Chapter 68 Patient Twelve
"It's a bit too difficult. Although it's difficult, there's a way. I'll do my best to ensure the greatest possible safety. But for now, I can only think of one person who can keep this secret."
Xu Shaoqian took the letter paper and pen, quickly wrote a line of English, and showed her the letterhead.
The English line is: "dearprof.lutherford."
He held up the page. "I believe there is only one person who understands the power of this theory, considers all aspects of its benefits, has the ability to mobilize numerous trustworthy scientists, and is qualified to request the mobilization of the royal military. I can vouch for this person's character with my life."
She was stunned and asked, "This Rutherford, is that..."
"Ernest Rutherford. He was my mentor at Cambridge."
The Rutherford of Cambridge is the Rutherford who has many students all over the world and has taught nearly ten Nobel Prize winners in physics. He is also the director of the Cavendish Laboratory and the president of the Royal Society of London.
He is a well-deserved leader in the physics community of this era. He is also the mentor of more than ten leading figures in the physics community over the next decade.
Xu Shaoqian was actually one of his students.
In addition to being amazed, the first thing that Chu Wang subconsciously thought of was: No matter who discovered the existence of the neutron, Rutherford was the only one in the world who would not suffer any loss!
The second reaction was to ask Xu Shaoqian: "Why have I never heard you mention it?"
Xu Shaoqian looked up. "You've never asked about it either. Is it significant that he's my teacher?"
“That’s right…”
Rutherford died in 1937, avoiding all the smoke of war. Naturally, he had no chance to receive an invitation to meet with many of his disciples in the unknown areas of the United States and the Manhattan Project.
Without waiting for Chu Wang to answer, Xu Shaoqian then wrote a few more lines of English on the letter paper without hesitation. After finishing, he handed it to Chu Wang.
Chu Wang picked up the letter and took a look: except for the heading, it was full of formulas such as the uncertainty principle and radiation emissivity, which seemed to have no logical relationship with each other.
The formula at the end is the mass-energy equation that connects all of this: e=mc².
Apart from the formula, there are only a few lines of text:
"We discovered the seriousness of this matter, so we wrote to England, asking you for reinforcements in all aspects. I eagerly look forward to your reply; yours sincerely, Xu Lai."
Chu Wang was a little confused and asked, "These formulas seem to have no logical connection, but if they fall into the hands of intelligence workers, wouldn't it be inevitable that someone would find a way to crack them?"
Xu Shaoqian stared at her for a while, as if trying to make her remember it herself.
After a while, he became discouraged and said jokingly, "There are only three people in this world who can understand the theory of general relativity."
Although no one in the world knows who those three people are, this statement is a bit exaggerated.
In any case, within the twenty years since the theory came out, even if you pick out the hundred top physicists in the world today, not necessarily one of them can understand the general theory of relativity.
Xu Shaoqian and Rutherford are both among these one in a million.
Chu Wang nodded in agreement: A mad scientist should be so confident!
But once Xu Shaoqian mentioned Rutherford's name, it was like a guiding light. For a moment, it seemed as if a glimmer of light had appeared in the dark future.
Chu Wang had never seen this academic master in person, and what was passed down orally in later generations were all legends about him and his many disciples that spanned the history of physics in the 19th century.
It's said that scientists belong to all of humanity. She was willing to believe that Rutherford, who had educated so many virtuous students like Bohr and Soddy, and for whom Xu Shaoqian "could vouch for his life," would never disregard the safety of millions of lives for his own selfish desires or the pursuit of national dominance.
Xu Shaoqian folded the thin piece of letter paper, stuffed it into the envelope, and wrote the address on it.
Get up and put on your coat.
Chu Wang stared at him intently as he completed this series of actions.
Xu Shaoqian raised his eyebrows and saw her expression. "Are you still very worried?"
"no……"
"What is that?"
After a pause, he asked, "How do you know..."
Xu Shaoqian smiled.
"It's simple. Remember the hypothesis in the article 'Methods of Reaching Ultra-High Altitudes'?"
"Remember."
"Well. At first, I just had some doubts. The way I tried to prove my hypothesis was to send you this English paper and ask you to translate it into Chinese. The results of the proof just confirmed my guess."
"Why?"
"I noticed you've created some of your own English-Chinese translations. Currently, we still haven't reached a consensus on the English translations of many nouns. For example, 'violin hypothesis' is often translated as 'Van Alin's conjecture,' but you decisively wrote down an interesting, brand-new term: 'violin hypothesis.' Another example is 'roberthutchingsgoddard,' whom people prefer to call 'Roboha Tansi,' but you gave him a more formal Chinese name. Not many people who studied abroad understand English these days, and even fewer use it to communicate in Chinese. People often arbitrarily translate English into Chinese characters based on their preferences. You, however, have your own unique and organized naming system. This is something that no one person could achieve."
"This... the evidence isn't strong enough. Perhaps I'm just someone with original and unique ideas, a person who's independent and creative?"
"Hmm. That's certainly inadequate. But what's even more interesting is that you coined some words. For example, you prefer to call water 'waterresource' rather than 'water'. When did water become scarce, and could it be considered a resource wealth? I'd really like to speculate. Since the Industrial Revolution, many resources have been consumed excessively. In the near future, resources represented by coal will be on the verge of scarcity. I don't often delve into chemistry, so I can't conclude that excessive industrial development will have any negative impact on water resources. Yet, you used this word as a matter of course, which just happened to prove this conjecture to some extent. You have too many loopholes. Therefore, I have to proofread every manuscript I asked you to review thoroughly."
Environmental hazards are an emerging issue that has only gradually emerged since the 1950s.
Any scientist involved in the field of physical chemistry will inevitably become suspicious when he sees the word "water resource".
I was still careless.
But. Chu Wang raised his eyebrows, "To some extent."
"We can boil down all the highly plausible 'to some extent' arguments to possible propositions like 'neutrons may exist' and 'compact stars may exist'. We're very close to removing the word 'maybe'."
"But it took eighteen years from 'The Neutron May Exist' to 'The Neutron Exists'."
Xu Shaoqian smiled and said, "And your passion to serve your country has brought this eighteen years forward today."
After a moment's silence, Chu Wang asked, "So, when you asked me, 'How can scientists serve the country?' Can I understand that, to some extent, you are trying to keep me?"
"certainly."
"So you also said, 'Please be on guard against those geeks just as we were initially on guard against you,' because you're afraid that once these obvious flaws in my theory are discovered, they might be used as experimental platforms by some physicists eager to learn more about relativity?"
"Including me. When I first discovered you, I couldn't contain my surprise. I understood your talent. No so-called 'genius' at your age and experience could possibly reach such a level. Sometimes, you inadvertently use as a 'premise' issues that have puzzled me and others for years. At first, I wanted to learn more from you: where this discipline will develop in the future, and whether the problems that have puzzled me for years will be solved in that year. But in the process of exploration, I discovered the most terrifying trait in myself." Xu Shaoqian smiled. "I naturally took you as a research subject, just to satisfy my so-called desire for scientific exploration. And this trait is not possessed by me alone, but by people like me. Therefore, I am extremely grateful that I am only a physics professor, and not a biologist, medical scientist, neurologist, or anatomist..."
Chu Wang sighed: "Or an ambitious military scientist."
"So thankfully, I kept you here," Xu Shaoqian said with a wry smile. He raised the envelope in his hand and said, "Please let's hope for some good news."
——
Even though Rutherford, who could provide them with many resources, was a scientist with great reputation, strong appeal, and outstanding moral character, he was just a scientist, not a high-ranking decision-maker.
How will he protect this secret, and how will he help them deal with the many factions of their families and countries?
Too many things were crammed into her head at once. She slowly sorted out her thoughts, not even paying much attention to the fact that Xu Shaoqian had subtly discovered she was from the future. She got out of the car outside the Ge Mansion in a daze.
Although it was Friday, before leaving, Mi Qiu told her that Mrs. Ge had no banquets tonight or tomorrow, so she could still spend the weekend relaxing at the Ge Mansion.
I took off my woolen coat and scarf as I entered the room. I was about to go upstairs to change into my evening gown. As I walked through the corridor, I heard the sound of mahjong coming from the hall, accompanied by familiar conversation and laughter.
The gentle baritone voice belonged to Mr. Jiang: "Ladies, you are lucky today."
The bright, clear laughter of a woman came from Miya. "Thanks to Ge Taifu, I've been winning so much money all afternoon, it's boring. I'm going to lose next round, so why not try something fun?"
Mr. Jiang: "For example? Get engaged after Christmas, and you win all the cards tonight."
Miya chuckled for a while: "After all, we can officially graduate after spring break."
The mezzo-soprano, with a slightly smoky voice, said, "Anyway, we're getting married today. I'll just consider it as helping you two families become one family. What do you think?" After a pause, she continued, "These young couple are flirting too much. Your brother is frustrated in love, and you don't even consider his feelings."
Miya continued to laugh. "Him? He's got all the good things in the world. How could he possibly be disappointed?"
Mr. Jiang also laughed and asked with concern, "Your girlfriend ran away again?"
The person, whose pronunciation was quite classic and not quite standard Cantonese, chuckled softly, "I don't know why, but girlfriends come and go, it's been like this since I was a kid. Maybe I'm destined to be single for life, what's that. Aren't you used to it yet? I'm used to it too."
Chu Wang paused and suddenly thought of what her aunt had said to her that day.
Maybe Mr. Xie secretly asked someone to do something.
God have mercy on you.
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