In addition to spending a few days of leisurely time with Old Thomson, I also accompanied Ye Gongchao to London's Chinatown to buy various spices for the kitchen, and went to the Cam River to participate in club swimming activities every noon.
Chen Muwu, who stayed at Cambridge University, also met an old acquaintance and made a new friend this summer.
Yan Renguang, dean of the physics department of Beijing University, chose to retain his teaching position and leave the school after this year's courses ended, and went abroad to various universities in Europe and America to inspect physics education and laboratory conditions.
In the original time and space, Yan Renguang did go abroad for a year for inspection, but that was in the summer of 1924.
And now the reason why he set off a year early has a lot to do with Chen Muwu.
At the beginning of this year, Chen Muwu, who had completed his lectures at Beida University, announced that he would donate all the royalties from the publication of his lecture notes to the Department of Physics for them to build a physics laboratory.
The money was actually not much, but with the publication of Chen Muwu's second paper, he and his time travel views instantly became popular throughout the UK.
The reporter of The Times stationed in the Far East spent a lot of money to buy the English publication rights of this speech from Bei University.
In this way, the remuneration that Chen Muwu can receive has been greatly increased, and it also means that the laboratory funds of the Department of Physics of Beida University have become increasingly abundant.
Chen Muwu made such a big splash in Europe, but it was rarely mentioned in domestic newspapers.
They were more interested in publishing battles between warlords, criticisms among politicians, and the train robbery on Jinpu Road that shocked the world.
If a British reporter hadn't come to buy the speech, the professors at Bei University would still have been kept in the dark.
They found bits and pieces of information through various channels.
Then more than a month later, after receiving various physics journals from Europe one after another, I read two papers published by Chen Muwu and the research on gamma rays by physicists around the world. Various experiments on scattering.
Only then did Yan Renguang understand why Chen Muwu had rejected his invitation to stay at Beida University as a teacher.
It turns out that this young man had no intention of doing this at all. The gamma rays he studied were not even found in Beida, not even a single gamma ray source in the country!
Staying in the country will only waste your future.
With such a large sum of money and some stimulation from Chen Muwu, Yan Renguang, who originally planned to order some basic experimental equipment from foreign companies in the Sihai Concession, changed his mind.
After discussing with the professors in the department and the acting president Jiang Menglin, he decided to go to Europe and the United States in person. While inspecting the advanced education of various universities, he also purchased some advanced equipment for Beida University.
In this way, after the summer vacation began, Yan Renguang took a train on the Siberian Railway to Europe. He successively visited the Humboldt University of Berlin and the University of Göttingen in Germany, and the Marie Curie Laboratory in France. Then he crossed the English Channel and came to The University of Cambridge, where the Cavendish Laboratory is located, also met Chen Muwu, who stayed here.
When Yan Renguang was still in Germany, he wrote a special letter to Chen Muwu, informing him of his upcoming itinerary in the UK, and asking him if he had time to give him a certain reception.
When he was lecturing at Beida University, Yan Renguang took great care of his younger generation.
Now that he's at his home court, Chen Muwu feels that he can't be too slow to treat his opponent.
That's why Chen Muwu was able to calculate the time and wait outside the Cambridge train station in advance to greet this physics senior who came all the way from China.
"Han Chen, long time no see!"
Yan Renguang, who had just walked out of the station, immediately saw the tall man standing in the crowd.
At the same time, Chen Muwu also discovered the other party, and he quickly walked towards Yan Renguang: "Mr. Yao, it's been such a long journey, thank you for your hard work!"
The two got into a taxi waiting to pick up guests outside the train station.
As soon as he got in the car, Yan Renguang asked straight to the point: "Han Chen, you are really a real person. When you were still at Bei University, your paper on gamma ray scattering should have been published in Europe." ?”
Chen Muwu nodded.
Yan Renguang let out a long sigh: "Oh, what a terrible young man! No wonder you look down on our teaching position at Bei University."
"Sir, that's not the case. It's really because the younger generation is less talented and less knowledgeable, so I'm afraid I won't be able to take on a big responsibility, so I declined."
"There is no need to be modest. I have heard about the things you did in the UK when I visited Germany and France some time ago. Hanchen, these papers of yours have really given us Chinese people some face, and we are fighting for success." Out of breath.
“When I was in France, Madame Curie even asked me if there were any smart students like you in China, and if I could recommend a few to her laboratory.
"Han Chen, your earth-shattering talents are like a giant Buddha. If you really stay in our small temple in Beida, it will be a pity for your talent."
Chen Muwu did not expect that even Madame Curie had a good opinion of herself.
But counting the time, Marie Curie should be able to find her first Chinese student before long.
Yan Jici, who graduated from National Southeast University, should have boarded a ship to study in France by now.
The carriage quickly took the two of them from the train station outside the city to the center of Cambridge.
Even after getting out of the car, Yan Renguang continued to praise Chen Muwu.
From the former's words of thanks, the latter learned that the British spent a lot of money to buy a copy of his speech.
Chen Muwu advised the dean of the physics department who had taken good care of him at Beida University not to be polite. As long as he could advance domestic physics education, what did his little money mean?
Accompanied by Chen Muwu, Yan Renguang visited the famous Cavendish Laboratory.
In the open laboratory on the first floor, when he saw the dark tables soaked in oil and the very simple instruments on them, many of which were homemade, although Yan Renguang did not speak, he The look of complete shock on his face could not be concealed.
Chen Muwu was also very embarrassed. The situation was like this. Although the Cavendish Laboratory was famous, it actually did not have much money to provide experimenters with a better experimental environment and experiments.
Trinity College is rich because a large number of successful alumni donate to the college every year, and then the college invests these donations to make money and accumulate huge wealth.
The Cavendish Laboratory relies entirely on funding from the Cambridge University Council.
Although the annual funding of nine thousand pounds does not seem to be much, it already accounts for nearly one-tenth of the total annual allocation by the British government to the University of Cambridge.
Chen Muwu took Yan Renguang to the laboratory where he did visible light scattering, and demonstrated to him how he started from splitting sunlight and completed the experiment step by step.
After seeing all this, the dean of the Department of Physics of Bei University finally couldn't help but exclaimed: "Han Chen, do you usually conduct experiments under such conditions?"
Chen Muwu smiled bitterly silently and nodded.
"It's not easy, it's really not easy," Yan Renguang shook his head, "In this kind of experimental environment, you can actually achieve new results.
"To be honest, I feel that the experimental environment at Cavendish is not much different from our Bei University. Your experimental equipment can be easily found in China.
"But you can write a paper in this shabby room that can be published in a top physics journal, but we can't do anything. It's really like 'comparing people to death, and comparing goods to goods'!"
"But Hanchen, does this experimental phenomenon have any practical significance today? I read the July issue of "Proceedings of the Natural Sciences" in Germany. People were so impressed by your other paper that perfectly refuted Bohr's absurd views. They are talking about it, but they seem to have ignored this newly discovered experimental phenomenon you have discovered."
Speaking of the scattering of visible light in liquids, Chen Muwu’s third paper has indeed not caused much repercussions in the physics community.
However, this paper has a vague trend of "flowering inside the wall and fragrance outside the wall", because some chemists have found that this new scattering spectrum discovered by Chen Muwu is very useful in studying molecular vibration and molecular rotation.
Some people have even begun to introduce this new method into chemical analysis. As long as specific spectral lines can be found in the spectrum, it can be determined that there are corresponding components in the scattering material.
Although this method is not very efficient due to light source problems, it can be regarded as providing a new idea for chemical analysis.
After coming out of the Cavendish Laboratory, Yan Renguang was introduced by Chen Muwu to meet Old Thomson, the dean of Trinity College.
When the two met, they only used high-sounding polite words, which did not have much practical significance.
Rather than a visit, it is better to say that the younger generation pays homage to their predecessors in physics.
Before Yan Renguang left, Chen Muwu specially called for Ye Gongchao. The two worked together to cook several Chinese dishes to entertain the dean of the Department of Physics of Bei University, who was about to embark on another journey. It was regarded as the last practice banquet in the UK. .
After leaving Cambridge, he will next sail from the UK to the United States to continue his investigation trip on the North American continent.
During the dinner, Yan Renguang kept lamenting that China's physics education still has a long way to go compared with foreign countries. As educators, they should work hard and not let others fall further and further behind.
Before the dinner ended, Yan Renguang, who became more and more excited as they chatted, took Chen Muwu's hand and once again extended an invitation to him to teach at Beijing University after graduation.
But regarding this invitation, Chen Muwu, who had not yet thought about where he should go in the future, did not know whether he should accept it.
On the contrary, Ye Gongchao who was accompanying him was very interested and chatted a few more words with Yan Renguang on this topic.
…
After sending away Yan Renguang, Chen Muwu welcomed a new guest in Cambridge.
Under Bridgeman's guidance, Ye Qisun of Harvard University finally completed a paper measuring the effect of hydrostatic pressure on the magnetic susceptibility of ferromagnetic materials and obtained his PhD.
After graduation, he decided to take a trip to Europe. He first visited universities, laboratories and museums in Britain, France, Germany and other countries, and then decided whether to take a boat from the Port of Marseille or take a train on the Siberian Railway back home.
It is much more convenient to read European physics journals in the United States than in China as far away as East Asia.
As mentioned earlier, when Ye Qisun was still writing his graduation thesis at Harvard in January, he was called into the office by Professor Du An and asked if he knew a Chinese named Chen Muwu.
And when he read the third and fourth papers published by Chen Muwu in the "Transactions of Natural Philosophy" in July, and saw his mailing address, Ye Qisun learned that this blockbuster genius compatriot should have already entered the world. University of Cambridge.
So before leaving the United States, Ye Qisun wrote a letter to Chen Muwu, saying that he would soon visit Cambridge University. He took the liberty of writing such a letter and hoped that Chen Muwu could provide some convenience.
For this veteran of physics, Chen Muwu was very willing to do his best to help.
(End of chapter)
