Reborn and become a Great Scientist

Chapter 406 145 Telegrams that went through several times

Chen Muwu's current thoughts are actually this.

This new element No. 85 was obtained by using the cyclotron newly built by the Prince's College in Stockholm to accelerate alpha particles emitted from natural radioactive sources and bombard the bismuth metal target of Element No. 83.

And let’s not say that element 85 is an unstable element with a short half-life. I’m just talking about whether this method of bombardment can be replicated in electrostatic particle accelerators in other universities and laboratories around the world. , is also a big problem.

Even if you write a paper immediately and publish it in a magazine, other chemists in the world cannot repeat their experiment, and it is naturally impossible to admit that Chen Muwu and his team discovered the elements on the periodic table at the Prince's College in Stockholm. New element number eighty-five.

In fact, not only the discovery of new elements in chemistry, but also any new experiment in any experimental discipline requires other colleagues to replicate the experimental results and phenomena in their laboratories to finally confirm that his experiment was successful. Yes, true.

It cannot be said that if you claim to have conducted a certain experiment, and the specific steps and results of the experiment are compiled into a paper and published in a professional journal, the experiment is considered a success.

This is like the superconducting papers of the future. Each paper boasts its own experiments to be very mysterious. However, except for the laboratory of the unit where the paper is published, other colleagues around the world are completely unable to take the papers they published one step further. Reproduce it in one step.

This kind of paper has no meaning other than being in the news to increase its influence and then being laughed at by all colleagues.

Especially the discovery of new chemical elements has been the hardest hit area to be ridiculed.

Why is it that since Mendeleev in the 1860s, countless chemists have been searching for new element No. 85 for many years but failed to find it, so easily found by you, a physicist? , has the chemical layman found it?

Although Chen Muwu did discover isotopes of hydrogen, so what?

Haven't you won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry yet?

So the above are the reasons why Chen Muwu prevented the publication of the paper proposed by Frederick. First, it could not be replicated in other places around the world. Second, it may not be recognized by chemists.

Chen Muwu's current thinking is that since the mountain cannot come to me, then I will walk towards the mountain.

As long as he can invite a chemist with sufficient status to go to the laboratory in Stockholm and witness with his own eyes that their team of five successfully conducted the experiment of element 85 discovered by bombardment, the chemist will endorse it. , wouldn’t that be enough?

Back then, Chen Muwu separated liquid deuterium gas from liquid hydrogen in the David Faraday Laboratory of the Royal Institution of London, and immediately invited the Nobel Prize-winning scientist at the Cavendish Laboratory of Cambridge University. Prize winner Professor Aston personally observed the spectrum and confirmed that it was an isotope atomic spectrum of the hydrogen element.

So this time, Chen Muwu still plans to follow suit.

But he did not intend to send the telegram to his alma mater. Under the nose of his teacher Rutherford, he invited Professor Aston of the Cavendish Laboratory to Stockholm.

Because Chen Muwu has dug too many corners from the Cavendish Laboratory—even Chen Muwu himself is the biggest corner he has dug out—it is really inappropriate to continue wielding the shovel.

But for Chen Muwu, there are other more suitable candidates.

Stockholm Prince's College is a new school that has just been established. Although the main building of the first phase of the project has been completed, the supporting facilities inside and around it are not yet complete.

This resulted in Chen Muwu having to walk out of the laboratory building, leave the school, drive the Volvo car that Marcus had prepared for him in advance, run to the telegraph office closest to Prince's College, and take a photo of Zurich, the capital of Switzerland. Seal the telegram.

He is neither looking for ETH Zurich nor the University of Zurich.

Among these two schools, Chen Muwu only had one acquaintance, and that was Schrödinger, a professor of theoretical physics whom he had met at the Fourth Solvay Conference.

Because Pauli, a professor at the University of Hamburg, took over the professorship vacated by Planck at the University of Berlin after Planck, the chairman of the physics department of the University of Berlin, retired and resigned, replacing Schrödinger who was supposed to take over the position.

This led to Schrödinger not going to Berlin, the capital of Germany, but still staying in Zurich, the capital of Switzerland.

Chen Muwu actually sent the telegram to the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, which is headquartered in Zurich, the capital of Switzerland.

This federation should be the most formal one among the various international chemical organizations in the world.

Its status in the world of chemistry is basically the same as that of the International Union of Astronomers in astronomy.

And just as the International Union of Astronomers has the right to choose to name stars, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry also has the right to give a name to a newly discovered chemical element.

Although the right to name a new chemical element rests with the chemist who discovered it.

However, the final review of the name of the new element submitted by chemists and the publication of the approved results to unify the name worldwide require the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry to come forward.

This is one of the reasons why Chen Muwu sent his telegram to Zurich, the capital of Switzerland.

“IUPAC:

"My laboratory has recently suspected that a new element No. 85 has been discovered. Please send professionals to Stockholm as soon as possible to test this new element to confirm whether it is an iodine-like element of No. 85, or one of its neighboring elements. Some kind of isotope. Thanks.

"Prince's College, Stockholm."

Inviting the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry to send a chemist to test the new substance obtained by the five-member team at the cyclotron was also the second purpose of Chen Muwu's telegram.

As Chen Muwu said in the telegram, with the chemical knowledge of these five laymen, they could not tell whether the new substance they bombarded at the cyclotron was element 85, iodine-like. Or an isotope of some other element near element 85 on the periodic table.

Although it is true that Chen Muwu discovered two new spectral lines in the spectrum of bismuth vapor, even for the same element, the spectra of different isotopes will have some differences due to the different masses of the atomic nuclei.

So it was Chen Muwu's original idea to ask a chemist with a status in the chemical world to test the new substance they created to confirm that the new substance was element 85. endorsement.

At the end of Chen Muwu's telegram, he did not write his own name, but only the name of the unit, Stockholm Prince's College, which also contained his deep meaning.

The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry has an organizational structure similar to that of the International Union of Astronomers. They do not accept membership applications from individual members, but only accept chemist groups from various countries to join the federation as a group.

China is obviously not yet a member of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, and even the earliest joint group of chemists in China, the Chinese Chemical Society, has not yet been established at this moment.

At this moment, Chen Muwu did not feel any inconvenience because he was Chinese. He just felt that it was too late for similar scientific groups in China to start.

Although the Chinese Astronomical Society was established a long time ago, before Chen Muwu discovered the Yellow Emperor's Star, the Chinese Astronomical Society was not a member of the International Union of Astronomers.

As a result, Chen Muwu had to do something special that time. As a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, he reported that he had discovered the ninth planet in the solar system, and at the same time urged the Chinese Astronomical Society in China to quickly report to the International Union of Astronomers. Apply to become a member as soon as possible.

Chen Muwu wanted to do what he did last time and urged them to establish a Chinese Chemical Society as soon as possible.

But I also thought that if this matter was telegraphed domestically, I would be associated with those people who don't want to deal with me.

After thinking about it, Chen Muwu felt that he had no choice but to give it up. His main job was physics, and his chemistry was just for fun.

Even if he does not take the initiative this time, it is estimated that the Chinese Chemical Society will be established in a few years.

The Chinese Chen Muwu and Zhao Zhongyao were unable to send a telegram to the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry as member states. The United Kingdom, where Cockcroft belonged, and France, where the Curies belonged, were both federations. However, the three of them are not members of the chemist societies of their respective countries, so in theory they still cannot sign the telegram.

Therefore, after much deliberation, Chen Muwu finally decided to send a telegram in the name of Stockholm Prince's College.

The recipient of the telegram must be able to see that the telegram was sent from Sweden. Although he may not have heard of Prince's College, a newly established new school, everyone should know that Stockholm is the capital of Sweden, and Sweden happens to be a chemistry center. One of the member states of the Federation.

Chen Muwu's deliberate tricks seemed to her to be perfect, but in the eyes of outsiders, especially the staff at the headquarters of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry in Zurich, it was undoubtedly a cover-up.

Thanks to Sweden's vigorous publicity in newspapers and Chen Muwu's influence in the science and technology press, basically everyone in Europe and the United States knows that a new Prince's College has been opened in Stockholm, and this Prince's College is closely related to Chen Muwu. There is a huge connection between them.

In a little-known new university in Sweden, there was an unnamed chemist who claimed to have discovered new element No. 85.

Apart from him, Chen Muwu, who else has such a loud tone?

If it is an ordinary unknown new chemist who claims to have discovered a new element and sends a telegram without thinking too much, with luck, the call back may persuade him to publish a paper and let other chemists around the world take notice of him. Test the findings.

If he is unlucky, he may not even receive a call back, and his telegram full of expectations will come to nothing.

However, Zurich speculated that the author behind this telegram might be Chen Muwu, so they had to pay attention to it.

Because Chen Muwu has indeed made Nobel Prize-level discoveries in chemistry. Whether it is inorganic chemistry or organic chemistry, Chen Muwu has made corresponding achievements in these two fields.

In the former aspect, he discovered two isotopes of hydrogen, and in the latter aspect, he also invented a method to synthesize organic polymers.

Chen Muwu's telegram sent to Zurich, Switzerland, was passed on and forwarded at various levels, and finally reached the hands of Einar Biermann, the current president of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry.

Although Bierman is the chairman of the federation, he is not a permanent member of the association.

Bierman has his own job. As a Danish chemist, Bierman's job is a professor of chemistry at the University of Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark.

After receiving the telegram forwarded by the Federation, Bierman was a little undecided for a while.

Is it Chen Muwu who is behind the name of the Stockholm Prince's College who signed this telegram?

Although there were some doubts in his mind, this doubt did not have much impact on Bierman.

Because Bierman knew that at the University of Copenhagen, there was a "Chen Muwutong" who had had many interactions with Chen Muwu.

So Bierman, the president of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, took the telegram he had just received, left his office, and set off for another place in the city of Copenhagen.

The Institute of Theoretical Physics, co-sponsored by the Carlsberg Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, is affiliated with the University of Copenhagen. Directors Bohr and Chen Muwu are from the same school, and they even invited Chen Muwu to visit the University of Copenhagen for several months.

There should be no one in the entire university who understands Chen Muwu better than Professor Bohr.

When his secretary called to inform him that a chemistry professor named Bierman from the University of Copenhagen was visiting, Bohr felt strange at first.

He knew that there was such a person among his colleagues at the university, and he also knew that Biermann seemed to be a very famous person in the chemistry community.

It's just that Bohr and he had always been on the same page before, and he really didn't know what Bierman wanted to do with him.

"Professor Bierman said he came to the institute for something?"

"He said he has a question about Dr. Chen Muwu and wants to ask you for advice."

"Let him in!"

(End of this chapter)