Reborn and become a Great Scientist

Chapter 91: Chen Muwu's Old Friend

Ever since Chen Muwu, Kapitza, and Blackett beat the BKS theory, which was painstakingly studied, Bohr's former assistant, Kramers, began to slump.

Not long ago, he was finally discharged from the University Hospital of Copenhagen.

After that, Kramers took his wife and ran back to the Netherlands overnight from Denmark.

Although he and Bohr have a master-student bond, no matter how great the master-student bond is, it is not as important as saving one's life.

After losing his assistant, Bohr is now a loner in the Institute of Theoretical Physics. If he wants to write a thesis in the future, he can only randomly select a lucky audience from among the few doctoral students under him to be his recorder.

This morning, after Bohr entered the office, he found a letter with a postmark in Cambridgeshire, England on the desk.

Bohr thought that this letter should come from his teacher Rutherford, because in July, when the BKS paper published in the "Proceedings of Natural Science" was hit head-on by Chen Muwu and his experimental phenomena, it was in Cornwall. Rutherford, who was on vacation by the sea, was the first person to write a letter to comfort him.

In the letter, Rutherford advised Bohr not to be depressed because of the momentary gains and losses, and he also used himself as an example, saying that the atomic model proposed by Bohr before also negated to a certain extent his own earlier proposal. Atom solar system model.

But he has no complaints about this matter, after all, the development of science always has to look forward.

Seeing the words of Cavendish Laboratory printed on the envelope, Bohr was even more convinced that this letter also came from his teacher Rutherford.

It seemed that he was worthy of being Rutherford's favorite student, and that he could be entrusted by him like this, and Bohr felt a tinge of pride in his heart.

But after opening the envelope, he realized that his judgment was wrong.

One is because the teacher would never use a typewriter to write a letter to himself, and the other is because the letter paper does not have the holes that were burned by the ash that fell from the pipe when writing the letter.

"Dear Professor Bohr:

"Forgive me for taking the pen to write you this letter.

"Although we have not had friendly exchanges in the academic space a few times before, I believe that this time, you and I should be in the same camp.

"A copy of the paper I submitted to the journal "Annual Review of Physics" is enclosed with this letter, and I hope to get your advice.

"I wish you all the best, Chen Muwu."

Chen Muwu?
How could he write to me?
The letter was fairly sincere in terms of words and sentences, but Bohr didn't know why Chen Muwu, who not only had nothing to do with him, but even had some confrontations with him, sent himself a paper.

Full of suspicion, Bohr peeled off the thin sheet of letter paper covering the surface, revealing the same thin pages of papers underneath.

As if it was a bad taste, Chen Muwu traveled here and hadn't written a few papers yet, but he liked to write the names of well-known contemporary physicists in the titles of his papers.

It was enough to write the name of the physicist, but not only that, he also sent these papers to the physicist himself in the title.

There was Einstein’s gravitational field equation before, and there was Planck’s radiation law, and now there is a third victim.

"A Theoretical Interpretation of the Orbital Assumption and Stationary Hypothesis in the Bohr Atomic Model".

Seeing this topic, Bohr seemed to understand why Chen Muwu sent this paper to himself.

As Rutherford said in his previous letter, Bohr improved on the atomic model of the solar system proposed by his teacher in 1913 and proposed a new atomic model named after him.

According to the classical theory of electromagnetism, when the electrons outside the nucleus move in a circle around the nucleus, they will continuously radiate electromagnetic waves outward. As the energy decreases, the running speed will decrease, so the orbital radius will also continue to shrink until they finally land on the nucleus.

This means that atoms cannot exist stably, and the spectrum radiated outward should also be continuous.

But in fact, the atomic structure is very stable, and the spectrum radiated out is not continuous but discrete.

Bohr put forward three assumptions in his own model, which are the steady-state assumption, the orbital assumption and the transition assumption, which basically resolved the contradiction between the facts and the theory, and for this contribution, he won the Nobel Prize in 1922 Physics Prize.

It is called a hypothesis because there is no strong theoretical support.

Bohr could not find out the difference between the classical theory and the factual phenomenon, so he could only use the corresponding principle proposed by himself to muddle through. , the results obtained by the two laws should be consistent.

So when he saw the title of the thesis sent by Chen Muwu, Bohr's eyes lit up immediately.

I don’t know what kind of explanation the genius Einstein highly recommended to him on the tram not long ago will give his own atomic model this time.

So Bohr also temporarily ignored the unhappiness that had happened with Chen Muwu, and read the paper with all his heart.

"According to the wave-particle duality theory of photons, the momentum of photons is..."

Seeing the word photon, Bohr still felt a little resentful.

But now various experimental phenomena have irrefutably proved that light occasionally exhibits particle properties, and occasionally exhibits wave properties, so he can only swallow his anger.

"If this wave-particle duality is extended to all particles, taking electrons as an example, the corresponding wavelength of an electron with momentum p should be..."

After reading this, Bohr felt that his three views were shattered to the ground, and even the pipe in his mouth almost fell onto the desk.

How could electrons be waves!
His first reaction was exactly the same as that of his teacher Rutherford.

But this time, Bohr did not make the rash call to his assistant.

Of course, since Kramers left overnight, he has no assistants now, so he can only hold his nose and continue reading this paper.

"Considering electrons forming standing waves in atomic orbitals that do not radiate energy...the steady-state hypothesis can be derived...

"Bringing Equation 1 into Equation 2...

"And the angular momentum of the electron is exactly the product of the momentum and the radius of the orbit...

"This is the momentum quantization condition in the orbital hypothesis of the Bohr atomic model.

"QED."

The current QED only represents the end of the proof, and does not have the meaning of Quantum Electrodynamics.

Chen Muwu's paper is short, but it is shocking.

Bohr never thought of the steady-state hypothesis and the orbital hypothesis that he could not figure out even after hard thinking and meditation, so Chen Muwu easily deduced them with a few simple formulas.

However, is the premise that "electron is also a kind of wave" put forward in Chen Muwu's paper correct?
Bohr fell into deep thinking.

He is very entangled now. If he announces that the atomic model he proposed has found a reasonable explanation, then he must also admit the seemingly absurd conclusion that "electrons are a kind of wave".

On the night of receiving the letter, Bohr did not go home, but stayed in his office, staring at the several formulas in the paper in front of him all night.

The tobacco in the pipe is burned out again and again, and it is refilled again and again.

When Dongfang became clear, he finally came to a conclusion in his heart.

Physics should be such a beautiful and concise science. Since the electron is regarded as a wave, several assumptions in the hydrogen atom model can be perfectly explained.

So why can't electrons be a kind of wave?
Bohr, who regained his energy, picked up his pen and wrote a reply letter to Chen Muwu.

"Dear Chen:
"I am very glad to hear from you, and glad that you can share this paper with me as soon as it is finished.

"To be honest, I was surprised when I first saw this new idea in your paper, but after seeing it successfully and perfectly explain some of the assumptions I made in the atomic model, I have to admit , I was deeply impressed by your point of view, and decided to accept the point of view that 'electron may be a kind of wave'.

"Your letter inspired me a lot, but now there is still a problem in front of this theory, that is, how can I prove that electrons are also a kind of wave? As long as I can prove that this point of view is correct, then my atomic theory Basically, the final perfection can be obtained.

"In addition, I am very curious, how did you get so many innovative ideas in all aspects of physics? I hope you can give me some advice.

"Great tribute to you!

"Your old friend whom you have never met, Niels Bohr."

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(End of this chapter)