Li Yu finally donated 5,000 taels to Fudan Public School, but it was still a small sum because there was a larger expenditure coming soon.
The Lu family really could not continue to bear the burden of the Song Dynasty Tower and planned to sell these 100,000 volumes of ancient books for the previously negotiated price of 250,000 silver dollars.
If we don't take action, Japanese cultural relic hunter Han Shimada might do some tricks, which will lead to long nights and many dreams, so it's better to buy it quickly.
At that time, it was agreed that Li Yu, Zhang Yuanji and Li Shutong would share the money, but the two of them did not have so much cash, so Li Yu took the bulk and paid 200,000 silver yuan, Zhang Yuanji gave 30,000 silver yuan, and Li Shutong gave 20,000 yuan.
It happened that Li Yu bought Yu Garden at that time and asked Yang Sisheng to build a library specifically. It will take half a year for these books to arrive in Shanghai, and the building can be repaired by then.
Li Yu did not continue to stay in Shanghai and returned to the capital.
When arriving at Tanggu Port, Li Yu couldn't stand the slow transportation, so he found Tang Shaoyi. He had just become the new Minister of Railways, which was the beginning of the powerful transportation system in the early years of the Republic of China.
As soon as Li Yu expressed his idea, Tang Shaoyi agreed, because Shanghai was too important and there was no need to say more. Everyone knew the importance of the Jinpu Line.
Tang Shaoyi said: "There are still some issues that need to be resolved urgently. We just started preparing for the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway last year. It may be difficult to raise funds at this time."
Li Yu gave him an idea: "As long as the foreigners don't want the right of way, they can borrow money from foreign banks."
Tang Shaoyi thought: "Foreigners attach great importance to the right of way, so I only borrow money because I am afraid they will not agree."
Li Yu said: "Then borrow money from banks in two different countries, or simply borrow money from banks in the United States. Aren't they clamoring for an open door every day and are not interested in colonization?"
Tang Shaoyi said: "If we can really just borrow money without losing the right of way, things will actually be easy to move forward. Marshal Yuan proposed it four years ago, but everyone is unwilling to let the right of way of this transportation artery be in the hands of foreigners. So it’s been on hold.”
Li Yu added: "When the railway rings, there are thousands of taels of gold. As long as the payment terms are good, I don't believe that all foreign banks will be able to bear not lending money."
Tang Shaoyi said: "But the borrowing amount is fixed. Once the railway construction really starts, it will often exceed the budget."
Li Yu naturally understood this truth, so he said: "At worst, we will borrow foreign banks to continue to issue bonds. Large-scale infrastructure projects in any country and in any era are inseparable from financial means."
Tang Shaoyi felt that it was indeed a good path. He also knew that France relied on financial means to pay off 5 billion francs in compensation in two years. According to the exchange rate at the time, this was a huge sum of money equivalent to more than 1.2 billion taels of silver, which was more than the total compensation paid by the Qing government. More.
Tang Shaoyi said: "I will write a memorial and submit it to the court as soon as possible."
Li Yu really hopes that this railway will be completed soon!
——
After returning to the capital, Li Yu saw a lot of packages and letters at home. The packages were a batch of scientific magazines sent from Europe.
Li Yu opened it first and started reading. The magazine is very comprehensive. As soon as I opened one, I saw the name of Niels Bohr, but it only published one of his bachelor's thesis called "Determination of the Surface Tension of Water."
At this time, those majoring in physics in European universities basically had to write experimental papers, and there were very few purely theoretical physics like Li Yu, Einstein, and Planck.
Of course, in order to maintain their status, they also have to write some experimental physics papers, otherwise others will really think that you don't understand physics at all.
In addition, the magazine already has all five of Einstein's 1905 papers, and the mass-energy formula suddenly appeared in an issue of the "Annals of Physics" magazine.
Li Yu opened another letter and saw that the cover was from the Royal Society. He thought the letter was from Lord Kelvin or President Huggins. Unexpectedly, it was from Lockyer, an academician of the society.
"Dear Academician Li Yu,
Allow me to introduce myself, Sir Norman, the founder and editor-in-chief of Nature magazine. Today, I have obtained Lord Kelvin's permission to write a manuscript for publication in Nature. It is an honor for all scientific journals to receive your high-quality manuscripts. I very much hope that Academician Li Yu will contribute. …”
Sir Norman is Lockyer's title.
Yes, he founded "Natural" among the three major scientific journals.
This old man is also an astronomer. He studied the solar spectrum very early and then predicted the helium element found in the solar spectrum.
Later, when helium was finally found on Earth, he was knighted.
Because of the reputation of "Natural", Li Yu had to agree to Lockyer's request, so he began to think about what to write.
After thinking for a long time, I decided to write about isotopes in physics - at this time, it should be more accurately called the "isotope hypothesis".
Atomic mass is the most basic element of elements. The atomic mass of each element will be measured immediately after its discovery. At this time, they are listed in Mendeleev's periodic table of elements.
Many years ago, the scientific community reached a consensus: if the atomic weight of a hydrogen atom is set to 1, the subsequent atoms will be integer multiples of the hydrogen atom.
But as early as half a century ago, Berzelius, a Swedish chemist, discovered that the atomic weight of chlorine was measured to be about 35.5, which was not an integer multiple of the hydrogen atom.
This is a very troublesome problem in the chemical community.
And the problem has become even more troublesome after the discovery of radioactivity a few years ago. Because scientists discovered that between element 82 lead and element 92 uranium, there are 40 kinds of atoms with different atomic weights.
But they are definitely not 40 different kinds of atoms, because many atoms with different atomic weights have the same number of electrons.
What's even more difficult is that it's impossible to separate them chemically.
This is the current background of the times.
But for Li Yu, this problem is very simple. Everyone who has studied high school chemistry must understand that the atomic weight is not an integer because of the presence of isotopes (strictly speaking, the hydrogen atom is not 1, but 1.01).
For example, the chlorine element Cl has two isotopes, Cl-35 and Cl-37. Among them, Cl-35 accounts for 75% and Cl-37 accounts for 25%, so the overall atomic weight is 35.5.
However, at this time, neutrons had not yet been discovered, so Li Yu could not write too rashly and radically. After all, even the nuclear model had not yet been released.
Therefore, Li Yu handled it more tactfully, but the key points were written out:
For example, if there are the same number of electrons, they must belong to the same element chemically, so their chemical properties are the same, and naturally they cannot be separated chemically.
Then Li Yu mentioned the existence of isotopes. But since it is proposed as a hypothesis, there is no need to explain in too much detail why.
Finally, Li Yu predicted that atomic nuclei can still be subdivided (otherwise isotopes cannot be reasonably explained).
This kind of article logically spans the two major disciplines of physics and chemistry.
But elements, or atoms, essentially involve the field of atomic nuclei, and should be more focused on physics.
After all, theoretically, all chemical phenomena can be solved by using the Schrödinger equation in physics to describe the relative motion between extranuclear electrons and atomic nuclei.
However, there is a gap between them - differential equations that contain chaos and cannot be solved, so chemistry and physics can still only be two disciplines.
Li Yu couldn't even raise a problem that wouldn't be solved a hundred years later.
But just solving why these strange atoms with different atomic weights cannot be separated using chemical methods, as well as the isotope hypothesis and the prediction that the nucleus can continue to be subdivided, these three points are enough to be included in "Nature".
Li Yu deleted and deleted, and the paper took one day to write. It is not long in general, because the characteristic of "Nature" is that it always likes relatively short papers.
Li Yu wrote this kind of paper very easily and freely, but after seeing Planck's letter, he became confused:
"...
"A month ago, I presented the paper "On the Electrodynamics of Objects" co-written by Mr. Einstein and you at the Prussian Academy of Sciences. Although I repeatedly emphasized its importance, it did not attract enough attention. Many people People questioned that the theory was too limited, and the physical ideas it adopted were too radical, leading to conclusions that were completely different from those of Newton and Galileo.
"This is almost unacceptable.
"Of course, I know that the scientific research environment in Prussia tends to be more conservative, so I plan to translate this paper into English and French to see how scientists from other countries treat it."
The letter written here is still a relatively normal scientific discussion.
Li Yu is not surprised. It will take enough time for the physics community to accept the unprecedented theories of relativity and quantum mechanics.
And because Einstein’s paper used a lot of mathematical content, physicists seem to understand it less fluently than mathematicians. They even have to study the mathematical content of Minkowski and Lorentz.
And the mathematics of these two big guys is not that simple, so even if physicists accept the special theory of relativity, it will take some time to really understand it.
It has to be said that the two top figures in modern physics, Planck, the founder of quantum mechanics, and Einstein, the founder of the theory of relativity, have a really good relationship.
Quantum theory was the first one that Einstein began to publicly use and vigorously promote. Although Einstein and Bohr later had a fierce quarrel over whether God rolled dice, it must be admitted that Einstein was not satisfied with Planck's quantum theory. Use is the first person and is very determined. He just didn't expect that the future development of quantum mechanics would be so terrifying.
And if it weren't for Planck being a reviewer of Einstein's paper, his paper probably wouldn't have been published.
Even if it is not as serious as when Cauchy shelved the papers of two talented mathematical teenagers, Galois and Abel, which led to their untimely death, it will greatly delay the birth of the theory of relativity.
After writing this, Planck changed his mind:
"Li, it's been so long, why haven't I seen the sequel to the Star Wars series? I've worked so hard to help you buy so many experimental equipment, but don't stop here, because I can see that Star Wars There is still a lot of room for exploration.”
Li Yu didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He had no chance to be lazy at all.
In fact, what Li Yu didn't know was that both Collins Publishing House in the United States and Hachette Publishing House in France had already received countless letters from readers, but they didn't know Li Yu's mailing address like Planck did. .
(End of chapter)
