"How much do you say, Mr. Cockcroft? Twenty pounds?"
When Chen Muwu heard the offer, his first reaction was that the British man was dishonest and thought he was a traitor to deceive himself.
However, the figure of twenty pounds is too low, right?
What kind of person would cheat someone out of twenty pounds?
Even if you get twenty pounds by fraud as you wish, what can you do with the money?
The imported bananas and pineapples Oppenheimer bought before cost several pounds!
Chen Muwu couldn't understand.
Moreover, he also saw Cockcroft's firm eyes, and his face seemed to have the words "please praise" written all over it.
This time he was completely unsure. Could this person be telling the truth? He didn't fool himself?
For Chen Muwu, who has already achieved financial freedom, twenty pounds does not seem to be worth much.
But for Cockcroft, twenty pounds is undoubtedly a huge sum of money, which is fully two-thirds of the scholarship provided to him by St. John's College every year!
The scholarship Dirac had received from St. John's College was seventy pounds per year.
For a Puritan ascetic like him who doesn't smoke, drink, or socialize, seventy pounds a year is not enough to support his life at Cambridge University. He must add an additional £140 scholarship from Bristol University. OK.
Cockcroft only had thirty pounds a year. If he wanted to survive at Cambridge University, he not only had to get some support from his family, but also found some ways to make money in his free time.
Especially after getting married this summer, his living expenses suddenly became larger.
After joining Chen Muwu's group, Cockcroft learned that Dr. Chen actually paid Zhao Zhongyao out of his own pocket, so he also had some subtle thoughts in his mind.
If he performs well enough, Dr. Chen can probably give him some money, right?
Seeing Chen Muwu's disbelieving expression, Cockcroft immediately reflected in his mind, had he overestimated the price for the generator?
He quickly took out the budget sheet he had prepared long ago and explained to Chen Muwu: "Dr. Chen, I have lowered the budget as much as possible this time. Compared with the final price, the price will not fluctuate by more than 10%. .
“If you want to continue cutting, you can only start with the screws, nuts and rivets that connect the machine.
"If you don't buy these small parts, but use the ones provided by Cavendish Laboratory, you can probably save a few shillings. Other than that, we really can't cut it any more."
Chen Muwu didn't expect that he would pry such an honest person from Kapitsa this time.
He is really thinking about himself and thinking about how to save money.
"John, you misunderstood. It's not that I don't think the budget you gave is too high, but that it's too small.
“At first I felt that hundreds or even thousands of pounds would not be enough to build a generator, so I had to beg for money everywhere.
"I never imagined that it would cost only twenty pounds to build an electrostatic generator capable of reaching a high voltage of 1.5 million volts.
"Guess how much funding I have got now? Six thousand pounds! According to the budget you gave me, it should be enough to build three hundred electrostatic generators!
"So there is absolutely no need to save money for me, everything will be done according to the best!"
"But, Dr. Chen, in my budget, all the materials used are already the best."
Although Cockcroft was shocked when he heard the figure of six thousand pounds, he still said straightforwardly.
His hand holding the budget sheet was still hovering in mid-air, which meant that he was determined to let Chen Muwu see what was written on it to prove that what he said was true.
Eighty-centimeter spherical electrode, two-meter-high bracket...
Wait, doesn’t this mean that there is no need to build an accelerator that is several stories high like Westinghouse’s particle crusher?
Only in a laboratory room that is slightly higher than an ordinary room, can this million-volt generator be built?
It seems that twenty pounds is really enough.
Whether it is iron, tin, or glass, the materials themselves are not expensive.
Even if you make them into a specific shape, it will only cost you more processing fees.
By analogy, it is like the vacuum pump that General Electric sold to Chen Muwu.
It's just a few glass tubes, a few one-way valves, a few milliliters of mercury...
The total cost of these materials would not exceed ten pounds.
But they dare to sell it to you for two thousand pounds. The material fee is ten pounds, and the technical fee is one thousand nine hundred and ninety pounds. What can you do to me?
Want it? If you want it, just pay for it!
It is estimated that General Electric also knows that the transaction on vacuum pumps is a one-time deal, so they dare and must demand such a high price.
This is indeed the case. Ever since Chen Muwu completed the electron diffraction experiment, the vacuum pump has been handed over to Professor Aston.
He has now successfully copied a more precise and faster vacuum pump for use in his mass spectrometer.
Chen Muwu feels that if Cambridge University sells this "Kelvin-Chern style generator" in the future, it will probably face the same results as the General Electric vacuum pump.
Therefore, the price of this generator must not be too low. General Electric dares to sell it for 2,000 pounds at a cost of 10 pounds. It costs 20 pounds for itself. After all, it has to be sold for 4,000 pounds to make back the money, right?
Although Cockcroft said twenty dollars was enough, Chen Muwu couldn't really give them only twenty pounds.
The lion opens his mouth when he needs funds, but he is very cautious when he takes out money.
If this matter really spreads, won't I be looked down upon by others?
So in the end, Chen Muwu asked Oppenheimer to give Zhao Zhongyao and Cockcroft two hundred pounds from the funds to try it out on their own.
He also specifically told Oppenheimer to take out the two hundred pounds from the "funds", not from his own wallet.
If the No. 1 machine test of two people fails, then they will continue to invest more money until it succeeds.
But if their experiment is successful and they really create a high voltage that can reach 1.5 million volts, then Chen Mu can submit his report to the teacher.
Two hundred pounds was spent, and £5,800 was left.
Chen Muwu will definitely not keep the money for himself, but he will not return it to Chadwick's account book.
He wanted to continue to increase the potential difference that this electrostatic generator can achieve on the basis of 1.5 million volts.
Now that navies all over the world are pursuing the "big ship and big gun doctrine", you can definitely follow suit and develop a "big electrode and high voltage doctrine"!
Americans still have a way of choosing names. The name "Atom Smasher" sounds domineering at first sight.
I don’t know how much this naming right can be sold for at a high price, and how much research funding it can bring to me.
I, Lao Chen, is really a little genius who makes money!
…
After receiving the funding, Zhao Zhongyao and Cockcroft began to slowly turn the generator from paper into reality in the Cavendish Laboratory according to the design plan on the drawings.
Chen Muwu did not participate in it because he had only a few classes left, and after the lectures, he had fully completed his obligations as an academician of Trinity College this semester.
Next year we can no longer offer such a simple class, we must give these talented students of Cambridge University more strength.
In December, one night, Kapitsa went to Chen Muwu's room as a guest again.
They both lived in Trinity College, so it was easy for them to visit each other.
Kapitsa came here to find out where Chen Muwu would go during the upcoming winter vacation.
He still maintains the habit of returning to St. Petersburg, now called Lezhigrad, every year to visit relatives, but he always arranges the visits to relatives in the summer.
Russia is so cold in winter that there is no desire to go back.
A trip to Stockholm with Chen Muwu last year reminded him again of the fear of being dominated by cold winters in high latitudes.
"I'm going to London before Christmas to give a Christmas lecture. After the lecture, I should go to France."
"Chen, what are you talking about? A Christmas lecture? I remember you don't even believe in religion, right? Which church priest in London would be so confused that they would ask you to preach to them?"
"Uh... Peter, I am indeed not religious. But is it possible that the person who invited me is not a priest, but Lord Bragg? I am the keynote speaker at this year's Royal Institution's Christmas Lecture."
Invisible pretense is the most deadly, even the most chatty person in Cambridgeshire was choked and speechless.
Chen Muwu's strength and reputation are there. He is completely qualified to hold this Christmas lecture.
The Russian could only change the subject as if nothing had happened: "Okay, okay, you said you were going to Paris, right? When is the departure date?"
"It should be right after the lecture, probably on the 21st. I don't know which day's ferry ticket Robert bought for me. I'll ask him tomorrow."
"You've already bought your ferry ticket! I'm still thinking about going to Paris with you!"
The previous pleasantries were all prepared by Kapitsa.
What he really wanted to say was this last sentence.
This summer, after Kapitsa became Chadwick's best man at Liverpool, he began to become unhappy.
He thought about his deceased wife, and imagined that if it hadn't been for the damn Spanish flu, he would have had his children around his knees, playing the piano and the harp.
The more he thought about it, the more he felt aggrieved. Before Cambridge started school, he ran to Paris to relax alone.
Then, when he came to Capica in France, he met someone who made his heart beat again.
Anna Alexeevna Krylova was a Soviet student studying in Paris, France.
Her father, Alexey Nikolayevich Krylov, was a Soviet mathematician who once served in the Tsarist Russian Navy in St. Petersburg. He was also the first to translate "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy" from English. Translator into German.
He translated this book in 1915, and Newton wrote it in 1687.
As an aside, the first Chinese version of this book was even sixteen years later than the Russian version.
It was not until 1931 that the Commercial Press published the complete works translated by Zheng Taipu.
Kapitsa and Anna met at a ball held by the Sulian Embassy in France in Paris. Both of them are from Lezhagrad, and they were both unaccompanied students studying in Western Europe, so they naturally fell in love at first sight. ,fall in love.
"Do you also want to go to Paris?" Chen Muwu asked knowingly, "That doesn't matter. Just ask Robert to buy a ticket for you. Anyway, around Christmas, there will definitely be more ferries on the English Channel, and he has recently been I’m running to London every three days!”
Oppenheimer traveled back and forth between London and Cambridgeshire every day, not to help Chen Muwu with academic and work matters.
He had already bought a ferry ticket back to the United States before Christmas, and in the twenty days before leaving, he wanted to buy more British specialties to take home.
Oppenheimer's style is no different from that of a college student who leaves his parents for the first time and studies abroad.
But he accidentally bought a lot of Made in USA items.
With the support of Fordism and Taylorism, the United States has far surpassed other countries in the world in terms of production efficiency.
From the beginning of World War I, they dumped their products into various European countries.
Although the war is over now, Europe's dependence on American goods has long been ingrained.
…
Chen Muwu finished his last linear algebra class, and Cambridge University entered the winter vacation.
As the festive season approaches, the Christmas atmosphere across the UK is getting stronger day by day.
Walking with Kapitsa on the streets of London, Chen Muwu suddenly remembered a family movie, "Love Actually."
It's also Christmas in London, but it's more than ninety years earlier.
Knowing that this year's speaker is Chen Muwu, and it coincides with the 100th anniversary of the Christmas lecture, the BBC plans to use the not-so-perfect live broadcast technology to broadcast the lecture in real time to all of London.
In this way, the target audience of the lecture has changed from teenagers who love and yearn for science to the entire audience in front of the radio in London.
The content of Chen Muwu's lecture could only be changed temporarily. Old Prague told him that it must not be too profound or too niche.
Then neither quantum mechanics nor low-temperature physics meet the conditions. After thinking about it, only relativity is the most suitable.
Einstein's most classic joke more than ten years later was ruthlessly appropriated by Chen Muwu.
“When you are in front of a beautiful woman, time seems to pass very quickly, but when you sit on the stove, time feels like it passes very slowly. This is the theory of relativity.”
Such a wonderful opening speech won warm applause and laughter from the audience, and also spread throughout London along with the radio waves.
Chen Muwu's Christmas lecture was a great success, and it was no surprise that it appeared on the front page of the Daily Telegraph the next day.
When this newspaper was delivered to thousands of households by early-rising postmen and newsboys, Chen Muwu and Kapitsa were already sitting on the ferry, floating on the calm sea of the English Channel.
(End of chapter)
