Chapter 447 Give me four protons and I will create a sun!
This debate about the scale of the universe has finally come to an end.
Everything about the debate was spread throughout the world at the speed of light.
Immediately, it caused a huge sensation in the scientific community.
Originally, everyone thought that the duel between Shapley and Curtis was exciting enough.
However, Professor Bruce's final appearance perfectly explains what it means to have a better world.
After the general theory of relativity, he once again contributed an extremely important research tool to astronomy.
"God! Professor Bruce is so outrageous."
"He just ended chemistry, and now he's shocking the world in astronomy."
"But he is an out-and-out physicist!"
"The gap between people is really wider than the gap between people and dogs."
"I am a biologist. According to statistics, the average IQ of dogs is around 40, and the average IQ of humans is around 100."
"As for geniuses, their IQ can easily reach over 160."
"As for Professor Bruce, let alone that."
"Although his IQ has not been measured, it is conservatively estimated to be above 200."
"So, the gap between Professor Bruce and us is indeed wider than the gap between us and dogs."
"Stop scolding, stop scolding."
China.
When Gao Lu received the contents of the telegram sent by Yu Qingsong, he was excited beyond words.
"Chinese literature is about to rise!"
Almost immediately, the "Guanxiang Newspaper" founded by the Chinese Literary Society published the full text of the debate.
This newspaper is currently the largest astronomy newspaper in China.
When Chinese elites saw how popular astronomy was in the West, they found it incredible.
And this is the result Gao Lu wants to see.
Next, it was much easier for him to build astronomy.
Soon, Kobayashi Masaru from Sakura Country visited China with an astronomical expedition team.
Gao Lu held a cordial and friendly exchange and discussion with Kobayashi Masaru.
Soon, this world-shaking debate was dubbed the "Astronomy Debate of the Century."
Although the outcome of the debate has not determined how big our universe is.
But everyone knows that all this is just a matter of time.
With the Cepheid variable star ranging method, astronomers will be able to accurately measure the diameter of the Milky Way sooner or later.
Moreover, Professor Bruce has publicly supported the island universe theory.
This makes many people involuntarily believe that our galaxy is not the only one!
At the same time, many astronomers began to engage in intense work.
The first plenary meeting of the International Astronomical Union will be held soon.
It's the Blues Conference of astronomy.
This is a great opportunity for everyone to make a name for themselves.
At the same time, they are still looking forward to something more important.
"When will Professor Bruce's paper be published?"
——
After the debate, Ridgway focused mainly on the management of the Bruce Group.
As a source of funding for the City of Science, its importance is self-evident.
After appointing a new round of personnel arrangements, Li Qiwei decided to rely on Bruce Group to establish an independent scientific laboratory.
Alpha Labs!
It is different from purely academic laboratories such as the Borneo Atomic Laboratory and the Cavendish Laboratory.
Alpha Lab will perfectly combine theory and application.
It's probably the difference between science and technology.
This is modeled after the real historical Bell Labs.
Bell Labs is known as "one of the greatest laboratories of the 20th century."
It was founded in 1925. At the beginning of its establishment, the laboratory was dedicated to research in the fields of mathematics, physics, materials science, telecommunications technology and other fields.
And its focus is on the research and expansion of basic theories.
This makes it significantly different from those application-oriented laboratories.
It was precisely because of the huge investment in basic theory that Bell Labs began its glorious era.
In 1927, Davidson verified the wave nature of electrons here, and together with Thomson Jr., he won the 1937 Nobel Prize in Physics.
In 1933, Jansky discovered that the center of the Milky Way was continuously emitting radio waves, thus establishing radio astronomy.
In 1947, John Bardeen and others invented the transistor, bringing mankind into the information age. For this, the three of them won the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics.
In 1948, Shannon published a paper "Mathematical Principles of Communication", which laid the foundation for modern communication theory.
As for applications, there are solar cells, lasers, communication satellites, etc.
At the same time, it is also the birthplace of the Unix operating system and the C language.
It can be said that any important achievement in Bell Labs will be enough to establish a huge laboratory in future generations.
And when these results are concentrated in one laboratory, you can imagine how awesome it is.
Bell Labs of that era represented the forefront of global technology and was the source of innovative thinking.
Now, Ridgway wants to build it himself.
But he certainly won't make Americans cheap.
Although he would like to set up Alpha Labs directly in Borneo.
But the conditions don’t allow it!
In today's science city, neither hardware nor software is sufficient to support such a high-end laboratory.
Therefore, he can only settle for the next best thing and lay a solid foundation in the United States first.
Wait until the time is right, and then transfer them all to the City of Science.
After all, a super-high-end laboratory requires more than just building a factory.
The most important thing is talent and system.
Institutional aspect.
Li Qiwei established a very relaxed scientific research environment for Alpha Laboratory.
Each researcher is free to choose a topic based on his or her own interests.
"Tolerate failure and encourage innovation" is the policy of the laboratory.
All researchers have no KPI assessment, no progress check, and no task report.
And the superior in the laboratory must be an authoritative figure in the field.
But there is no affiliation between superiors and subordinates, and everyone can exchange their ideas equally.
This will become a paradise for all scientific researchers and a fertile ground for innovation.
Of course, Afar Labs will only recruit the best talents.
Ridgway is confident that under his leadership, Alpha Labs will surpass Bell Labs and become the number one laboratory in the world.
It will lead the development of global technology!
And all of this is inseparable from burning money.
In real history, when Bell Labs was first established, it received an investment of US$12 million from its parent company, AT&T.
In 1925, this amount of money was simply astronomical for a laboratory.
No wonder Bell Labs is so awesome, because it was built entirely with money.
Li Qiwei obviously did not have such deep pockets. He could only support hundreds of thousands of dollars to start the laboratory.
Tesla is probably the happiest person about the establishment of Alpha Labs.
He immediately recommended himself to Li Qiwei and wanted to be the president of the laboratory.
Ridgway agreed to his request.
Tesla is very old and will retire in a few years at most. Now it is gradually transitioning to the management of the laboratory, which can be considered a relatively good arrangement.
And the deeper reason is that Li Qiwei intends to train Wu Youxun to be the head of Alpha Laboratory.
Now is the perfect time for him to learn more about the industry experience under Tesla.
This laboratory will only be safe if it is in the hands of the Chinese people from now on.
To this end, Li Qiwei had a long talk with Wu Youxun for more than an hour.
"You know, we in China need science now, but we also need technology."
"You should understand what I mean."
"I put you in charge of Alpha Laboratory out of selfish motives."
"But I think you are the best candidate."
"If you think this will delay your professional research, you can refuse me, it doesn't matter."
After Wu Youxun heard this, he immediately stood up with a solemn expression and said decisively:
"Principal, don't worry."
"Youxun has long been prepared to devote his life to the country's scientific cause."
"I don't have a major. The country's needs are my major."
"I will always follow in your footsteps."
Li Qiwei stood up, patted the other party's shoulder, and said with emotion and relief:
"Good boy."
At this point, Li Qiwei's mission on his trip to the United States has almost been completed.
Now, there's just one last thing left.
Stellar Energy Essay!
In the office of the chairman of Bruce Group.
Li Qiwei is adding the final part of the paper.
As he wrote, he felt deeply that science is not easy.
In real history, humankind's understanding of stars has gone through a long process.
From the worship of the sun god by the ancients to the realization that the sun is just an ordinary star.
Humanity discovered the physical nature of stars.
From Copernicus proposing the heliocentric theory to Newton creating the law of universal gravitation.
Human beings have mastered the laws of motion of stars.
From Fraunhofer's discovery of dark lines in stellar spectra to Kirchhoff's discovery of the flame reaction.
Humans have deciphered the elements that make up stars. (Chapter 213)
Although scientists have made remarkable achievements in the field of stellar research.
But the most important issue about stars: the internal structure of stars and their evolution models, progress has always been slow.
Because the core of this problem is to first know where the star's energy comes from!
Only by understanding the energy source of a star can we calculate the internal structure of the star and deduce the evolution process of the star.
This is a closely related proposition.
In real history, it was only after entering the 20th century that there were successive breakthroughs in the theory of relativity, quantum theory, and atomic structure.
This question finally received an answer.
The energy of stars comes from nuclear fusion!
Although there is only one sentence to say, the process in between is extremely complicated.
Ridgway was not prepared to include the entire derivation in one paper.
That's unrealistic.
Because the nuclear fusion process inside stars has also been studied for a long time.
Many astronomers or physicists have made important contributions.
The current scientific development progress is not enough to support the derivation of evidence.
Therefore, what Li Qiwei had to do was to propose the concept of nuclear fusion.
Take the most crucial step and leave the rest of the trivial work to others.
And this most critical step is actually the first step.
That is [hydrogen fusion into helium].
This process is not only the beginning of nuclear fusion, but also releases huge energy, contributing about 50% of the star's energy.
From the end result, the physical process of fusion of hydrogen into helium is very simple.
That is 4 hydrogen nuclei fused into one helium nucleus (helium-4 nucleus).
The hydrogen nucleus is a proton, and the helium-4 nucleus is a helium nucleus composed of two protons and two neutrons.
The mass of a helium-4 nucleus is less than the mass of four hydrogen nuclei. (It stands to reason that it should be bigger, but the extra mass is converted into energy.)
According to the mass-energy equation, the lost mass will be released in the form of energy.
This is how nuclear fusion releases energy.
But here comes the problem.
How did four protons become two protons and two neutrons?
Here, we need to briefly introduce the three isotopes of hydrogen.
They are: protium (P), deuterium (D), and tritium (T).
Among them, protium is what we often call the hydrogen atom. The nucleus has only one proton and is the most abundant in nature.
There are 1 proton and 1 neutron in the nucleus of deuterium, also known as [heavy hydrogen].
There are 1 proton and 2 neutrons in the nucleus of tritium, also known as [superheavy hydrogen].
First, when two P nuclei meet, a two-proton combination is formed.
But this combination is very unstable, and one of the protons will soon undergo beta decay and transform into a neutron.
In this way, two P nuclei will fuse into one D nucleus, and this step will release energy.
Then, a P nucleus is added to the D nucleus, and the new core formed will contain two protons and one neutron.
This is the isotope of helium, the nucleus of helium-3, and this step also releases energy.
Some people may be curious whether two D nuclei will fuse together in this step.
It's possible!
But this possibility is very, very, very low.
Therefore, it can be assumed that all D nuclei will fuse with the first P nucleus to form helium-3.
Finally, comes the most critical step: how helium-3 forms helium-4.
There are four different methods for this step.
The first method is the most common, and about 85% of the helium-4 in stars is produced through this method.
That is, two helium-3 nuclei fuse together, and then spit out two D nuclei, forming a helium-4 nucleus.
At this point, the process of fusion of hydrogen into helium is over.
After the nuclear reaction equation is finally simplified, 4 hydrogen nuclei form a helium nucleus.
The summary is shown in the figure.
As you can see, the process of fusion of hydrogen into helium is very complicated.
In real history, Eddington actually only gave one sentence in his paper.
That is: hydrogen nuclear fusion will fuse four hydrogen nuclei into one helium nucleus and release a large amount of energy.
(Because there was no concept of neutrons at that time, the helium nucleus was considered to have four protons.)
As for the intermediate process, Eddington did not give a detailed explanation.
And now, because Li Qiwei has proposed the concept of neutrons in advance.
Moreover, the process of fusion also occurred in Rutherford's experiment.
Therefore, Li Qiwei can make a "bold guess".
He wants to directly give the detailed process of hydrogen nuclear fusion in his paper!
And he will also give the four ways from helium-3 to helium-4.
So you can imagine how shocking this paper will be to the astronomy and physics circles.
More than two thousand years ago, Archimedes confidently shouted: "Give me a fulcrum and I can move the entire earth."
And now, Li Qiwei made a domineering declaration:
"Give me four protons and I will create a sun!"
(End of chapter)