Chapter 67 Patient Eleven
Everyone in the atomic theory laboratory was feeling extremely anxious and hopeless, but at the same time, two hypotheses were proposed in the laboratory next door.
One is Sa Chandra's "Mass of Cold Stars Maintaining Their Own Gravity";
The second is Xu Shaoqian’s “The Possible Existence of Compact Stars”.
Once Xu Shaoqian entered thesis writing mode, the only word left to describe him was "crazy." Seeing such a promising young professor becoming increasingly haggard day by day, not only the female students felt distressed, but Sa Chandra was also quite worried.
For this reason, he had repeatedly hinted to Chu Wang: "Aren't you also capable of revising papers? Why don't you let me do the calculations and help Professor Tusi revise the manuscript?"
Chu Wang looked up from the pile of draft papers on his desk at Chandra, then glanced back at Liang Zhang, who was scratching his head as usual, and shook his head. He thought to himself: We're both dark-skinned, big-eyed coastal cuties. Mr. Chandra has learned to be considerate of his superiors, but what about you? With this beautiful woman right in front of you, you only care about science!
The differences between people are so huge!
One Friday afternoon, Xu Shaoqian knocked on the door of the Atomistic Theory office, a stack of manuscripts in his hand, and said to Chu Wang apologetically, "Could you check on me? My wife has been very ill recently, and I have to go back to stay with her tonight."
Chu Wang nodded and trotted over to take the manuscript. "Give my regards to Master's wife for me."
Xu Shaoqian waved his hand tiredly, turned around and walked out of the corridor.
Chu Wang spread the manuscript on the table and began to read. After reading the summary, he couldn't help but smile with relief: To some extent, Xu Shaoqian was also a genius who was limited by national funding and was delayed by this era.
Once subsequent astronomical equipment follows, his hypothesis and proof will be faster than anyone else in contemporary times!
I suppressed my excitement and continued reading. The more I read, the more I couldn't stop smiling.
Liang Zhang asked in confusion, "What's going on? Can you laugh like this just by reading an article?"
He also leaned over to look at the title and keywords of the paper. As he read, he suddenly exclaimed, "How could his first completed paper be about compact stars?"
Chu Wang was puzzled by his words and asked, "Hasn't the department been divided long ago? What else could it be if not astrophysics?"
Liang Zhang frowned and thought for a long time before saying, "A while ago, he locked himself in his office all day long to do calculations. When I was helping him sort out his drafts, I happened to see that he had almost come up with a conclusion in nuclear physics. Although he crumpled it up and threw it in the trash, I felt sorry for it, so I sorted it out and put it in his briefcase."
Chu Wang raised an eyebrow: "About what?"
After a pause, Liang Zhang waved to Chu Wang, indicating that she should follow him to Xu Shaoqian's office next door.
Xu Shaoqian was always the last one to leave the lab. By Friday afternoon, most of the other lab members had left, leaving only Mr. Chandra. When Chu Wang and Liang Zhang arrived, he too was packing up and preparing to leave.
The three of them met each other, and Liang Zhang went straight to the filing cabinet behind Xu Shaoqian's desk and took out a file bag.
Chu Wang: "...Is it really okay to go through his things like this?"
Liang Zhang: "I've always been the one organizing his things. This has been the rule between him and me for years. What's so strange about that?"
Chandra had probably figured out Xu Shaoqian's habits and wasn't surprised. He simply tossed a leather wallet to Liang Zhang and said, "The professor forgot it in his office when he left. Dr. Leung, remember to return it to him."
Liang Zhang excitedly pulled the crumpled manuscript from his file bag and began to rummage through the chaotic, cursive writing. He didn't hear anyone talking to him. Chu Wang gave Chandra an apologetic smile, but Chandra didn't take it personally. He smiled and wished him a happy weekend, then closed the door and left.
Liang Zhang buried his head in the pile of manuscripts for a long time, and finally turned out a page. He put it in front of Chu Wang and said with a deep breath, "Look!"
A chaotic string of numbers and characters was scrawled across the page, and at the end, a mass difference was finally determined. The number was circled, with a note next to it: Splitting into lighter elements, not creating heavier ones. The reaction wasn't conserving mass; there was a mass difference between the beginning and the end.
There was a question mark after the sentence. There was an arrow with a letter at the end: c.
Chu Wang's mind buzzed, and he understood almost at the same time.
Regarding nuclear fission, Xu Shaoqian had already thought about it when he locked himself in the office next door a few months ago!
Liang Zhang was still looking at Chu Wang with some doubts when the door suddenly creaked open. Seeing the person coming in, Liang Zhang immediately asked, "Did you forget to bring something? Let me ask you, why is the paper titled "Compact Stars" -"
Before he could finish his words, Xu Shaoqian suddenly saw the crumpled paper in Chu Wang's hand. His face changed, and he strode forward, snatched the draft, turned around and asked sternly - "Liang Zhang?!"
Chu Wang hadn't recovered from the shock of the previous moment, and at this moment, he was shocked by Xu Shaoqian again. When he looked up, he saw Xu Shaoqian's face was pale, his expression was extremely cold, and he questioned Liang Zhang in a stern voice.
Liang Zhang, unfazed, pounded his desk hard. "Xu Lai! Today, I'm asking you a question. You've almost reached a conclusion... a result that's been dormant for over a decade. Why do you insist on being assigned to the astrophysics department? 'Compact Stars,' huh? It's nothing compared to this theory! You've already reached your conclusion, yet you watch us next door, repeatedly failing to achieve our goal, repeatedly testing other flawed viewpoints. Isn't that interesting? Why?"
Chu Wang's head was buzzing, and before she could even catch her breath, she heard a roar from her left, followed by another roar from her right. The two men stood on either side of her, their overwhelming pressure threatening to incinerate her.
Xu Shaoqian stared at him for a moment, then calmly asked, "Liang Zhang, tell me, what is the mass-energy equation?"
Liang Zhang was puzzled, but gritted his teeth and said, "The mass of matter is equal to the ratio of energy to the square of the speed of light. What's the point of asking this?"
Xu Shaoqian shook his head, turned sideways, picked up a vacuum ball and placed it on the scale.
The vacuum ball slammed the metal scales with a clang.
He turned around, his gaze piercing, and continued, "If fast neutrons, traveling at a quarter the speed of light, were to bombard a uranium-235 atom like this, the energy gained from each collision would increase exponentially in a chain reaction. So, what energy level would be reached within two seconds? Please tell me."
When Liang Zhang heard "a quarter the speed of light," he was completely stunned. After a quick calculation in his head, he took two steps back and almost fell into his chair.
"It's... a weapon. If someone thought of that," he muttered, opening his mouth, "...it would be terrifying."
Xu Shaoqian sneered softly, picked up the vacuum ball with his five fingers, and threw it back to its rightful place. He then turned his head and glanced at Chu Wang nonchalantly.
Chu Wang's hair stood on end and his ears went numb when he saw him like that.
Xu Shaoqian continued, "Liang Zhang, get out."
Liang Zhang was stunned.
"Please go out for a moment. I want to talk to Linzy alone."
Liang Zhang was genuinely horrified by the chain reaction conception of the mass-energy equation. He needed some time alone to process this conclusion, and he didn't particularly care if Xu Shaoqian had something to say that needed to be discussed only with Linzy. So, after Xu Shaoqian finished his instructions, he dejectedly rose from his chair and closed the door behind him.
The office fell silent again at dusk.
All that could be heard was Xu Shaoqian's five fingers tapping on the draft paper placed on the wooden table, tap, tap, tap.
"You already knew," Xu Shaoqian glanced at the manuscript paper he had discarded several months ago, then looked up at Chu Wang and smiled. "Uranium nuclear fission. Uranium nuclear fission. You already knew what this result would eventually be used for, right?"
"right."
"But you still chose nuclear physics instead of astrophysics. Why?"
Chu Wang stared at him intently and said, "After World War I, a British team observed a solar eclipse in West Africa, proving Einstein's theory of 'light deflection'. This story has been given the great significance of 'post-war Anglo-German reconciliation,' but it cannot be the reason for ending the war."
Xu Shaoqian smiled.
"Then what gives you the confidence to believe that our country, now in ruins, can be the first to possess the ability to detonate and project explosives?"
"Because you once asked me, 'How can a physicist serve his country?'"
"so what."
"You said, 'The country is in a state of decline, wars are rampant, and education is failing.' So I came to see you. I'm choosing nuclear physics, and I'd like to read your paper and present my arguments and hypotheses."
"Education is not flourishing. Even without relying on nuclear physics, we can still have many schools where people can truly pursue knowledge. I have many plans for this. We will achieve this soon in the future, won't we?"
"Too late."
"Why is it too late?"
"Your starting point is that education is not flourishing. If we rely on education to gradually establish ourselves, it will take at least twenty years. My starting point is that wars are frequent." Chu Wangxin slammed the paper, his palms burning. "We're too late."
"Frequent wars." Xu Shaoqian pondered for a moment and asked in a low voice, "When was it?"
Chu Wang closed his eyes slightly and recited silently: "1931, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1941, 1945, 1950."
After a while, Xu Shaoqian asked again, "Who?"
"Japan, the defeated country, the United States."
Xu Shaoqian lowered his head and began to think.
Chu Wang's voice trembled slightly. "It's too late for us. Even if we don't bring it up, our enemies will find out in ten years... No, even sooner. Why not do it earlier and make some preparations earlier?"
Xu Shaoqian smiled. "By whom? After the Northeast Incident this year, 200,000 troops surrendered to the Nanjing government, bowing humbly before Japan. With their resources, can we research detonation and projection techniques and build a great military nation? Putting all that aside, let me ask you, if we really did discover detonation and projection techniques before anyone else, given the ambitions of those decision-makers, what do you think they would do with it first?"
"It's a weapon. In some cases, it might deter war. In other cases, it's more likely to become a catalyst. In front of it, we're all ants." He paused, then continued, "I understand how you feel. 'Politics is fleeting, equations are eternal.' But once things like this involve politics and endanger our country, they're far beyond our control."
"I know everything you said. I've thought about it, but..."
She knew. She had thought about all of this before. Even when the Northeast train was bombed, she had been tempted to tell Xu Shaoqian all about this theory several times. But she finally restrained herself.
She remembered Charlie asking Frank in the Manhattan Project, "If it really can end this war, then what about the next one?"
But.
Chu Wang's eyelashes fluttered, his lips dry. "Just watch it happen? Millions of innocent people died and were injured. Put yourself in their shoes. In 1941, all the efforts made by so many of us here were wasted."
After a moment of silence.
"Now, only you, me, and Liang Zhang know about it. We must not let a fourth person know this theory. Since we all know the cost, I believe we will all keep it a secret. Starting tomorrow, all experiments on heavy elements will be temporarily suspended for a few weeks." Xu Shaoqian intertwined his index fingers, pondered for a moment, and asked, "How much military force is needed to keep this secret?"
"Three thousand." Chu Wang said.
"Six thousand." Xu Shaoqian continued, "Calculate how many people are needed for detonation and transportation."
"One thousand people support, calculate the number double."
"Hmm." He thought for a while, then suddenly relaxed his brows and looked up at the table beside Chu Wang. "Please hand me a piece of letter paper."
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