At the beginning of the 20th century, American astronomical research had reached the top level in the world, and it would become more and more powerful.
Of course, this requires conditions. The countless observatories alone are the envy of European countries. Almost all well-known American universities now have observatories.
After the American industry became strong, many entrepreneurs naturally gave back to education and made various donations. The cost of building an observatory was like drizzle to them.
European universities are the most envious, and they are too willful when they have money! In addition, Li Yu is now famous and is almost the most popular person in the astronomical circle. As soon as the invitation from Newcomb, President of the American Astronomical Society, was issued, many university observatories immediately enthusiastically invited him.
On this day, someone came to the hotel early in the morning. Several middle-aged men in suits entered the hotel and came to the front desk and asked, "Is there a Chinese named Li Yu in your hotel? We are from Johns Hopkins University and would like to meet him." The front desk was a tall blonde beauty who looked to be less than 20 years old. She replied: "I'm sorry, sir, you found the wrong hotel. Please go to the Walford Hotel in the next block." John Hopkins The people from the University of Sri Lanka felt that it was unlikely that they had gone wrong, so they asked, "Isn't it here?" The beauty said, "Sir, this is not Baltimore, but Washington. Of course, I am more familiar with it." After thinking about it, it seemed to make sense. So she apologized: "I'm sorry, ma'am, let's go to another neighborhood." The beauty breathed a sigh of relief. As soon as she relaxed, someone came up to her again: "We are looking for a gentleman named Li Yu. We are from Kangnai... ..." The beauty said directly: "I'm sorry, sir, you are also on the wrong track. The people from Johns Hopkins University have just gone to the Walford Hotel in the next block. I think it is too late for you to catch up earlier." Cornell University The visitor immediately said gratefully: "Thank you, madam!" and then ran out.
The blonde suddenly stuck out her tongue, smiled secretly, and then left the front desk.
"Dongdongdong!" There was a knock on the door, and Li Yu opened the door. Standing outside was a tall American woman with golden hair, fair but not so white skin, and black eyes, giving her a feeling of a mixture of things.
The beauty said, "Are you Li Yu?" She spoke fluent Chinese when she opened her mouth. Li Yu was surprised and said, "Who are you?" The beauty smiled slightly, revealing her white teeth.
"My name is Sierra, from Radcliffe College of Harvard University. I heard that you want to use the observatory, and I am here to invite you on behalf of the Harvard University Observatory."
"It came really fast," Li Yu said,
"Harvard University? Since you are the first to come, it's okay, then Harvard University Observatory." In addition to several observatories on the West Coast in the United States, Harvard Observatory is indeed quite good.
Sierra said: "Then let's set off as soon as possible, otherwise many people will come up soon."
"Who?" Li Yu asked. Sierra said: "Don't worry, let's leave soon." When they arrived at the hotel door, they got into a carriage and headed to the train station.
Harvard University is in Boston, and it takes more than half a day to get there by train. On the way, Li Yu asked: "Why do you feel a little bit oriental?" Sierra smiled and said: "You finally saw that I have about a quarter of Chinese blood."
"No wonder you speak Chinese so well." Li Yu said.
"Of course, I was born in Singapore. My mother is British and my maternal grandmother is Chinese. She taught me Chinese since I was a child," Sierra said.
"I see." This situation is not particularly uncommon. After all, there are too many British people in places like Singapore and India, and there are also many people who choose to settle there.
"Are you a student at Harvard University?" Li Yu asked. Sierra shook her head: "No, I'm at Radcliffe College. Although the professors are all from Harvard, it can only be regarded as a women's branch." Now, except for some universities on the West Coast, such as Stanford University and the University of California, men and women have long been At the same school, currently these private universities in the eastern United States basically do not recruit women, especially Yale University, which is a super typical example.
Harvard University also did not accept female students, but some professors began to teach some women at Radcliffe College outside, and Harvard had no choice but to accept the existence of this dedicated women's branch.
Li Yu said: "Sierra is your first name, right? I wonder what your last name is?" Sierra said: "Egie." Li Yu's mind turned for a moment, and suddenly he felt a little unable to turn.
"Carnegie?! Are you from the Carnegie family?" Sierra said, "What's wrong?"
"Is it Andrew Carnegie?" Li Yu asked. Sierra said: "That's my uncle." Sure enough, he is of Chinese descent, and Sierra can still distinguish between these generations. If he is an American, his brother who is called grandpa will still be called grandpa. There are not so many titles.
But I didn't expect that she actually came from the Carnegie family. Due to the street stall literature of later generations, many people think that Carnegie was a successful scholar. In fact, the Carnegie at the beginning of the 20th century was an absolute great entrepreneur and philanthropist, but his fame was not as good as that of another Carnegie.
If we talk about the top four conglomerates in the United States at this point in time, steel magnate Carnegie is definitely on the list.
Although his assets are not necessarily comparable to those of Rockefeller and Morgan, in terms of the US dollar cash on hand at this time, Carnegie is definitely not far behind.
Because just two years ago, he sold his company to Morgan for $500 million. 500 million U.S. dollars at the beginning of the 20th century, what a concept!
From then on, Carnegie began to only do charity and slowly dissipated his family wealth. This kind of life pattern is really indescribable.
Carnegie has very few descendants, but his brother Tom, who co-founded the Carnegie Steel Company with him, has many descendants.
Li Yu must have known about Carnegie and said with a smile: "If Harvard doesn't want you, just buy it!" Sierra chuckled: "Grandpa doesn't have that idea, but he has already founded a university." Li Yu must have known this and blurted out : "It's Carnegie Mellon University." Sierra frowned: "No, it should be Carnegie Institute of Technology." It seems that the Mellon Group has not taken a stake yet, so Li Yu said, "I heard wrong. "Sierra is very confident in Carnegie: "I believe that sooner or later it will be a university." Of course, Carnegie Mellon University will be great in future generations.
"One more little thing, do you have a Chinese name?" Li Yu asked. Sierra shook her head: "No, my grandmother originally wanted to give me a Chinese name when I was 16 years old, but she passed away early and only had a Chinese nickname, but..." Li Yu said with a smile: "I know, I will do this. I won't ask any more." Sierra also smiled and said, "Thank you." Li Yu added, "I really didn't expect that Harvard would send a female student this morning."
"This!" Sierra said,
"When you arrive at the Harvard University Observatory, you will understand that there is no man except the director." Li Yu whispered: "This director is so cool." Sierra asked: "What did you say?" Li Yu waved his hand. : "Nothing, I mean, why do you want to study astronomy?" Sierra said: "My grandfather was a physics professor at Cambridge University, and I began to accept physics at the age of six."
"Okay, you're ahead of me." Li Yu said. Sierra said: "And my grandfather also inherited the title of Baron Raleigh, but he had declined by then." Li Yu felt that this girl was too talkative. Although she was influenced by American culture, American culture at this time American culture is still very different from 100 years later, when Li Yu was alive.
But Li Yu finally understood Sierra's life experience. There are many declining aristocrats in Europe. Now that Americans are rich, many are willing to marry the descendants of aristocrats to increase their wealth.
It just so happened that Carnegie himself was from England, and he had a high sense of identification with the British aristocracy. And even if it declined, Baron Raleigh was at least a professor of physics at Cambridge University at that time. The Carnegie family at that time was not as prominent as it is now. After all, the Carnegie family rose too fast.
After arriving at the Harvard University Observatory, Li Yu finally understood what Sierra said on the way: they are really all women!
This is incredible! Looking at all the observatories in the world now, I am afraid there is no such thing.
The director of the Harvard University Observatory, named Pickering, personally came out to shake hands with Li Yu and said, "Welcome! All the staff at the Harvard University Observatory send us our highest blessings!" A dozen women behind applauded, and Li Yu laughed. He said: "Director, you are so kind. I am also honored." The current facilities of the Harvard University Observatory are relatively advanced, and the personnel are also really advanced!
This is quite interesting to talk about. Almost 20 years ago, Director Pickering was preparing to carry out a huge star spectrum classification work, but his assistant was slow and often made mistakes. So Pickering said angrily: "My maids can do better than you." !" In the end, Pickering actually called his maid Fleming, and it turned out that Fleming was really capable, rigorous and meticulous in her work, much better than the previous male assistant.
Then Pickering fired the male assistant. Although Fleming didn't understand astronomy, it didn't matter. Pickering would take spectral photos and then let Fleming classify and summarize them. In short, the work went much better.
Affected by this, Pickering later hired only female workers. Of course, women's salaries were much lower than men's at this time.
Pickering's salary was 30 cents an hour, which was much better than other jobs, so he gathered almost the best female astronomers in the United States here.
This has also become a major feature, and people jokingly call it
"Pickering's Harem." Pickering said: "I only knew you would come this morning. Who would have thought that a top scholar in the field of astronomy could suddenly visit." Li Yu said in surprise: "Didn't you send her to find me?" Sierra coughed He said, "I'm overstepping my bounds, but it's still a good thing." Then he winked at Pickering.
Pickering quickly changed the subject: "Come in and take a look at our observatory." Although Li Yu felt a little weird, he put it aside for the time being. After all, it was the real Harvard University Observatory.
The female astronomers at the Harvard University Observatory returned to their stations and continued their classification work.
Surrounded by women all around, Li Yu felt a little uncomfortable. The star spectrum classification currently being carried out by the Harvard University Observatory is a very remarkable thing. One of the tools that humans rely on most to measure the universe, analyze the composition of stars, and the physical and chemical properties of various stars is actually the star spectrum.
The research results of the Harvard University Observatory are mainly that the temperature and color of the star can be known through the spectral type of the star.
Let’s talk a little more. The so-called spectrum can be understood as simple as this: First of all, the continuous spectrum is the complete spectrum, which is what is emitted by an ideal black body, and is also emitted by a hot solid, such as a desk lamp.
The element can then emit its own emission spectrum, or simultaneously absorb the spectrum it emits.
For example, sodium's spectrum is just two bright yellow lines. If sodium vapor is placed around the desk lamp, the spectrum obtained will be missing those two lines.
That is, there are two more corresponding dark lines on a continuous spectrum. Through this method, people can know the elemental composition of stars.
This is a very clever method, and it is the most typical scientific way to interpret nature. After all, only in 1830, Comte, the founder of French positivist philosophy, said in his book: "Human beings can never know the chemical composition of stars, because you can't go to the stars to detect them." But. He could not have imagined that within a few years, humans would do it.
The element helium was even discovered by analyzing the solar spectrum. Even in 1895, the Scottish chemist Ramsey actually found helium on the earth.
Of course, spectroscopy has to be mentioned by Fraunhofer and Kirchhoff. Although these two gentlemen have passed away, they used practical actions to tell the world that humans can explore the distant universe through science!
Indispensable contribution. It's just that although Kirchhoff understood spectroscopy, he didn't understand why elements have the property of emitting a specific spectrum and absorbing it.
This is something that can only be explained by quantum mechanics later. Although what these female astronomers from the Harvard University Observatory have drawn is only the earliest unary classification method in star spectral classification, it has already revealed the relationship between star temperature and color.
In fact, not only astronomy, but also the problem of blackbody radiation in two dark clouds is a study of temperature and color: the radiation curves of blackbodies at different temperatures correspond to different peak wavelengths.
To put it simply, it can also be understood as judging color through temperature, or conversely judging temperature through color.
In fact, people originally wanted to study such a simple thing. Unexpectedly, they gradually developed quantum mechanics for this purpose.
After all, the sun is an ideal black body. Some people have started to classify stellar spectra before, but the classifications made are very few and not very representative.
The Harvard University Observatory is even more ambitious. They want to classify the spectra of more than 200,000 stars!
This was an era before computers, and all was done by naked eyes and manual classification, basically done by these female astronomers.
Astrophysics is attracting a lot of attention now, and Li Yu can just use the Harvard Observatory to make some big moves and do something on their territory, so as to persuade the United States to obediently withdraw the Boxer Indemnity as soon as possible.
A year early is always a good thing. Anyway, Li Yu's most competitive thing now is his brain, and he can only rely on this.
It just so happens that he has a rich reserve of astrophysics or astronomy in his mind, which is also one of his special skills.
Americans, watch carefully!
