Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1568 Spring of Science ([-])

"The new year has arrived, and we should produce some results here..." On January 1670, 1, in a certain research institute by Xuefeng Lake, the Pan family father and son chatted while eating breakfast.

Breakfast is soba noodles with beef sauce, which are all local and very cheap.The population of Xuefeng County has gradually increased in recent years, especially on the shore of Xuefeng Lake. Because of the popularization of 7.5 horsepower steam engines, agricultural irrigation conditions have been greatly improved, so the local agricultural output is higher than before. A lot has improved - only a few grains of rye, buckwheat, barley, oats, etc. are available, but they are quite good, what more can you ask for in this barren place?

Xuefeng County now has a population of about 8000 people, most of whom are concentrated in Xuefeng Town, and the personnel and technology of the Second Heavy Machinery Factory and the Electrical Institute of the Engineering Technology Research Institute account for a considerable part, and most of the rest They are craftsmen and their family members who support small factories and small workshops, and there are also some people who are engaged in railway, maintenance, and transportation.In short, it is basically the rhythm of men working in factories, workshops or railways, and women and old people farming. Therefore, this town also has strong technological characteristics, especially because there are still a large number of research projects that can be called cutting-edge technologies. case.

The Electricity Institute of the Academy of Engineering presided over by Pan Yan, Pan Yin and his son has not been established for a long time. Before that, some skilled craftsmen in the institute were used to barely make some electrical measuring instruments, and then measured some voltages generated from hand-operated generators. [-]. Current—the people on the East Coast define the unit of current as amps and the unit of voltage as volts, but there is no clear regulation on the specific size, and due to limitations in technology, materials and precision, each measuring instrument measures the same current Or the scale change of the voltage is also different, which is also intoxicating.

Therefore, under such conditions, it is impossible to do more in-depth theoretical research, because you can't even do the most basic standard measurement, what else can you talk about?At present, we can only verify some superficial laws of electricity and common sense, cultivate some students and seeds, and let them have a perceptual understanding of the characteristics of electricity.

However, in-depth theoretical research and teaching cannot be done, so the Pan family and his son simply found another way and decided to make electrical application products. At least the meter with the same quality and performance) is ready for future teaching and theoretical research.

At present, there are several products they have launched. One is the second-generation lead-acid battery. Compared with the previous products, the performance has been greatly improved, such as the extension of service life and so on.At present, the main customers of this battery are railway companies, their telegraph offices and various relay points (due to various factors, a relay point must be set up every short distance on the east coast telegraph line, and the cost is quite low. Low) requires a large amount of lead-acid batteries, which is an extremely important annual income for the Institute of Electrical Engineering of the Academy of Engineering; secondly, on the basis of the original hand-cranked generator for teaching, they invented a power generator with a higher output voltage Some high-end generators are of course also hand-cranked.

Since this new type of hand-operated generator is still a test product, its performance is very unstable, and there are many defects, so the Pan family and his son didn't even specify a model for it.The difference between this generator and the original teaching is that its coil is driven to rotate in a plane parallel to the side of the magnet, and its output voltage has exceeded a single lead-acid battery, which undoubtedly won the favor of many people. Favored - mainly some labs.

The people in charge of the laboratory often need to use the electricity generated by the generator to electrolyze some chemicals to see what wonderful reactions will happen. Although this behavior seems a bit blind and has no prospect of commercial promotion, it is very important for the accumulation of technology It is still more important.Oh, by the way, it is worth mentioning that this new hand generator also has a simple commutator, the purpose of which is to convert the oscillating output of the generator coil into a unidirectional current (direct current).

However, this kind of hand-operated generator equipped with a commutator currently has a fatal flaw, that is, although the current it generates has been processed and changed from alternating current to direct current (this step is extremely critical), its current is undoubtedly It is still a pulsating current, that is, the voltage changes periodically with time. It is commonly known as the voltage increases for a while and decreases for a while (fortunately, the positive and negative directions of the voltage do not change), which makes people speechless.

What's more, this pulsating current will cause serious heating conditions, and if you try to transform it into a large generator, it will cause serious problems.Therefore, the existence of these defects has already determined that this hand-operated generator can only become a "toy" existence, and it will be used for research in major laboratories. The development of electricity on the east coast has been encountered great difficulties.

In addition, there is another rather funny thing, perhaps out of superstition, perhaps out of worship of new things, some people think that electric current may be beneficial to the human body, especially the Ministry of Health uses lead-acid batteries and several large After Shui Tong made a simple electrocardiogram device, many people even tried to buy lead-acid batteries (currently a controlled product) or small hand-operated generators in order to give themselves "electrotherapy".

The Pan family and his son are also very interested in this situation. They have always been open-minded about money. They even specially designed a small generator. The rotation rate of the handle is realized.Of course, it can also be controlled by a magnetic shunt. The principle is that when the magnetic shunt moves past the magnetic poles, it changes the strength of the external magnetic field, thereby changing the output of the generator.

However, the "irresponsible" behavior of Pan's father and son was quickly stopped by the dean of the Engineering Institute, because they felt that this kind of electric shock treatment was absurd, and the Institute of Electricity should not encourage this kind of unhealthy trend , So they killed the "rich plan" of the father and son - of course, even if the higher authorities do not intervene, it is estimated that they will not be able to sell many such hand-cranked generators, because this new thing is completely It is made by hand, which is extremely troublesome, but there are still few talents who understand these things.In addition, the raw materials are not so abundant, so the East Coast of the Institute of Electrical Engineering can only continue to be tragic step by step, and still can only continue to use the special funds of the Science Spring project team to do some basic research and personnel training. It is really far away to count on commercialization.

"There are a lot of achievements now, and we also have some technical reserves and patents on hand. The company opened by my second brother in Xingnan Port has also registered some patents for electrolytes." Pan Yin finished eating the noodles in the bowl, pushed it aside, He frowned and said: "But it seems that there is no one that can be commercialized on a large scale. This is so frustrating. Father, we have been nested in this place where the birds don't shit for so many years, and we have worked hard for the country. How much youth has been spent on cultivating talents, how much contribution has been made, but now seeing that this electrical science still cannot develop, it is chilling to think about it..."

"What do you know!" Pan Yan put the chopsticks heavily on the table, and said in a slightly reprimanded tone: "Nowadays, various domestic industries are booming, and steam engines are constantly introducing new ones, which have been applied to various fields, and have driven the development of materials and mechanical processing. With the development of a series of industries, there are countless manufacturers and workshops attached to this industrial chain. It can be said that the entire industry has been formed, and the country has invested a lot of energy and money. This scale and intensity Is it possible that you can get rid of your investment by saying that you can do it all over again? Isn’t that a joke!”

Hearing what my father said, Pan Yin immediately felt a little depressed. It's not that he doesn't understand these principles, but he just feels depressed.After all, although he is convinced that the development prospects of incomparable electricity and the derived electric motor (currently only a concept, far from being put into action) are far beyond the steam engine, but in the final analysis, this new thing requires a large amount of capital investment and powerful marketing, but how is this possible on the East Coast today?

The current East Coast Republic of China is a highly centralized police state. The country controls all aspects of the country very strictly, and even maintains a huge bureaucratic system.And it is precisely this kind of strong regulation that prevents the electrical research that the Pan family and his son invested a lot of effort (although the results are currently limited due to conditions) cannot quickly gain the favor of capital and complete commercialization—even if there is no regulation at present. The results also failed to attract any serious investment—the country has invested so much manpower, material resources, energy and time costs in the power of steam engines, how could it be possible to give up at will because of the development of electric power?That's not what brain damage is!

What's more, the current steam engine technology on the east coast is enough to completely suppress the Old Continent. After all, the steam engine technology of the United Provinces, France, and England is just in its infancy—even England, the strongest among them, is currently only using the steam engine It is applied to mine pumping and wharf hoisting of goods, and the promotion speed is slow due to unreliable quality. People on the east bank are constantly digging steam engine technology and constantly bringing forth new ones. In fact, the technical advantage in this area is bigger and bigger.

Now that we are already in the absolute leading position in technology, it is unlikely that any leader will immediately order the complete replacement of steam engines with electricity. Thankless behavior.Moreover, the more frightening thing is that when electricity spreads to Europe, they may become interested in it and start researching it. Once they discover the mystery, it is not ruled out that Europeans may directly use electricity as the driving force. Skipped the link of steam power, then the people on the east coast would be stupid, wouldn't they be shooting themselves in the foot!

Therefore, based on emotion and reason, there is no reason for people on the east coast to abandon steam power and switch to electric power.Moreover, the situation that is closer to the facts is that the East Coast government may continue to block the research results of the Institute of Electrical Engineering of the Academy of Engineering, so that it will not be understood by the outside world, especially foreigners, so as not to cause major losses to national interests; at the same time, Of course, they will also further allocate funds to the people in the Electrical Engineering Institute of the Academy of Engineering headed by the Pan family and his son, so that they can continue to carry out talent training, project research and development, and do a good job of accumulating technology, so that once the central government decides to develop electric power in the future, they can immediately get money. A considerable reserve of technology and talent reserves, to spread the stall as quickly as possible.

Pan Yan's thoughts on the executive committee are absolutely clear, and this may have a lot to do with his identity as a time traveler.Of course, he also understands that it is enough to prepare various technical reserves, and then squeeze out a little bit to maintain a leading edge over the Old Continent at any time. It is absolutely stupid to release all the good things at once.However, as the saying goes, the ass decides the head. Now that he is the director of the Institute of Electricity and has embarked on this "evil path", then at the moment when electric power technology cannot be commercialized, he has to defend himself and his small department. Interest considerations.For example, give priority to commercializing some of the achievements, and make some money for yourself first, otherwise, once you kick off and leave, how can you, a silly son who doesn't seem to be able to make much money, gain a foothold?

"The only thing that can be put on the table now is the benefits of various electrolysis methods and their commercial application. We have worked hard for the country, trained so many talents, and done so much research. The Executive Committee also tacitly agreed that we can They have some patented technologies of electrolysis. I remember that the second child, under the name of the mechanical processing workshop opened in Xingnan Port, has the patent of electrolysis of saturated salt water, right? The members of the executive committee finally have a little conscience and allow us to enjoy it exclusively This patented technology is three years (limited to commercialization, and the laboratory can still be used for free), and it will be nationalized after three years, which gives us a lot of opportunities." Pan Yan said with narrowed eyes: "I remember that there are only Some laboratories have electrolyzed supersaturated salt water, but due to the lack of patents, there is no sign of large-scale commercialization, so this is our opportunity. The demand for chlorine gas in the North Chemical Plant is actually quite large. , They produce chlorine gas through the heating reaction of hydrochloric acid and manganese dioxide. How can this efficiency be faster than that of electrolytic salt water? Now bleaching powder and bleaching powder are also a big market, and bleaching cotton cloth with chlorine gas is even more emerging. industry, so the patent we have is quite useful and can be exchanged for a lot of things, it’s not in vain that we’ve been in this wild place for so many years..."

(End of this chapter)