The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 93: Principles of Natural Science

Zhu Jianxuan sat in his cabin, closed his eyes, relaxed his mind, and adjusted his mentality and habits in dealing with people.

As a vassal king, after leaving the capital, he no longer needs to be as cautious as before.

In this world, apart from the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty and the Crown Prince, no one's status is higher than his.

Even Hongli and Li Changshou, the two nominal emperors, were vassal states of the Ming Dynasty and were naturally inferior to himself.

There were indeed elders among the princes of the Ming Dynasty, and Zhu Bohai, the emperor's great uncle, was also accompanying them.

I will treat them with the etiquette I would show to my elders, but they will never put on airs in front of me.

Otherwise, if I write a letter to the emperor to complain, they will be upset for a long time.

At noon, Zhu Jianxuan had lunch in his own restaurant.

In the afternoon, he summoned all his disciples to the conference room on the ship, and asked Song Wendao and the 32 accompanying craftsmen to come along.

Let the officers of the guard corps lead the soldiers to guard the door, and Zhu Jianxuan is about to start his first teaching.

Before the lecture officially began, Zhu Jianxuan stood in front of everyone and warned and reminded them very seriously:
"From the moment you left Yingtian Prefecture, you all have become subjects of the Wu Kingdom.

“I have the right to dispose of it on my own and do not need the permission of my father.

“Now everyone must remember that all the knowledge I impart to you must not be passed on to others without my permission, unless it has been publicly disseminated outside.

"Otherwise both parties would be convicted and forced to work as slaves.

“At the same time, without the permission of His Majesty the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty and myself, you must not teach it to any barbarians or foreigners.

“If anyone violates the rules, they will be directly convicted and brought to justice. Depending on the circumstances, they may be sentenced to death, and their entire clan may be exterminated.

"Craftsmen, if you don't want to take risks, you can withdraw now."

All the craftsmen and disciples were shocked.

They all knew that the knowledge imparted by Zhu Jianxuan was definitely limited, and most masters would also make some requirements of their apprentices.

But I didn’t expect Zhu Jianxuan’s request to be so terrifying, directly to the level of exterminating the three tribes.

Most of the craftsmen were so frightened that they almost left on the spot.

But after a little thought, I found that it was unlikely that I would offend.

It is normal not to pass it on to others without Zhu Jianxuan's permission, and it is even more impossible for me to teach it to foreign barbarians.

This extremely serious restriction and deterrence, in turn, proves that the knowledge Zhu Jianxuan wants to impart is very important.

So the scene brewed for a few seconds, and in the end no one left.

Zhu Jianxuan had already realized this, and was just giving them a heads up in advance so that he wouldn't punish them without teaching them in the future:

"Since everyone can accept it, let's start teaching now..."

Zhu Jianxuan took out the textbook he had been writing for several years, a booklet called "Principles of Natural Sciences."

The content includes basic physics, chemistry and biology knowledge systems.

Zhu Jianxuan selected a young craftsman who was a member of the team originally responsible for developing vulcanized rubber.

Ask him to look at the contents of his booklet and write a designated paragraph on the blackboard in the conference room with chalk.

Ask all the craftsmen and disciples on the scene to take out paper and pen and copy a copy of the contents on the blackboard.

The first paragraph of this content dealt a heavy blow to all the craftsmen present.

“The law of conservation of total quantity: in an absolutely closed environment, the total quantity of all concepts such as the total amount of matter, mass, heat, energy, momentum, etc., will neither disappear nor increase, but will only be transformed from one form to another and transferred from one place to another.”

The craftsman in charge of copying paused several times and looked at Zhu Jianxuan several times trying to ask something, but in the end he did not speak.

According to the original agreement, they were all only outer disciples and could only listen in on the class but were not allowed to interrupt or ask questions.

However, the disciples below could not hold on. After copying this paragraph, several students raised their hands.

The craftsmen immediately looked at the children and Zhu Jianxuan, expecting the children to ask the questions they wanted to ask.

They are all very mature craftsmen and have basic scientific literacy, so they will instinctively question this statement.

Mainly, why is this "conception" directly called a law?
The law should be a universal truth, a credible natural law that has been repeatedly verified. Now, can such an empty sentence also be considered a law?

The key is the amount of matter, how do we determine it? How do we measure the amount of energy?

Zhu Jianxuan pointed at a student named Li Rui.

Li Rui immediately stood up and said:

"Master, does this law mean that if something appears to be gone, it has actually just become something we cannot see?"

Zhu Jianxuan smiled and nodded to show encouragement:
"Very clever, that's what I mean. A more accurate way to put it is: it's transformed into matter that we can't observe for the time being. The increase in matter also introduces matter that we can't observe for the time being.

“For example, air is something we cannot see or touch, but it is a substance that actually exists. Air is to us like water is to fish, an omnipresent substance.

"The law of conservation is the foundation of our future research. When doing any experimental plan or analysis, we must make calculations based on the law of conservation."

Having said this, Zhu Jianxuan turned to the craftsman in charge of copying and took the book from his hand.

I turned to the part about the composition of air and asked him to continue writing on the blackboard.

The craftsmen led by Song Wendao, as well as the craftsmen in charge of copying, now felt a little uncomfortable.

Why don’t these kids think carefully about this so-called law itself?
How can we ensure that this law is correct? How can we specifically verify such a large and general law?

How can we regard it as the truth and think about it divergently now?

In fact, this is also one of the important reasons why Zhu Jianxuan wants to teach a group of children rather than a group of craftsmen.

These craftsmen have scientific literacy, but because of their scientific literacy, they pursue the verifiability of knowledge. When faced with new knowledge, they instinctively want to go through the "falsification" process.

All new ideas must first be proven to be correct before any inferences can be made based on them.

If we are working on truly cutting-edge research, this kind of scientific literacy is very important, and it is the foundation for scientific research to remain correct.

However, what may be cutting-edge theoretical knowledge to them is basic common sense to Zhu Jianxuan.

Zhu Jianxuan didn't want to spend a lot of energy to verify the basic common sense that had been verified by countless people in his previous lives.

Zhu Jianxuan wanted to impart knowledge to his apprentices as quickly as possible, and then let his apprentices use this basic knowledge to do further research.

It is equivalent to bringing the students down to the level of high school students in their previous lives.

As the apprentices continue their research, they will naturally be able to verify the accuracy of this knowledge.

There is no need to ask them to go through accurate and rigorous analysis, argumentation and verification processes when imparting knowledge.

Because the amount of knowledge is just too much.

If all the modern knowledge they have mastered were taught according to this process, they would not learn much useful knowledge in one or two years.

The children who are still in school now are just like the primary and secondary school students in my previous life.

They will subconsciously accept the premises put forward by the teacher and instinctively think that it is the recognized truth.

Then start to think divergently based on this condition.

They don't realize that many of the things Zhu Jianxuan talked about are at the forefront of completely unknown areas in the current natural science circle.

And this is exactly the result Zhu Jianxuan wanted.

What the craftsman on the stage continued to copy was directly the main component of the air.

Zhu Jianxuan did not write in too much detail, but directly identified the three major items: nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide.

It also explains that there are other rare gases, but they are not listed directly, requiring students to find and verify them themselves in the future.

Then we will directly use the composition of air as basic knowledge and explain the redox reaction using modern chemical nomenclature.

It is more comprehensive and clear than the general theory of combustion written by Lavoisier a few years ago.

At the same time, the basic physical concepts of molecules, atoms and electrons are explained, and the three states of matter: solid, liquid and gas, and the phenomenon of thermal expansion and contraction are introduced.

Then he went back to talk about acids, bases and displacement reactions, and then turned to the nature of gunpowder combustion and explosion.

Zhu Jianxuan combines the knowledge of physics and chemistry and explains them quickly, which may seem confusing to ordinary students.

But the thirty-two children present were selected from millions of people in the richest areas of the Ming Dynasty. Even if they were not the smartest in the world, they were at the top level.

This kind of systematic and interrelated explanations actually allow them to absorb the knowledge faster.

Most of the students listened with great interest and felt that this knowledge explained various phenomena in reality and was very interesting.

But the craftsmen all felt uncomfortable.

They felt that every word of Zhu Jianxuan should be verified by an experiment, and even worth several years of in-depth research.

However, Zhu Jianxuan took it for granted as the truth and directly instilled it into these smartest children, and used it to analyze various natural phenomena.

Zhu Jianxuan asked the craftsmen to copy and write, while he explained it intermittently for more than three hours.

Every hour, Zhu Jianxuan would let his disciples rest for twenty minutes, and he would sit in the armchair on the side of the conference room and close his eyes to rest.

During these three hours, Zhu Jianxuan covered most of the basic knowledge of physics and chemistry at the junior high school level, except for optics, electricity and acoustics.

Classical mechanics was already quite mature thanks to the contributions of Sir Isaac Newton.

Therefore, Zhu Jianxuan basically did not explain mechanics, but just let the students learn this general knowledge on their own.

In reality, most of the physics and chemistry courses in junior high school are common sense and basic in nature, and there are not many truly in-depth studies.

Overall, the goal is to let students understand what is going on and become familiar with the concepts and logic.

If we give up various demonstrations and skip various guided thinking processes, the pure amount of knowledge will be very small, and the introduction will naturally be quick.

In the evening, Zhu Jianxuan finished teaching for the afternoon and stood up to say to all the students and craftsmen:

“Okay, that’s all for the basic introduction. There won’t be any more lectures for the next three to five days.

“Each craftsman on site is paired with a disciple to design scientific experiments to verify today’s basic knowledge.

“During this process, please be responsible and teach the scientific experimental methods I have compiled to the disciples you are responsible for.

"After everyone has digested and understood this knowledge, we will move on to the next stage of teaching new knowledge."

The disciples and craftsmen immediately agreed together:

"Follow the master's teachings carefully."

The craftsmen are equivalent to experienced outer disciples, and now they tacitly regard Zhu Jianxuan as their teacher.

Although Zhu Jianxuan is young, his knowledge is recognized to be profound, and the craftsmen have no psychological barriers to calling him teacher.

The craftsmen had been holding back for the entire afternoon, and when they heard Zhu Jianxuan ask them to take their disciples to do experiments, they finally breathed a sigh of relief.

I didn't force them to remember and accept it regardless of the consequences, and they finally felt less sad.

It is best to teach physics and chemistry with experiments, and Zhu Jianxuan naturally had various experimental equipment on board.

Many usable machines from the original Wu Wang Laboratory were also moved directly onto the ship.

(End of this chapter)