Reborn and become a Great Scientist

Chapter 93 41 Everything in the world is a wave

When he met his new roommate that night for the first time, Chen Muwu didn't even recognize the guy standing in front of him who was more silent and shy than Blackett.

After the two parties exchanged names, both of them showed a somewhat surprised expression on their faces.

However, Chen Muwu's expression only stayed on his face for a few tenths of a second, because he immediately realized that he seemed to be surprised too early.

In other words, the man across the street will be very famous in the future, but right now, he is just an unknown postgraduate student at Cambridge University, a poor boy from Bristol County in the countryside, without even a little bit of fame.

Chen Muwu felt that if others saw the exaggerated expression just now, they might feel that he was a little abnormal.

His new roommate was one of the mainstays of the future of quantum mechanics, Paul Adrian Maurice Dirac.

Chen Muwu thought that maybe it was because Dirac didn't have his iconic beard on his mouth, and the hair on the top of his head was still relatively thick, and the hairline hadn't moved back, so he couldn't recognize him. Come.

Today's Dirac is just an undergraduate student who has just obtained a double degree in mathematics from the University of Bristol. In the eyes of the aristocratic students of Cambridge University, he is undoubtedly the kind of countryman from other places, only inferior to Chen Muwu. The status of this yellow-skinned foreigner is just so high.

Like Chen Muwu, Dirac started out as an engineering student.

Not only the two of them, but even Kapitsa and Blackett have more or less received engineering training.

Perhaps in the eyes of the older generation of experimental physicists, having a certain amount of engineering knowledge is a plus.

Two years earlier, Dirac had graduated with a bachelor's degree in engineering from Bristol University, and had passed his entrance examinations to St John's College, Cambridge, on a scholarship of £[-] a year.

In comparison, the scholarship offered to Chen Muwu by Trinity College was [-] pounds per year, and [-] pounds was nothing compared to this figure.

On average, this scholarship was not enough for four shillings a day, far from enough to support Dirac to complete his studies at Cambridge University, so he returned to Bristol University to study a double degree in mathematics.

After graduating again this year, Dirac received a scholarship of 140 pounds a year from the University of Bristol, plus [-] pounds from St. John's College, and he was finally able to study at Cambridge University.

Dirac had read about Chen Muwu in the newspaper, so he seemed delighted to learn that his new roommate was Chen from China.

Both of them felt that the other was the boss, so they were very cautious when they got along at the beginning.

But Mrs. Brown was a little dissatisfied with the nationality of the new tenant in her house.

When Kapitsa lived in his own house, he was like a pistachio, and the whole house was filled with cheerful air.

After several months of getting along, Mrs. Brown's perception of Chen Muwu who lives in her home has also improved a lot.

This Chinese Chen is not only generous, she also receives a few pennies as a tip every time she sends him the laundry.

From time to time, Chen Muwu would bring another Chinese person to his kitchen to cook some delicious Chinese dishes, and always invite himself to taste them together.

At the first time, Mrs. Brown was still cautious, for fear that Ye Gongchao would serve a pot of stewed rats.

But seeing that both Kapitza and Blackett, who was also a guest, ate with gusto, and the aroma from the kitchen made her move her index finger, Mrs. Brown finally couldn't hold back the temptation and accepted Chen Muwu's invitation.

After eating that meal, Mrs. Brown felt very ashamed of being an Englishman. She felt that her country had opened up so many colonies and plundered countless spices from all over the world, but the taste of British dishes , but still very difficult to describe.

I have to say that the taste of Chinese food is far better than that of British food. In Mrs. Brown's mind, it is probably similar to French food that she has never tasted.

Since then, Mrs. Brown's love for Chinese food has been uncontrollable. She even thought about encouraging Chen Muwu to trick another Chinese with better cooking skills to move out of the college where she originally lived and come to live in her home.

If he has time to teach himself how to cook a few Chinese dishes, Mrs. Brown may consider giving him some rent relief.

As a result, the new tenant is not the Chinese who can cook, but a silly boy who looks extremely dull, which makes Mrs. Brown very disappointed.

Chen Muwu started looking for something to say: "Paul, who is your mentor?"

He has been selected by Rutherford as the only doctoral student accepted this year. As for the other freshmen in the Cavendish Laboratory, Rutherford has pushed them to several professors under him.

"My advisor is Professor Fowler, Mr. Chen."

Dirac replied with a serious face, and followed the British tradition in terms of address, only calling others by their surnames, never directly calling them by their first names.

Chen Muwu's shouting of Peter and Patrick every day was purely misled by Kapitsa.

It is estimated that Patrick has already been numb from the shouting, so he doesn't mind Chen Muwu's shouting.

Chen Muwu continued to be friendly: "Well, since we are all freshmen in the laboratory, we should help each other and take care of each other in the future."

Dirac looked puzzled: "Laboratory? What laboratory?"

"Of course it's the Cavendish Laboratory! Mr. Dirac, it's funny how serious you are." Chen Muwu also changed his address in time.

"Sorry, I'm not a freshman at Cavendish Lab."

Although Dirac had some doubts in his tone, his face remained expressionless.

Blackett would be ashamed of his top level of facial paralysis.

"Didn't you say that you are Professor Fowler's graduate student? Isn't he from Cavendish?"

"Yes, that's right, but Professor Fowler is a teacher in the mathematics department, and I am also a freshman in the mathematics department."

?

Wasn't Dirac a famous physicist?
How did you go to the Department of Mathematics?

Could this be because of the butterfly effect brought about by his time travel?

After being treated as a god-like figure by others for a long time, it was finally Chen Muwu's turn to act affectionate.

Dirac already had a double degree in mathematics from the University of Bristol, so it was logical to enter the mathematics department of the University of Cambridge for postgraduate study.

At this time, Dirac was still full of mathematics, and he didn't even know Maxwell's equations, so he didn't care about which of photons and electrons was a particle and which was a wave.

The reason why he can become the backbone of quantum mechanics depends on another opportunity in the future.

Chen Muwu had never read Dirac's biography, so he had a misunderstanding in this regard.

While he was taken aback, Dirac was equally puzzled.

It took a long time for the two of them to clarify the misunderstanding between each other.

Perhaps because the two sides got to know each other gradually, Dirac also took the initiative to ask Chen Muwu a question: "Chen, I read in the newspaper that it is said that you have a good relationship with Professor Eddington?"

In physics, Dirac was only interested in the theory of relativity proposed by Einstein.

This is because he had read the popular science book "Space, Time and Gravity" on general relativity written by Eddington in English when he was in college.

So Dirac chose to study at Cambridge University, to a certain extent, has a lot to do with Eddington's influence on him.

When Eddington was mentioned, Chen Muwu blushed, because he finally remembered that he had such an acquaintance in Cambridge University.

It seems that when I met Eddington for the first time in April this year, I seemed to have promised him that I would go to the observatory to ask him about astronomy in a short time, right?
"Yes, I do know Mr. Eddington. Why, do you want to see him?"

Chen Muwu said a joke, but Dirac took it seriously.

"Can I? That would be great!"

During the six months since he came to Cambridge University, Chen Muwu basically stayed in the Cavendish Laboratory every day.

After keeping the pigeons for so long, he was even a little embarrassed to see Eddington again.

But no one expected that Dirac in front of him would be so interested in Eddington.

Chen Muwu's cowhide has already been blown out, and now it is hard to recover.

He could only promise Dirac that he would take Dirac to the observatory to meet Eddington after the busy period of school had passed and everything had settled down.

……

After school started, Chen Muwu went to London again, not to attend the school opening dance organized by the London Chinese Student Union, but because of an official business.

Fan Yuanlian resigned from the position of the Director of Education the year before last and went overseas to investigate rural education in the United States.

Not long ago, he received a telegram from Huang Yu, the head of the Ministry of Education.

Huang Yu is Chen Muwu's fellow countryman. After several changes in the cabinet, he has now stepped down as the Minister of Foreign Affairs and has become the Minister of Education instead.

Gu Weijun took over as Minister of Foreign Affairs. He also has another identity, that is, Minister to the UK.

It's just that after only a few days in London, he returned to China to participate in politics. Therefore, the legation has been served by the first secretary Zhu Zhaoxin as the interim charge d'affaires for several years.

After Gu Weijun took office, he didn't stop the special official fee that Huang Yu waved out before, which made Chen Muwu's previous worries in vain.

Huang Yu sent a telegram from China, asking Fan Yuanlian to go to England as a representative of the Republic of China to negotiate with relevant people in the British government on the issue of using Boxer indemnities for education.

After arriving in the UK, Fan Yuanlian asked Zhu Zhaoxin, the charge d'affaires ad hoc of the embassy in the UK who was hosting him, if there were any representatives of overseas students with excellent character and learning who could give him some bargaining chips in this difficult negotiation.

Without even hesitating, Zhu Zhaoxin directly recommended Chen Muwu who showed his face in the UK.

Compared with the group of foreign students who hang out in the streets and alleys of London all day, playing cards, dancing, and taking pictures of their wives, the gap between the two is really one sky and one earth.

After Fan Yuanlian agreed, Zhu Zhaoxin quickly sent a telegram to Chen Muwu, asking him to come to London to help support the scene.

"Going to benefit the country's life and death", Chen Muwu certainly would not refuse such a thing that is beneficial to the country, he came to London according to the time stated in the letter, and appeared at the scene of the first negotiation on time.

Chen Muwu thought that he knew neither diplomacy nor politics, so he should have come to act as a mascot.

His presence should be to let the British on the other side of the negotiating table see that the Republic of China can also cultivate internationally renowned talents, and if the Boxer indemnity is more inclined to education, more Chen Muwu will come to the UK to study.

Unexpectedly, he has become the focus of the audience, and every ghost wants to see what this Chinese who has recently turned physics upside down looks like.

Seeing that Chen Muwu attracted so much attention, Fan Yuanlian felt that Zhu Zhaoxin had indeed recommended a good helper to him.

He took advantage of the victory to pursue, and raised some more bargaining chips behind the originally formulated conditions.

However, during the negotiation, both parties want to win more benefits for themselves, so of course no agreement will be reached at the first meeting, and a long tug-of-war must be carried out.

Due to his studies, Chen Muwu only attended the first meeting, and he had to take the evening bus back to Cambridge that day.

Before leaving, Chen Muwu asked Fan Yuanlian how his younger brother Fan Xudong's Yongli Soda Factory was doing.

Fan Yuanlian was a little surprised, he didn't expect Chen Muwu to know his younger brother.

He told Chen Muwu honestly that he heard that Hou Debang's engineer had improved a new method with higher raw material utilization and lower cost on the basis of the Solvay soda production method bought at a large price, but it seemed that because of Amo Niah cannot supply in large quantities, so it can only be trial-produced on a small scale in the laboratory at present, and cannot be mass-produced.

It seems that the Yongli Soda Plant should have fully mastered the Hou's soda production method, and now there is only a synthetic ammonia plant left.

Now, Chen Muwu estimated that a synthetic ammonia factory with process and equipment would cost about [-] pounds.

Moreover, the key thing is that there is no market for it.

In fact, before the 20s, synthetic ammonia had always been a high-tech technology monopolized by Germany.

It's just that because of a defeat, Germany not only lost a large area of ​​land, but lost the Ruhr Industrial Zone, and even the German technology patents were all opened up to the League of Nations.

In order to continue to ensure the monopoly position of the patented technology that was acquired with great difficulty, the great powers will naturally not easily sell it to the outside world.

As a victorious country where "justice prevails over power", China suffered a lot from the "Paris Peace Conference" where the spoils were divided. It is wishful thinking to get involved in this kind of sophisticated technology.

However, there is a good opportunity right now, and that is to take advantage of the inflation in Germany and go to their side to fish in troubled waters.

Today's most advanced method of synthesizing ammonia was invented by German scientist Fritz Haber, for which he won the 1918 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

And this Mr. Haber is also a good friend with Einstein.

Chen Muwu planned to write a letter to Einstein after he went back to see if he could connect with Haber, and maybe he could contact the BASF factory in Germany and purchase a set of equipment from them.

Chen Muwu declined the invitation to stay for dinner, bid farewell to Fan Yuanlian and Zhu Zhaoxin, and hurriedly left London for Cambridge on the afternoon train.

Because he had promised Dirac before that he would take him to visit Eddington at the Cambridge Observatory this afternoon.

……

"Yo, yo, yo, let's see, who's here?"

Seeing Chen Muwu again after half a year, Eddington's eyes revealed an incomparably resentful look behind his glasses.

He folded his arms across his chest, unconsciously adopting a defensive posture.

Psychologically speaking, this is a manifestation of not being confident in front of strangers.

Of course, this stranger was obviously not Chen Muwu, but Dirac who was following him.

Chen Muwu cheekily smiled: "Mr. Eddington, long time no see. I'm Chen Muwu."

"Chen, you have another paper detained in the editorial department of the "Philosophical Journal", do you want to invite me to go out for a trip again?"

Maybe he was concerned about the stranger who followed Chen Muwu, but Eddington's yin and yang skills were not fully fired.

"Sir, I'm really sorry, I've been so busy with various things at the Cavendish Laboratory recently that I haven't been able to find time to ask you about astronomy.

"But before asking, let me introduce that this is my new roommate, Paul Dirac, who is a graduate freshman at St. After meeting, please ask me to bring him to meet you."

"I know, you will never come to me if you have nothing to do."

The last trace of a gentleman in Eddington made him resist the urge to roll his eyes.

But when he walked in front of Dirac, he put on an amiable expression and stretched out his hand to him: "Hello, Mr. Dirac, I am Eddington, thank you for liking my book .”

Flattered, Dirac joined Eddington's hand together.

He was so startled that he spoke intermittently: "Professor Edin, Dington, it's an honor to meet you."

Eddington moved the two of them to the sofa, and then the topic returned to Chen Muwu.

"Tell me, Chen, what is that astronomical problem you thought up on the ship in March this year? Please don't tell me, you think the moon orbiting the earth is a wave, and so is the earth orbiting the sun." A wave!"

The sharp-tongued Eddington still felt puzzled, so he satirized Chen Muwu again on the issue that electrons are a kind of wave.

"Of course not, of course not, how could the moon be a wave?"

Chen Muwu said.

Of course, of course, the moon is also a wave!

Chen Muwu thought in his heart.

According to the theory of matter waves, everything in the world is a kind of wave, but the wavelength corresponding to macroscopic objects is too small, so it cannot be observed in daily life.

"So what kind of new idea do you have? No, after half a year, even new ideas will become old. Could it be that you have made new progress in the general theory of relativity?"

Hearing that Eddington mentioned the topic of relativity, which interested him, Dirac, who was at a loss on the sofa a second ago and felt that he might have strayed into the research site of the big guys, immediately cheered up and stood up. Get straight.

"That...not, sir. I'm here this time, just to ask a purely astronomical question, which has nothing to do with general relativity."

Before Chen Muwu could finish his sentence, Dirac's body quickly weakened again.

Such a short period of ups and downs is enough to show that everything in the world is a wave, and Dirac is no exception.

It is also a wave, a wave with a higher frequency.

(End of this chapter)