Reborn and become a Great Scientist

Chapter 397 136 What to choose as a wedding gift

Chen Muwu was very strange.

The reason why he was surprised was because he didn't know who wrote the letter to him.

If you ask, what is the capital of Australia, many people's first reaction is Sydney, their second reaction is Melbourne, and the real capital, Canberra, will not be ranked third.

Similarly, if you ask, what is the capital of Canada, many people's first reaction is probably Vancouver, the second reaction is Toronto, the third is Montreal, and the fourth is Ottawa, its real capital.

Because the Tengjing government has not yet formally clarified its legal system, it has not determined an official capital.

People nowadays don't use the title capital that frequently.

Following the Qing Dynasty and the traditions left over thousands of years, when calling the Capital City of a country, everyone is more accustomed to calling it the capital city.

Therefore, Ottawa, the capital of Canada - or as it is now called Canada - or Ottawa as it is now called, according to today's naming rules, will be called Kan (Canada's capital) by the Chinese according to the Chinese way of calling it. ) Beijing (city).

When it comes to Canada, Chen Muwu thinks of an anecdote he saw on the Internet in his previous life.

There was a Canadian who came to China to travel. He was carrying a bag with the words "I am from Bethune's hometown" written in Chinese characters on his back.

As a result, this person traveled all over the country. Whether he went to a restaurant to eat or bought something in a small shop, he often encountered a strange phenomenon, that is, when paying the bill, he would be treated politely by the shopkeeper. They sent it out angrily and didn't take any money.

Chinese people have a clear sense of grudges and grudges. They love the people they have learned from textbooks who have done great help to their country, so they show great kindness to people who come from the same country as Bethune.

Let's talk about this letter from Ottawa. Before opening the envelope containing the letter paper, Chen Muwu was puzzled.

Let alone Ottawa, the capital of Canada, he didn't even know a single person in the entire country of Canada.

If this letter is not from Ottawa, but from Montreal, Chen Muwu can make a little association. Perhaps the teacher Rutherford wrote a recommendation letter to McGill University where he once worked, or maybe McGill University wrote to Luther. Fu asked if there were any physics talents who could take up positions in the school, and then the teacher recommended him to a university and let him take up the position of literature professor in a Canadian school.

But this idea is actually not very smooth, because in addition to crossing the ocean and going to the academic land on the North American continent, even if Rutherford still could not arrange a position for him at the University of Cambridge in the end, he would still There is another guaranteed option.

That is the Victoria University of Manchester in Manchester, England, although it is slightly away from Cambridgeshire and London.

Rutherford also held the position of director of the physics laboratory there for several years, and the contacts he accumulated were no less than those he had at McGill University in Canada.

If we continue to think along the lines of the school appointment letter, if this letter comes from Vancouver, then the person who wrote the letter inviting Chen Muwu to become a physics professor at the school may be the University of British Columbia.

And if this letter comes from Toronto, then the school writing the letter should be the University of Toronto, or the University of Waterloo, a hundred kilometers away.

Chen Muwu wanted to scratch his head, but he couldn't figure out why this letter came from Ottawa.

With all kinds of doubts and speculations, Chen Muwu finally opened the envelope.

At this stage, an episode also occurred. When Chen Muwu took the letter paper out of the envelope, something else fell out of the envelope.

Chen Muwu bent down to pick up the fallen object from the ground, and found that it turned out to be a photo the size of a palm.

There are two people in the photo, the man on the right and the woman on the left. They are dressed very formally and look like a wedding photo.

Chen Muwu felt that the bride in the photo looked familiar. After looking at it, he felt that the groom next to the bride also looked familiar.

But this familiarity does not mean that the groom and the bride are friends he has recognized in reality.

It refers to these two people, including their wedding photos, which Chen Muwu had seen in textbooks and various reading materials in his previous life.

Then he opened the letter again. Although the addresses and names on the envelope were all marked in English, it was probably to facilitate the postmen in Canada and the United Kingdom to ensure that the letter was safely delivered to Chen Muwu in London, England. On hand.

But on the letter paper, the person who wrote the letter used Chinese throughout, and it was not written in hard-strokes with a pen, but in small regular script with a brush.

interesting.

Chen Muwu read the entire letter from beginning to end, and it was exactly what he thought.

The two people in the photo are the eldest son of Liang Ren's family and the daughter of Lin Zong's Meng family.

This photo is indeed a wedding photo of the two of them.

Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin were studying in the United States. Because Liang Rengong felt that it was quite difficult for the two young people to hold a wedding alone in the United States, so in a letter home to Liang Sicheng, he once suggested that they go to Ottawa to hold the wedding because Liang Sicheng's sister was also Liang Rengong. The eldest daughter Liang Sishun and her brother-in-law Zhou Guoxian were living in Ottawa at this time.

Moreover, Zhou Guoxian was still serving as the Consul General in the Consulate General of the Republic of China in Canada at this time, so it was more convenient to do everything.

The reason why it is a consulate general rather than an embassy is because Canada is not yet a completely independent country internationally, but is an overseas autonomous territory of the United Kingdom.

Because it is not a country, it is naturally impossible to send a minister to Canada to meet national standards and establish an embassy. We can only send a consul general and set up a consulate general in Ottawa, the capital of Canada.

With the help of family members, wedding planning becomes easier.

Liang Sicheng obeyed his father's orders and took Lin Huiyin with him by train from the United States to Canada. On March 1928, 3, the wedding was held at the Consulate General in Ottawa.

The one who took the bride's arm in place of his father was Liang Sicheng's brother-in-law, Zhou Guoxian, the Consul General of the Republic of China in Canada. He was also nominally the most powerful official in Canada during the Republic of China. It was reasonable for him to replace his father.

After Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin got married, the wedding photos they sent to Chen Muwu were definitely not intended to share the joy of their marriage with him, an internationally renowned physicist who had heard of him for a long time but did not know each other.

Liang Sicheng briefly introduced the situation of their wedding in Ottawa, and then the rest of the content was the focus of writing this letter. Liang Sicheng's letter stated that they would return to the United States immediately after their wedding in Ottawa.

They booked a steam cruise from New York to the British port city of Southampton on April 4 this year. They planned to spend their wedding and honeymoon in Europe and travel around before returning to China.

The newlyweds had always wanted to meet Chen Muwu. They didn't know if they would have a chance to come to the UK this time, so Liang Sicheng wrote a letter to Chen Muwu asking him about this matter.

In order to bring the two parties closer, Liang Sicheng also wrote in his mind that the couple and Xu Zhimo in China were good friends. The latter had always advised them to meet his good friend Chen Muwu in the UK if there was a chance. Above.

"Han Chen is an excellent and interesting person." Liang Sicheng even relayed Xu Zhimo's original words in his heart.

After finally reading the content on the letter, Chen Muwu also understood the complete ins and outs of the matter.

Others have sent letters to me, so there is no reason not to meet them.

Although on the surface, he and Liang Sicheng and his wife did not know each other.

But Chen Muwu felt in his heart that he felt a little sorry for Liang Sicheng's father, Liang Rengong.

He had long had the idea of ​​inviting the latter to visit and exchange in Europe, and took this opportunity to find a top hospital in the UK to treat his problems.

It's a pity that because I have been busy with various things, I have forgotten this idea long ago.

When Chen Muwu recalled this point again, Liang Rengong was already in Peking Union Medical College Hospital. The doctor there removed the better kidney in his body due to a work error.

Moreover, Chen Muwu also wanted to meet Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin, a legendary couple in Chinese history.

Of course, he didn't have any hobbies like a thief. It was just because he had read too many deeds and unofficial rumors about their couple in textbooks and various magazines, so he was very curious to meet the real person.

The letter stated that the two of them would board the steam cruise ship "Dutchland" departing from New York on April 4. Chen Muwu received the letter on April 5, which was enough time to contact them in the United States.

So Chen Muwu went to a telegraph office near his home and sent them a telegram according to the temporary address in New York, USA that Liang Sicheng left on the letter, warmly welcoming them to the UK for their honeymoon, and also gave them the address of his home in London. address, to prevent them from going straight to Cambridge after getting off the ship, not being able to find themselves and missing out.

However, there was no need for Chen Muwu to be so anxious that he ran to the telegraph office as soon as he received this letter.

Because science and technology have achieved some new developments in recent years, when people transmit telegraphs, they do not need to go through established telegraph lines, but can also use a new form of wireless telegraphy.

So even if this letter from Ottawa was delayed in the mail, by the time it was delivered to Chen Muwu, Liang Sicheng and his wife were no longer in New York, but boarded a cruise ship.

Chen Muwu can still go to the telegraph office in London and ask them to help send a wireless message to the Dutch Lander and get in touch with Liang Lin and his wife on the ship.

This new technology was not even adopted in recent years. Radio technology was already used on the Titanic, a supposedly unsinkable luxury cruise ship that sank in the Atlantic fifteen years ago.

As the patent owner of radio, Marconi held a commercial monopoly on wireless telegraphy.

He monopolized the market for non-essential communications at sea, which was expensive and could be regarded as a luxury product, including the radio facilities installed on the Titanic, which were also patented products of the Marconi Radio Communications Company.

However, because each country has its own telegraph company, different telegraph companies use different standards for call signs.

Although after a period of chaos, various countries have basically unified the telegraph code, solving the long-standing confusion problem.

But among these telegraph companies that unified standards, Marconi's wireless company was not included.

When the Titanic was in distress, the telegraph operator on the cruise ship immediately sent out the Morse code of three short, three long and three short, instead of the internationally accepted SOS.

Instead, following the habits of the Marconi Telegraph Company, the code "CQD" was sent out.

Sailors interpreted this code as "come quickly, danger!", but in fact this code was adapted from the railway department's code "CQ", which means "seek you" "D" is the abbreviation of "danger".

The sinking of the Titanic and the ineffective rescue were caused by various factors.

But it has to be said that the chaotic code management of radio is also one of the reasons.

More than fifteen years have passed since the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 to now in 1928. The issue of radio call sign management is finally no longer so confusing. Chen Muwu can safely contact the cruise ships sailing on the Atlantic Ocean.

The day after he sent a telegram to Liang Sicheng in New York, he received another reply from the other party.

It was much cheaper to send a telegram across the Atlantic between Britain and the United States than to send a telegram from Britain to China across the entire Eurasian continent.

Therefore, in the reply call sent by Liang Sicheng to Chen Muwu, he did not save the number of words like writing a Chinese telegram, but said a lot of polite and grateful words.

Chen Muwu thought of another thing, that is, if he receives the newlyweds, although he does not go to Ottawa to attend their wedding, shouldn't it be better to prepare some wedding gifts?

How is this letter intended to connect people emotionally? It's obviously a red bomb.

But thinking about the wedding gift, Chen Muwu also thought that he was going to get married soon.

I wonder what other people will give him and Eve?

Can his good friend, the second prince of England, the Duke of York, find some connections and take him to the British Museum in London to select a few of the most valuable cultural relics in the collection for him?

After he transports it back to China, it will be considered a great achievement.

(End of this chapter)