The days when I fished in Daming

Chapter 22 Glass
Liulichang is located near Huimin Pharmacy, about ten miles away from Huimin Pharmacy. The thousands of acres of land approved at the beginning has also come in handy at this time, and it is big enough.

It's just a little far away, and it doesn't matter if it's far away. Now, after so much tossing around, the [-] mu of land is useless.

On February [-]th of the lunar calendar, an auspicious day, Liulichang officially hangs a plaque.

The weather is beautiful, the sun is shining warmly on the body, the auspicious time has come, firecrackers are going off, and the plaque of the Fu Yin Zheng Yiyan's handwritten glass factory is officially hung up.

The crowd of onlookers made a lot of noise, and I don't know where there are so many onlookers in such a remote place. Perhaps it is people's nature to watch the excitement.

Of course, there are also officials from Ying Tianfu, colleagues from the brother unit, and Huimin Pharmaceutical Bureau also sent people to support them.

After watching the excitement, everyone dispersed quickly. Zheng Xiong and a group of colleagues approached the gate of the glass factory.

After visiting the glass factory, Zheng Xiong held a brief meeting with the craftsmen of the glass factory.

"Today is a memorable day. The glass factory was officially established. This is just the beginning. We are not Liulichang, and you are not just craftsmen. Everyone of you can use your own ideas to make glass. After making glass, everyone will be rewarded. Letting you live and work in peace and contentment is absolutely no problem. I, Zheng Xiong, are here to say what I said today. If you fail to do it in the future, you can come to me at any time."

The routine remains the same, just painting cakes. The routine has been popular since ancient times, and it has been tried and tested.

No, the applause from the audience is the best answer. Nowadays, people’s requirements are really not high. Food and clothing are the greatest happiness. Not to mention far away, a salary of [-] Wen a month is enough to live.

After the meeting was over, it was time for the cooking session. Zheng Xiong had already booked a small restaurant nearby. Zheng Xiong and his colleagues went to the private room, and those who had no grades ate and drank in the lobby. It was the same in modern times and ancient times. Classes have always existed, and Zheng Xiong can't change anything.

Eat and drink well, the oven was officially opened the next day, and the people who had a big meal worked hard today.

The glassmaking process for the first time was not complicated. Several people still had work experience in Liulichang.

The colored glaze of Liulichang is mainly imitation jade, adding a lot of miscellaneous materials to get closer to jade, which is also going astray. Money is in the hands of the ruling class, and the wealth of the whole society is such a big cake.

What Zheng Xiong has to do is to remove impurities, the purer the better.

The first furnace was not unconventional, so it used the method of making colored glaze, which was essentially a chemical reaction of sand plus some calcium carbonate, without adding anything else, and it was directly made.

Soon, under high-temperature calcination, the shape of the sand changed. Seeing that it was almost done, the master craftsman poured the solution into a mold on the side, pressed it into a plate shape with tools, and waited for cooling.

As long as the furnace is successfully opened for the first time, there are not so many requirements. After cooling, the glass is a little green.It's okay to say it's glass, after all, it's parted ways with Liuli, but it can't reach the light transmittance of later generations.

Zheng Xiong picked up the glass and walked outside, looked at the sun, the light transmittance is not very high, it is stronger than the beer bottles of later generations, but the strength is limited.

The craftsman who followed Zheng Xiong was slightly apprehensive, for fear of messing up the first time.

"It's not bad. The next thing you need to do is to continue to increase the light transmittance of the glass. Use this as a template. When you can clearly see things on the ground through the glass, it will be considered successful. At that time, you will be rewarded."

After hearing Zheng Xiong's reply, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, and the bonus stimulated everyone even more. Although they didn't know how much, everyone's enthusiasm still rose, and they replied loudly.

"Yes"

The next few days were constant experiments, adding the method given by Zheng Xiong, adjusting the ratio of various additives, the light transmittance was still improved a lot, but it didn't meet Zheng Xiong's requirements.

Although Zheng Xiong is not in a hurry, some preparations still need to be done in advance, such as polishing the lens and accumulating some experience.

Another group of people was recruited to specialize in polishing, and all the semi-finished glass was pulled and polished.

A few days passed, and the light transmittance of the glass was slowly increasing, but the polished lens looked good, but the light transmittance was not good, so it was of little value.

As a last resort, Zheng Xiong could only grit his teeth and bought some natural crystals at a high price to test first.

The crystal specially selected by Zheng Xiong has good light transmittance and looks purer than ordinary glass.

Polishing the convex lens with crystal means constantly adjusting the distance between the two lenses and the ratio of the two lenses, which is another time-consuming project.

Also without glass, Zheng Xiong couldn't bear the consumption of crystal alone, so he had to stagnate.

Found an alternative.

When it comes to microscopes, the inventor of this thing must be mentioned.

This person is an old trick.

That's right!

this person is
Robert Hooker.

Actually.

According to the research of later generations, it should be the Jansen father and son in 1595 who really thought of the operating principle of the microscope and invented the first microscope.

But these two unlucky guys didn't make any important observations with these instruments, and they just burped without doing anything after making them.

Therefore, in the history books, the invention right of the microscope has become a battleground between the other two:

Leeuwenhoek and Robert Hooke.

The degree of confusion between the two was so high that even the biology book of the People's Education Edition was wrong.

First, let's make a definition from the point of time:
In the microscope, Robert Hooke's invention was 20 years earlier than Leeuwenhoek.

However, the magnification of the microscope invented by Hooke was only 20 times, while that of Hooke was as high as 270 times.

Therefore, the real statement should be that Hooke invented the microscope, and Hooke invented, or improved, the high-power microscope.

In addition, in terms of biological contributions, although Hooke discovered cells, he observed slices of cork.

After zooming in, Hooker found a grid of small spaces, and named them after the English cell.

But in fact.

What he saw were dead cells, all he saw were remnants of plant cell walls.

And Leeuwenhoek observed living microbial bacteria, so he is considered the founder of microbiology.

It should be noted here that Robert Hooke preferred to use a well-made compound microscope, that is, a microscope with two lenses, an eyepiece and an objective lens.

In Leeuwenhoek's simple microscope, the lens was mounted on a metal plate, and the sample to be observed had to be inserted into the needle tip in front of the lens.

Hooke also described another single-lens microscope design in the preface to his book.The design is very simple, a hole is drilled in the brass sheet, and a convex lens ground with molten glass beads is embedded in it, and it can be used.

Despite the simple design of this single-lens microscope, the effect is surprisingly good. The magnification can reach hundreds of times and the resolution can reach the micron level.Although the design principle is more advanced, it will take at least 150 years for the compound microscope to achieve this imaging quality.

It is said that the microscope he made later had a magnification of 200 and a resolution of 1 micron.It is a craftsmanship beyond the times. A modern ordinary optical microscope has a magnification of only 800 and a resolution of 0.5 microns.

Under the microscope he made, Leeuwenhoek saw bacteria, red blood cells, sperm (stay at home and observe this hahaha), and other microorganisms.This was his breakthrough, because Robert Hooke just took a closer look at what everyone knew, such as the hairs on flea legs, the eyes of flies, and the lattice of cork slices.But Leeuwenhoek opened the door to microorganisms, which is a brand new unknown world.

So Leeuwenhoek is honored as the father of modern microbiology, but the single-lens microscope he used should indeed be the patent of Robert Hooke.

There is no way, those who rub the microscope with their hands are ruthless people, real technical work requires perseverance and patience.Zheng Xiong's plan is also to use a large number of compound microscopes to popularize some knowledge of virology and biology.With the exploration, single-transmission and compound microscopes will naturally develop accordingly.

However, the Chinese people's spirit of bearing hardships and standing hard work is engraved in their bones, so you can try it.

(End of this chapter)