1900: A physics genius wandering around Europe

Chapter 404: The wave-particle duality of light! Theoretical explanation! Paper published! The quantum heyday begins!
The news that the third Bruce Conference was to be held was like an 18-magnitude earthquake, shocking the entire physics community.

All physicists and scholars are looking forward to it.

Geniuses expect to make a big splash, while ordinary people expect the arrival of a prosperous era.

In short, physics, which had been dormant in Europe for several years, exploded again because of the Bruce Conference.

Even the entire scientific community was revived by it.

The brilliant era of science before the war is still vivid in our memory.

Everyone wants to be a trendsetter again and be the center of attention.

Meanwhile, the bigwigs wait and guess.

"When will Professor Bruce take action?"

"Every one of his papers is earth-shattering."

"Isn't Professor Bruce going to directly predict the fourth quantum number?"

Everyone's speculation is well-founded.

If we talk about the most cutting-edge direction in quantum theory now, it must be the fourth quantum number.

Whoever discovers it first will shock the academic world.

Now, Professor Bruce has announced his involvement in quantum theory in a high-profile manner.

This kind of confident and ready-to-go momentum makes people involuntarily believe that the discoverer of the fourth quantum number must be Professor Bruce.

However, these are just ordinary people's thoughts and opinions.

For true geniuses, even Professor Bruce cannot make them retreat or become timid.

"Since Professor Bruce can stand shoulder to shoulder with Newton, why can't I stand shoulder to shoulder with Professor Bruce?"

"The fourth quantum number, my brain is not at all disadvantaged!"

However, no matter how crazy the outside world is, Li Qiwei is not affected at all.

At this moment, he has officially entered the role.

The Quantum Research Institute began to operate normally.

Wang Zhengyang still serves as secretary, responsible for all of Li Qiwei's external affairs.

At the same time, he will temporarily be responsible for the organizational framework of the institute.

Under Li Qiwei's instructions, contact and arrange the recruitment of managers, administrative personnel, etc.

This is a huge test for him.

Because the people he deals with now are all Europeans.

If it were more than 20 years ago, a young man would probably be so nervous when seeing a foreigner that he couldn't even move his legs.

And now, Wang Zhengyang can even direct them to work.

"Principal, this is the preliminary organizational structure plan for the Quantum Research Institute that I have drawn up according to your wishes."

“And the personnel that need to be recruited according to this structure.”

"Please take a look."

Li Qiwei took over the plan prepared by Wang Zhengyang and read it carefully.

In the early stages of the Quantum Research Institute's development, it does not need too many staff.

For example, when Bohr established the institute at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, there were only nine full-time staff members at the beginning.

The most important thing is to improve the functions within the institute and ensure that everyone can perform their duties.

“The Quantum Research Institute is divided into functional departments and academic departments.”

"The main responsibility of the functional departments is to ensure the daily life of researchers."

“It allows them to focus on scientific research without distraction.”

"The functional departments include the General Affairs Department, the Finance Department, the Personnel Department, etc."

“And the academic departments are mainly divided into major laboratories.”

"Each laboratory is headed by a corresponding expert professor."

“Specific recruitment requirements and remuneration are as follows”

"In addition, the equipment that the institute needs to purchase now includes the following."

“Basic furniture, office equipment, books and periodicals.”

“Laboratory instruments, machinery, and materials.”

"A detailed list is attached at the back."

"."

Li Qiwei spent a full ten minutes before he finally finished reading the proposal submitted by Wang Zhengyang.

He felt very satisfied.

"Very good, Zhengyang."

"It seems you have trained yourself."

"You are not an academic researcher, but you can write such a detailed laboratory construction plan."

“It must have taken a lot of hard work.”

Wang Zhengyang scratched his head embarrassedly and said with a smile:
"My fifth senior brother taught me all this when we were in Borneo."

“I learned a lot from him.”

"After I finished writing the proposal, I contacted my fifth senior brother via telegram and asked him to check it for me."

Li Qiwei nodded. When Master Qian Wu and others established the Atomic Research Institute in Kuching, they also built it from scratch and accumulated rich experience.

Moreover, the Atomic Research Institute is much larger than the Quantum Research Institute.

Whether it is the size of the staff or the size of the building.

Because the Quantum Institute is more inclined towards theoretical physics.

Therefore, the demand for experimental instruments is far less than that of the Atomic Research Institute.

But no matter what, the difficulty of this job is enormous.

Wang Zhengyang did not disappoint him.

Li Qiwei finally added:

"As for personnel recruitment, you will be responsible for hiring logistics personnel first."

"At least find the chef first, otherwise we won't have any food to eat."

"I'll find someone to help from other functional departments. You can contact them."

"As for the head of the academic department, take your time. I will be in charge of it personally."

"Also, contact Mark again."

"Tell him I want to build an apartment building next to the institute."

“Specially used to entertain visitors.”

“In the future, there will definitely be many physicists from different countries and cultural backgrounds coming here to exchange ideas.”

"This isn't London. The accommodation is very inconvenient."

“With centralized apartments, they can continue their daytime discussions even when they return to their apartments at night.”

“I believe that everyone will like this place in the future.”

Wang Zhengyang was stunned by what he heard. He felt what cruelty was:

"Principal, you are such a good person."

"The main purpose of building the apartment was to make it easier for people to continue the discussion when they return home."

"Fortunately, I am not qualified enough to become your graduate student."

"Otherwise, life would be worse than death."

Then he said, "Okay, Principal, I'll do it right away."

Li Qiwei nodded and let Wang Zhengyang go out.

After finishing the daily work of the institute, he was finally able to free up his hands to start his career in physics.

The Quantum Research Institute was just established and needed a landmark paper to get off to a good start.

But Li Qiwei had already made plans.

That is the theoretical analysis of the wave-particle duality of light.

In real history, the wave-particle duality of light has been controversial for more than 20 years.

After Einstein proposed the hypothesis of light quanta, few physicists accepted it.

Even the quantum giant Bohr did not admit it.

It was not until Compton discovered Compton scattering that theory and experiment matched perfectly.

Only at this point did no one doubt the authenticity of light quanta, and they directly called light quanta photons.

This reflects the particle nature of light.

What Li Qiwei has to do now is to describe the wave-particle duality of light theoretically.

This is also the difficulty of Compton and Wu Youxun's current work.

They don't know where to start their experiment.

In fact, he had discussed this issue with many people in private long before.

For example, Rutherford, Madame Curie, etc.

Otherwise, Irena would not have said "Light has momentum" during the Physics Olympiad. Unfortunately, no one at the time, including her, knew how significant this sentence was.

Because this sentence is the key to theoretically describing the wave-particle duality of light.

At this moment, Li Qiwei picked up the pen that had been with him for twenty years and began to write on paper.

"Light not only has quantum properties, it also has momentum."

"The physical quantity momentum is completely a property of particles, but light also has it."

"According to the special theory of relativity, there is a specific relationship between the energy, momentum and mass of a particle."

"Obviously, the derived formula is: E=mc+pc."

"Where E represents the energy of the particle, m represents the rest mass of the particle, p represents the momentum of the particle, and c represents the speed of light."

"For light quanta, since light has no rest mass, we can get E=pc."

"After simplifying, we get E = pc, so p = E / c."

"At the same time, according to the Lee-Planck radiation formula, the energy of a photon is E=hv."

"Where h is the Planck-Lee constant and v is the frequency of the photon."

"After substituting, we get: p = hv/c."

"In summary, E=hv and p=hv/c are the two equations that describe the wave and particle nature of light."

"E=hv contains frequency, which is a physical quantity of waves and reflects the wave nature of light."

"And p=hv/c contains momentum and energy, which are the properties of particles and reflect the particle nature of light."

"This is the theoretical analysis of the wave-particle duality of light."

(Note: The actual deduction is more complicated than this. I just want to make sure everyone can understand the logic for the sake of the plot.)

Finally, Li Qiwei added:
"If you want to prove this theory, you just need to use experiments to prove that light has the property of momentum."

call!
Li Qiwei completed a short paper of only two pages.

For the real big guys, this derivation is actually not very difficult.

Just be familiar with special relativity.

But the point is that no one has this kind of physical intuition.

It’s like the special theory of relativity itself is not difficult, but no one is willing to take that step.

Most physicists do not even acknowledge the wave-particle duality of light, so how could they have thought of this?

Li Qiwei knew what a sensation his paper would cause.

Although he has not left the institute recently, it does not mean that he knows nothing about the outside world.

Now everyone is waiting for him to take action and solve the outstanding fourth quantum number.

But no one would have thought that Professor Bruce's first shot would be directed at the wave-particle duality of light.

I guess many people will be completely confused.

Nature headquarters, London.

The shadow of war finally disappeared, and Nature journal resumed full operations.

Gregory has been very busy lately. Although he is very tired, he is very happy.

The energy accumulated by the scientific community during the war seemed to explode at this moment.

The number of paper submissions has skyrocketed.

And the quality is higher than one.

Mathematics, chemistry, biology, medicine.
The journal is even scheduled for the last ten issues.

The only regret is that there has not yet been a blockbuster paper like Yu Yin’s in the physics community.

Gregory wasn't worried, though.

"Professor Bruce has returned."

"The physics community will surely see vigorous development in the future."

As Ridgway's doctor, Gregory of course attended the unveiling ceremony on April 4.

He also complained to Li Qiwei, "Professor, since you returned to China, there have been no new achievements in physics."

Li Qiwei smiled and said to him, "Get ready to get busy."

Gregory became excited at the thought of this.

At this time, his right-hand man, Bob, suddenly walked in with an excited look on his face.

I almost couldn't hold the information in my hand.

Gregory was puzzled and asked, "What's wrong, Bob? Anything happy?"

Bob took a deep breath, calmed himself down, and said excitedly:

"Boss, Professor Bruce has published his paper."

Wow!
Gregory stood up suddenly when he heard this.

Incredulous: "Really?"

"The professor published the paper so soon?"

Bob nodded vigorously.

"It's true."

"The manuscript in my hand was just sent to me."

"The address is exactly the Quantum Research Institute."

“Professor Bruce has not yet recruited researchers and graduate students.”

"The only person who could have published the paper was him."

This is where Bob's cleverness comes in.

He could have opened the letter and read the paper directly, but he didn't.

Instead, he left this opportunity to the boss.

Professor Bruce hasn't published a paper for many years.

His paper is bound to be earth-shattering and shock the physics community.

The boss is Professor Bruce's doctor, so of course he has to open it himself.

No wonder Bob stood out from the crowd and became Gregory's assistant.

In addition to ability, there is also this meticulousness.

At this moment, Gregory was no longer concerned about Bob's thoughts.

He took the letter and carefully opened the manuscript.

A huge title catches the eye:
"Some Thoughts on the Wave-Particle Duality of Light".

Gregory was shocked when he saw the question.

“It turns out to be the wave-particle duality of light.”

At this time, Bob also looked over.

The paper was only two pages long, which made the two of them exclaim again.

Soon, they finished reading the paper from beginning to end.

Bob exclaimed:
“It’s so simple and perfect!”

"Professor Bruce has theoretically proved that light has the dual nature of wave and particle."

Gregory's expression was serious. He was now back to being a doctoral student.

"No, not proof, but explanation."

"Professor Bruce used mathematical methods to describe the existence of light's wave-particle duality."

"Because this concept is unimaginable, it can only be expressed by mathematics."

hiss!
Bob didn't understand why, and always felt that his boss was very awesome.

No wonder he is the editor-in-chief at such a young age, his ability is there.

"Boss, but is there any connection between the wave-particle duality of light and quantum theory?"

"Didn't Professor Bruce establish the Quantum Research Institute to improve quantum theory?"

"Why would he study light?"

Gregory breathed a sigh of relief.

"Haha, you don't understand the professor."

"He looks at things from a different perspective than ordinary people."

"His eyes are like X-rays, able to penetrate things and see the essence."

"With my ability, I don't understand the relationship here yet."

"But there is no doubt that the real physics masters will be shocked by this paper."

Bob nodded dumbly.

At this moment, he realized the difference between gods and mortals.

"Professor Bruce is horrible."

After seven years, Li Qiwei finally took action again.

The paper shocked the world as soon as it was published!

(End of this chapter)