After listening to the play with Carnegie in Chicago, Li Yu prepared to return to New York first.
But Kang Youwei was still very unconvinced. When he saw Li Yu leaving on his own initiative, he thought he had given up. He published an article in the newspaper, slandering Li Yu as "the lowest class of scholars, peasants, industrialists, and merchants", "a craftsman, rubble technician," and "an enemy who dare not debate directly." ".
I have to say that Mr. Nanhai’s spiritual victory method is still very strong. It's a pity that the second half of his life really ruined the first half of his life.
Li Yu wanted to ignore him for the time being, but when he returned to Fifth Avenue, Lu Bicheng angrily showed Li Yu the newspaper: "Mr. Nanhai is really going too far!"
Li Yu only glanced at it and said, "It's just nonsense."
Lu Bicheng was furious: "We can't let him say that to you!"
Li Yu smiled and said: "Why are you angry? He is a dignified Kang Nanhai."
"Then...then you can't slander people casually!" Lu Bicheng said.
Li Yu smiled knowingly and said, "It's actually very easy to refute him, because Mr. Kang's ideas are completely wrong."
"Are you talking about the Royalist Association?" Lu Bicheng asked.
Li Yu nodded: "Do you still remember the question about pirates dividing gold coins? And what Han Feizi said about the three concubines dividing gold, they all illustrate the same truth."
Li Yu wrote on the paper, "Following the logical chain, the first person to propose a distribution plan can get the vast majority of gold coins, and the second person is often the one who gets the least benefit. We can get the first person Think of it as a leader, the second person is middle management, and the one after that is the bottom.”
Lu Bicheng is also very smart and makes the point: "You mean, leaders tend to win over the bottom and suppress the middle management?"
Li Yu smiled and said: "Clever Girl! To a certain extent, it can explain why emperors kill meritorious ministers, because as long as they win over the masses at the bottom, they can stabilize their position. The meritorious officials are a threat, but the masses at the bottom are not. This is game theory.”
Lu Bicheng enthused: "I always thought that game theory was just a mathematical work, but it turns out that game theory can be found in every aspect."
Li Yu said: "Mr. Nanhai has not been able to turn around until now. During the Reform Movement of 1898, he naively thought that as long as he caught the emperor and issued a few imperial edicts, he could change the reform. His methods were really like those of a child. But now , he still thought that he only needed the emperor's personal rule to revive the world. On the other hand, the revolutionaries, they all propagandized among the masses and captured the groups that really should be captured."
Lu Bicheng said: "You still say you don't understand politics."
Li Yu put down his pen: "I can only talk on paper. The specific situation is too complicated to operate, and people's hearts can never be calculated clearly with numbers."
——
London, Royal Society.
President Huggins was discussing with Lord Kelvin the astronomy papers that Li Yu had just published.
"It's unbelievable! Lord, you know, I have been engaged in astronomy research all my life, but I can't even achieve as much results as Li Yu, the new foreign academician, in one year." President Huggins said.
Lord Kelvin changed his pipe today and said with a smile: "Science is progressing. What's so surprising about a genius?"
President Huggins pointed to Li Yu's paper and said: "In astronomy, although the mathematical requirements are not as high as those of pure mathematicians, the calculations are actually extremely difficult."
Lord Kelvin said: "I understand that many observatories are full of numbers all day long. The reason why I prefer to study physics is because it is difficult to cope with such a large amount of calculations."
President Huggins said: "We have hired thousands of calculators before, specializing in numerical calculations, but I feel that the power of thousands of people cannot match the power of Li Yu alone. His calculation ability is so amazing."
The name "calculator" has disappeared from history and is a profession that no longer exists.
The so-called calculator is a person who specializes in calculations. Most of them are employed in observatories, surveys and other fields.
Speaking of which, the group of female employees hired by Director Pickering of the Harvard Observatory also fall into this category. However, the work they do is more advanced and detailed, not only calculating, but also classifying and summarizing.
Meteorological calculations were equally terrifying. Later, a British meteorologist hired 64,000 calculation staff! They specialize in numerical solutions to differential equations, or finite difference simulations.
And much like the Harvard Observatory, the vast majority of computer scientists are made up of women.
By the time of World War II, the calculation work in many major projects of the century, including the "Manhattan Project", were completed by these computers.
It belongs to the "battlefield without gunpowder smoke".
You can think of them as "artificial computers" specially built before the birth of computers.
But it’s really hard to imagine what it would be like to manually calculate numerical solutions to differential equations…
Numerical simulations that were completed instantly by later generations of computers took tens of thousands of people several weeks to complete, and we have to lament the horror of later generations of integrated circuits.
But we can also understand from this that when a technology is immature, human work that appears in an auxiliary manner will almost disappear as the technology improves.
Similar situations include draftsmen in design institutes, pagers in the BB era (this was a super enviable job back then), etc.
In addition, according to later research on chaos, meteorology is the most typical chaotic system, and it is really not that meaningful to seek numerical solutions.
These computers were later recruited by early computer research teams and helped develop the earliest computers, completing the evolution of the boring work of computing from the human brain to the computer.
Lord Kelvin could not answer President Huggins’ question and could only say: “It can be seen from many meetings that he is a person with a very profound comprehensive knowledge of mathematics and science, almost deeper than anyone I have ever met, perhaps We are old and can no longer keep up with the times.”
President Huggins smiled and said: "My lord is actually humbled by old age."
"I won't accept it," Lord Kelvin said with a smile.
At this time, the editor of "Transactions of the Natural Sciences" Joelson knocked on the door and entered the office with a letter: "President, Lord, Li Yu wrote from New York."
"Bring it here quickly!" Lord Kelvin immediately put down his pipe and opened the envelope.
The article was not long. Lord Kelvin read it quickly and said in surprise: "What a simple and beautiful experiment."
"Physics experiment?" President Huggins asked.
Lord Kelvin said: "Yes, it is so simple that any laboratory can do it, but why didn't I think of it before?"
President Huggins asked, “Is it so easy that I can do it?”
Lord Kelvin said: "Of course, let's go, we just go to the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge."
The Cavendish Laboratory was founded by the great god Maxwell, and he personally served as its first director.
Maxwell died young. Cambridge originally wanted to invite Lord Calvin to serve as its second director, but he refused.
So the position fell to Lord Rayleigh.
And Lord Rayleigh wanted to retire early, so Cambridge invited Lord Kelvin to be its director, but he rejected it again...
In the end, Lord Rayleigh decided to let Thomson, a young boy who was only 28 years old at the time, be the third director.
After the decision was made, even Thomson himself was confused. Why me?
Relying on Sir Rayleigh's strong support, Thomson took the position of director. As it turned out, he did not disappoint Sir Rayleigh.
The discovery of electrons shocked the world and completely opened up the Cavendish Laboratory's fast track.
Lord Kelvin was an old acquaintance of Cambridge. No one dared to stop him. He swaggered to the laboratory, found Director Thomson and said loudly: "Give me a laboratory, I want to do experiments!"
Thomson adjusted his glasses: "Sir, did I hear you correctly? Do you want to do an experiment?"
Lord Kelvin photographed Li Yu's letter: "I want to do this experiment!"
Thomson looked at it carefully and said with a smile: "Mr. Lord, the requirements of the experiment require vision. Is your vision okay?"
Lord Kelvin said confidently: "It must be no problem!"
Thomson didn't dare to disobey this giant of physics, so he said, "Okay, I'll let one of my assistants help you."
Lord Kelvin said: "I don't need an assistant, I can do such a simple experiment myself!"
"Just let him take action," Thomson coughed, "Rutherford, you must help the Lord!"
Only thirty-year-old Rutherford stepped forward and said, "I understand!"
Thomson glanced at him, and Rutherford understood it and said to Lord Calvin: "My lord, you come with me. I have been in the laboratory for a long time and have clear steps. I can help you complete the experiment successfully."
The legacy of Cavendish Laboratory is magical.
Rutherford was single-handedly promoted and trained by Thomson. He was Thomson's graduate student for many years.
Rutherford is a good experimenter. He read Li Yu's paper and immediately understood the essence of the experiment. He was amazed in his heart: "Li Yu is really amazing and his experimental ability is so strong. It's amazing. I suddenly have some questions that I want to ask." he……"
"Where is the measuring cup?" Lord Kelvin interrupted Rutherford's thoughts.
"Here, Lord, and the dropper, I've prepared them for you!" Rutherford was very agile.
With his help, Lord Kelvin succeeded. He was very happy: "I knew that the molecule must exist! It is only 10 -10 meters, so it turns out that it is such a small particle."
Rutherford reminded: "In my impression, Professor van der Wasl from the Netherlands also calculated that the size of the carbon dioxide molecule is approximately 4.4×10 -10 meters. The two data can be consistent."
Van der Waals was the proposer of van der Waals forces, and he later won the 1910 Nobel Prize in Physics. Although he is the tenth Nobel Prize winner, he is the earliest born among the Nobel Prize winners.
Lord Kelvin said: "I remember him. After the article was published, I had to send a copy."
Rutherford said: "There is now more and more evidence for molecular theory, which seems to indicate that something bigger is going to happen."
Lord Kelvin said: "Then it had better come soon!"
After the Royal Society of Science published a paper on the oil film method, many people cheered.
In particular, Boltzmann, Li Yu’s best friend and die-hard supporter, even told all the students about this experiment in his class that day: “There is now countless evidence proving the existence of molecules, and atoms will still be far away. !"
Even the previous opponents, Ostwald and Mach, had to be convinced after quietly conducting experiments, so they chose to remain silent for the time being.
Let the bullet fly for a while.
But they didn't expect that the bullet would turn into a cannonball after flying for a while.
Another very happy person was Einstein, whose first important paper analyzed the existence of molecules. Li Yu's method is obviously easier to understand and can be operated by everyone, and it is even a bit simple and crude.
But this also indirectly strengthened his confidence in publishing papers.
After seeing it, van der Waals of the Netherlands compared his own research results.
Van der Waals not only has the famous achievement of van der Waals forces between molecules, he won the Nobel Prize by generalizing the ideal gas equation from the gaseous state to the liquid state.
Van der Waals' equation has a great influence on the industry, because it can be used to obtain the isotherm of any gas, providing very strong theoretical support for liquefaction.
Van der Waals immediately came to Leiden University to find Lorenz.
"Professor, have you seen Li Yu's new paper?" Van der Waals asked.
Lorenz said: "Sorry, I have been doing a lot of research during this time, and I haven't had time to read the latest journals."
"It doesn't matter, I just want to tell you something." Van der Waals said.
After giving a general idea, Lorenz got the clue: "What an interesting idea. The experiment does not sound difficult. It is possible to prove the existence and size of molecules in this way."
A similar experiment was more famous in later generations.
It’s graphene.
The carbon atoms in diamond form a three-dimensional structure, so it is relatively hard. Graphite is composed of atoms layer by layer, and the layers are connected by van der Waals forces, so it is very soft.
Graphene is graphite with only one layer of atomic structure.
This thing has many benefits and is an important potential category of materials science for future generations.
How graphene was first made is very interesting: it turned out to be repeated sticking of graphite with tape! Layer by layer, the stickiness becomes thinner and thinner. Finally, when you look at it under an electron microscope, you can see that there is only one layer of carbon atoms! Done!
Of course the process is not as simple as it sounds.
Van der Waals said: "Next time Li Yu comes to Europe, can we invite him over? There are many issues we can discuss with him."
Lorenz said: "I agree with your statement. In fact, I also very much hope to have a detailed chat with him."
Van der Waals smiled and said: "You have a good reputation, and a letter of invitation will surely invite you."
Lorenz said: "Mr. Professor's reputation is not low either."
Van der Waals no longer refuses: "We jointly sign!"
——
After receiving letters from these big bosses, Li Yu didn't dare to neglect. If he were in the capital, it would be okay because of the long distance. Now that everyone is on the east coast of the United States, with so many invitations sent, he would definitely attend the appointment.
Konoe Akiyuki was responsible for receiving the telegrams, but it seemed that it had always been a very professional academic communication, and I felt a little out of my depth.
They are all top scientists, and they all study relatively new theories. Although Konoe Akiyuki studies very hard and is relatively knowledgeable, his subjects are all relatively classical physics. Compared with the big guys, his rhythm is quite different.
(End of chapter)
