Reborn and become a Great Scientist

Chapter 407 146 Callback from Copenhagen

The secretary of the Institute of Theoretical Physics quickly brought Professor Bierman to Bohr's office.

Although as professors at the University of Copenhagen, the two of them had met many times at various meetings and activities at the school, and they could barely be considered the kind of people who met each other without looking up.

But this is the first time to meet one-on-one offline.

Bohr was very confused as to why Bierman, a chemist, said that he came to him because of Chen Muwu's affairs.

Chen Muwu, who is not doing his job properly, just doesn't study theoretical physics. Could it be that he didn't even do physics experiments this time and switched to studying chemistry?

If this is the case, then Bohr was more or less sad about this matter.

He was obviously such a good seedling, so why did he go astray?

After the meeting, Bierman took the lead in explaining his intention.

"Professor Bohr, good morning. That's right, I am the president of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. I received a telegram from the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry today. This telegram was sent from Stockholm, Sweden. at the federation's headquarters office in Zurich, Switzerland.

"The signer of the telegram is Prince's College in Stockholm. The content of the telegram said that the laboratory staff of this new Prince's College are suspected of having discovered element 85. Please ask our federation to send someone to Sweden to verify them. Whether the discovery is correct or wrong.

"Some time ago, newspapers in Sweden reported wildly that under the command of the Crown Prince of Sweden, they built this new school, Prince's College, and hired Chen Muwu to teach at the school.

“This matter has also been reported by local newspapers in Denmark, and I think you should have heard about it.

"I am now wondering whether this telegram was sent to our federation by Chen Muwu from Stockholm?

"Professor Bohr, how credible do you think this is?

"Also, do you think it is possible that Chen Muwu discovered a new element?"

Of course Bohr also read the news they reprinted from Swedish newspapers in local Danish newspapers, and even if the newspapers did not report it, Bohr had already known that Chen Muwu was going to open a school in Denmark's neighboring country, Sweden.

When he first learned the news, Bohr was very unhappy.

He felt that he was in Copenhagen and Chen Muwu was in Stockholm. The two countries only faced each other across a short strait, and both were based on the study of physics. It was difficult for them not to become competitors.

At that time, Bohr had raised his concerns with Chen Muwu. He advised Chen Muwu that there was no need to spend a lot of money to build another school. Sweden and Denmark were both in Northern Europe. The two of them could merge into one and vigorously develop physics education. Do something about it.

Chen Muwu said many high-sounding words in his response at the time. For example, the school he was in Stockholm was to cultivate basic talents for his country, and it did not conflict with Bohr's cultivation of high-end physics talents in Copenhagen.

But only he knew the actual situation of why Chen Muwu was in Sweden and not in Denmark.

As a neighbor of Germany, Denmark, like Poland and France, was quickly invaded by this neighbor shortly after the outbreak of World War II, and eventually the entire territory was occupied.

How desperate is he to spend a lot of money to build a school in a occupied area?

Bohr had always been suspicious of Chen Muwu's response. He always felt that his junior brother had great ambitions and was not as harmless as he appeared on the surface.

Today I met the visiting Professor Bierman in my office and heard new news about Chen Muwu from him.

The bad news is that Chen Muwu lied to himself before that the university he attended in Stockholm was not just for teaching, but he seemed to have achieved new results in experiments before the school officially opened its enrollment.

The good news is that the experiment Chen Muwu did this time was in chemistry, not physics.

Thinking of this, Bohr took out his pipe from his suit pocket, filled it with tobacco, lit it, took a deep breath, and blew out a ring of smoke.

After temporarily relieving his craving for cigarettes, he said to the guests in his office: "Professor Bierman, although I have not seen the telegram you mentioned, but after listening to you relay the contents of the telegram, I think you said The person who sent the telegram is most likely Dr. Chen Muwu.

"As far as I know, the Prince's College in Stockholm has just been built. It has not recruited enough teachers and enrolled enough students, so it has not opened yet. So I think that the school has a limited number of jobs. Among the staff, it seems that only Dr. Chen Muwu can conduct this experiment.

"This is not the first time that Dr. Chen Muwu has been involved in the field of new element discovery. I wonder if you still remember that a few years ago, he found the first isotope of hydrogen through research on low-temperature physics in the UK. .

“And just last fall, he used the particle accelerator he developed to find the second isotope of hydrogen.

"If I were to make a prediction, I think Dr. Chen Muwu is very likely to have found the new element you mentioned.

"Furthermore, it is very possible that his discovery of new elements was not like the way chemists discovered new elements in the past, by isolating new substances from seawater or ores; it is very likely that he took a new path. the way."

Bohr is indeed the person who knows Chen Muwu best in the entire University of Copenhagen. His prediction cannot be said to be wrong, but it can only be said to be accurate.

Bierman's trip was to come to Bohr to ask for specific opinions.

After hearing the other party's answer, Bierman basically confirmed in his heart that it was Chen Muwu who sent the telegram.

But he still had questions to ask: "Professor Bohr, do you think I should accept the invitation in the telegram and go to Stockholm in person?"

The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry forwarded this telegram from Prince's College to Professor Bierman, the chairman of the Union, in order to ask for his opinion. Should the Union send anyone? If so, who should be sent?

Bierman felt that Denmark and Sweden are neighboring countries, and the distance from Copenhagen to Stockholm is not that far. You only need to take a boat across the channel, then take an overnight train, and you can reach it the next day.

If Chen Muwu really made a new discovery in chemical elements, then it would not be impossible for him to go there himself.

Bohr took another deep drag on his cigarette: "Professor Bierman, I think it's best for you to go.

"After all, Dr. Chen Muwu is still a scientific worker whose main occupation is physics. Even if he crosses over into chemical research, he still has a specialization in the field. I think his chemical knowledge is still not enough after all.

“According to his character, if he had been absolutely sure from the beginning, I think he would have written a paper and published it long ago.

"But now there are only telegrams and no papers. For example, you just said that in the telegram, he hoped that your federation would send a chemist to test this newly discovered substance.

"This sentence reveals that he actually has no confidence in this experimental product.

"In this case, I think you might as well go to Stockholm in person and help Dr. Chen Muwu complete the last step of his experiment. "If Dr. Chen Muwu does discover a new element, then your name must also be on the credit book.

"And if the new element he discovered is just a piece of false news, it won't delay you too long."

Bohr deliberately used the excuse of discovering new elements to seduce Biermann. Although some of the things his junior brother had done before were not very kind, he still helped Chen Muwu this time.

"Professor Bohr, if you say so, I will send a telegram back to the Prince's College in Stockholm after I return, informing them that I will leave for Sweden today.

"Thank you for the advice you gave me, Professor Napole. I will take my leave now."

After receiving a positive response from Bohr, Bierman planned to go back and send a telegram, and then began to prepare his luggage.

But Bohr stopped him again: "Professor Bierman, don't worry, we have a telegraph machine in the Institute of Theoretical Physics that can send messages."

Bohr proposed his paper telegram transmission system to Chen Muwu very early, and a telegraph machine was also installed.

However, Chen Muwu, who designed a set of common character encodings for papers, has never implemented the telegraph matter. There has never been one installed in the Cavendish Laboratory.

After accepting Bohr's invitation, Bierman and he who stayed quickly drafted a reply to send to Sweden.

Biermann did not wait for the next telegram to be answered from Stockholm, but left the Institute of Theoretical Physics directly and returned home to pack his luggage.

Chen Muwu did not expect that just one day after his telegram, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry sent him a reply.

What he didn't expect was that the address of the call back was not Zurich, Switzerland, but Copenhagen, Denmark.

Chen Muwu had no time to care about why the telegram was sent from Copenhagen. He only cared about the content of the telegram.

"Dr. Chen:

"I will go to Stockholm, Sweden, on a certain day of a certain month of a certain year. Please inform me of the specific address of Prince's College, and prepare such and such, such and such, and such and such experimental equipment and medicines.

"President of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, Bierman

"year month day"

Chen Muwu simply thought at first that he would ask the Federation of Chemistry to send an experienced chemist to confirm that an element like yours is indeed the new iodine-like element No. 85 and issue a report.

He did not expect that the president of the federation would actually send him a telegram back and said that he would come to Stockholm in person.

Moreover, it was clear that when he was making an outgoing call, what was marked at the end of the signature was not his own name, but Stockholm Prince's College.

So how did Chairman Bierman learn his real name?

Chen Muwu hurriedly followed the requirements on the telegram and drafted a reply, indicating the specific address of Prince's College in Stockholm.

He took the written telegram to the telegraph office. When filling in the shipping address on the telegram form, Chen Muwu noticed another interesting thing.

Since the telegraph was put into commercial use as a communication tool, charges have been based on the number of words.

When telegraphs were very expensive in the early days, people tried to compress the number of words as much as possible in an attempt to send more messages with less money.

However, the address is also included in the number of words. If it is a cross-border telegram, the address alone must indicate the country, province, city, town, and town to which the telegram is to be sent, and then the specific address.

This is likely to result in the address having more characters than the telegram content, and the cost will be higher.

So in order to lower the price of telegraphs, telegraph offices around the world introduced something called telegraph registration.

Telegraph registration generally consists of several digits, which is equivalent to the telephone number in the future telephone era.

Moreover, there is a special telegram registration address book in the telegraph office. You can easily check the address of the recipient corresponding to the telegram registration, and you can also infer the telegram registration from the address, thereby saving yourself telegram consumption when sending telegrams.

When Chen Muwu filled in his telegram address at the Stockholm suburban telegraph office, he curiously asked the staff at the counter where the telegram bracket numbers on the address corresponded to where in Copenhagen.

The counter staff flipped through the address book and then told Chen Muwu a specific address——

University of Copenhagen, Institute of Theoretical Physics.

Strange, strange, why was Bierman's call back sent from Bohr's Institute of Theoretical Physics?

Although Chen Muwu was very curious, he did not send another telegram to Bohr to ask how things developed like this.

He still has something to do, which is to prepare the instruments and medicines that the other party may need to use in his experiments according to the telegram Bierman sent him before.

Bierman felt that since Chen Muwu said that he discovered element 85, it was a halogen element from Group VIIA.

Since it is a halogen and its name is iodine-like, the chemical properties of element 85 should be similar to those of iodine.

Therefore, the chemicals and instruments Bierman requested in the telegram were basically related to the test of iodine.

——But there is no starch aqueous solution in it. It is true that iodine turns blue when it meets starch, but no one can tell whether the iodine-like substance will react with starch and what color the reaction will be.

This time they were all very common chemical instruments and medicines. Chen Muwu would not send Frederick to Uppsala, located northwest of Stockholm, to borrow things from Uppsala University.

Of course, it was not easy to buy in the market temporarily, so after sending the telegram, Chen Muwu drove the Volvo to the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

(End of this chapter)