Chapter 198 The Tragedy of Physicists, Fragile Geniuses
Beginning in May 1906, Li Qiwei received several letters one after another, which made him feel very disappointed.
These letters were sent by his mentor Planck.
Since his return to China, he has often communicated with Planck through letters.
He told Planck about various things he was doing at home, and Planck told him about the current development of the European physics community.
Planck hoped that Li Qiwei at home would not be hindered by a lack of information.
In this era, although newspapers and telegraphs can spread information around the world, they are all public knowledge.
The details of cutting-edge research in physics cannot be covered by newspapers.
Some seemingly unrelated things actually play a role in the development of physics.
On May 18, Planck's letter stated that Mr. Curie, the 1903 Nobel Prize winner in Physics, was unfortunately killed in a carriage accident a month ago at the age of 47.
Li Qiwei was filled with emotion. Mr. Curie still did not deviate from his original trajectory, but he was powerless.
I think this is the inertia of history.
Li Qiwei can't tell him in advance to ask the other party to pay attention to safety, otherwise it will cause unnecessary trouble.
Even the eldest brother Li Bokai can find clues about himself. If he is too "prophetic", he may be immediately pulled into slices for study.
No matter how great Li Qiwei’s achievements in physics are, they can all be explained by genius.
But this kind of prediction of the future is terrifying.
This world is not a magical world of fighting spirit, but the same scientific world as the previous life.
Those big bosses in power are not ignorant. They know more than Li Qiwei imagined.
So, Li Qiwei has always been careful to hide himself, not daring to be confident.
But Li Qiwei thought about Xu Qitai's father Xu Yin. Why could the other party change the fate of being bombed?
He was in the UK and had never even met Xu Yin, so he could not exert any influence.
The only variable may be Xu Qitai.
Li Qiwei guessed that the more intersections others may have with him, the more he can influence the other person's destiny.
As one of his core team members, Xu Qitai's destiny has already gone another way, which naturally affected his father, which was a blessing in disguise.
Of course, if it is the natural law of birth, old age, illness and death, Li Qiwei cannot interfere.
Planck's second letter stated that Lord Kelvin suddenly caught a bad cold and his health deteriorated rapidly.
I am currently bedridden.
Li Qiwei sighed deeply, if nothing happens, Lord Kelvin will die in December next year.
As Li Qiwei came to this world, he was the first big person he met.
Lord Kelvin and Li Qiwei staged a clichéd, but full of bondage, pretentious slap-in-the-face plot.
Thinking about it now, Li Qiwei still finds it funny.
Without the other party’s Two Dark Clouds speech, one’s own quantum theory would lose the best research background.
My own rise will not be so smooth.
Besides, Lord Kelvin also supported himself to become a British knight.
It can be said that his apology and compensation to Li Qiwei far exceeded the insult of that meeting.
Moreover, it was that bet that made Li Qiwei understand that these top physicists are also human beings, and they also have a fragile side.
For example, Lord Kelvin would also be biased and believed that in terms of science, Asia was backward and Europe was advanced.
He is not perfect like a saint, loving the whole world.
He only loves people he admires. When Röntgen sent the paper on the discovery of X-rays to Lord Kelvin, he did not give Röntgen any reply and did not care about the other party at all.
It is these shortcomings that make Lord Kelvin more three-dimensional. In Li Qiwei's eyes, the other party is not an NPC, but a living person with his own joys and sorrows.
Another example is Thomson's advice to marry late, Einstein's love affair with another person, etc.
As long as they are not anti-human, anti-world, evil-hearted physicists, Li Qiwei can accept them.
After all, he has two wives himself, so he really has no shame in looking down on others.
However, some top physicists may not be as good as ordinary people in some aspects.
On July 20, Planck's third letter brought another sad news.
The leader of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, Boltzmann, hanged himself while on vacation in Italy at the age of 62.
Planck mentioned that Boltzmann also attempted suicide in 1900, but failed.
Li Qiwei knew that Boltzmann was actually ill. According to his symptoms in his later years, he may be suffering from a mental illness.
This disease was called depressive manic depression in later generations.
Outsiders may not understand that Boltzmann, as a physics guru, has achieved great success, so there is nothing to be sad about.
In fact, it was precisely because he cared so much about physics that he got this disease.
Because Boltzmann once argued with Ostwald, Mach and others more than ten years ago about the nature of atoms.
Boltzmann believed that atoms exist, but the other two believed that atoms do not exist. Everything is energy.
Osterwalder was the 1909 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry and the founder of physical chemistry. people.
Mach was not only a physicist, but also a psychologist and philosopher.
Boltzmann would definitely not win if he argued with them, but instead he suffered from depression.
Although atomic theory has been proven to be correct, so what, my health will never come back.
Physicists are also human beings, and the academic debates among physicists are similar to the quarrels among ordinary people.
People who are weak in quarrels will often be very upset afterwards, hating why they didn’t say this or do that at the time, otherwise they would have definitely won the quarrel.
Then I kept reviewing it in my mind, repeatedly internal friction, and finally got sick. It was a typical quarrel and two losses.
The most incredible thing is that Boltzmann had a student named Ehrenfest, who was also an outstanding physicist and inherited the statistical mechanics research of his teacher Boltzmann.
However, he also shot himself in 1933.
The reason for the post-mortem analysis is also related to depression. As for what caused his depression, it is unknown.
After reading Planck's three letters, Li Qiwei almost became depressed.
No field is as glamorous as it appears on the outside.
There is sordid insider trading behind politics.
Behind business there is bloody capital accumulation.
Behind art is the sweat of persistence for decades.
There are also bitter and unknown stories behind physics.
Li Qiwei himself didn't care, he already had a big enough goal in mind.
Until the goal is achieved, he should not be confused or depressed.
However, he was a little worried about He Yujie and the others.
In the past few years, the three of them have been busy, either studying or teaching, and they have very little time.
If this continues, don’t suffer from depression again.
So, in order to ease the mood of the three of them, he suddenly thought of a good idea.
(End of this chapter)