1840 Indian Rebirth

Chapter 182 181 [The age of the sun]

"Sometimes it's really fast." Ma Whistle thought for a while.

"It's unbelievable that you have written a nearly perfect paper in such a short time." Thomson read it carefully and couldn't help sighing again.

"Thank you for putting my name first, and frankly, after reading your paper, it makes me a little mortified..."

After a pause, he hesitated again: "I feel that even without the discussion just now, you can establish a perfect thermodynamic temperature scale by yourself."

Ma Shao: "Professor Thomson, you inspired me, not only just now, but also your research results in the past few years have deeply inspired me, just like Joule, Carnot, and Renford."

"In contrast, writing this thesis is more like hard work. The achievements in the world come from 90.00% sweat and [-]% inspiration, but [-]% inspiration is often more important."

Thomson's expression moved slightly, as if he thought about the words for a while, and then smiled: "90.00% sweat and [-]% inspiration... I like this sentence!"

"Today's work is over. Mr. Horse Whistle, come to my house and sit down. I think we still have a lot to talk about about the thermodynamics of freshmen."

Ma Whistle: "Very happy."

The two left the University of Glasgow and then went to the Thomson's house.

Ma Shao met Thomson's parents, to be precise, his father. Thomson's mother had passed away more than ten years ago.

Old Thomson is an old professor of mathematics with profound knowledge and kind personality.

Obviously, Thomson's ability to grow into a highly anticipated genius is due to his extraordinary talent on the one hand and his father's good teaching on the other.

In the view of Ma Shao, an educator, the latter is more important.

Professional education can even allow gorillas to learn sign language to communicate with humans, not to mention turning ordinary people into geniuses.

Of course, the reverse is also true - stupid education can turn a genius into an ordinary person, or even a gorilla.

For the arrival of the horse whistle, Thomson's father was naturally surprised at first and a trace of disgust under the cover.

However, due to the common language of mathematics and physics, Old Thomson soon had a good conversation with the horse post like his son, leaving behind those second-hand prejudices obtained from public opinion.

Ma Shao had a lot of conversations with the father and son, including serious math and physics issues, and some not-so-serious ones.

"What do you think the age of the sun is?" Thomson posed the whimsical-sounding question at the dinner table.

"Perhaps God only knows," said old Thomson casually, eating a piece of bread.

Thomson added: "After reading the papers of Joule and Whistle, I recently thought about this issue. I think that the energy burned by the sun may be converted from the potential energy of gravity."

Old Thomson: "Why can't it be chemical combustion?"

Thomson blurted out: "It cannot be chemical combustion. If the sun is burning coal, it will burn out in a few thousand years at most."

"The gravitational potential energy on the scale of the sun is indeed much larger than the chemical energy." Ma Shao said.

Thomson's eyes brightened: "Do you also think that the sun's energy comes from potential energy?"

The horse whistle was silent for two seconds.

The energy of the sun comes from nuclear energy, of course, but people knew nothing about nuclear energy at this time.

At this time, the most powerful source of energy that scientists can think of is the gravitational force of the sun, which is really huge, at least much stronger than burning coal-many people really think that the sun burns coal.

But that's still a grossly underestimate compared with nuclear power.

"I think the sun has other ways of getting energy," Ma Shao said.

"In what way?"

Horse whistle shook his head: "I don't know, it's just an intuition. I have estimated that the sun's gravitational potential energy can be converted into heat energy, which can last for tens of millions of years, but I feel that this time is a bit short, so I doubt that there is anything else we don't know about the sun." know how to obtain energy."

"Are tens of millions of years too short?" Old Thomson said with a smile, "Many people think that the sun is only six thousand years old, especially those in the church."

Ma Shao: "I read some articles about geology. Some geologists estimate that the age of the earth may reach hundreds of millions of years. The sun should be older than the earth, at least hundreds of millions of years, or even billions of years."

"Of course, this is more just my wishful thinking." He changed the subject, "Science needs to talk about evidence, and as much evidence as there is, we can talk about as many conclusions as possible."

After a pause, the horse whistle said again: "Therefore, William, I agree with your theory. This is a reasonable explanation-the energy of the sun comes from the gravitational potential energy."

Old Thomson: "Yes, evidence is the most important thing."

Thomson thought for a while: "Mashao, do you still have the calculation for estimating the age of the sun?"

Ma Shao: "It's gone, I just calculated a few random strokes on the waste paper, maybe I made a mistake."

He didn't count at all.

He just had an understanding of this period of scientific history, which is how scientists first estimated the age of the sun.

If he remembers correctly, Kelvin also played an important role in this history.

That now appears to be the case, and Thomson has shown a keen interest in the question.

"I think we should take a hard look at this and speculate on how the sun gets its energy and how old it is most likely to be," Thomson said. "It's an important question."

Ma Shuo nodded: "It is undeniable that this is at least an interesting question."

So for a while, estimating the age of the sun became the main work of him and Thomson.

They have proposed several models successively, and the calculated age of the sun has changed from the first 2000 million years to the last [-] million years.

The reason for such a span is mainly because the horse whistle has repeatedly emphasized that "the sun should be older". After Thomson proposed the model, he revised and supplemented the assumptions many times to continue the life of the sun in the theory.

Even so, after continuing for [-] million years, the two still couldn't continue.

"It can't be any older." Thomson said while holding the manuscript, frowning. "We have fully considered gravity and the energy of meteorites. Five hundred million years is the limit. This should be the maximum age of the sun."

Horse Whistle nodded: "Okay, but I still think the sun should be older..."

"..."

After a while, he said: "Let's publish several models and results."

"Okay." Thomson nodded.

The two compiled the process of assumptions and calculations into a paper, and Horse Whistle put Thomson's name in front of himself again.

Looking at the two names in the author column, Thomson was silent for a while.

Horse Whistle: "What?"

Thomson said slowly: "All along, I didn't really think that humility was a virtue...until I met someone who was truly humble."

(End of this chapter)