The literary giants of the late Ming Dynasty began by copying books

Seeing that everyone was satisfied with his article, Wang Wenlong suggested: "Everyone should follow the path of this article, search for wonderful things in the ancient books around you, and make guesses and analyses. We must implement the methods of our physics club and not talk about strange powers." Chaotic God, try to explain it in a reasonable way."

Everyone nodded and began to think about some strange events in the ancient books.

Wang Wenlong had no psychological pressure to write this kind of pseudo-science for publication in the Physics Society. He knew that both East and West must go through a stage of the rise of mysticism and natural history before accepting modern science.

Before the Age of Discovery in the West, many pamphlets about sea monsters and monsters were circulated. Many naturalists even regarded the strange creatures in the pamphlets as real creatures to study. It was the curiosity caused by these strange creatures that drove scientists to begin to study them. The study of biology.

The same is true in China. One of the earliest famous newspapers in China in history is "Dianshizhai Pictorial". The content of each issue is some new and weird current events, such as zombies biting people, resurrection from the dead, dragons appearing in the sky, etc. .

Interest is the mother of science. Wang Wenlong believes that in this era, using some gimmick methods to make the public interested in the outside world is definitely a good thing for the development of science and technology.

Moreover, this kind of book is very fast to compile. Following this method, everyone will soon have the direction.

Xu Guangqi said happily: "Jianyang's idea is really good. This book will definitely sell well."

Seeing the heated discussion, Wang Wenlong came up with another way to make a fortune.

"Nowadays, it is popular in the south to use the silver coins of the red-haired people, thinking that their money is exquisitely made. I have seen their technique of casting silver coins when I was overseas, but it is different from our sand mold casting money. It uses a cold The principle of pressing method is also simple. I saw that the red-haired man's silver coins were widely circulated. When I was in Fuzhou, I wanted to promote a machine for making silver coins, but I never got around to producing it. Now that the manuscript paper is available, I want to give it to Our Physics Club manufactures and manufactures silver coins. If we can cast silver coins ourselves, or at least produce machines for casting silver coins, it will probably be a way to make a fortune."

There are indeed many people in the physics club who are interested in manufacturing. After hearing this, they all came to see Wang Wenlong's draft. Wang Wenlong explained the principles. After everyone understood it, they couldn't help but look happy and nodded.

Xu Guangqi first praised: "Nowadays, double-column foreign money, cross money and shield money are popular in the south. Businessmen mostly stock up in large quantities because of their convenience in the past. The design of the coin minting machine in Jianyang seems to be very reasonable. If we can cast money ourselves, , the physics club won’t have to worry about funding.”

The official currency of this era was copper coins and banknotes, but in fact a large amount of silver was used in large transactions.

Because silver has never been officially legal currency in the Ming Dynasty, people actually cut large pieces of silver into small pieces for use. Since it is okay to cut the silver, it is not a crime to mint silver coins privately. matter.

And with the overseas trade in these decades, European silver coins also flowed into China in large quantities.

European silver coins have a uniform weight and decent purity, and their credibility in transactions is very good.

Wang Wenlong carefully observed when he was in Fuzhou that the so-called cross coins, shield coins, and double-column coins minted by the Spanish at this time were actually not of high quality.

Because at this time, many of the silver coins produced by Spain in the South American colonies were still made using hand-made techniques, which involved tapping a hammer with exquisite patterns on a round piece of silver.

The hardness of iron is six, while the hardness of silver is only about 2.7. Taking advantage of the principle that the hardness of silver is lower than that of steel, patterns can be created directly by tapping it twice.

However, the quality of such hand-made silver coins can be imagined, and many patterns are printed crookedly.

It was not until the eighteenth century that most South American silver coins were made by machines.

The design drawings that Wang Wenlong took out were of a toggle-operated coin minting machine, which was the machine used to press commemorative coins in later museums.

This thing is not very eye-catching in the eyes of later generations, but it is mechanically designed after all. The various lever structures and gear ratios have undergone precision technology and are ergonomic.

A person can press out exquisite silver coins by shaking the elbow handle twice. It is an epoch-making invention in this era. The practicality and efficiency of the design have surpassed the coin minting machine modified by Newton more than a hundred years later. At this time, although everyone did not know how effective this machine was, they felt that it was interesting when they saw the precise design drawings. Everyone suggested: "This thing should be tested as soon as possible."

Xu Guangqi is also a mechanical enthusiast. His eyes lit up when he saw this machine, and he proactively said, "I can be responsible for manufacturing it."

"It would be best if Zi Xian is willing to take the lead." Everyone agreed.

Xu Guangqi's management and manufacturing talents had already been revealed at this time. Everyone felt that it was very reliable to leave this matter in his hands.

Wang Wenlong also felt that Xu Guangqi was suitable for this job, and nodded and said: "Why don't our physics club set up a design and manufacturing institute specifically to research new machines. If we can make inventions in the future, it can, at best, increase the financial resources of the physics club. It’s a big deal that it’s something that benefits the country and the people.”

Literati in ancient China generally had a great interest in technological inventions, and also had great respect for inventors. You can understand this just by looking at who is credited with the great inventions in ancient times:

Huang Di invented the wheel, Lu Ban invented the saw, Lei Zu invented sericulture... Regardless of whether these things were done by them in real history, being able to attribute the credit for these inventions to sages and great virtues undoubtedly shows that the ancients were committed to improvement. The highest respect for the inventor of the world.

Everyone agreed: "I agree to establish a design institute."

"Seconded."

"Seconded!"

So in a large study room in the East Garden, the Design and Manufacturing Institute of the Physics Society was formally established, and its first dean was Xu Guangqi.

……

After the meeting was held and the development direction of the Physics Club was determined, everyone began to prepare the Physics Club Bookstore.

After thinking about it, Wang Wenlong proposed that the bookstore should be named "Yili Hall".

The goal pursued by the Physics Club is to find through research the ultimate truth of the objective world that "the sky and the earth are one, and can be accessed in all directions." The name of this "One Theory Hall" was praised by everyone as soon as it was mentioned.

Then we entered the intense book editing stage.

Let's brainstorm with everyone and soon finalize the content of the first volume of "Unsolved Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Times".

In the process of writing the book, Wang Wenlong kept discussing with everyone in the physics club. After some exchanges, he sighed in his heart that the people in the physics club were indeed quite talented, but they were obviously biased.

There are quite a few people in this group who have a vision of natural history. When talking about ancient books, they all quote from classics, but their understanding of science is really too little.

So much so that most of the analysis of the unsolved mysteries in the first volume of "Unsolved Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Times" had to be done by Wang Wenlong himself.

In fact, in Wang Wenlong's view, the answers to most of the unsolved mysteries raised by people are very simple: resurrection from the dead is a clinical phenomenon of suspended animation; it rained heavily when Zhuge Liang burned the Shangfang Valley, possibly because the hot steam evaporated and sent a large amount of smoke into the air. Water vapor condenses to form rainfall; Chen Deng loved to eat sashimi and died from vomiting three liters of worms. It was a parasitic infection...

(End of this chapter)