Chapter 142 Antares (Part 1)
There is no Nobel Prize in astronomy, only an Elizabeth Gold Coronet Medal.
A popular saying in major European laboratories is: "Winning the Golden Crown of Astronomy is like owning a first-magnitude star in the vast universe. Proposing to your beloved before the age of thirty with a ring and the spectrum of the alpha star it represents is like dedicating your name—a lifetime of learning and complete loyalty—to your beloved."
The science of the 18th and 19th centuries was characterized by British romantic nature poetry and materialistic scientific philosophy. At the end of the 19th century, romanticism gradually declined, but the field of astronomy had its own unique romanticism.
The Cavendish Laboratory has never been short of Nobel Prize winners, especially in the field of nuclear physics in the early 20th century.
Many members of the laboratory will never forget the day when Rutherford walked into the lab with a Chinese graduate's thesis and announced to everyone, "This person will undoubtedly make significant achievements in quantum theory in the future."
Two months later, the Chinese man in the plain white shirt walked into the laboratory and chose to study astrophysics and nuclear physics at the same time.
He was only twenty years old, tall and broad, with an elegant and gentle demeanor like the surface of the deep sea, which could not hide the arrogance and loneliness that surged in his temperament.
His twenties seemed different from everyone else's.
This is the age when people are most greedy for pleasure.
Others are still ignorant, boastful, and playful in their nature; but he seems to have washed away all worldly desires too early.
Not all Chinese students who marry prematurely are like him. He is well-educated, witty, helpful, and modest. His clothes are always neatly ironed and clean, and he always carries a faint, homely scent of herbs and soap. He is not unsociable, does not seem to have experienced hardship, and does not seem to come from a poor background.
He seemed to have never realized that all of this made it easy for him to win the favor of many female students and become a promising young son-in-law in the eyes of the wives of wealthy overseas Chinese businessmen.
But if they asked around, they would be disappointed - he already had a wife in his hometown in Guangdong.
Someone had seen her in Cambridge Village: her pair of drooping eyes were still lively, but the rest of her facial features seemed to have died long ago; if she had lived two years earlier, her appearance would have been quite pretty and elegant, but her figure was too petite, and she had a pair of old-fashioned bound feet, so she swayed from side to side when she walked, and looked very frail - not only could she not speak English, she was even infertile.
It doesn't sound like a good match.
Most of the European students have already started a family in their home country. Some of them bring their wives with them when they come to Europe. For those who leave their wives behind in their home country, it is almost useless given the open customs of studying abroad.
He seems to be a special case.
He never attended parties, rarely accepted invitations, and rarely went out for fun. His most frequent activity was shuttling between his laboratory, home, and the observatory. On summer nights under a starry sky, he would often stay in the mountains all night, seemingly unaware of the movement of the stars and the setting of the moon, and never tired.
The 16-year-old daughter of a physics professor, who couldn't believe how deeply he loved his wife, once rashly and uninvitedly rang his doorbell and asked what was so good about his wife. He didn't think it was rude to have a guest, so he invited his neighbor's wife to accompany him inside to have a look.
The girl was extremely curious about everything, and for a second her curiosity even outweighed his.
She asked, "What is this?"
He said, "This is a kind of Chinese embroidery."
“Who embroidered it?”
"My wife."
She asked, "What is this?"
He said, "These are canned mushrooms for porridge."
"Where did you buy it?"
"My wife sent it."
She saw the half-written Chinese characters on his desk and asked, "What's that?"
"A letter to my wife."
“How often do you write?”
"every day."
"...How long has it been since you last saw her?"
"Two years, five months, and thirteen days."
She smelled his usual herbal fragrance, emanating from a delicate, antique copper incense burner. She immediately guessed its origin, through whose hands it had passed, and nearly burst into tears. "Is this also from your wife?"
He smiled: "Yes. She is not in good health, and this is a herbal medicine she often takes."
The girl cried over her desk, staining the upper half of his letter paper.
He said nothing. When she finished crying, he asked the maid to make her a bowl of strawberry ice cream and asked the neighbor lady to quietly take her home.
A friend once asked him, puzzled by this, "If you were to receive a diamond ring named after a star in the future, and you gave Spectrum to your wife, she wouldn't even understand its significance."
He replied softly, "Maintaining the world's operation doesn't always have to be so complicated. Satellites orbit planets, planets orbit stars, and stars, nebulae, and interstellar dust form a solar system. Everything seems to follow a pattern, but the mysteries of the universe are not that simple. Classical scientific materialism assumes that everything is premised on the implicit assumption of a definite present moment; however, the latest theories completely deny this static, unique present moment... In this hypothetical moment when the present does not exist, it can still be assumed that a single, linear gravitational force is holding two objects in orbit around each other. Why should we understand? There are too many unknowns in this world, and too little is understood. The unknown breeds interest, interest leads to focus, and focus simplifies everything outside of focus..."
It seems that no one doesn't want to be understood, but he is not one of them.
He maintains a rational distance from all women except his wife, and is cautious in his friendships, with only a handful of close friends over the years. He is a great listener and a calm analyst, remaining calm and composed in all situations, offering unique insights. He is like a man standing on the moon, forever walking alone, observing the trivialities of love and hate on Earth with aloof eyes.
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