Chapter 17

During the first-level task phase of the summer vacation, the task of the "Comprehension" branch was "reading professional books". At that time, he went through all the textbooks, including "Physics Experiment III". Because it was an experimental course, the system also provided an experimental space that could be actually operated so that he could complete all the experimental operations in the textbook.

In the system's experimental space, he has no restrictions on the conditions he can use to conduct experiments.

Initially, the system provided him with a laboratory that even included a new proton synchrotron with a circumference of 7 kilometers, a synchrotron accelerator with a 600 megaelectron volt, and a large electron-positron collider...

He was free to use all sorts of materials, whether or not they were actually needed; Ji Zhixing even saw endogenous fullerenes...

Yes! That's right! It's the kind that costs 800 million RMB per gram!!

After seeing the inventory, he was completely stunned. So much so that when he saw the mountains of relays, calorimeters, rheostats, Torricelli apparatus, and other commonly used experimental instruments for undergraduate physics students, he felt absolutely no excitement.

Honestly, this kind of environment and equipment is more than qualified for a Nobel Prize laureate in physics. Ji Zhixing thinks that the equipment and environment of the world's eight major physics laboratories, such as Cavendish Laboratory and CERN, are probably at this level.

At that time, Ji Zhixing said that it was too extravagant to give such conditions to a second-year undergraduate student to practice experiments.

The system stated that the great-grandchildren had no other requests for their ancestor, only hoping that he would study hard. They were already grateful that their ancestor was willing to use these things.

Ji Zhixing told him to watch less melodramatic TV dramas, and then took action to downgrade the laboratory's level.

The high-end experimental environment certainly made him envious, but for him, who was only just beginning to understand physics, it was merely a luxurious toy. He felt that messing around with these advanced instruments would be an insult to his great-grandchildren's good intentions.

Moreover, he had already taken a year of lab classes and knew all too well how shabby the undergraduate labs at the university were. Even if he honed his skills to perfection in a high-end lab, he would probably be completely outmatched in a university lab.

For example, in advanced laboratories, optical components are adjusted directly using an electronically controlled displacement stage, which is shockproof, precise, and scalable. In contrast, undergraduate laboratories in schools rely entirely on manual operation, where simply adjusting the optical path on the optical guide rail can take several hours.

In advanced laboratories, a beam profiler can measure the position of a light spot down to the micrometer level, but in class, only a spectrometer is provided, and it takes half a day just to adjust the collimation.

In short, even if you master the driving skills of Mount Akina in a Ferrari or Lamborghini, you might not pass the driving test (both the second and third parts) on your first try in a driving school.

So, after satisfying his visual cravings, he reluctantly lowered the lab's level, only to accidentally switch it to the lowest level. The once spacious and bright space instantly became dark and cramped.

Ji Zhixing felt as if he had traveled back to the last century, arriving at a remote area where a school with only 180 students was struggling to survive in its early stages. It was a small laboratory that had been barely established by selling everything it owned, borrowing from all sides, and begging from everyone it could.

There was only one barometer and one ammeter. There were two vernier calipers, but one had crooked jaws, and the other had several chipped graduations, as if they'd been used in a fight. The oscilloscope was barely held together as a cuboid by a single, remaining screw; Ji Zhixing could even see the wires inside through a 2cm gap…

In short, everything about it was so full of hardship that it brought tears to one's eyes at just one glance.

Ji Zhixing felt that every instrument here was old enough to be his ancestor. The school's laboratory was not that bad. He wanted to increase the level a little, but there was no response when he touched the screen.

The system states that altering the experimental space consumes a huge amount of energy, and the energy it can store is only enough for one adjustment per year, so...

Ji Zhixing was completely devastated; the contrast was just too much!

No matter how rudimentary the conditions, the experiment still had to be done; otherwise, the comprehension task couldn't be fully mastered. Ji Zhixing comforted himself, thinking that with such a free, unlimited environment for practice, and the ability to earn points from experiments, what more could he ask for…

Alas, it's hard to go from extravagance to frugality!

He practiced various experiments diligently in such rudimentary conditions. When the equipment broke, he would research and repair it himself. When materials were scarce, he would rack his brains to find substitutes. The system also adjusted the spacetime flow rate as much as possible to give him more time than actually available to deal with the endless stream of situations.

Ji Zhixing once measured the density of a wax block using a graduated cylinder and water without a balance, based on Archimedes' principle. Later, when he needed to measure the density of a stone in another experiment, he was about to use the same method, but the graduated cylinder, which had been used twice, became brittle and leaked. He racked his brains until he finally came up with the idea of ​​using a spring balance to solve the problem.

On another occasion, he was about to practice the Fourier spectrum combination experiment, which shouldn't require any brainpower at all. But as soon as he touched the oscilloscope, the knobs on it started falling off one after another. He was astonished when he managed to adjust the scale by comparing various waveforms in just ten minutes.

Indeed, environment shapes talent; you never know how amazing you are until you push yourself!

In just a few months, Ji Zhixing went through all the problems that ordinary undergraduate physics students would encounter in experiments but never would. Watching these broken things come back to life in his hands, producing the data and experimental results he wanted, Ji Zhixing became almost addicted.

Gradually, he mastered various tricks to turn waste into treasure, honed his super-patient experimental skills, established a fairly accurate concept of error, and honed his experimental skills to perfection.

In this way, he practiced all the experiments he was going to do in his second year of university in the system space, including "determination of air specific heat ratio" and "measurement of resistivity of Fe-Cr-Al wire by four-terminal method" several times. It can be said that he was very familiar with both the theory and the operation.

After having a conflict with Fan Yongjie because of his malicious comments on the forum, Ji Zhixing knew that Fan Yongjie would definitely take the opportunity of the experimental class to punish him.

Although Fan Yongjie puts on a respectable front in public, always maintaining the air of impartiality and selflessness of the student council vice president, he doesn't bother to hide his true nature when facing someone like Ji Zhixing, who is penniless and seems to have almost no chance of turning his life around.

Ji Zhixing learned this the hard way during his freshman year of college.

Guangling University offers part-time job opportunities for students, both on and off campus.

Off-campus part-time jobs are basically tutoring, distributing flyers, and delivering food. Ji Zhixing can find these kinds of jobs on his own, except that he doesn't have to pay an extra agency fee.

At that time, what he wanted was a part-time job on campus. On-campus part-time jobs mainly involved serving food and clearing trays in the cafeteria, and organizing books in the library. The locations were convenient and didn't take much time. Although the corresponding wages weren't high, Ji Zhixing really wanted to make full use of his time at school outside of weekends.

The student union was responsible for arranging work-study opportunities. Ji Zhixing submitted his application form according to the procedure, but he never got a chance to participate even once in the entire year. Even during last year's school anniversary celebration, when a large number of people were needed, he didn't even get a chance to do the dirty, tiring, or physically demanding work.

Later he learned that Fan Yongjie was using other people's money to do him a favor. Every time it was his turn, Fan Yongjie would tell him on his behalf that he had already found a tutoring job off-campus and that the on-campus job opportunity could be given to other students.

Ji Zhixing was kept in the dark until a fellow townsman who also worked in the student union kindly hinted at it to him.

At that time, he had not yet fallen out with Fan Yongjie. Fan Yongjie was simply looking down on him because he was poor.

He knew that given Fan Yongjie's father Fan Chuanshuo's position at the school, he couldn't do anything to Fan Yongjie, and going to the student council to demand an explanation would only bring him humiliation.

But things are different now. He has the support of his family and some ability of his own. Although he is still limited by the natural advantage of being Professor Fan Yongjie's son and cannot launch a decisive counterattack for the time being, he will definitely not be in a passive and defensive position anymore.

Even if Fan Yongjie used lab classes to make things difficult for him, the only tricks he could pull were to manipulate the instruments and materials.

However, Ji Zhixing, who had been tempered in the system laboratory, was fearless!

Looking at the pile of junk, he even felt a sense of warmth, like meeting an old friend in a foreign land. He picked and chose, repaired and patched it up, and tried to complete a holographic grating experiment himself. He then guided Xu Dongyang and Lin Lang to do it independently.

This experiment utilizes the principles of light interference and diffraction. A reference light wave, coherent with the object's light wave, is introduced, and interference fringes are used to record all the information about the object's light wave. This interference pattern is then recorded on a photosensitive material, developed, and fixed onto a holographic plate. Finally, the object's three-dimensional image is reconstructed through light diffraction.

The process involves several interconnected steps: adjusting and layering the optical path in the early stages, creating the photosensitive flat glass blank in the middle stages, and developing and photographing in the later stages. If you lack the hands-on skills, the photos you take will be completely unrecognizable.

In all three photos taken by Ji Zhixing and his group, a three-dimensional school badge can be clearly seen!

Moreover, they were actually the first to finish; Ji Zhixing had even written the lab report!

Lin Lang's cheers drew the attention of the students in the lab. Looking at the three photos and Ji Zhixing's lab report, shouts of "Damn!" filled the air. Everyone exclaimed, "He's inhuman!" and then a battle to win Ji Zhixing began, with everyone vying to pull him to their own lab benches.

Fan Yongjie was still applying photoresist to a flat glass blank at his experimental table when he heard the commotion behind him. He restrained himself from turning around and quickened his pace. However, when recording the holographic grating, only a small portion of the interference fringes on the plate were recorded.

Fan Yongjie's mind went blank. How could this be? He had done this experiment countless times in his father's lab. How could it have gone wrong!

Ji Zhixing was on the table next to him instructing his classmates on how to use a special solvent to dissolve the photosensitive parts. He glanced at the table and immediately knew where the problem was.

He looked at Fan Yongjie and smiled slightly: "There is a problem with the angle of the dry plate clamping. The first-order bright fringe and the zero-order bright fringe of the diffraction are not on the same line."

Fan Yongjie's eyes instantly turned piercing; he couldn't stand being pointed at and talked about by someone he used to disregard.

Ji Zhixing spoke up deliberately precisely because he knew this, and after thinking for a moment, he added another sentence.

"If you think the materials are unsuitable, see if you can discuss exchanging them with someone else." This was Fan Yongjie's sarcastic remark when distributing the materials.

Someone nearby couldn't help but chuckle softly. Fan Yongjie already had the best materials, so if he couldn't even make it, what else could he do?

Fan Yongjie's face turned pale as he watched Ji Zhixing flit from one lab bench to another like a butterfly, completely replacing his role as teaching assistant. He was so angry that he was practically bursting with rage...

However, not long after, Fan Yongjie also had the opportunity to replace Ji Zhixing.

A note from the author:

Dear readers, don't panic when you see the last sentence, it's not angsty, it's very enjoyable, so read on without worry.

The description of holographic gratings in this chapter refers to "Physics Experiments (2nd Edition)" published by Science Press and "Optical Principles - Electromagnetic Theory of Light Propagation, Interference and Diffraction" published by Electronic Industry Press.