Reborn and become a Great Scientist

Chapter 121 69 Doctoral Dissertation Defense

A few days later, Chen Muwu came to the scene of his doctoral dissertation defense in a relaxed manner wearing the robes of Trinity College.

He should be more familiar with this room in the Cavendish laboratory than many people present.

Because this is not anywhere else, it is the meeting room where Chen Muwu used to sit with his typewriter all day from time to time.

But unlike the dark and greasy environment before, as the graduation season approached, Rutherford asked Chadwick to barely clean the conference room in advance.

On the judging table for the defense, sat the old and middle generations of physicists in the Cavendish Laboratory headed by Sr. Thomson and Rutherford.

The rest are also acquaintances, including Rutherford's son-in-law Fowler, Aston who once lent Chen Muwu the Sprunger pump, Wilson who invented the cloud chamber, anyway, everyone sitting in the jury, They are all big names.

In the auditorium on one side, Kapitsa, Ye Gongchao, Dirac and others were all standing there.

Chen Muwu also saw Best, who came from Gonville and Case College next door, and another Englishman he didn't know who was chatting with Best.

In addition to these, there were also a few apostles from the Cambridge Apostolic Society who came to the scene secretly.

Because it was a mysterious society, they had to reveal their identities in front of outsiders, so they just nodded to each other and didn't say a word.

A few minutes before the scheduled defense time, Chadwick, who was working as a host again today, approached Chen Muwu and informed him that he could take the stage.

Chen Muwu, who knew what was in his mind, straightened his collar and walked up to the podium at the front of the meeting room.

Although there are so many celebrities who have become famous or are about to become famous, Chen Muwu's doctoral dissertation defense is completely a defense meeting with "big thunder and little rain".

Unlike De Broglie in history, relying on a doctoral dissertation, stumped the three experts on the jury.

As a result, his teacher Langevin was forced to go to Germany with the paper to find Einstein to make a decision.

Chen Muwu's graduation this time is entirely based on an experiment, and it is an experiment that has been done before, but some experimental materials have been replaced.

Although Chen Muwu performed the Stern-Gerlach experiment on the ground state hydrogen atom, the theory to be verified is very novel.

But an experiment is an experiment, so as long as his experimental results meet expectations, Chen Muwu's paper can easily pass in the Cavendish laboratory.

The experimental results are written there on paper, what else is there to ask?

If it wasn't for the fact that the doctoral dissertation had to go through such a process before it was approved, then the place where they are sitting now should not be the current Cavendish Laboratory, but walk out of the gate and turn left along Liberty School Lane , into the Eagle Bar on Benedict Street!
So no matter whether it was in the jury or the auditorium, everyone did not take this defense meeting seriously, and some people even regarded it as a tea party.

Only one person in the audience was nervous, and this person was surnamed Chen.

After standing on the podium, Chen Muwu, who has been a man for two generations, felt for the first time that a doctorate is so close to him.

Of course, the gold content of this doctorate degree from Cambridge University 100 years ago is much higher than the one he has not yet obtained 100 years later.

Although I said I was not nervous, but Chen Muwu felt that his heartbeat was much faster than before.

Everyone in the jury has already read the paper, so Chen Muwu just briefly stated how he designed the experiment to verify his theory.

Next, it was time for the judges to ask questions.

To be honest, the judges sitting in front of Chen Muwu couldn't think of any questions to ask.

Old Thomson, Chen Muwu's golf friend during last summer vacation, is getting old. He came to the defense meeting this time, basically like a mascot.

On the issue of atomic structure, Old Thomson has always insisted on the raisin pudding model he proposed.

Even old Thomson didn't approve of the atomic solar system model proposed by Rutherford, who was sitting next to him now.

How could he accept Chen Muwu's absurd conclusion that electrons not only revolve around the nucleus like the earth, but also revolve around their own axis?
The same goes for Aston and Wilson.

As the inventors of two commonly used equipment in physics, the mass spectrometer and the cloud chamber, these two researches on the microscopic world only stay at the atomic scale.

However, Chen Muwu's experiment proved a characteristic of electrons in atoms through a macroscopic experimental phenomenon, which is beyond the scope of their research.

Moreover, Chen Muwu's appearance out of thin air was a good thing for one of the two, but not so good for the other.

Chen Muwu successfully tricked the big French patron into buying a high-precision vacuum pump. After he finished the ground-state hydrogen atom experiment, he was reciprocated and sent to Aston, who had lent him the Sprenger pump. .

The degree of vacuum has risen several levels at once, giving Aston a lot of room for improvement in the accuracy of the mass spectrometer.

But for Wilson, it was Chen Muwu, Kapitza and Blackett who carried out the scattering experiment and found recoil electrons in the cloud chamber, not him and Compton in the original space-time.

Without this achievement, I don't know if he can win the Nobel Prize in Physics again?
Rutherford, on the other hand, has been following up with this series of experiments since Stoner's experiment on the outermost electron of the atom.

At the Solvay conference, he listened to Chen Muwu's speech on the paper, and urged Kapiza to help Chen Muwu do this experiment, so he should be in the Cavendish laboratory. The second person with the most clear and familiar experimental theories and phenomena.

Rutherford didn't have any questions, but it seemed a little unreasonable not to ask a question, so he could only pretend to pick a question at random.

In the review, the only Fowler in question.

After the meal at Ye Gongchao's house, Dirac was still curious about what question Chen Muwu would ask him.

He didn't care about the final exam, but on the second day, he asked Chen Muwu for the so-called problem and the corresponding direction to solve it.

After thinking about it for a while, Dirac found that this topic seemed to be a bit difficult for him at present.

So he found a time and raised this question to his teacher Fowler.

Fowler felt that he should not be able to find the answer to this question in a short time.

But today he came to Chen Muwu's defense meeting. Looking at the young man who became more and more confident on the stage, an idea inexplicably came to Fowler's mind, that is, this person on the stage must know that factor 2 is How did it come about.

In fact, he really wanted to talk to Chen Muwu about this issue, but Fowler also felt that it was not appropriate in this situation.

Let's take a closer look after we go back, and see if we can find the answer to this question using what Dirac told me and what Chen Muwu told him about solving the problem.

"Gentlemen," Rutherford's loud voice sounded again in this small conference room, "It's almost time. Does anyone have any questions about Chen's paper? If not, we would like to congratulate you Chen Muwu passed the defense of his dissertation and is about to receive his Ph.D. at Cambridge University!"

The conference room gradually fell silent, and some people even raised their hands, ready to applaud today's protagonist.

"Chen, I have another question!"

From the auditorium on the side, a sentence of English with a strong Russian accent came from Kapitsa who claimed to be "Chen Muwu's best friend in Cambridge".

Seeing the undisguised smile on his face, Chen Muwu already guessed that this pistachio probably wanted to play tricks on himself and take this opportunity to have fun.

"Mr. Kapitsa, please speak."

"Dr. Chen, what I want to ask is, after this defense meeting is over, where are we going to celebrate?"

"Huh—so that's the question?" Chen Muwu also cooperated with Kapitza's performance, pretending to let out a long breath, "I was shocked, I thought you were going to ask me some unfathomable questions. Congratulations It's easy to say, when it's over, everyone will go to the Eagle Bar, and Mr. Chen will pay for all the expenses tonight!"

"Hooraaaaaaaaay!"

The applause that had been brewing in the conference room for a long time finally broke out like thunder.

Chen Muwu walked to the jury and thanked several senior physicists who came to his defense meeting today.

"From now on, I will call you Dr. Chen." Old Thomson held Chen Muwu's hand. "After you graduate with a Ph.D., do you have any plans?"

Intend?

Of course, he continued to stay in the UK to earn his fame.

Chen Muwu has no plans to return to China now.

He did a quick calculation in his mind, and it was May.

Even if you want to go back to China, after you have settled everything in Cambridge, no matter if you go back by train or ship, it will be July or August when you arrive at the home in Guhai.

The autumn of 1924 was truly an eventful one.

Let's stay in the concession in Ghaihai. Lu Yongxiang from the province outside the concession and Qi Xieyuan from Su province, two old warlords belonging to different factions, fought fiercely.

Going to Beijing, the second war broke out between Zhili and Fengli.

He really wanted to see with his own eyes how Feng Huanzhang set up a cannon on Jingshan to bombard his mother's little emperor.

But just for such a thing, it is really unnecessary to go back to China and risk yourself.

But now that he has thought of the Soviet War, Chen Muwu fell into thinking, how can he remind his family members far away in East Asia, so that they can stay away from this disaster of war as much as possible?

"List?"

Seeing the young man in front of him suddenly emptied his mind and fell into a state of sluggishness, without responding to himself, Old Thomson tried to call him again.

Old Thomson didn't know what Chen Muwu was thinking, he thought that Chen Muwu didn't know what to do after graduation, so he said again: "If you haven't found a good place yet, then I can find you a job at Trinity College Teaching position. Of course, it is difficult to directly become an academician of the college. According to tradition, seniority may be required. However, if you want to enter Trinity College as a researcher like Kapitsa, then I can give you this right now letter of appointment."

"Thank you, Sir Thomson, then."

Chen Muwu didn't expect that the old headmaster sent him a big gift just because he was in a daze.

Regarding Chen Muwu's whereabouts after graduation, Rutherford had already talked to him.

Like Kapitza last year, he also intends to keep Chen Muwu in the Cavendish Laboratory as an independent branch leader.

But Chen Muwu, who is about to get his Ph.D., had a rare time to "harden his temper" in front of his teacher.

He said that he was too young to be able to convince the public, so he didn't want to be a person in charge, as long as he could occasionally do experiments in the laboratory.

When Chen Muwu said this, he just wanted to be lazy.

Instead of doing blind experiments like a headless chicken in the laboratory, it is better to choose a leisurely job, so that you can go to work and fish as you like, and write papers by the way.

Now, the old Thomson's words allowed him to receive an extra salary from Trinity College in addition to his work in the Cavendish Laboratory.

Dr. Chen Muwu's wish to stay in school after graduation was finally realized 100 years ago.

(End of this chapter)