particle accelerators in the Cavendish Laboratory, between Christmas and now, the two of them did not ruin it because everyone left. Instead, they made a particle accelerator that will be used in the future. A particle source in a cyclotron.

It is impossible for them to always use natural radioactive materials and treat the emitted alpha particles as the only accelerated particles.

Protons and deuterium nuclei are still the first choice materials to be accelerated and then bombarded with other target particles. Chen Muwu also hopes to use this cyclotron to conduct the first successful experiment, which is to find No. 43 that people have been searching for for decades. Find the elements.

By that time, Chen Muwu discovered deuterium and tritium, two isotopes of hydrogen, and discovered the first artificial element synthesized artificially.

With all these achievements in hand, if he still cannot win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, then he will...

...We must continue to work hard and simply find out the transuranic elements.

Before leaving, Chen Muwu personally visited Uppsala University and returned the natural radioactive source he borrowed from here more than a month ago. He really didn’t have many acquaintances in this school, so he didn’t want to go there in person.

However, Chen Muwu was afraid that if he gave this extremely radioactive material to others, it would probably cause environmental pollution because the other party did not know the harm and lost it, which would lead to serious consequences.

Chen Muwu didn't want to become a sinner through the ages, and he didn't want to be scolded on the street by the big-faced sister in the future, so he chose to go there in person.

——He is such a considerate person.

Before Chen Muwu left, he met with the Crown Prince of Sweden and little Marcus again.

Regarding the former, he said that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince should rest assured that he was only returning to the UK for a year and would be back soon.

As for the latter, Chen Muwu began to use power for personal gain.

He asked young Marcus, who was in charge of the Wallenberg family's connection with the Volvo car factory in Gothenburg, if he could produce a special right-hand drive Volvo car for him, and then help transport it to the UK by sea.

Just last year, Chen Muwu bought Kapitsa an Austin car as his wedding gift, and drove it several times before giving the gift away.

From frugality to luxury is easy, from luxury to frugality.

Chen Muwu, who is accustomed to walking and taking public transportation, gradually found the joy of driving after driving cars of this era - just treat these brand-new cars as the classic cars of the future.

It's just that there are basically no cars on the market in the UK that he likes.

That's why Chen Muwu came up with this idea and used his relationship with Volvo to get some customized privileges.

Moreover, his reasons were very high-sounding. The reason why he wanted to customize a right-hand drive car that conforms to British driving habits was not for Chen Muwu's enjoyment.

Instead, he wants to use his reputation in the UK to advertise and promote Volvo, an emerging Nordic car brand, so that he can better open up the British market in the future.

In fact, this request is nothing to a rich kid like Marcus.

He even jokingly asked Chen Muwu if he wanted to simply give him a Volvo fleet to pick up the bride when she got married this year.

"If this is really possible, of course it would be great."

Chen Muwu really felt that the other party was joking, so he responded in a playful tone.

Chen Muwu and Zhao Zhongyao finally left Stockholm. They did not choose to take a steamer, enter the North Sea via the Baltic Sea, and then directly arrive in the UK. Although several years had passed, Chen Muwu still had lingering fears about the North Sea. Instead, they chose Returning along the original route, passing through the European continent and crossing the English Channel, before the Lunar New Year, we landed on British soil and returned to Chen Muwu's home in London.

Zhao Zhongyao did not insist on returning to Cambridge. Instead, after some polite refusals, he agreed to Chen Muwu's invitation to visit his home. After all, it would be fun to celebrate the New Year together.

After arriving home, the first thing Chen Muwu did was to take Zhao Zhongyao to a local bank to open a new account, and transferred the Nobel Prize of more than 2,000 pounds to this account. arrears due to the embassy.

Then he sent a telegram to Cambridge, inviting several other Chinese students staying at the school to celebrate the New Year at his home in London.

There were far more guests coming to London from Cambridge University than the list of people invited by Chen Muwu on the telegram.

In addition to Wang Ganchang, Wu Dayou and Chen Shengshen, the three Chinese students brought to Cambridge University from China by Chen Muwu, they were also followed by Ramsey and Kapitsa, who guided these students' studies.

The newly married latter also brought his wife Anna with him.

After Anna came to Cambridge University, she met a close friend, Eileen Mary Fowler.

——She is not only the wife of Fowler, the only mathematics professor engaged in theoretical research in the Cavendish Laboratory, she is also the only daughter of Rutherford, the director of the laboratory.

Therefore, Chen Mansion, which originally planned to invite only three guests, welcomed nearly ten guests during the Lunar New Year.

Fortunately, the house their family rented, which belonged to Montagu, was big enough, and everyone was able to spend the Wuchen New Year together in a lively manner.

Rutherford, who followed his daughter and son-in-law to join in the fun at his best student's house, was a little unhappy because after arriving at Chen Muwu's house, he, an increasingly rebellious student, was not allowed to smoke in the house.

Fortunately, Rutherford's depression quickly disappeared because his attention was diverted.

After learning that this tough white guy with a big beard and a muscular build was the witness at her youngest son's wedding, Mrs. Chen had a cordial exchange with her peer.

Of course, one of the two people spoke Chinese and the other spoke English, and Chen Muwu, who had a close relationship with them, was indispensable to be the translator in the middle.

Chen Muwu, who behaved very well in front of his teacher, translated into English the words his mother was humble and polite scolding his son for being incompetent; the next he translated into Chinese the words praised by Rutherford, who liked to express his personal feelings straightforwardly.

After going back and forth like this, Chen Muwu managed to avoid schizophrenia himself.

Rutherford also asked tactfully whether Mrs. Chen was still used to living in the UK and whether the winter here was colder than that in Sihai.

After receiving a positive answer, Rutherford continued to introduce the situation in Europe in the form of casual chat, saying that in the north of Europe, there are places colder than Britain.

At first, Chen Muwu didn't take it seriously when he was translating. He thought it was just two elders chatting here and there to pass the boring New Year time.

After all, there was no television at this time, let alone the Spring Festival Gala. In a foreign country like London, there were not even radio programs broadcast in Chinese on the radio.

But after he said the words, Chen Muwu realized the teacher's "sinister" intentions.

Rutherford's complaint about the cold winter in England was fake. His real purpose was to inoculate Mrs. Chen.

The subtext is: the winter in Northern Europe is too high and cold to be suitable for human habitation. For the sake of your health, it is more appropriate to leave your son in the UK.

The situation of the British embassy is slightly better than that on the European continent. Although there is a temporary charge d'affaires in Chen Weicheng, London, its basic functions are also paralyzed. It does not bring together students and overseas Chinese near London as it did in previous years. A New Year reunion together.

During the Spring Festival, Chen Muwu received several visiting guests at his home.

(End of this chapter)