1900: A physics genius wandering around Europe

Chapter 301: Just a hint of Guang Xiang's breath, the Nobel Prize winner couldn't bear it
1911 12 Month 10 Day.

Since Li Qiwei revealed the Pangu Project to Master Qian Wu and others, his body and mind have been greatly liberated.

Spark Project, Science City Project, and Pangu Project.

The three major plans are progressive and complementary, working together to achieve a common goal.

Each plan can be further divided into many small plans.

All the details are written in Li Qiwei's personal notes.

He alone knew.

Today, the tip of the iceberg of his profound plan has finally been revealed.

Thirty years of dormancy, waiting for the day when the world is shocked.

At the same time, the family has been sending messages frequently recently.

Independence in various places, new army, revolutionary party, Yuan Shikai
Ridgway focuses only on the most important information.

As long as the landmark events do not deviate from the historical track, it means everything is still under control.

Compared with the sufferings we are experiencing more than 20 years later, the current sufferings are nothing.

No matter how cruel the civil war is, there is still a bottom line.

What Li Qiwei wanted to change was the history of more than 20 years later, a period that left a deep impression on China.

The only thing he cares about right now is domestic education.

I don’t know whether his successor will continue to implement his policies.

In real history, the Minister of Education of the Republic of China changed 10 times in 29 years, which was simply a joke.

It is conceivable how domestic higher education will develop under this situation.

Apart from knowing who the first minister was, Li Qiwei knew nothing else.

He was far away in the UK and could not reach any target, so he could only wait until he returned to Borneo and then act accordingly.

By then, no matter who comes to power, the country’s university education policy cannot be significantly changed.

Li Qiwei will also try to obtain more education funds.

Domestic education is related to his future Pangu plan.

It is not easy to train tens of thousands of college students.

Li Qiwei shook his head and withdrew his thoughts. There was still time for everything.

Just do the things at hand step by step.

Now, he is presiding over the doctoral dissertation defense of Bohr and seven other people.

King's College London has taken great advantage of Cambridge University's strategy.

I started warming up for this defense half a month in advance.

After all, graduating seven PhDs at one time is extremely rare in the UK and even in the world.

The key is that these seven people are well-deserving and are more than qualified to obtain doctoral degrees.

So this defense attracted almost all physics practitioners in the UK.

Whether professors or students, everyone wants to come and observe the defense and witness a miraculous moment.

Li Qiwei also invited Thomson, Rutherford, old Bragg, Bakla and others to serve as members of the defense committee.

At that time, Li Qiwei was known as the strongest doctoral student in the history of Cambridge University.

Now Bohr and others are not any worse.

They are all rising stars in physics.

The defense lasted for three days.

They were Bohr for one day, Qian Wushi, Deng Huzhou and Deng Huaining for one day, and Chris, Gregory and Yu Yin for one day.

The seven people's defense contents were all very exciting because of Li Qiwei's deliberate request.

Focus on logic and thinking rather than simply piling up experimental data.

From a systematic perspective, explain the purpose and role of each study.

Refreshing and inspiring.

The students who were listening in the audience were taking notes non-stop, and some even broke several pens.

Li Qiwei found this funny.

In this era without mobile phones, if you saw something good you could only copy it by hand.

He thought about his future life and found university classes very simple.

The teacher was playing PPT on the stage and the students were taking photos with their mobile phones below.

After the PPT is finished, the class is over.

It is not the students who learn knowledge, but the mobile phones.

Finally, amid the applause of the crowd, Bohr and his seven colleagues successfully graduated with a doctorate and became respected doctors from then on.

Bohr and others were extremely excited.

Li Qiwei shook hands and hugged them respectively, patted them on the shoulders, and gave them some encouraging words.

“Your future is bright and exciting!”

Bohr and others had red eyes. Professor Bruce's influence will accompany them throughout their lives.

Next, Bohr, Chris, Gregory and others said goodbye to Li Qiwei.

They will start their own independent lives.

After receiving Li Qiwei's letter of recommendation, the University of Copenhagen did not dare to neglect it.

Bohr was contacted immediately and offered the position of professor of theoretical physics.

Bohr was ecstatic. He was about to marry his girlfriend Margaret, which was a double blessing.

After listening to Chris's request, Gerard wanted to continue bargaining.

But the other party's next words blocked him.

No matter how evil a capitalist is, he has no choice but to submit when facing Li Qiwei.

Sir Lockyer officially retired and handed over Nature to Gregory.

The latter will also begin his own reform program.

As for the four people from Qian's Fifth Division, they will stay in Europe for about a year.

During this period, they were a bit like postdoctoral fellows in later generations, visiting and studying at various universities and research institutes.

Accumulate rich construction experience and prepare for the next trip to Borneo.

After the defense, Rutherford stayed and chatted with Ridgway.

"Bruce, what are your plans next?"

“Are you planning to recruit a few more doctoral students?”

"Now that you don't have any students, it must be a relief."

Ridgway smiled and said, "No, I still have a Hubble."

Rutherford smiled and said, "He is not considered your student."

"Professor Michelson is reluctant to give up their good American seedlings."

Li Qiwei laughed.

“I probably won’t recruit any more doctoral students for the time being.”

"Next, I plan to concentrate on figuring out the theory of general relativity."

“Supervising doctoral students does take up a lot of my time.”

Rutherford was surprised when he heard this. "Bruce, are you finally going to complete your general theory of relativity?"

Li Qiwei nodded and said in a boastful tone, "All the problems have been figured out."

“The next step is the process of organizing and writing.”

Wow!
Even though he was mentally prepared, Rutherford was still shocked.

That's general relativity.

The special theory of relativity has already turned physics upside down.

Rutherford couldn't imagine what kind of shock the general theory of relativity would bring to everyone.

"Bruce, I really can't imagine what kind of theory could take a genius like you ten years to figure out."

"Since ancient times, no matter whether it is Newton or Maxwell, these top geniuses have never spent ten years to create a theory."

"I'm afraid that once your general theory of relativity is published, the entire physics community will tremble."

"Can you tell me what's so difficult about it?"

Li Qiwei smiled softly.

"How should I put it? I think there are two most difficult aspects. One is mathematics, and the other is thinking."

Rutherford nodded and said, "I can understand mathematics, but what does thinking mean?"

Ridgway thought for a while and said something that Rutherford would never forget. "Rutherford, if I said that gravity does not exist and is just an illusion, would you believe it?"

boom!
Rutherford just felt like thunder exploding in his mind.

His mouth opened, his eyes wide.

A Nobel Prize winner was as surprised as an elementary school student at this moment.

It’s not that Rutherford has become stupid, but that what Li Qiwei said is too outrageous.

It was so outrageous that Rutherford thought Ridgway was crazy.

"Oh my God, Bruce, do you know what you're talking about?"

"Gravity doesn't exist? Are you kidding me?"

"If gravity didn't exist, how could you stand on this planet right now?"

"If gravity didn't exist, how could the Earth move around the Sun?"

"Bruce, tell me, you must be kidding me just now."

Rutherford lost his composure in excitement.

Gravity doesn't exist?
This was even more unbelievable than telling him that Newton did not exist.

Because even if Newton didn't exist, someone else would have discovered the law of universal gravitation.

But Li Qiwei now directly said that gravity no longer exists.

This is not a fantasy.

The law of universal gravitation has been around for hundreds of years now.

It can be big enough to explain the movement of celestial bodies or small enough to determine the trajectory of a car.

Although the law of universal gravitation cannot explain the perihelion problem of Mercury for the time being.

But everyone thought that it was just a theory that might have some flaw.

Maybe a patch will do the trick.

But no one would ever think that there is something wrong with gravity.

People feel the pull of gravity every day.

You're telling me gravity doesn't exist?

Rutherford felt that either Ridgway was crazy or he was crazy.

Obviously, the latter is more likely to be crazy.

Li Qiwei sighed and smiled: "This is what I call a thinking problem."

"If even you don't believe my theory, what do you think others will think?"

"But no matter what you think, my theory is absolutely correct."

Rutherford was deeply shocked at this moment. He did not expect Li Qiwei to be so confident and domineering.

"Bruce, can you really prove that gravity does not exist?"

Li Qiwei said solemnly: "Yes."

“This is also the question that has troubled me for the longest time.”

"I needed completely new mathematical tools to describe this phenomenon."

Rutherford could no longer make out any more words.

His mind went blank.

He was shocked by Li Qiwei's conclusion.

If this is true, he no longer dares to imagine the impact that general relativity will have on physics.

"Oh my god, everyone is going to go crazy."

Li Qiwei looked at Rutherford, feeling a lot of emotions in his heart.

He deliberately said that gravity does not exist just to see the other party's reaction.

Obviously, the horror of general relativity has been revealed.

Even a physics giant like Rutherford had this shocked reaction.

Just a hint of general relativity was enough to drive a big shot like Rutherford crazy.

Not to mention others.

In real history, when the general theory of relativity was first published, no more than ten people in the world could understand it.

I'm not bragging.

On the one hand, it is because the mathematical formulas used in it are too advanced.

On the other hand, the physical ideas it contains are too profound for ordinary people to imagine.

It's like teaching calculus to an elementary school student.

He couldn't imagine what the process was like.

In fact, the statement that "gravity does not exist" is not accurate.

General relativity tells us that the essence of gravity is the curvature of space-time.

So many people think that gravity is not a force.

There are actually a lot of misunderstandings here.

It is also very complicated to explain.

First of all, what is "force"? Only when this question is clarified, it will be meaningful to talk about gravity.

Force is not a fundamental concept; it appears with Newton's second law.

Newton never defined the nature of force.

The four basic forces often mentioned by later generations: electromagnetic force, strong force, weak force, and gravitational force.

According to quantum field theory, the essence of electromagnetic force, strong force, and weak force is interaction.

Taking electromagnetic force as an example, two particles interact with each other by exchanging photons.

To us, this process seems like the generation of force.

If you call this whole situation electromagnetic force, there is nothing wrong with it.

As for gravity, everyone knows that it is the curvature of space-time.

But if you regard the state in which objects move due to the curvature of space-time as gravity, then gravity does exist.

So, the key lies in the definition of force.

But the problem with gravity is that when gravity is generated between two objects, no so-called "gravitons" are exchanged.

The other three forces will exchange their unique "sons".

This is the biggest contradiction between quantum mechanics and relativity.

This is also the most fundamental reason why there is no unification.

Only if gravitons exist can quantum mechanics explain gravity.

But relativity does not require gravitons and can explain gravity using the curvature of space-time.

This is the greatness of relativity.

Of course, Li Qiwei couldn't say all this right now.

(Don’t worry, this book will gradually explain these concepts to you.)
(Just know the general idea for now, it won't affect your understanding of the general theory of relativity that follows.)
It took Rutherford more than ten minutes to recover.

At this moment, his face was flushed, obviously he was too excited just now.

"Bruce, I'm a little worried about your general theory of relativity now."

“Such an incredible conclusion, can it really be correct?”

"You haven't been studying it for too long and have become obsessed with it."

Li Qiwei's forehead was filled with black lines and he was speechless.

"Rutherford, the gravity I just said does not exist, and it is very complicated to explain."

"You can only understand my thoughts after you read my paper."

"This world is far from being as simple as we think."

Rutherford did not say anything this time, but carefully tried to understand the meaning of Li Qiwei's words.

In front of a Nobel Prize winner, he said that this world is not a simple place.

I'm afraid only Li Qiwei is qualified to say.

If an ordinary person did this, Rutherford would just think that the other person was an idiot who was pretending to be profound.

He is now thinking that when Li Qiwei's paper is published, he will study it carefully.

Soon, however, Rutherford will doubt himself for the first time in his life and burst into foul language.

"Damn it, I never thought there would be a day when I couldn't understand a physics paper."

"Bruce, you are going too far!"

(End of this chapter)