Reborn and become a Great Scientist

Chapter 421 The opening of the 160 Mathematicians Conference

It is also an international academic conference held in Italy, but this time the International Congress of Mathematicians held in Bologna is much more stingy than the Como Conference held in Como, Milan last year.

During the Como conference, the conference organizer drove the entire trip between the Como train station and the venue next to Lake Como.

This time in Bologna, Chen Muwu got off the train from the Bologna train station and had to go from the train station to the University of Bologna by himself.

The reason why these two international academic conferences held in Italy had completely different attitudes towards the participants may be that the number of participants was too exaggerated.

There were at most a hundred people at that time in Como, but in Bologna, Italy, more than 1,100 mathematicians from all over the world came.

Not only did he spend his own money to go to the venue, Chen Muwu also paid for the conference registration fee of fifty Italian lire.

Although this money was converted into pounds, it was less than eleven shillings, but it still made Chen Muwu a little unhappy.

He received an invitation from the organizer of the conference, but the first thing he did after arriving at the conference was to take money out of his own pocket?

However, the conference registration fee is quite worth it to be honest.

After paying the money, Chen Muwu received a conference card with the official membership stamped on it. With this conference card, he had the right to make speeches, communications and proposals during the meetings of the Mathematicians Conference.

However, Chen Muwu should not be able to use this right, because he came to Italy to attend the meeting on an impromptu basis and did not have time to prepare his speech.

But in addition to giving speeches, Chen Muwu, who has a conference card, can also participate in discussions and voting, participate in the opening and closing ceremonies, conference celebrations, tours organized by conference organizers and visit places of interest near Bologna.

Moreover, with the conference card, Chen Muwu can also enter museums and galleries in Bologna and Tuscany for free, and obtain the proceedings of this International Congress of Mathematicians for free.

Also, after the meeting, if Chen Muwu wants to travel within Italy, he can also get a certain amount of money by purchasing train tickets or ship tickets from Italian Railways and shipping companies, and staying and dining in hotels and restaurants in Italy. the discount of.

In addition to the above-mentioned preferential treatment, there is another preferential treatment condition that is completely unexpected.

The Soviet Union government approached the International Mathematical Union and promised that as long as they participated in this International Congress of Mathematicians and obtained a conference pass worth fifty Italian lire, they could obtain a visa issued by the Soviet consulate, and Residence permit in Sulian.

It is estimated that Sulian came here just to attract more scientific talents to visit Sulian and give lectures by the way.

But this visa is of little use to Chen Muwu.

Because as an academician of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, it should be very simple to enter the Soviet Academy.

After paying the money, Chen Muwu not only received a conference pass for this International Congress of Mathematicians, but also a thick conference guide.

The agenda of the meeting is printed on the guide, and the specific locations of the plenary session and each branch venue are also marked.

It was Chen Muwu's first time to attend an international mathematics conference. He did not expect that the entire conference was actually divided into seven sub-venues, namely:

Arithmetic, Algebra and Analysis;

geometry;

Mechanics, astronomy, geodesy, geophysics, mathematical physics and theoretical physics;

Statistics, mathematical economics, probability theory and actuarial science;

Applied Mathematics for Engineering and Industry;

Elementary mathematics, mathematics teaching and mathematical logic;

and the history of philosophy and mathematics.

Chen Muwu could understand the first, second, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh sessions, because these things are more or less related to mathematics.

But he didn't expect that the International Congress of Mathematicians would actually separate a third branch venue for physics.

Of course, it is not appropriate to say that these contents are exclusive to physics.

In the eyes of mathematicians, mechanics is closely related to mathematics. The earliest Newton invented the mathematical calculation method of calculus based on mechanics.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Beida did not have a Department of Mathematics for a period of time. Instead, it was collectively called the "Department of Mathematical Mechanics." This department should have come from the Department of Mathematical Mechanics of Sulian University of Science and Technology.

The same goes for astronomy. Physics is unwilling to admit that astronomy is a branch of physics, and astronomers cannot win the Nobel Prize in Physics.

But in physics, astronomy, which "grandma doesn't care about and uncle doesn't love", has become a hot topic in mathematics, and has always been regarded by mathematicians as their own taboo.

It is considered a natural thing for a top mathematics student like Eddington, who graduated from Trinity College of Cambridge University, to enter the observatory to study astronomy.

The same is true for other fields such as geodesy, geophysics, mathematical physics and theoretical physics.

Anyway, in the eyes of mathematicians, physics is just a subject of experimentation, from Torricelli measuring atmospheric pressure, to Volta studying batteries, to those in the Cavendish Laboratory studying atoms, electrons and nuclei. Things, only these experiments done in person at the experimental table can be regarded as physics.

Other things that do not require hands-on experiments and only require a piece of paper and a pen, plus a pipe and a bag of tobacco to calculate the results, can be said to be mathematics.

Even in the opening speech of this International Congress of Mathematicians, Chen Muwu heard the Italian Minister of Public Education G. Belluzzo make the following speech:

“…the great Maxwell had already demonstrated the power of mathematics in the mind of genius, since he formulated his formulas, and physics came later.

“It was mathematics that showed astronomers the existence and location of new planets in the solar system.

“It is mathematics that makes it possible to calculate the infinitesimal distances of planetary systems, expressed in light-years, and the infinitesimal distances of atomic systems, expressed in fractions of millionths of a millimeter.

“It is mathematics that makes it possible to calculate the masses of stars thousands of light-years away from Earth and the masses of electrons that form atomic systems.

"..."

Belluzzo's remarks further confirmed the conjecture in Chen Muwu's mind.

As long as you don't do hands-on experiments, it's all math.

Fortunately, after entering the 1920s, the Nobel Prize judges at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences began to correct their mistakes and awarded the physics prize to two theoretical physicists, Einstein and Bohr, for two consecutive years. Only then did the ownership of theoretical physics return to physics. With the blessing of the Nobel Prize in Physics, when people mention Einstein, they will say that he is a well-known physicist, not a well-known mathematician.

Belluzzo on stage continued: “…once we have established the assumption that the mass of an object is related to its speed and the constancy of the speed of light, it is mathematics that allows us to create the theory of relativity and arrive at the surprising implication that the universe is expanding. Unexpected new conclusions.”

Ok?

Why did the example he gave sound so familiar to Chen Muwu?

The expansion of the universe seems to have been proposed by itself, right?

Chen Muwu is not a special guest. He is just one of the participants who received the invitation letter and came to Italy alone to make soy sauce.

So during the opening speech on the morning of September 9, Chen Muwu sat in the back row of the lecture hall at the University of Bologna, surrounded by people who neither knew nor knew him.

It is estimated that Belluzzo also regarded Chen Muwu's expansion of the universe as a mathematical discovery, so he cited this example in his speech.

The organizing committee of the conference sent a conference invitation letter to Chen Muwu. Maybe it was similar to Belluzzo’s idea, right?

In the lecture hall of the University of Bologna, Chen Muwu went through another lengthy opening speech of the conference.

In addition to the Minister of Public Education, who represents the head of the Italian government, Chen Muwu also heard the opening remarks of senior officials from the Province of Bologna, the mayor of Bologna, the cardinal of the Diocese of Bologna, the president of the University of Bologna, and the president of this International Congress of Mathematicians. Speech.

Many of them used one sentence in their speech to thank Prince Adalberto, Duke of Bergamo, who came to the meeting on behalf of the King of Italy, and then used many words to advocate the "new policies" implemented in Italy after the Italian Prime Minister came to power. , abruptly turned a gathering of mathematicians into a political rally.

This made Chen Muwu feel a little disgusted. He had only been away from Italy for a year, but he didn't expect that the political atmosphere in Italy had become so fanatical.

These people all gave speeches in Italian, and then two specially equipped translators translated their speeches into English and German, performing simultaneous translations for mathematicians using different languages ​​​​in the venue.

Therefore, the time for a person's speech is actually three times the time for his manuscript.

Throughout the morning, Chen Muwu did nothing else except listen to the speech.

This made Chen Muwu regretful, and he even began to complain that the Italian railway company was rarely on time.

If the train he took was a few hours later than the time on the train schedule, he would not have arrived at the venue on time before the opening ceremony and then listened to a boring and arrogant written speech for several hours. .

Perhaps the organizers of the conference also knew that it would be inappropriate for everyone to hear only political speeches, so at the opening ceremony on the morning of September 9, the mathematician was the last one to give a speech.

After eight years, the German mathematician finally returned to the international mathematics stage. Professor Hilbert, the director of the Institute of Mathematics at the University of Göttingen, took the lecture seat on the rostrum of the Great Hall of the University of Bologna and delivered a speech. A speech entitled "Basic Mathematics Problems".

Chen Muwu did not return directly to London, England from Stockholm this time. Instead, he first came to Bologna, Italy, to participate in this International Congress of Mathematicians. A large part of the reason was that he wanted to meet Professor Hilbert.

Although Chen Muwu single-handedly broke Hilbert's fantasy of building a mathematical building, the "King of Mathematics" did not hold grudges. Instead, he sent his disciple Feng... Neumann went to the University of Cambridge to invite Chen Muwu to visit the University of Göttingen if he had time.

Chen Muwu thought that if he found time to go to the University of Göttingen alone, it would not be easy to achieve.

You said that you have gone to Germany and Göttingen, but will you go to Berlin?

You’ve already gone to Berlin, are you going to Munich?

If the time goes back a few years, Chen Muwu really has plans to go to Germany.

But as that person's power grew stronger, the atmosphere in Germany became very tense.

People who know him, Chen Muwu, know that he is an internationally renowned physicist.

But if someone doesn't know him, Chen Muwu, walking on the street is likely to stretch out his fist and punch Chen Muwu, who has black hair, yellow skin and black eyes.

Although when I was at Cambridge University, I learned some self-defense kicks from Ye Gongchao.

But after all, "Two fists cannot defeat four hands, and a tiger cannot defeat a pack of wolves." Chen Muwu will never do anything stupid that puts himself in danger.

Hilbert quickly read the last word of the speech he had prepared, and the morning's closing ceremony came to an end.

Many people in the audience chose to leave the venue and go to the restaurant to eat.

But there were also many people who chose to stay. They waited for Hilbert to step down from the rostrum, and then completed their pursuit of stars with the greatest mathematician in their minds.

Chen Muwu also mingled with the crowd, thinking of saying hello to Professor Hilbert.

Because according to the conference schedule he received from the organizer when he entered, Hilbert's only public speech at this conference was this one.

If he misses the opportunity to say hello to Hilbert today, Chen Muwu doesn't know when he will have to wait until he can meet Hilbert again.

Chen Muwu did not take the initiative to move forward like others, but stayed at the end of the queue, waiting for the people asking for autographs and photos to gradually disperse.

The people around Hilbert gradually dispersed, and Chen Muwu finally had the opportunity to step forward.

He stretched out his right hand: "Hello, Professor Hilbert, I am..."

"Dr. Chen! I know you! I often see your photos in newspapers! I didn't expect you to come to Bologna, Italy this time to attend the International Congress of Mathematicians."

Hilbert also extended his right hand, and the two held their hands tightly.

Chen Muwu didn't expect that Hilbert could actually recognize him.

Others next to him were equally surprised by Hilbert's performance.

Who is this guy?

Why do mathematicians show such enthusiasm for him?

Dr. Chen?

Some people began to taste what Hilbert just said.

"Chen Muwu! He is Dr. Chen Muwu from Cambridge University!"

(End of this chapter)