Chapter 65 Patient Nine
The neutron paper was submitted in mid-February, accepted at the end of March, and published on an expedited basis at the end of May. By June, numerous Chinese journals and newspapers had published the Chinese translation of "The Existence of Neutrons."
At one time, there were people from mainland China, Japan, Singapore... and perhaps Europe and the United States who sent letters to interview Xu Shaoqian and Liang Zhang at the University of Hong Kong, and to invite Xu Shaoqian to give lectures at various universities. However, due to long-distance transportation, the invitation letters may not have arrived in time.
Xu Shaoqian declined every invitation, but several mainland schools, through various connections, managed to get his former teachers to come to Hong Kong and invite him. This was a complete strategist. Unable to refuse, he went twice. His speeches on these two occasions were extensively excerpted in many newspapers.
There were some praises, the most common being that this paper would undoubtedly win the Nobel Prize in the next two or three years.
There were even more derogatory voices, some of which questioned whether the research capabilities of the University of Hong Kong could support the operation from experiments to the entire calculation process, and some had doubts about the authenticity of the content of the paper. In the end, they were silenced by the second paper published by the Cavendish Laboratory shortly afterwards to prove the existence of the neutron.
The world's authorities in physics have spoken out, so why should you ignorant humans have the right to refute them?
Xu Shaoqian never made any statement regarding these doubts and praises, as well as the subsequent support from the Cavendish Laboratory.
After returning from the mainland, he only asked Chu Wang one question: "How did my speech go?"
Chu Wang's magic rebounded, "Bullshit. Liang Zhang said this was the worst speech he had ever heard in his life."
Xu Shaoqian laughed heartily and admitted frankly, "Chinese people are only good at writing petitions, not speeches. If I were to petition the president to impeach Liang Zhang, it would certainly be full of content and passionate words."
Whenever the humid season arrived, Liang Zhang would invariably take a few days off sick at home, a long-standing ailment. Besides this, and likely due to his prolonged sedentary lifestyle and irregular diet, Liang Zhang also suffered from a mild case of spondylitis. He had recently spent months hunkered down in the laboratory poring over neutrons, and the pain from the spondylitis had left him begging for mercy. Xu Shaoqian then wrote a letter to his mother back home, asking her to grab his ear and take him home for acupuncture to recuperate.
After returning to campus after the holidays, she found the physics department suddenly packed with students. At first, she thought it was an illusion, until she went to her new semester's atomic theory class. The classroom, which usually had only a sparse sparse population, was suddenly completely packed. Even the back rows were filled with students, of all skin colors, heights, and body shapes.
Later, the lecture supervisor told me that this year's freshman class was more than double the previous year's, especially in the physics department. Many mainland students, unable to afford government-funded studies in the US and UK, and unwilling to go to Japan, came to Hong Kong, and the number of students from British colonies in Southeast Asia was even higher.
In addition, there is better news from Xu Shaoqian.
One day, Xu Shaoqian was worried about the three resumes his lab had received. Seeing Chu Wang coming over, he waved her over and said, "Come and take a look."
Chu Wang picked up the three resumes and looked through them quickly, his heart pounding - here they come!
She suddenly decided to ask Xu Shaoqian what he thought. To some extent, his attitude towards selecting people would determine whether his research direction for the next two or three years would be astrophysics or nuclear physics. So Chu Wang asked, "Who do you prefer?"
Xu Shaoqian asked back: "I'm not sure, so I wanted to ask what you mean."
Chu Wang shouted in his heart: Great, this cunning old man is playing Tai Chi with me! So he smiled and said: "If it were me, I would take them all!"
Xu Shaoqian smiled and said, "If it were me, I would give priority to Chinese people. It's just that I have some doubts about nationality."
Chu Wang looked at the resumes of the three people again.
Satish Chandra, an Indian physics graduate student, was supposed to have set off for Cambridge that year to find Sir Edington and, on the ship from India to England, had come up with the Chandra Stellar Mass Limit Theory. But now, he's changed his mind and sent his resume to Hong Kong in the Far East.
Ms. Wang Mingmo, who graduated from Jinling Women's University this year, was supposed to enroll in the Department of Physics at Yenching University. Now, she has submitted her resume here.
Li Mai...
The first two were newcomers, and for some reason, they turned to seek other ways and came to Hong Kong. Chu Wang didn't find it strange.
But why had Li Mai come? Her academic ability might be on par with Xu Shaoqian's, but in terms of seniority, she far surpassed him. While she couldn't fully demonstrate her talents under Hahn, remaining a mere "assistant," it was only 1928, before Hitler came to power. Her Jewish identity hadn't yet disqualified her from teaching, and she remained a professor at the University of Berlin.
What can the Faculty of Science of the University of Hong Kong, which is less than four years old, has gained some fame only because of its recent article "The Existence of Neutrons", is built on a colony and has unclear funding sources, give her?
A place to show your talents?
Although Chu Wang desperately hoped that more useful people would arrive soon, when they finally arrived, she felt a little hesitant, wanting to ask, "What we have is far less than where you came from, so why did you come?" Or, "You've come so early now, is it because of someone's guidance? Hahn? Or Heisenberg?"
Xu Shaoqian saw her doubts, narrowed his eyes slightly and asked, "What's wrong?"
Chu Wang shook his head: "No... everyone is... very good."
One could even say that this person was indispensable. Without the idea she sparked after dinner in 1938, nuclear fission might have been invented much later. Yet, it was precisely because of her indispensability, her close relationship with Hahn, and even her Jewish identity, which led to her facing numerous life-threatening situations after the annexation of Austria and forced her to wander the country, yet she still refused invitations to join the Manhattan Project under the guise of "pacifism," that Chu Wang worried. Even though she had heard that Hahn was "anti-uranium bomb" and refused to participate in Nazi atomic bomb research, it was just "rumor."
She didn't want to be a narrow-minded person with too many conspiracy theories, nor did she want to assume the worst of others. Perhaps she underestimated the power of the article "The Existence of Neutrons" and the capabilities of the nuclear physics laboratory; she could even kowtow ten thousand times after the incident and say ten thousand times, "Great lady, I'm sorry for my malicious assumptions about you." But before the incident, whenever the word "Nazi" was involved, she would infinitely exaggerate the chain reaction that this "what if" would cause.
"How did you make the decision?" Chu Wang asked.
"I want all three of them." Xu Shaoqian said with a smile.
"Huh?" Didn't you just say you had doubts about your nationality?!
"It's undeniable that we're short on talent. Liang Zhang wants more Chinese people skilled in differential calculus, and on behalf of Liang Zhang, I welcome you, Ms., to join us. You two may have different nationalities, but your academic prowess is unquestionable. Why not?"
"Yes!" She took a breath and asked, "But I have my doubts for now. Is that okay?"
"Of course." Xu Shaoqian said with a smile.
"Can you please strictly check the letters sent back to China?"
"Any of our letters sent inland or overseas have already been rigorously censored by others. There's no need to worry about that. You can question a spy's knowledge of atomic physics, but you must admit that their attainments in cryptography far surpass ours. So there's no need to worry about that."
After talking with Xu Shaoqian, Chu Wang fell into other thoughts.
It turns out that a spy had already meddled with the letters sent out from the laboratory, including hers?
She shook her head. Not really?
After thinking for a moment, he asked, "Those spies you mentioned... which country are they from?"
"Every country has it," Xu Shaoqian chuckled. "Britain, Japan, the Soviet Union, the Nanjing government, the Northeast that defected to Nanjing... or other forces, they all have it. As for which side knows more, that's beyond my academic scope."
——
It is not just the three people from the Institute of Physics who have become famous in Europe recently.
The first person to gain a place in the Shanghai Daily was Ms. Lin Yunyan.
A small note reads: "Yun Yan, daughter of Lin Yu, Honorary President of Shanghai Bosch University, wrote the short story "My Mother" in Paris." Using playful and lively colloquial language, it tells the poignant story of a modern Chinese woman who breaks free from the constraints of traditional family life and falls in love with a political science and law student in Tokyo. Family turmoil forces them to live apart for years, without correspondence, but they eventually reunite in Paris. Written in French, the author's preface states: "My mother was my first French teacher, and this story draws heavily from real life." "My Mother" was a huge hit among the French, becoming a household name. It has now been republished in a Chinese translation, appearing in the third and fourth issues of Shanghai's "Small World" magazine.
A few days later, when Zhenzhen asked someone to bring the third and fourth issues of "Small World" from Shanghai, the Shanghai Daily reported another piece of news in great detail.
Yan Sang, the eldest son of Shanghai University Honorary President Si Ying, wrote the English short story collection "European Love Letters" in London. The book, with its playful tone, recounts the stories of numerous Chinese students who have studied in Europe over the past thirty years and their former Chinese relatives. Many were already engaged or married before their arrival, some even having children with their Chinese wives. Some left their homeland with the promise of "graduation and marriage," while others promised to "bring you and your children to France in a few years." However, "those who begin well are many, but those who persevere are few." The book describes how "young men, many of whom arrived in Europe, the birthplace of free love, with the new idea that 'free love is infinitely noble,' behaved even more openly than Europeans. Their complex relationships between men and women even raised eyebrows in Europe." When the book was first serialized in "Glenbridge," it shocked Britain and shocked the Europeans.
With the mood of reading Miss Yunyan's debut work, Zhenzhen and Miya laughed unintentionally when comparing the two newspapers.
While the second sister was vigorously advocating in Paris that "new women break through the cage and pursue free and equal romantic love", Mr. Smith was in London exposing with even greater intensity the true and ugly face of the so-called "free love" of Chinese students on the European continent.
Miya and Zhenzhen almost laughed to tears. Miya said, "Mr. Si is really a relief."
"Mere," Miya said, smiling as she read the article "My Mother," "Mom—the first mother tongue word every newborn learns. But not me. French gave me a second life. When I woke up again, I saw my mother, who taught me to call her by her name. But she couldn't have a complete Chinese name and surname. Ms. Zhou was her only Chinese name. Her marriage to my father was a legal, modern marriage, recognized by Japanese law, but Chinese law couldn't grant her my father's surname..."
Then, Zhenzhen opened "European Love Letter" and read the ending of the first story:
"...Mr. Wang was weeping bitterly. This crying was no different from the time he threatened to go on a hunger strike to force his parents to let him leave China and return to France. Someone by his side asked, 'Mr. Wang, why are you crying? You stayed in France for seven years and refused to return home. Once you returned, your parents held you captive and refused to leave. I brought you a hundred dollars to help you leave by boat, and out of deep sympathy, you gave her five dollars as a humane compensation for her blind marriage more than ten years ago. Isn't that compensation?' Mr. Wang cried even more violently, saying, 'She secretly sent this money to me through someone, but she never told me about it until she died of poverty. This is traditional... "A Chinese woman! ... She waited for me for over ten years, wanting so badly to keep me, yet it was she who helped me leave her." The man said with a smile, "Go home quickly! You have a new and free wife at home, and children who sing and dance like the ones she raised. They're waiting for you. She's sure to be prettier and more knowledgeable than she is, fluent in five languages. She won't even know that you, such a graceful and elegant person, once struggled so hard for a hundred yuan." The woman said this, then smiled and walked away, not even refusing to look at him again. Mr. Wang stopped grieving, thinking about it. Suddenly, he forgot why he was so sad the moment before. The next second, he wiped his tears and happily went home with his belly bulging..."
The two of them laughed as they read, and Chu Wang also took it as a joke. However, while listening, he also looked at the advertisements in the Shanghai Daily.
There is a small note below about Si Yansang's article:
Si Yansang, born in Tokyo in 1909, attended the Berlin-based private high school of Ramon before transferring to Sherborne College in England. He currently studies at the Department of Geology at Oxford University, having completed a second degree in international law last year. That same year, he serialized his short story collection, "Love Letters from Europe," in the magazine "Glenbridge." The English version of "Love Letters from Europe" was published in March of this year, and the Chinese version began serialization in Shanghai's "Yi Bao" in July.
Since I'm studying international law as a second degree and serializing it at the same time, I must be too busy to write letters.
Then don't bother him.
Chu Wang thought so.
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