After wandering around London for more than a week, Chen Muwu finally returned to the David Faraday Laboratory of the Royal Institution.
Old Bragg, the director of the laboratory, remains as enthusiastic as when he and Chen Muwu first met.
Not only did Old Prague personally lead Chen Muwu into the laboratory, but he also solemnly told him that if he had any needs, just ask him, and as long as they could be solved, Old Prague would be able to help him solve them.
In Old Prague, Chen Muwu saw a sense of taking care of everything.
But at the same time, Chen Muwu felt a little strange:
In the Cavendish Laboratory, Rutherford, who almost regarded Chen Muwu as his own son, was not so polite to him.
Why did Old Bragg feel more like a spring breeze when he arrived at David Faraday's laboratory than his teacher?
The first thing to do when entering the laboratory is, of course, to check the experimental equipment.
Although the achievements of his predecessor Dewar in low-temperature physics are basically the same as those of Onnes of Leiden University in the Netherlands.
However, British research on low-temperature physics has not produced an industry-university-research consortium like Leiden University. In the field of low-temperature physics, there are only Dewar and a few of his students.
Chen Muwu thought that even if the David Faraday Laboratory had the basis for studying low-temperature physics, he would still have to purchase some equipment and reagents from Leiden University.
But as soon as he checked the experimental equipment, Chen Muwu was dumbfounded.
It’s not that the equipment in the laboratory cannot be used, it’s just that compared to what he saw in the Leiden University laboratory at the end of last year, it’s like a place in the sky.
After asking relevant personnel, Chen Muwu understood why the equipment here was a bit old.
First, Dewar did not win the Nobel Prize in Physics for low-temperature physics like Onness, and he was not the only famous and powerful physicist in the UK.
Therefore, the British government did not allocate too much money to the Davy-Faraday Laboratory where Dewar worked. From beginning to end, Dewar has been marching in pain in this laboratory.
Second, since the outbreak of World War I, due to increased military expenditures, there has been less funding for laboratories.
In addition, the few students under Dewar, like Moseley, were recruited by the British army and sent to the front line, and many of them died on the European battlefield.
Under such circumstances of insufficient financial resources and manpower, Dewar could only change course in the twilight years of his academic career. He said goodbye to the money-burning low-temperature physics research and instead studied the surface tension of soap bubbles.
After the war, the Davy-Faraday Laboratory was basically in a state of existence in name only.
Old Bragg took over the position of director after the death of Sir Dewar, the former director of the laboratory. He was appointed somewhat in a critical situation. Basically, he wanted him to rebuild the laboratory that his ancestors had once prospered.
A year ago, when Chen Muwu and Old Bragg met for the first time at last year's Solvay Conference, he had not yet participated in the Cambridge-Oxford Joint Games, had not won an Olympic gold medal, and had not yet met the Duke of York.
At that time, Old Prague said that he would nominate Chen Muwu for the Nobel Prize, which must be because he really liked him.
But a year later, Chen Muwu won the gold medal and the Nobel Prize, figured out quantum mechanics, pointed out Einstein's mistakes, and became the smartest person in the world in the media's mouth.
Although his status has improved a lot compared to before.
But Chen Muwu felt that this was not enough for Old Prague to be so attentive to him.
After thinking about it carefully for a long time, he couldn't find the reason.
Now seeing the situation in David Faraday's laboratory, Chen Muwu finally wanted to understand why Old Bragg was so enthusiastic about him.
It was probably his teacher, Rutherford, who was bragging to his senior who also lived in Oceania, the Southern Hemisphere.
After all, he had an outstanding student under his command and established a relationship with the royal family, which directly more than doubled the annual funding of the laboratory.
It doesn't feel good to feel good to yourself, but to show off to others unintentionally and make them compliment you on the surface and envy you on the inside is really good.
Old Bragg probably also hopes that he can get funding for the David Faraday Laboratory just like he did for the Cavendish Laboratory?
Chen Muwu's idea was basically confirmed after he made a request to Old Prague to purchase some new experimental equipment.
As soon as he heard that he was going to spend money, he saw the long-lost wry smile on Old Prague's face.
The last time I saw this expression was the fall of the year before last, when Chen Muwu proposed to Rutherford that he wanted to buy a vacuum pump that cost $8,000.
Ever since the British royal family transferred funds to the Cavendish Laboratory's account, Rutherford has never smiled bitterly again, and even his height is a few centimeters taller than before.
"Dr. Chen, can't these experimental equipment left by Sir Dewar not be used?"
Looking at the old Prague who was pretending to be stupid, Chen Muwu really didn't want to answer his question.
If it works, will I still ask you for money to buy equipment?
Before traveling through time, he had gotten a resistance box when he was doing general physics experiments at the university.
The antique nameplate of the resistor box was engraved with various Cyrillic letters that he couldn't understand.
Chen Muwu only recognized the two sets of letters above, one was CCCP and the other was 1955.
The resistance box produced by Sulian has no problem in use after more than fifty years, and it is completely sufficient for ordinary physics experiments with low precision.
However, not many of the refrigeration and thermal insulation equipment produced at the end of the 19th century could be used thirty or forty years later.
"Sir Bragg, these equipments are quite old. I have checked them carefully. Many of them are even older than me. They are really unusable."
Seeing that pretending to be stupid didn't work, Old Bragg complained to him again: "Dr. Chen, I also want to help you buy the corresponding experimental equipment, but there is really no money in the David Faraday Laboratory now.
"If you don't believe it, you can follow me to my laboratory to have a look. The X-ray source I am currently using for crystal diffraction was brought here from University College London myself."
In his heart, Chen Muwu now complained a little about his teacher Rutherford.
In order to save money, he refused his request to conduct a low-temperature physics experiment in the Cavendish Laboratory, and instead introduced him to the Davy Faraday Laboratory.
If you want to do the experiments you planned before here, it seems you have to pay out of your own pocket?
That must be impossible!
Ma Sanli once said, "Zengzi said: 'One sheep is also driven, two sheep are also herded'".
Since the Duke of York had already been spared once, Chen Muwu didn't mind letting the second prince spare his blood again.
The University of Cambridge is the property of their old Windsor family, as is the David Faraday Laboratory of the Royal Institution.
And compared with the Cavendish Laboratory, the latter still has the word "royal" hanging in front of it!
The Royal Laboratory has no money, so wouldn’t that be a slap in the royal face?
Last summer, at the dinner at the British Embassy in France, while paying for it, the Duke of York also promised Chen Muwu in front of the Crown Prince of Sweden that if he encountered other problems at Cambridge University, he could help him The second prince wrote a letter.
But there's no reason to just go to someone's door and ask for money. It's better to get a sample of plexiglass first, earn enough money to build a school, and then give Old Prague a favor.
Anyway, Chen Muwu originally wanted to work on this piece of plexiglass.
Polymethyl methacrylate, as the name suggests, is a large amount of methyl methacrylate polymerized together.
Therefore, obtaining the raw material methyl methacrylate is the key to making organic glass.
Chen Muwu went to the market to inquire about it full of fighting spirit, and even went to the laboratory of the University of London and the chemical factory in the suburbs. There was no such thing at all.
At this point in time, not only is there no plexiglass, even the raw materials have not yet appeared.
It seems that now I can only follow the instructions and do it myself, so that I can have enough food and clothing.
Chen Muwu went into the Royal Society's data room to look up information, planning to push it up step by step to see what could be produced now.
His behavior made Old Bragg very puzzled.
Having said this before, why doesn't Dr. Chen buy the equipment for his low-temperature physics experiments or raise funds for the laboratory? Instead, he still looks unhurried and even looks like he is not in a hurry at all. Not planning to do an experiment?
After meeting Chen Muwu in the laboratory one time, Lao Bragg asked him his questions.
"Dr. Chen, aren't you going to come to the David Faraday Laboratory to conduct some experimental research on low-temperature physics? How is the recent experimental progress?"
"Sir Prague, because the experimental equipment still needs to be purchased from the Netherlands, and it will take a certain amount of time to raise this expensive expense, so I have temporarily changed the direction of my research and plan to do some simple chemical experiments to pass the time. .”
"Chemistry experiment? If I remember correctly, whether it's atoms or the theory of relativity, your research scope has never strayed away from physics, right? Why, Dr. Chen, are you still interested in chemistry?"
"Sir, I also got inspiration by chance in the laboratory recently. Every day when I go to get off work, I see the two sages named after the laboratory, Sir Humphrey Davy and Michael Faraday.
"It is true that Faraday was a great experimental physicist, but his teacher Sir David was actually a great chemist.
"Maybe it was Sir David's invisible guidance that made me suddenly want to do some chemical experiments in this laboratory."
Perhaps it was the sequelae of the Ghost Club that led to a "psychic communication" between Chen Muwu and David, a great chemist who had been dead for almost a hundred years.
His rhetoric was perfect. Isn't it normal to do chemical experiments in a laboratory named after a chemist?
After this episode, Chen Muwu still repeated the previous process. Every day, he went to the Legation and the Royal Society's reference room between two o'clock and one line, and occasionally went to David Faraday's laboratory for some time.
It can be said that his hard work paid off. He finally found a way to prepare methacrylic acid from acrylic acid from an organic chemistry document published in 1865.
So the most basic material he can buy now is methacrylic acid.
By esterifying methacrylic acid and methanol, methyl methacrylate, the monomer of polymers such as organic glass, can be obtained.
But Chen Muwu didn't follow the routine. He planned to start by preparing methacrylic acid.
The purpose is to deceive others from knowing which materials plexiglass is made of.
If you purchase it directly from a chemical factory, or customize methacrylic acid, an organic substance that is not very common now, it will be easy for others to crack the raw material of plexiglass.
Even if several other reagents are purchased at the same time to set off smoke bombs, it is only a matter of time before they are cracked.
However, it is different to start with more basic raw materials. Chen Muwu can openly buy acetone, sodium hydroxide, hydrocyanic acid, concentrated sulfuric acid and methanol that are now very common.
Even if these materials were paid by others to bribe other people in the David Faraday experiment, or if they dug through the trash can to find the labels of the drugs, it would be difficult for them to guess what Chen Muwu was going to do and what the synthesized products were. What.
The only one I had trouble with was hydrocyanic acid.
Unlike thallium, people have long known that cyanide is a highly toxic substance.
As a fellow of the Royal Society, Chen Muwu was rejected when he first wanted to purchase a large amount of hydrocyanic acid.
He could only ask Old Bragg to come forward and get the guarantee from the director of the laboratory, and finally purchased this experimental material.
Old Prague, who was confused, became even more curious. Is Chen Muwu doing a chemical experiment, or is he trying to make money or kill someone?
Following the steps of the paper written decades ago, Chen Muwu first hydrogenated acetone and hydrocyanic acid in a sodium hydroxide aqueous solution to produce the intermediate product acetone cyanohydrin.
Then, acetone cyanohydrin and concentrated sulfuric acid are allowed to undergo an amidation reaction to generate methacrylamide sulfate.
After the amide salt is hydrolyzed, methacrylic acid can be obtained, and methacrylic acid can be esterified by adding methanol to obtain the final monomer, methyl methacrylate.
It is a colorless and transparent liquid but has a pungent odor similar to garlic.
The steps of chemical preparation of monomers have now been completely completed.
There was only one thing left before Chen Muwu.
That's how to polymerize these easily volatile monomers to produce the world's first organic glass.
Fortunately, the polymerization method of materials such as methyl methacrylate is relatively simple. In bulk polymerization, initiators and catalysts can be used to accelerate the polymerization reaction, or nothing can be added to achieve miracles.
Chen Muwu chose the latter method. He found two flat molds and let methyl methacrylate be sandwiched between them to heat evenly.
Starting from preparing raw materials, he experienced countless failures and started all over again. After nearly three months, Chen Muwu finally produced the world's first organic block in the David Faraday Laboratory. Glass stuff.
He admired the fruits of his labor like a work of art, but completely forgot his original intention of fleeing Cambridge and coming to London under the guise of studying low-temperature physics.
He was just trying to avoid Einstein's entanglement!
(End of chapter)
