1900: A physics genius wandering around Europe

Chapter 620: Space Telescope! Galaxy Spin Problem! Is the Law of Gravitation Wrong? Shocking!

After the morning meeting, it was time for lunch and a break.

Inside the cafeteria.

Participants gathered in groups of three or four, enjoying the food, reminiscing about previous speeches, and chatting and laughing.

Li Qiwei discussed the development of astronomy with more than a dozen bigwigs including Haier.

He suddenly revealed an extremely shocking news.

"When I return to Borneo, I plan to build a radio telescope with a diameter of more than 50 meters."

“When the time comes, everyone is welcome to come to Borneo frequently for exchanges and learning.”

hiss!
Everyone gasped in shock!
A huge wave is rising in my heart!
"Oh, God!"

"A radio telescope with a diameter of 50 meters?"

“How powerful it would be!”

"I'm afraid you can see the end of the universe directly."

Haier's eyes widened in disbelief.

He was impressed by Professor Bruce's courage.

The 2-meter diameter optical telescope on Mount Wilson is now the most precious treasure in the astronomical world.

But compared with a 50-meter radio telescope, there is a world of difference.

It's like comparing the power of primitive people's spears and modern Krupp cannons.

He could imagine that once this incredible telescope was actually built, Borneo would become the undisputed first holy place in the world of astronomy.

All astronomers will flock to use this terrifying telescope to observe the universe.

In astronomy, caliber is truth!
The larger the aperture, the farther you can see, and the weaker astronomical signals you can detect.

Maybe we can find the microwave background radiation predicted by Professor Bruce, or even more mysteries of the universe.

Hai Er sighed:

"Professor Bruce, you are trying to capture all the smartest astronomers in the world."

Li Qiwei smiled and said:
"That's wrong. I'm promoting academic exchanges."

"I have plenty of money anyway. Instead of leaving it there as waste paper, I might as well build some large-scale basic scientific research equipment to benefit the scientific community."

The big guys were in awe and full of admiration, but at the same time they also had an urge to hit someone.

"If you really can't spend it, you can give some to us."

Yu Qingsong was standing aside, listening with his heart pounding.

Professor Li revealed this idea to him during the first Tianlian meeting.

But I didn’t expect it to be realized so soon.

"Oh my God!"

“That’s a telescope with a diameter of 50 meters!”

"Even if a pig sits there and observes for a day, it can publish a blockbuster paper."

Yu Qingsong suddenly thought that Professor Li could not be in charge of this telescope himself and must hand it over to someone else.

"Who else is more suitable than me?"

Yu Qingsong smiled foolishly at the thought that he might be able to manage the world's largest telescope.

Li Qiwei looked at everyone's shocked expressions, with the corners of his mouth slightly raised.

It's only 50 meters and you're scared like this.

If you saw the Sky Eye in China in the future with a diameter of more than 500 meters, you would be scared to death.

However, this is not the limit.

Then, Li Qiwei threw another super bomb.

"This is just the first step."

"No matter how many meters in diameter a telescope is, as long as it is placed on the Earth, it will always be disturbed by the Earth's atmosphere."

“That’s why the pictures everyone showed at the conference were blurry.”

"So, I am also going to use a rocket to launch the telescope into the Earth's space orbit."

“There, the capabilities of the telescope will be truly unleashed!”

quiet!
It's so quiet!
The super-large telescope just now was shocking enough, but I didn’t expect that Professor Bruce had an even more shocking and crazy idea.

The big guys were so shocked that they were completely speechless.

Space telescope!
Eye of the Earth!

What an awesome vision!

The most important thing is that everyone inexplicably believes that Professor Bruce will be able to achieve it.

Because the other party had previously discussed rockets with a group of mechanics.

Since rockets can take off, it shouldn't be difficult to bring a telescope up there.

"My God!"

"With the clean environment of the vacuum of the universe, the observation effect of the space telescope will be improved by a hundred or a thousand times."

"Even if its diameter is not large, it can detect electromagnetic waves from deep in the universe."

"Astronomy will definitely usher in a qualitative leap!"

In real history, mankind’s first space telescope was the famous Hubble Space Telescope.

It has a diameter of only 4.3 meters and is an optical telescope that can only see visible light.

Despite this, its observation capabilities are not comparable to those of large telescopes on Earth.

It is only a piece of cake to collect information from billions of light years away.

This is the huge advantage of space telescopes.

Hai'er, Yu Qingsong, Hubble and others were all shocked.

The idea of ​​a space telescope truly exceeded their imagination.

They were suddenly full of expectations for the future!

"If I could look at the universe through a telescope like that, I would die with no regrets."

Li Qiwei was also excited.

In this life, since he wants to solve the ultimate question of the origin of the universe, he naturally cannot do without the help of a space telescope.

The Borneo Circumpolar Particle Collider simulates the origin of the universe, and the large space telescope finds evidence from the real universe.

One is physics and the other is astronomy, the two complement each other.

The theory of everything and the mystery of the origin of the universe, a perfect fusion.

At this time, everyone who was discussing and eating was confused when they noticed the situation on the bosses' side.

"What are you happy about?"

When Eddington smiled and told everyone about the idea of ​​a 50-meter diameter telescope and a space telescope.

There was a burst of exclamations in the restaurant.

"Don't say anything more, just prepare to immigrate to Borneo."
-
June 2, afternoon.

The second plenary session of the Tianlian Association continues.

After the lunch incident, everyone present was in high spirits and their hearts were burning with excitement.

The bright future of astronomy is beckoning to everyone.

But it also urges everyone to work harder on scientific research.

After all, others are using space telescopes to observe black holes and neutron stars, but you are using them to observe and study the orbit of the moon, so you would feel embarrassed to use it even if you were given it.

As a result, everyone listened more carefully, hoping to find inspiration.

Host Eddington said:

“I believe you all have the feeling that the proportion of young scholars among the speakers of this session has obviously increased.”

“This is also a deliberate result of the Executive Committee.”

“Young scholars have more energy and more time. They are the hope and backbone of astronomy.”

“Dr. Yu Qingsong is a good example.”

"Unlike me, when I get older, my back and legs ache after sitting in front of a telescope for half an hour. How can I still do research?"

Everyone laughed knowingly.

Eddington was quite humorous.

"Next, please allow Dr. Ort to give a report."

Snapped!
Ort, who was in the crowd, took a deep breath and walked up to the podium.

He studied physics in his undergraduate studies, and later, influenced by the Dutch astronomy master Kapteyn, went to study astronomy in the United States.

His background in physics gave him a solid foundation in studying astronomy. The 25-year-old just graduated with a doctorate and is currently a research assistant at the Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands.

Director Hertzsprung below liked him very much and was bragging about him to a few friends around him.

"This kid is very careful and is particularly suited to astronomy. He will become a great man in the future."

In real history, Ort served as Secretary-General and Chairman of the International Apostolic Federation.

Under his leadership, Dutch astronomy made rapid progress, and in 1956 even built the world's largest radio telescope at the time, with a diameter of 25 meters.

He proposed the comet cloud hypothesis to explain the origin of comets in the solar system, which was later called the "Oort Cloud".

And he is also related to another famous astronomical conjecture.

At this moment, Ort was just a young man, and it was his first time to report at such a conference, so he was a little nervous.

"Hello, everyone."

"The topic of my report today is the study of the rotation of the Milky Way."

"In the universe, from individual celestial bodies to galaxies, there are two kinds of motion."

"One is a circular motion around the source of gravity, and the other is a spin around its own axis."

The more Ort spoke, the more flustered he became.

Because he found that the audience response was mediocre.

Many people don't seem interested.

He also knew a little bit of the reason.

In today's astronomy field, it is difficult to come up with new ideas in pure kinematic research.

It's nothing more than using the law of universal gravitation to calculate the speed, period, and so on.

These are things left over from what astronomers did a hundred or two hundred years ago and are now out of date.

The Big Bang, stellar evolution, black holes, and neutron stars are the latest hot topics.

But Ort thinks his research is really interesting.

However, when he saw the big guys in the front row, his heart was filled with confidence again.

Because they listened very carefully.

Especially Professor Bruce, who even gave him a mysterious smile.

Ort was fully revived. He stopped talking nonsense and got straight to the point:

"In order to calculate the spin rate of the Milky Way, I need to know the mass of the Milky Way."

“For this, I resorted to estimation.”

“Take the solar system, for example.”

"Although in addition to the sun, the solar system also includes various planets, satellites, small celestial bodies and other matter."

"But the sun alone accounts for 99.8 percent of the mass of the solar system."

"So if we know roughly how many stars there are in the Milky Way, we can estimate the mass of the Milky Way."

"I researched the research data of various countries and finally calculated a rough value with an error of no more than 10%."

At this time, many people nodded.

This part is quite interesting.

"Once we have the mass of the Milky Way, we can calculate its spin speed based on the law of universal gravitation."

"After substituting the data into the formula shown in the figure, we can deduce that the linear velocity at the edge of the Milky Way is about 50 kilometers per second, and the spin period is about 2 million years."

Wow!
There were exclamations from the audience!
After the great astronomical debate, the galactic nature of the Milky Way was determined, and various studies on the Milky Way increased.

So far, no one has been able to calculate such an accurate value theoretically.

The speed of calculating gravity is just not innovative, but the calculation difficulty is still the most tedious in the field of astronomy, requiring various calculus.

Although this is not a revolutionary breakthrough, it has great reference and citation value.

However, Shapley and Curtis in the audience frowned slightly.

As protagonists in the great debate of the century, the two of them are very familiar with the properties of the Milky Way.

At this time, Shapley suddenly took the initiative to ask:

"Excuse me, Dr. Ort, this is Shapley, I want to interrupt."

"There's something wrong with the linear velocity at the edge of the Milky Way you calculated."

"Are you sure you quoted the correct values ​​in the formula?"

Wow!
Everyone was shocked!
Was it a miscalculation?

That's a bit funny.

Hertzsprung was sweating and prayed in his heart:

"Fuck, Xiao Ao, don't scare me."

"I just praised you so loudly, if I'm wrong, I'll be totally embarrassed."

Miscalculating gravity at the highest conference in astronomy is definitely the biggest joke of the year.

Oort could have simply announced that he was changing his career and returning to physics, but no, he could not go back to physics.

Of course, the bigwigs present were very tolerant.

As a young person, every failure makes you wiser, it’s no big deal.

However, instead of panicking, Ort was very excited.

Of course he knew the name of Shapley, a well-known figure in the astronomical world.

As soon as the boss spoke, everyone's attention was drawn.

Ort said calmly:

"Yes, Master Shapley, you are absolutely right."

“There is indeed a problem with the line speed, but it is not a problem with my calculation!”

"Before I came here, I had calculated it more than ten times. There is no way I could have made a mistake."

"Everyone, please take a look."

"This is me measuring the spin speed of the Milky Way using the candle method and comparing it with previous data."

"It was ultimately determined that the actual linear velocity at the edge of the Milky Way is about 250 kilometers per second."

"There is a huge deviation between the theoretical value and the predicted value."

"Based on my estimate of the Milky Way's mass, it is not sufficient to support a spin speed of 250 kilometers per second."

"In other words, the Milky Way's current mass, at such a high spin speed, would cause the entire galaxy to fall apart."

“That’s the question I want to raise in my report today.”

Wow!
There was a sudden burst of exclamations in the venue!
At this moment, no one dared to underestimate Ort anymore.

This young man quietly made such big news.

“Young people today are really too aggressive.”

Soon, a guy who was good at math had calculated all the data.

"The calculation results of the Milky Way's mass are correct."

"The actual measured velocities at the edge of the Milky Way are also fine."

There is absolutely nothing wrong with Ort's data.

That’s a big problem!

"My God!"

“Could it be that gravity is wrong?”

“After all, the spin speed of the Milky Way can actually be measured, but it is so different from what gravity predicts.”

When theoretical predictions do not match experimental results, generally speaking, we should suspect that there is something wrong with the theory.

But is there something wrong with the law of universal gravitation?

This will definitely be the most sensational event in astronomy and even physics.

For a time, everyone was talking about it.

Hale, Hubble, Eddington and other big names were also very surprised.

Some bigwigs even began to doubt again.

"It must be an accidental phenomenon caused by a miscalculation somewhere."

However, at this moment, another young voice sounded.

"I can prove that Dr. Ort's discovery was not accidental."

Wow!
The whole audience was shocked!

(End of this chapter)