1900: A physics genius wandering around Europe

Chapter 245: Golden Age! Results Exploded! Bruce in Danger?
As Laue became famous in one battle, the physics community was suddenly in turmoil.

The physics giants don’t care. They have already achieved success and fame, and ordinary results are completely unable to attract them.

Even though Laue proved that X-rays are electromagnetic waves, he was still inferior to Bruce, Thomson, Rutherford and others.

But for those young physicists, Laue was already out of reach.

Moreover, Laue is a goal that they can pursue and a realm that they hope to achieve in their lifetime.

As for an existence like Bruce, most people never even dared to ask for it.

Thus, a competition in the field of physics officially began.

Everyone is racing against time, working day and night to conduct experiments in an effort to become the next trendsetters.

On April 1910, 4, just one month had passed since Laue's paper was published.

The Rutherford team at Manchester University of Science and Technology published a paper in Nature, proving that gamma rays are also a type of electromagnetic wave.

Rutherford followed Laue's method to find a suitable crystal to allow gamma rays to diffract and ultimately determine their nature.

The experiment was carried out by two of his students: Galton Darwin and de Hevesy.

This Galton Darwin is the grandson of the famous Darwin.

Francis was his uncle.

However, he had no opinion of Li Qiwei.

Galton Darwin was fascinated by physics and had no interest in biology.

Rutherford also personally discussed creationism with Galton Darwin.

After listening to this, the other party only said one sentence: My uncle deserved to lose.

And now, in a sense, the people of the Darwin family have achieved success under the influence of Li Qiwei.

I have to say that fate is a fickle thing.

The news that the nature of gamma rays was proven caused an instant sensation!

What caused a sensation was not the incident itself.

Although Galton Darwin and de Hevesy became famous because of this.

But after all, it is imitated based on X-rays.

Even if they don't publish it, someone else will publish it sooner or later.

Because the method has been determined, all you need to do is try it multiple times.

It’s just that Rutherford had been studying rays for many years, and his experiment had a full range of equipment and resources.

That's why his team was able to complete the experiment in the first place.

And this small achievement was not even icing on the cake for Rutherford.

What really caused a sensation in the physics community was that the nature of the four major rays had finally been determined!

Alpha rays are helium ions.

Beta rays are streams of electrons.

Gamma rays are electromagnetic waves.

X-rays are electromagnetic waves.

The four major rays have troubled the physics community for more than a decade, but now they have all been conquered.

All physicists felt excited.

The development of modern physics has finally moved towards systematic theoretical and experimental research.

Instead of being like before, where everyone was working on their own stuff and couldn't connect the dots.

Based on the four major rays, many sub-directions have been derived, allowing many interested people to see new opportunities.

Department of Physics, University of Leeds, UK.

The Bragg father and son were using X-rays to study the structure of crystals.

Father Prague said to his son Prague:

"Lawrence, even though you are still an undergraduate, you should still try to do physics experiments."

“When Bruce was an undergraduate, he often went to Cavendish to do experiments.”

"Although you can go there now, your foundation and qualifications are too shallow after all."

"I guess Professor Thompson won't let you do any advanced experiments."

"Why don't you come and study X-rays with me in your free time."

“This is the hottest research direction right now.”

At this point, he said with a hint of nostalgia: "Ah, I never thought that X-rays would be proven to be electromagnetic waves in the end."

"Now that I think about it, I don't dare to meet Bakla again. I don't have the face to see him."

Little Bragg didn't care about this. He asked in confusion, "But father, hasn't the nature of X-rays been proven by Laue?"

"If you use it to diffract crystals now, will you make any new discoveries?"

Old Bragg looked at his son lovingly and smiled, "That's why you don't understand."

"To study physics, you must have divergent thinking and learn to draw inferences from one example."

"In Laue's paper, he used crystals to study X-rays."

"But I am different. I use X-rays to study crystals."

Little Prague was a little confused and wondered what the difference was between the two.

Old Bragg smiled and continued, "It's a big difference."

"Laue used the diffraction of X-rays in a crystal. He simply proved that X-rays are electromagnetic waves."

"But he didn't analyze in depth what the differences are between the diffraction patterns of different crystals."

"For example, the copper sulfate crystals and lead sulfide crystals he used have different diffraction patterns."

"So we can imagine, what does the X-ray diffraction pattern of the crystal relate to?"

"What is the angle of incidence of the X-rays?"

"What is the wavelength of X-rays?"

"Structural parameters of the crystal itself?"

"This is the crystal diffraction theory I am going to propose."

"In the future, if chemists want to know the structure of a certain crystal, they can use X-rays to find out."

At this time, Bragg said with surprise: "This is what Professor Bruce said about Laue's achievements."

"Did you get your inspiration from Professor Bruce, Father?"

"Uh." Old Bragg was a little sad. You, a brat, admire Bruce more than your father, me.

So sad.

"Not entirely. I have been studying X-rays for many years."

"I had these ideas the moment I saw Laue's paper."

"I can only say that Bruce the Hero and I have similar views.

Little Prague laughed, thinking his father was bragging. Old Prague saw his son's smile and knew that his father looked down on him.

His desire to win instantly came up, "Humph, I'll show you my strength."

"Next, your job and mine is to establish a mathematical formula."

"As long as we know the parameters of the X-rays, we can directly calculate the structure of the crystal based on the diffraction pattern."

"I think this work is absolutely Nobel Prize-worthy."

"When the time comes, you and I, father and son, will both win the Nobel Prize in Physics. That will be a great story in the history of physics."

Old Prague's imagination ran wild, as if he had already seen the scene of him and his son receiving the award.

At the same time, at King's College London, Bakla was studying the characteristic spectral lines of X-rays with his student Sadler.

Laue's achievements excited countless people.

But the most excited person was undoubtedly Bakla.

His dispute with Bragg over the nature of X-rays lasted for several years.

Now that the dust has finally settled, he was one step ahead and his point of view was correct!
Moreover, in various subsequent interviews, Laue not only mentioned Professor Bruce, but also mentioned the name Bakla.

It was his own X-ray scattering experiments that gave Laue a lot of inspiration, enabling him to complete various experiments quickly.

Buckara was very happy.

To some extent, he can be compared with Professor Bruce.

However, Bakla did not slack off.

He still insisted on continuing to study X-rays in depth.

He discovered that the X-rays emitted by each element were different and their spectral lines had certain differences.

To put it simply, every substance has its own characteristic X-rays.

Moreover, he discovered that after scattering, X-rays would split into two characteristic spectral lines.

This discovery puzzled Bakla, but he still secretly recorded it and prepared to publish a paper.

Three months after Laue published his paper, the physics community was shocked again.

On June 1910, 6, Bragg and his son published a paper in Nature: "Diffraction of Short-Wavelength Electromagnetic Waves by Crystals."

The paper proposed the famous Bragg formula.

That is, there is a quantitative relationship between the wavelength and incident angle of the X-rays and the distance between the atomic layers inside the crystal.

Through the Bragg formula, the structural parameters inside the crystal can be known by analyzing the X-ray diffraction pattern of the crystal.

In the paper, Bragg and his son calculated the structures of dozens of crystals, including sodium chloride.

In addition, they successfully determined the crystal structure of diamond.

It was proved that the four bonds of the carbon atoms in diamond are arranged in the form of a regular tetrahedron.

It resolved a long-standing debate among chemists.

Once the paper was published, it caused an instant sensation!

No one expected that based on Laue's work, someone could produce such exciting results.

Old Prague really has a sharp eye.

Although he lost the debate about the nature of X-rays, he found another way and actually cleared his name.

In terms of importance, this work is comparable to Laue's achievements.

For a time, the Prague father and son became famous.

In particular, everyone discovered that Prague is currently an undergraduate student at Cambridge University.

This is even more surprising.

He has published such important results at such a young age. Could he be the next Bruce?

But there are also many people who sarcastically say: "If you want to do a good experiment, you must first have a good father."

They believed that little Prague was entirely due to his father's influence.

But no matter what, the work done by the Prague father and son is definitely Nobel Prize-worthy.

Of course, the happiest people are the chemists.

When Bruce said that there would be new methods for studying crystals in the future, chemists were very excited.

It hasn't been that long since this method was invented.

Many chemists self-deprecatingly said: "Thanks to the physics brothers for giving me food again."

Every major breakthrough in physics has an important impact on chemistry.

It can be said that the foundation of chemistry is built on physics.

I am destined to be a chemist.

Coincidentally, it was just half a month after the Prague father and son published their paper.

Bakla also published his latest findings.

This physicist, who had always been low-key, became instantly famous because of Laue.

At the same time, he also demonstrated his impressive strength.

Although Bakla's research results are not that important in the eyes of most people, they have played a foundational role.

Now his latest achievements have further deepened people's understanding of X-rays.

For a time, Bakara was the most popular.

At this point, physicists finally understood what the golden age Bruce was talking about was.

Since Laue proved the nature of X-rays, various results have emerged in just a few months.

In the past few years, there were no new discoveries in physics, but now the results are accumulated by months.

All physicists feel a surge of energy.

Studying physics is like rowing against the current; if you don't move forward, you will fall behind.

But many physicists suddenly discovered a problem.

Why is Bruce, the man who proposed the golden age, silent now?

Although he proposed the theory of creation not long ago, it belongs to the category of biology after all and has little to do with physics.

It was under his influence that Laue came up with the idea of ​​X-ray crystal diffraction.

The work of the Bragg father and son was also predicted by him in advance.

He was the first to publicly predict that X-rays and gamma rays were electromagnetic waves.

It can be said that all the achievements during this period are more or less related to Bruce.

Logically speaking, since Bohr's notes are so awesome, Bruce himself or his team should have achieved some significant results long ago.

How come they haven’t published any papers yet?
Can general relativity really be published as scheduled?
For a time, many people even thought that Bruce's position was in jeopardy.

Although he pointed out the direction for the development of physics, he himself seemed to be unable to find his way out.

(End of this chapter)