1900: A physics genius wandering around Europe

Chapter 188 Confirmation of plan to return to the UK; Nobel Prize in Physics, can you win it?
After October, Li Qiwei was dismissed from his post and was relieved of his official duties.

Shi Mei is basically fully responsible for all matters concerning Guangdong University.

He himself is based in Huangpu Institute of Technology, attending classes during the day and studying the detailed planning of the Science City at night.

Every Saturday when he had a holiday, he would take a boat up the Pearl River, return to his home in the city, and work hard to sow seeds.

Saturday is Wang Luyao and Sunday is Xiang Lan.

After traveling through time, Li Qiwei was very worried that his physical condition would be changed. He was afraid that he would not be able to have children, which would be very regretful for him.

And next, he would go to Europe again to find ways to plan for land.

If nothing unexpected happened, Ridgway had decided to leave the country and go to Britain in late 1908 or early 1909.

It just so happened that he could teach the first batch of undergraduate students at Huangpu Institute of Technology and accumulate rich experience for the school.

This time, he didn't want Wang Luyao and Xiang Lan to accompany him, so it would be better to wait until he was stable and then move all of them to the City of Science.

Therefore, he wanted his second daughter to get pregnant as soon as possible so that he could raise the children in the country and would not be lonely.

He is a man who wants to build a scientific family, so he must have as many children as possible.

Moreover, in China, there are huge family resources, and children’s living conditions and security are much better than abroad.

Li Qiwei is 24 years old, Wang Luyao is 23 years old, and Xiang Lan is 21 years old.

In this era, 23 years old is already an older age for women. Girls from ordinary families usually get married and have children at the age of or .

Therefore, Li's mother often urged Li Qiwei to stop focusing only on his career, as the continuation of the family was the most fundamental plan.

Li Qiwei agreed with this very much, which made Li's mother very happy.

In the bedroom, Li Qiwei was accompanying Wang Luyao tonight, and the two were talking in private.

Li Qiwei confessed to Wang Luyao that he would leave the country in four years and build a city of science.

He told Wang Luyao all his plans without reservation.

"Lu Yao, I don't want you to suffer at all."

"This time when I go to Europe, I want to build a lasting foundation for our children."

"I hope you can understand and support me."

Wang Luyao did not show the surprise she had imagined. She just gently stroked Li Qiwei's cheek and said, "My husband, it must be very hard for you."

"I don't want any inheritance, I just want you to be safe."

"No matter what you do, I will always support you."

When Li Qiwei heard these words, he felt that his life was worth it.

"I'm sorry to you and Xiang Lan for asking you to wait for me."

"Don't worry, whether it's 5 years at the shortest or 10 years at the longest, I will be with you forever regardless of success or failure."

Wang Luyao smiled and said, "Then I want to get pregnant quickly and have a baby so that I can bring the child to see you in the future."

Li Qiwei teased her: "One is not enough, I want you to give birth to a whole litter for me."

Li Qiwei knew that the little witch must be feeling lost inside, but she was unwilling to show it in front of him.

Therefore, he wants to use the most passionate love to make up for the other party.

Thirty minutes later.

"My dear, is this method of yours really useful?"

"It's been three minutes. I'm so tired."

At this moment, Wang Luyao was holding his thighs with both hands, with a pillow underneath.

Since getting married, Wang Luyao has called Li Qiwei "husband" instead of "brother Qiwei". This is the transition from a girl to a young woman.

"Don't worry, this is a technique I learned in my physiology class at Cambridge University."

"Just hold on for two more minutes."

Li Qiwei began to deceive people, saying that online courses are also courses, and he had studied the course styles of universities in various countries in his previous life.

Wang Luyao blushed, "Pah, Westerners really have no shame, they can even study this kind of thing publicly."

Li Qiwei chuckled, "Okay, time is up, let's start the next set of exercises."

Wang Luyao couldn't stand it anymore and finally fell into a deep sleep.
-
In mid-October 1904, Science Weekly was the first to report the 10 Nobel Prize winners at the fastest speed.

Thanks to Li Qiwei's educational reform, teachers and students of science and engineering at domestic universities now regard the Nobel Prize as a weather vane.

The Nobel Prize in Physics, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine represent the highest honor in the field of natural sciences.

At the same time, they also represent the cutting-edge research directions in these fields in the future.

This year's Nobel Prize winner in Physics is also an acquaintance of Ridgway, John Strathairn, also known as Lord Rayleigh.

The reason for his award was: measuring the density of gases such as hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, and discovering argon by measuring nitrogen.

After reading the report, students from the School of Physics at Huangpu University of Technology were amazed. They thought the result was too simple.

It's just measuring the density of the gas, which is just mass divided by volume. I think I can do it too.

In class, some students raised questions about this.

Li Qiwei was very pleased. He was happy to see the young men dare to question authority, but they also had to correctly recognize the strength of their predecessors.

So, he patiently explained: "Lord Rayleigh is my mentor's mentor. So, he is from the same lineage as our Huangpu Polytechnic Institute."

“To evaluate the achievements of a physicist, one must put him into the physical environment at the time.”

"Gas density measurement is just one of Lord Rayleigh's many achievements."

"As early as 1815, the British chemist Prout published a paper."

"He believed that the densities of various gases were exact integer multiples of the density of hydrogen."

"From this, it can be inferred that hydrogen atoms may be the elementary particles of various elements, that is, any element is composed of different numbers of hydrogen atoms." "This is Prout's hydrogen parent material hypothesis of elements."

"Now we know that this hypothesis is wrong, but at the time, physicists and chemists could not find strong evidence to disprove it."

"In 1882, Lord Rayleigh spent ten years accurately measuring the density of hydrogen and oxygen in order to confirm the Prout hypothesis."

"Because the scientific instruments at that time were very crude and this kind of experiment required very high precision, it took Lord Rayleigh so long."

"The experimental results show that the atomic weight ratio of hydrogen and oxygen is not 1:16, but 1:15.882."

"This is strong evidence that the Prout hypothesis is wrong."

At this point, the students in the classroom immediately admired Lord Rayleigh's perseverance.

In order to solve one problem, the experiment lasted for ten years.

Without a genuine love for physics, no one could have persisted that long.

It was at this moment that they realized the gap between themselves and the top physicists, and those present thought it would be difficult for them to persist for ten years.

Li Qiwei took in the students' expressions, smiled slightly, and continued: "Of course, this is not over yet."

"Lord Rayleigh later made an accurate measurement of the density of nitrogen."

"He used two methods to obtain nitrogen."

“The first is to fractionate nitrogen from liquid air, and the second is to separate nitrogen from ammonium nitrite.”

"Lord Rayleigh was very careful. He found that there was a very slight difference in the density of nitrogen obtained by the two methods."

"The density of nitrogen in liquid air is 1.2572, while the density of nitrogen in ammonium nitrite is 1.2505."

"If you are a young physicist or student, you might assume that this is due to experimental error."

"But Lord Rayleigh is very experienced and confident in his experiments."

"He firmly believed that there must be some unidentified reasons for this result."

"Nitrogen obtained by chemical methods must be pure, so the nitrogen in the air must be mixed with other substances."

"He therefore proposed a hypothesis that there is another allotrope of nitrogen in the atmosphere."

At this time, several students were confused and did not know what allotropes meant.

Seeing this, Li Qiwei directly pointed out, "Yan Renguang, you also took the chemistry course, you come and tell everyone what allotropes mean."

Yan Renguang didn't expect Li Qiwei to choose him. His classmates' envious eyes made him extremely proud. He immediately decided to take another life science class tomorrow.

“Allotropes are two or more substances that are composed of the same elements but have different properties.”

"For example, oxygen and ozone are both made up of the element oxygen, but they are two different substances."

Li Qiwei smiled and nodded, "Yes, that's right."

"I suggest that everyone can learn from Yan Renguang and take a few elective courses in other majors if they have spare time."

“It’s very helpful in expanding your thinking.”

"Okay, I'll go on."

"Lord Rayleigh believed that nitrogen had another allotrope, and he named it N3 after ozone O3."

"Later, the British chemist Ramsay saw Lord Rayleigh's paper and was very interested."

"So the two scientists worked together, and after rigorous experiments, they finally determined in 1894 that N3 is not an allotrope of nitrogen."

"It is a special, never-before-discovered, monatomic gas that is extremely inactive and only makes up 0.93% of the atmosphere."

"Lord Rayleigh and Ramsay named it argon, which means inactive in Greek."

“And so the first noble gas was discovered.”

"Later, with the assistance of Lord Rayleigh, Ramsay discovered several new noble gases."

"Now, do you still think Lord Rayleigh's achievements are mediocre?"

A heated discussion suddenly broke out in the classroom.

It turns out that there are so many unknown stories behind a simple experiment.

Only then did they understand the greatness of physicists.

It took more than ten years to finally figure out a problem.

Physics is indeed profound.

At the same time, the students were all impressed by Principal Li's extensive knowledge and his comprehensive understanding of ancient and modern times.

This is too much to know.

Li Qiwei smiled but said nothing. He would not tell these rookies that this was all his work.

"These stories were told to me by Lord Rayleigh himself."

"The real situation is actually dozens of times more difficult than this."

"In addition to talent, physics research also requires hard work, opportunity, cooperation, carefulness, a platform, and so on."

"The platform is the most important thing, it can broaden your horizons."

"So, now that you have such good conditions, you must study hard."

"In the future, I will select outstanding candidates and send them to Cambridge University for further studies, so that you can see how the world's top physicists conduct research."

After giving Li Qiwei a lecture, he still did not forget to make a big promise.

This not only stimulates these students to the point of screaming, but also subtly changes their ideas.

Li Yaobang: Doing business? What the hell!

Zhang Yihui: Being an official? What a shitty official!

Yan Renguang: Add another math elective course tomorrow!
(End of this chapter)