When he met his new roommate for the first time that night, Chen Muwu couldn't recognize who the guy standing in front of him was, even more silent and shy than Blackett.
After the two parties exchanged their names, both of them showed a bit of surprise on their faces.
However, Chen Muwu's expression only stayed on his face for a few tenths of a second, because he immediately realized that he seemed to be surprised too early.
In other words, the person opposite will be very famous in the future, but now, he is just an unknown graduate student at Cambridge University, a poor boy from the countryside of Bristol County, without even a little bit of fame.
Chen Muwu felt that if others saw the exaggerated expression just now, they might think that he was a little abnormal.
His new roommate was one of the future mainstays of quantum mechanics, Paul Adrian Maurice Dirac.
Chen Muwu thought that maybe it was because Dirac still didn't have his slightly iconic beard, and the hair on the top of his head was still thicker, and the hairline hadn't moved back yet, so he didn't recognize him. Come.
Today's Dirac is just an undergraduate who has just obtained a double major in mathematics from the University of Bristol. In the eyes of the aristocratic students of Cambridge University, he is undoubtedly the kind of country boy who comes from other places, and is only inferior to Chen Muwu. This yellow-skinned foreigner's status is just a bit higher.
Like Chen Muwu, Dirac started out as an engineering student.
Not only them, but also Kapitsa and Blackett have received engineering training to a greater or lesser extent.
Perhaps in the eyes of the older generation of experimental physicists, having a certain knowledge of engineering is a plus.
Two years earlier, Dirac had graduated with a bachelor's degree in engineering from the University of Bristol and passed the entrance examination to St. John's College, Cambridge, receiving a scholarship of seventy pounds per year.
In comparison, the scholarship offered to Chen Muwu by Trinity College was three hundred pounds per year. Compared with this figure, seventy pounds was really nothing.
On average, this scholarship was less than four shillings per day, which was far from enough to support Dirac in completing his studies at Cambridge University, so he returned to Bristol University and studied a double major in mathematics.
After graduating again this year, Dirac received a scholarship of one hundred and forty pounds per year from the University of Bristol, plus seventy pounds from St. John's College, and he was finally able to enter the University of Cambridge.
Dirac had read about Chen Muwu in the newspaper, so he seemed happy to learn that his new roommate was actually Chen from China.
Both of them felt that the other was the boss, so they were very reserved in getting along with each other at the beginning.
But Mrs. Brown was a little dissatisfied with the nationality of her new tenant.
When Kapitsa lived in his own home, he was like a pistachio, and the whole house was filled with an air of joy.
After spending several months together, Mrs. Brown's perception of Chen Muwu who lives in her home has improved a lot.
This Chinese Chen is not only generous, but every time she delivers the washed clothes to him, she receives a tip of several pennies.
Chen Muwu also brings another Chinese person to his kitchen from time to time to cook several delicious Chinese dishes, and always invites himself to taste them together.
The first time, Mrs. Brown was still cautious, fearing that Mr. Ye would bring a pot of rat stew.
But seeing that both Kapitsa and Blackett, who was also a guest, were eating with gusto, and the aroma coming from the kitchen made her index finger tickle, Mrs. Brown finally could not resist the temptation and accepted Chen Muwu's invitation.
After eating that meal, Mrs. Brown felt very ashamed of being an Englishman. She felt that her country had opened up so many colonies and plundered countless spices from all over the world, but the taste of British food was not the same. , but it is still very difficult to describe.
I have to say that the taste of Chinese food is far better than that of British food. In Mrs. Brown's mind, it is probably similar to the French food she has never eaten.
From then on, Mrs. Brown's love for Chinese food became uncontrollable. She even thought about encouraging Chen Muwu to trick another Chinese with better cooking skills into moving out of the college where he originally lived and living in her home.
If he had time to teach himself how to cook a few Chinese dishes, Mrs. Brown would not be able to consider giving him some rent relief.
As a result, the current new tenant is not the Chinese who can cook, but a silly boy who looks extremely dull, which makes Mrs. Brown very disappointed.
Chen Muwu started to look for words: "Paul, who is your mentor?"
He has been selected by Rutherford as the only doctoral student accepted this year. As for the other freshmen in the Cavendish Laboratory, Rutherford has recommended them to several professors under his command.
"My supervisor is Professor Fowler, Mr. Chen."
Dirac replied with a serious face, and he also followed the British tradition in addressing others, only calling others by their surnames and never calling them by their first names.
Chen Muwu shouted Peter and Patrick like this every day because he was led astray by Kapitsa.
It is estimated that Patrick had been numbed by the shouting, so he didn't mind Chen Muwu's shouting.
Chen Muwu continued to trick him: "Well, since we are all freshmen in the laboratory, we should help each other and take care of each other in the future."
Dirac looked puzzled: "Laboratory? What laboratory?"
"Of course it's the Cavendish Laboratory! Mr. Dirac, it's so funny how you pretend to be so serious." Chen Muwu also changed his title in time.
"Sorry, I'm not a new student at Cavendish Labs."
Although Dirac sounded a little confused, his face remained expressionless.
With his top level of facial paralysis, Blackett would be ashamed of himself.
"Didn't you say that you are Professor Fowler's graduate student? Isn't he from Cavendish?"
"Yes, that's right, but Professor Fowler is a teacher in the mathematics department, and I am also a freshman in the mathematics department."
?
Wasn't Dirac a famous physicist?
Why did you go to study mathematics?
Is this because of the butterfly effect brought by my own time travel?
After being treated as a god-like figure by others for a long time, it was finally Chen Muwu's turn to be sentimental.
Dirac originally had a double degree in mathematics from the University of Bristol, so it was natural for him to enter the mathematics department of the University of Cambridge for postgraduate study.
At this time, Dirac's mind was still full of mathematics. He didn't even know much about Maxwell's equations, so he didn't care much about which of photons and electrons was a particle and which was a wave.
And the reason why he can become the backbone of quantum mechanics depends on another opportunity in the future.
Chen Muwu had not read Dirac's biography, so he had a misunderstanding in this regard.
While he was astonished, Dirac was also confused.
The two spent a long time talking before clarifying their misunderstandings.
Perhaps because the two parties were getting familiar with each other, Dirac also took the initiative to ask Chen Muwu a question: "Chen, I read in the newspaper that you and Professor Eddington have a good relationship?"
In physics, Dirac's only interest was the theory of relativity proposed by Einstein.
This is because he had read "Space, Time and Gravity", a popular science book on general relativity written by Eddington in English when he was in college.
Therefore, Dirac's choice to study at Cambridge University had a lot to do with Eddington's influence on him.
Mentioning Eddington, Chen Muwu's face turned red because he finally remembered that he had such an acquaintance at Cambridge University.
It seems that when I met Eddington for the first time in April this year, I seemed to have promised him that I would go to the observatory to ask him about astronomy soon, right?
"Yes, I do know Mr. Eddington. What, do you want to meet him?"
Chen Muwu said it as a joke, but Dirac took it seriously.
"Can I? That would be perfect!"
During the six months since he came to Cambridge University, Chen Muwu basically stayed in the Cavendish Laboratory every day.
The pigeons had been hanging around for so long that he was even a little embarrassed to see Eddington again.
But no one expected that Dirac in front of him would be so interested in Eddington.
Chen Muwu's cowhide has been blown out, and now it's hard to recover.
He could only promise Dirac that after the busy period of school had passed and everything had settled down, he would take Dirac to the observatory to meet Eddington.
…
After school started, Chen Muwu went to London again, not to attend the opening dance organized by the London Chinese Students Association, but because of official business.
Fan Yuanlian resigned as director of education the year before last and went overseas to inspect rural education in the United States.
Not long ago, he received a telegram from Huang Hao, the director-general of the Ministry of Education.
Huang Yong is Chen Muwu's fellow countryman. After several changes in the cabinet, he has now resigned as the Minister-General of Foreign Affairs and instead became the Minister-General of Education.
The person who took over as Minister-General of Foreign Affairs was Gu Weijun, who also had another identity, that is, the Minister to the United Kingdom.
However, after only a few days in office in London, he returned to China to participate in politics. Therefore, the first secretary Zhu Zhaoxin served as the temporary charge d'affaires for several years in the legation.
After Gu Weijun took office, he did not stop the special official fee that Huang Qi had given away with a big wave of his hand, which made Chen Muwu's previous worries come to nothing.
Huang Qi sent a telegram from China, asking Fan Yuanlian to go to the UK as a representative of the Republic of China to negotiate with relevant people in the British government to use the Boxer Indemnity for education.
After arriving in the UK, Fan Yuanlian specifically asked the charge d'affaires of the Embassy in the UK, Zhu Zhaoxin, who was hosting him, if there were any overseas student representatives with good moral character and academics who could give him more leverage in this difficult negotiation.
Without even hesitating, Zhu Zhaoxin directly recommended Chen Muwu, who was famous in the UK.
Compared with the group of international students who hang out in the streets and alleys of London all day long, playing cards, dancing, and taking photos of their wives, the gap between the two is really huge.
After Fan Yuanlian agreed, Zhu Zhaoxin quickly sent a telegram to Chen Muwu, asking him to come to London to help support the situation.
"The country will live and die for the benefit of the country." Of course, Chen Muwu would not refuse such things that were beneficial to the country. He came to London according to the time on the letter and appeared at the first negotiation site on time.
Chen Muwu thought that he knew neither diplomacy nor politics, so he should play a mascot-like role.
His presence should be to let the British across the negotiating table see that the Republic of China can also cultivate internationally renowned talents. If the Boxer Indemnity is tilted more towards education, more Chen Muwu will come to study in the UK.
Unexpectedly, he became the focus of the audience. Every ghost wanted to see what this Chinese who had recently turned physics upside down looked like.
Seeing Chen Muwu attracting so much attention, Fan Yuanlian felt that Zhu Zhaoxin had indeed recommended a good helper to him.
He pursued the victory and put forward some more bargaining chips behind the originally planned conditions.
However, during the negotiation, both parties want to gain more benefits for themselves, so of course they will not reach an agreement in the first meeting, and there will have to be a long-term tug-of-war.
Since he still had studies to attend, Chen Muwu only attended the first meeting. He had to take the evening train back to Cambridge that day.
Before leaving, Chen Muwu specifically asked Fan Yuanlian how the work at his brother Fan Xudong's Yongli Soda Plant was going.
Fan Yuanlian was a little surprised. He didn't expect that Chen Muwu actually knew about his younger brother.
He told Chen Muwu honestly that he heard that engineer Hou Debang had improved a new method with higher raw material utilization rate and lower cost based on the Solvay alkali production method he bought at a large price. It seemed that because of Amo Nia cannot supply large quantities, so it can only be trial-produced on a small scale in the laboratory and cannot be mass-produced.
It seems that the Yongli Alkali Plant has completely mastered the Hou's Alkali Production Method, and now the only thing missing is an ammonia synthesis plant.
Now, Chen Muwu estimated that a synthetic ammonia plant with process and equipment would cost about 30,000 pounds.
Moreover, the key is that this thing is still priceless.
In fact, before the 1920s, synthetic ammonia had always been a high-tech technology monopolized by Germany.
Just because of the defeat, Germany not only lost a large area of land and the Ruhr Industrial Zone, but even the German technology patents were all opened to the League of Nations.
In order to continue to ensure their monopoly position, the great powers will not easily sell the patented technology they finally snatched away.
As a victorious country where "justice triumphs over power", China was defeated at the "Paris Peace Conference" where the spoils were shared. It is even more wishful thinking to get involved in such sophisticated technology.
However, there is a good opportunity now, which is to take advantage of Germany's inflation to fish in their troubled waters.
Today's most advanced method of synthesizing ammonia was invented by German scientist Fritz Haber, for which he won the 1918 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Moreover, Mr. Haber was a good friend of Einstein.
Chen Muwu planned to write a letter to Einstein after he returned to see if he could get him to connect with Haber. Maybe he could contact the BASF factory in Germany and purchase a set of equipment from them.
Chen Muwu declined the invitation to stay for dinner, said goodbye to Fan Yuanlian and Zhu Zhaoxin, and hurriedly left London on the afternoon train to return to Cambridge.
Because he had previously promised Dirac to take him to the Cambridge Observatory to visit Eddington this afternoon.
…
"Yo, yo, yo, let's see, who is here?"
Seeing Chen Muwu again after half a year, there was an extremely resentful look behind Eddington's glasses.
He crossed his arms over his chest, unconsciously assuming a defensive stance.
Psychologically speaking, this is a sign of lack of confidence in front of strangers.
Of course, this stranger was obviously not Chen Muwu, but Dirac who was following him.
Chen Muwu smiled shamelessly: "Mr. Eddington, long time no see. I'm Chen Muwu."
"Chen, you have another paper that has been detained in the editorial office of the Journal of Philosophy. Do you want to ask me to go out for a trip again?"
Perhaps out of concern for the stranger following Chen Muwu, Eddington's eccentric skills were not at full power.
"Sir, I'm really sorry. I've been so busy with all kinds of things at the Cavendish Laboratory recently that I haven't been able to spare the time to ask you about astronomy.
"But before asking questions, let me introduce you. This is my new roommate Paul Dirac. He is a graduate student at St. John's College this year. He has loved reading your works since middle school, so when he learned that my husband and I After getting to know him, please ask me to bring him to meet you."
"I knew you would never come to me if nothing happened."
The last trace of gentlemanliness in Eddington made him resist the urge to roll his eyes.
But when he walked up to Dirac, he put on an amiable expression and stretched out his hand: "Hello, Mr. Dirac, I am Eddington. Thank you for liking my book." .”
Flattered, Dirac held Eddington's hands together.
He was even so shocked that his speech was a bit choppy: "Edin, Professor Dington, it's an honor to meet you."
Eddington moved the two of them to the sofa, and then the topic returned to Chen Muwu.
"Tell me, Chen, what is the astronomy problem you thought about on the ship in March this year? Please don't tell me, you think the moon moving around the earth is a wave, and so is the earth moving around the sun. A kind of wave!”
The sharp-tongued Eddington still felt that he could not understand his hatred, so he mocked Chen Muwu again on the issue of electrons being a wave.
"Of course not, of course not, how could the moon be a wave?"
Chen Muwu said.
Of course, of course it is, the moon is also a wave!
Chen Muwu thought in his heart.
According to the theory of material waves, everything in the world is a wave, but the wavelength corresponding to macroscopic objects is too small, so it cannot be observed in daily life.
"So what kind of new idea do you have? No, after half a year, even the new idea becomes old. Could it be said that you have made new progress in the general theory of relativity?"
After hearing Eddington mention the theory of relativity, a topic that interested him, Dirac, who was at a loss on the sofa a second ago and felt that he might have strayed into the research site of the big guys, immediately cheered up and stood upright. Gotta be straight.
"This... is not the case, sir. I came here this time just to ask a question about astronomy, which has nothing to do with general relativity."
Before Chen Muwu finished speaking, Dirac's body quickly began to slump again.
Such ups and downs in a short period of time are enough to show that everything in the world is a wave, and Dirac is no exception.
It is also a wave, a wave with a higher frequency.
(End of chapter)
