Training the Heavens

Chapter 277 Summer Vacation
After finalizing the plan, Zhang Xingjiu immediately drew up a precise timetable. He didn't need to be too far ahead of his competitors, he just needed to produce results a month or two ahead of them, and then use the paper to establish indisputable evidence.

According to this schedule, the main task this year, 1897, was to invent the cathode ray tube and, based on the results of the last blackbody radiation experiment, continue to conduct new experiments to improve the existing Wien formula.

Wien's formula actually has great potential to be tapped. Later, Rayleigh, Jeans and Planck successively improved this formula, and finally Planck came to the correct conclusion, which is also an achievement worthy of winning the Nobel Prize.

Since he was going to copy, he didn't mind copying more. Zhang Xingjiu planned to come up with the formula before Rayleigh and Jeans, and then come up with the final formula before Planck, so that he would have five Nobel Prize achievements in his hands.

In the future, no matter who wants to study blackbody radiation, they cannot avoid these formulas. Unless the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences does not intend to award the Nobel Prize for research in the field of blackbody radiation, it will have to award one to itself first before others can get the prize. This is the status of the founder of a certain branch field.

Now Zhang Xingjiu no longer has to attend classes every day like other students. Professor Lippmann recognized his ability and gave him a lot of freedom. Zhang Xingjiu only needs to pass the final exam, which is not difficult for Zhang Xingjiu at all.

Zhang Xingjiu was free to do the rest of his time. Whenever he wanted to do experiments, the Sorbonne University gave him the greatest support. They provided him with money, equipment, and people. Many students who had completed their undergraduate studies wanted to do experiments with him. As long as they could have their names on the paper, even as the third or fourth author, it would be of great benefit to them in obtaining a doctoral degree.

He wanted to write a paper, so Lippmann arranged for people to help him collect information and test data.

If he wants to rest, he just needs to tell him. Even if he wants to go on vacation nearby, the school will not interfere. The school will also arrange for a few students or staff to help him with transportation, accommodation and other trivial matters. He just needs to relax and feel at ease.

Lippmann and others had already realized that Zhang Xingjiu was an undoubted genius who could bring supreme honor to the Sorbonne. Perhaps the school could leverage his talent to become a European center for physics research. With such a temptation before them, which university leader or scholar could resist? What was the point of providing a few conveniences?

Some people even came to find Zhang Xingjiu and persuaded him to obtain French citizenship, saying that as long as Zhang Xingjiu agreed, they would immediately take care of the rest of the matters for him.

Although they were all students of the Sorbonne University, the identities of Chinese students and French students were very different. They even offered the Nobel Prize to tempt Zhang Xingjiu.

Nobel settled in Paris in 1873. Although he was forced to leave due to persecution in 1890 and moved to San Limo, Italy, many French people became friends with Nobel and his family members over the past years.

Now that Nobel has passed away, his influence remains. These people can still use their influence to strive for the Nobel Prize for Zhang Xingjiu. If Zhang Xingjiu is willing to obtain French citizenship, they will help him make it happen.

Zhang Xingjiu believed in what they could do. Becquerel, the Curies, and Lippmann were able to win the award, and perhaps these people also played a certain role. However, he would never become a French citizen. This was a matter of principle and was not negotiable.

At the start of the new semester, Zhang Xingjiu immediately began a new experiment. He divided the personnel assigned to him by Lippmann into two groups. One group continued the blackbody radiation experiment, collecting as much valid data as possible to refine Wien's equations. The other group attempted to build a cathode ray tube according to his plan. German physicist Karl Ferdinand Braun had completed this remarkable invention that year.

You may be unfamiliar with the cathode ray tube. If we change the name to CRT, commonly known as picture tube, everyone will understand that this thing is very useful. It is an important component of television, radar and electron microscope, so it cannot be made too quickly.

Zhang Xingjiu told the team members that the Germans were also conducting research in this area. These French students immediately became excited and wanted to stay in the laboratory 24 hours a day so that they could invent the cathode ray tube the next day.

In this case, when we see those Germans at international academic conferences, their expressions will definitely be very interesting, right?

Zhang Xingjiu was startled by this scene and he quickly tried to comfort them, telling them that the Germans' research progress was still far from enough. Only then did they relax for a moment.

After a few months, Zhang Xingjiu came up with the final plan after learning that Braun was close to the correct answer. The experimental assistants immediately made the electrode grid, anode, deflection coil, heater, cathode, electron beam, focusing coil, and fluorescent screen according to his ideas, and then combined these components together in the correct way. In this way, the first cathode ray tube in human history was born.

This cathode ray tube is perfect. It has only one cold cathode, the tube is not completely vacuum, and it requires a high voltage of 100,000 volts to accelerate the electron beam so that the motion trajectory affected by the deflection can be recognized on the fluorescent screen. In addition, the electromagnetic deflection also has only one direction.

Therefore, there is still a big gap before it can be applied. In fact, this is the case with any new thing at the beginning. Theoretically speaking, this invention is already relatively perfect, and all that can be done in the future is to improve it. The identity of the first inventor is irrefutable.

Sorbonne University held another press conference to announce this great invention, and Zhang Xingjiu's paper was published in Nature, which once again caused a sensation in the global physics community.

It is said that Braun was silent for a long time when he saw this paper, because his ideas were very similar to Zhang Xingjiu's, but he was a little slower, so Zhang Xingjiu got there first. He now experienced what Professor Thomson of the Cavendish Laboratory felt last year.

After the final exams, Zhang Xingjiu approached Lippmann and asked for leave. "Professor, it's been a year since I left Shaoxing to study in Paris. I miss my hometown so much that I want to go back home."

"As you know, this trip is very long. Even if we take the fastest cruise ship, it will take two months for the round trip. So I would like to take a month off and report to school in October."

"Haha, only at this moment did I realize that you are still an eighteen-year-old child. Well, kid, go home with peace of mind. I will arrange for someone to prepare a boat ticket for you!" Lippmann readily approved the leave.

(End of this chapter)