Reborn and become a Great Scientist

Chapter 420 159 Chen Muwu Wedding Invitation

Professor Einstein's wish failed.

He read the entire first issue of the Journal of Prince's College—except for two papers on the discovery of chemical elements.

Einstein did not expect that Chen Muwu would hide quietly in Stockholm and suddenly start a big job.

Although his main focus was on the study of relativity, Einstein also paid attention to developments in experimental physics.

He knew that there was another type of particle in the atomic nucleus besides protons, which had been searched for countless times by experimental physicists around the world, but for nearly ten years, no one knew where this particle was.

Chen Muwu only went to Stockholm for more than half a year. Not only did he discover neutrons, but he also discovered positrons released from nuclear reactions.

It seems that physics is not as difficult for others as it is for Chen Muwu. Others try hard to find it, but with him everything comes easily.

Einstein still didn't know what the discovery of the neutron meant.

Perhaps not only Einstein, but physicists all over the world probably think that the discovery of the neutron only solved the problem of what else is in the nucleus besides protons.

If you want to further enhance the status of neutrons, you must wait until the chain reaction is discovered.

At that time, neutrons will transform from an "elementary particle" harmless to humans and animals into a killer weapon capable of destroying the world.

Einstein failed to find new evidence that could refute quantum mechanics from Chen Muwu's several papers as he hoped.

But he still wrote a letter to Chen Muwu. The content of the letter was not to criticize quantum mechanics as wrong, but to congratulate him on his new achievements in experimental physics.

Unfortunately, Einstein's letter was addressed to Prince's College in Stockholm.

Chen Muwu, who is currently in Italy and will soon return to England to get married, has to wait a long time to see the contents of this letter in person.

Physicists from universities and research institutes on the European continent have made their own verification and "criticism" of the content in the first issue of "Journal of Prince's College".

But across the Atlantic Ocean in North America, physicists in those schools have just received the first issue of the journal from Stockholm.

Of course, they received the Nature journal much later than on the European continent.

Only a small number of physicists received telegrams sent in advance from their European colleagues and knew that neutrons had been discovered by Chen Muwu in Stockholm.

Oppenheimer of the University of Chicago was obviously among those who did not receive the telegram.

Logically speaking, Chen Muwu should be blamed for this incident. When Oppenheimer left Cambridge University and returned to the United States to teach, Chen Muwu once promised him that he would contact him as soon as possible if there were any academic results in the future.

And the discovery of such a large neutron is certainly an academic achievement.

But Chen Muwu forgot his previous promise. Maybe he had to welcome and send too many people to Stockholm at that time, so he completely forgot about Oppenheimer.

Previously, Chen Muwu founded the "Journal" at Prince's College. The news was read by Compton, a colleague at the University of Chicago, from the "Chicago Tribune" and reprinted in the newspaper.

At that time, Oppenheimer felt that Chen Muwu might be too busy in Stockholm, and this was not considered an academic achievement, so he didn't pay much attention to Chen Muwu's newspaper.

But this time it was completely different. The discovery of neutrons was a big event for all physicists, and Chen Muwu not only discovered neutrons, he also discovered positrons, invented the cyclotron, and discovered two new element.

Every single achievement is a remarkable achievement in experimental physics.

Even if Chen Muwu forgot it once because he was very busy at work, he wouldn't forget it every time, right?

Did he forget or did he deliberately not send himself a telegram?

Oppenheimer really couldn't decide on this matter.

He felt that he could no longer stay silently at the University of Chicago. Even if he did not leave the United States and return to Europe, he would at least have contact with Chen Muwu, write him a letter, send him a telegram, and let Chen Muwu Realizing that he still has a very loyal right-hand man in the United States.

So Oppenheimer also wrote a handwritten letter, and both he and Einstein coincidentally sent the letter to Stockholm.

These two people didn't know that it would take a long time for Chen Muwu to see their letters.

But compared to Chen Muwu's reply, both of them received another thing from Chen Muwu at the same time.

Although Chen Muwu is in Bologna, Italy, he is not in London, England.

But those preparing for the wedding in London were not relaxing at all.

According to the list Chen Muwu had left before, they sent telegrams to each of the friends he had made around the world.

The content of the telegram was exactly the same, inviting them to come to London to attend the wedding of Chen Muwu and Eve if time permitted.

In these days, in addition to using telegrams to send invitations, there is another thing that must be done when getting married -

That's the newspaper.

Although radio stations have become more and more popular, television signals are also continuing to mature and develop.

But newspapers are still the most direct way for the general public to obtain information. Whether it is a wedding, a child, a birthday, a missing person notice, or someone has died, everyone likes to spend a few shillings or a few pennies. , in a certain corner of a certain page of the newspaper, a piece of tofu news was published.

Don't doubt whether anyone will see these messages, the answer will definitely be yes.

First, large newspapers have a large circulation and a large number of readers.

Secondly, in an era when entertainment activities were relatively scarce, many people would read all the contents in newspapers, even advertisements, carefully.

Otherwise, Hubble would not have spent a lot of money to place an advertisement about his academic research in the New York Times at his own expense. The third thing is that the effect of these advertisements is much greater than their original effect.

Because in these advertisements and notices, although there is a lot of true news, there is also a lot of untrue news.

Workers in some special industries are very good at using inconspicuous tofu chunks in newspapers to convey codes and messages that only they can understand within a small area.

Even more than a hundred years later, if someone still wants to publish wedding news in a newspaper, they can still spend dozens of dollars to do so.

Major newspapers in London's Fleet Street all received applications from Chen Muwu's family to publish wedding announcements.

There is no dedicated editor to review such notices and advertising messages.

You only need to pay a sufficient fee, select a date to publish the news, and then hand over the news to be published directly to the typesetting worker.

So it wasn't until we got to the typesetting rooms of various newspapers that word pickers inadvertently discovered the news.

There may be many Chinese in London, but there is only one named Chen Muwu.

Even if the word picker didn't know Chen Muwu's contribution to physics, he was more or less aware of a series of books called "George Chen" and knew how popular this book was in the UK, so he knew about it. Chen Muwu, the author of this book, has a general understanding.

After the pickers discovered the news and reported it to the editors at various London newspapers in the middle of the night, they all received calls and learned of the news.

The next day, news of Chen Muwu's upcoming marriage was published in major newspapers published in London.

However, it was not reported in the usual advertising space, but reported as news on the main text page of the newspaper.

Even Chen Muwu, the most famous young physicist in the UK, from Cambridge University, wants to marry the daughter of Marie Curie, who won the Nobel Prize twice. It is a big deal no matter what.

Moreover, it is said that Dr. Chen has had a good harvest in love and career recently. Not only is he about to marry a beautiful woman, but he also discovered neutrons and positrons.

——The British newspapers did not make great efforts to popularize the science on this matter, because they felt that even if the science was popularized, not many people would understand it.

In addition to reporting news in newspapers, various large and small newspapers in Fleet Street have also assigned their reporters a new task——

That is to see if anyone can get the invitation to Chen Muwu's wedding, enter the wedding scene, and report first-hand news about the wedding for readers.

Oppenheimer received the telegram from Chen Muwu, which finally gave him a little peace of mind.

This at least proves that Teacher Chen is still thinking about himself. Perhaps it is because of his difficulties that he did not send a telegram to himself for the results of the Physics Society.

Oppenheimer finally had a legitimate reason to go to Europe, although Chen Muwu's wedding date was already the start of the semester for American universities.

But Oppenheimer still asked for leave from the school. Nothing could stop his determination to go to Europe.

After learning that Professor Oppenheimer was going to attend Chen Muwu's wedding, Compton happily agreed to leave.

He also asked Oppenheimer to convey the wedding blessings to Dr. Chen from himself and the entire University of Chicago Physics Department.

Oppenheimer was not the only one in the United States to receive Chen Muwu's invitation. Professor Hubble, who had completed the resignation procedures from Mount Wilson Observatory, also planned to leave the United States and go to Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, to develop next to Chen Muwu.

Although the astronomical equipment at Prince's College is still basically in the drawing stage, Professor Hubble has made a firm determination to leave the American astronomy community that is controlled by academic circles.

He is even more eager to design and construct an observatory according to his own wishes. Although it may waste several years of scientific research time, he will definitely gain a rather relaxed and free academic research environment.

Moreover, Chen Muwu has also promised Hubble that if he wants to conduct astronomical observations, Chen Muwu can use his status as a dual member of the Royal Society and the Royal Astronomical Society to help him contact the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England, and let him use the astronomical telescope there. Take starry sky observations.

Hubble, who received the invitation to Chen Muwu's wedding, thought this was an excellent opportunity to leave the United States.

So he packed his luggage for a period of time, first took a train from the western United States on the Pacific coast, across the entire North American continent to the eastern United States on the Atlantic coast, and boarded the same transatlantic ship as Oppenheimer.

In addition to the two of them, other American scientists who received the "Journal of Prince's College" but did not receive Chen Muwu's wedding invitation also began to follow in the footsteps of their European colleagues.

Everyone can either replicate Chen Muwu’s experiment and discover neutrons and positrons in their own laboratories.

Or start measuring the precise mass of neutrons according to the expressions of Zhao Zhongyao and Cockcroft.

However, neither American experimental physicists nor European experimental physicists reproduced two of the experiments.

One is to bombard a bismuth metal target with accelerated alpha particles to obtain the iodine-like element No. 85, and the other is to bombard metal molybdenum with accelerated deuterium nuclei to obtain the manganese-like element No. 43.

This is because although they saw what a cyclotron is on the cover of this first issue of "Journal of Prince's College", they have never seen a real thing and can only guess based on their own feelings. It seems that this new thing built by Chen Muwu is It's more advanced than the one they bought from the Cavendish Laboratory at a huge price.

Some bold physicists have tried to use electrostatic particle accelerators to replicate Chen Muwu's two experiments in discovering new elements.

However, a major disadvantage of electrostatic particle accelerators is that after every few bombardments, the potential difference transmitted to the electrodes through the charge conveyor belt is consumed, and the electrodes need to be recharged before bombardment can continue.

Using this particle accelerator, it may be possible to replicate the experiment in which deuterium nuclei bombarded metal molybdenum, because the half-life of the manganese-like element No. 43 obtained is very long and will not decay during the charging process of the electrostatic generator.

But the iodineoid of element 85, which has a half-life of only a few hours, is different. During the period of recharging the electrode, a lot of the iodineoid has begun to decay externally and returned to the metal bismuth.

Some people also began to send telegrams to Chen Muwu according to the address left in the "Journal of Prince's College", asking about the price of the cyclotron, hoping that like the previous electrostatic particle accelerator, it could be purchased from Prince's College and made by They come to install it.

American physicists, doing experiments, took a boat to Europe to attend Chen Muwu's wedding.

At this time, Chen Muwu, one of the protagonists of the wedding, had already crossed the Alps by train and arrived in Bologna, Italy.

Why do you think I, a person engaged in physics, come to the International Congress of Mathematicians?

(End of this chapter)