Tang Ning figured out the key to building a power plant, but it still needs a huge amount of work to be done to really carry it out, so he said to Faraday: "Teacher, I want to set up an electric power company, which needs a large number of electrical engineers, I wonder if you are interested in coming over to guide me?" ”

Faraday was very honest and sighed, "With the whole plan for the use of electricity that you just proposed, I'm afraid I have nothing more to guide you." ”

Tang Ning: "The teacher said too modestly, I can be the chief engineer in industry, but I can do it, or you are in it, my theory is just staying in theory, if you preside over the work of the real room, first realize the ideas I proposed, and then I will find a way to realize the factory production, which is what each is good at!" ”

Faraday was a little excited: "You mean, you haven't come out of that AC motor yet?" Then I can put down my work and focus on this. It's a creative idea, and just thinking about it makes me tick. ”

Downing: "Uh...... Teacher, you wait first, let's take it step by step, first of all, the alternator, then the electric light, the cable, the application of lighting will make the business of the power company bigger, and have the financial resources to do the next step, that is, the AC motor. "You can't make a mistake in this order, otherwise a good business will become a little hobby of science.

From her husband's expression, the old lady who doesn't know how to use electricity can also see the energy of this young man, and there are not many people who can make the old man excited to become an old boy these days. She smiled: "You have to listen to Xiao Tangning to make a lot of money!" ”

Tang Ning smiled at this statement, with the expression of a fortune boy.

Before leaving, Downing took out a small gift, which was a wireless telegraph, and now the whole of London was covered by transmission towers, and the centralized location scheme of the central tower made it possible to connect the telegraph to the telegraph network with only a small antenna, so that Professor Faraday could contact him at any time. A telegraph with a typewriter is so easy to use, you can learn to send a telegram in three or five minutes after teaching it. Downing also taught Faraday how to use the telegraph to buy the latest telegraphs. The cost of a telegraph was £100 a year, which was not a big expense even for a quasi-middle class like Faraday, so he still did not get his hands on it, but he applied to the Royal Academy of Sciences, and it was not approved.

I almost forgot one very important thing - looking for a rubber factory. Faraday happily told Sù the name of one of Downing's larger rubber factories, and very important information, the owner of the vulcanized rubber patent in the United Kingdom is Thomas? Hancock.

Hancock and his business partner, Mackintosh, actually had their own big booth at the International Industrial Exposition, displaying their boots, clothes and other rubber products, but Downing didn't expect to work with them at the time.

The day after Faraday got the transmitter, he couldn't help but disassemble the machine and study it, and then saw a lot of magical things that he had never seen in contemporary electricity and magnetism, such as vacuum tubes.

This kind of electronic component is the door to the entire electronic age, and it will not appear until long after the prosperity of electricity. In 1883, Edison sealed a metal wire into the bulb close to the hot filament in a real yàn to improve the light bulb, and when he lit the bulb, he unexpectedly found that the current flowed from the filament through the gap to the metal wire. Because this phenomenon did not help Edison improve the light bulb, and he was a man who valued practical results, he only wrote down the effect in his notebook and forgot about it later. But after the discovery of electrons, the Edison effect became quite important. It can be used to explain that the current in the void is a beam of flowing electrons. The British physicist Richardson proved in 1900~1903 that electrons "jump out" from a filament heated in a vacuum. This achievement earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1928.

In 1904, the British electrical engineer Friedham made full use of the Edison effect and achieved brilliant results. He encloses a cylindrical metal plate (called a plate pole) around the filament of the bulb (called the pole). The plate pole has two functions: when it is at a positive potential, it attracts electrons that jump out of the hot filament, forming a path with current flow; When the plate pole is at a negative potential, it repels electrons and blocks the flow of current. Assuming that the plate pole is connected to an AC power supply, when the current flows in one direction, the plate pole is positively charged, and the current is unimpeded in the lamp; If the direction of the current changes, the poles are negatively charged, and there is no current in the lamp. Therefore, the function of the plate pole is to allow only one direction of current guò, in other words, it can convert alternating current into direct current. Because this tube resembles a current valve, the British naturally call it "valve", while the Americans call it "tube", and the Chinese translate both as "vacuum tube". Because it has two electrodes - a wire pole and a plate electrode, scientists call it a diode.

Vacuum tubes (also known as radio vacuum tubes, because they were originally applied to radio) control the flow of electrons in the tube, not the current flowing through the wires. Since electrons are easier to control more closely than current, vacuum tubes and all the devices derived from them can play a role that circuit devices in the past could not, opening up a whole new field for electronic devices. 1. The research and application of vacuum tubes and their descendant devices are collectively referred to as electronics.

At that time, the crystal was replaced by the simplest form of vacuum tube as the new rectifier because it was more reliable than the crystal. In 1907, the American inventor DeForrest further improved and placed the third electrode in a vacuum tube, and since then, the triode was born. The third electrode (gate) is a metal plate with small holes between the poles and the poles, which attract electrons and speed up the flow of electrons from the poles to the poles (through the holes in the gates). Therefore, as long as a small amount of positive charge is added to the gate, the electrons flowing from the wire pole to the plate pole will increase significantly. In this way, even the addition of a very weak radio signal can increase the current significantly, and this current can fully reflect the various changes in the radio waves applied to the gate.

That's the big secret of the wireless telegraph. It is impossible for Master Faraday to see through the great secret that has transcended the times for so many years at this time. Faraday keenly sensed the central role of the vacuum tube, but this thing was not mentioned in Downing's patent application, which shows that this young man is extremely chicken thief. Since people want to keep it secret, then I'm embarrassed to ask directly, well, I finally worked with him, and after waiting for a long time, maybe he himself accidentally leaked the secret.

When Faraday was "dismantling" the machine in the house, and before he could reassemble it, Downing came with another of his epoch-making products, the tungsten lamp.

Faraday was embarrassed, blushing and saying "I'm curious......"

Tang Ning smiled slightly, didn't say anything, he didn't want to say it, but he must take this big killer that opened the electronic age as a reserved program, this is the most powerful weapon for him to hold the highest power in the British Telegraph Company, a "state-owned enterprise", as long as no one can understand the secret of the vacuum tube one day, he is the big head of the British Telegraph Company, and no one can change him.

In terms of academic reputation, Faraday's reputation is higher than his own, so in the cooperation with Faraday, he also moved his heart and will build Yì and Faraday to establish "Faraday Power Company", focusing on alternators and various power distribution equipment, but for consumer products, he will set up another electric lamp company, and will also find a contracted cable supplier, so that even if he only accounts for 50% of the shares, the final control is still in his own hands. He gave Professor Faraday two options, one was to receive a "huge" fixed salary of £500, the other was to name the company after him, which would have a 15 per cent stake in Faraday Power, and to bring in an investor with 35 per cent and Downing with a 45 per cent share, which would look better.

In the end, Faraday's choice shows the calm, stable mentality of a generation of academic masters, asking for a stable salary of £500 and giving up 15% of the shares! Tang Ning can only say that it is a pity that genius scientists often don't know much about finance, but also, the old professors are all 60 years old, what do they expect to make a fortune?

Downing felt unworthy for Faraday and advised: "Or, think again? I estimate that the power company will make a lot of money in the future, although not as much as the British telegraph company......"

For Faraday, working full-time for the power company meant giving up the government's £300 annual annuity, which made his life more difficult, so he chose a more reliable annual salary of £500, which Downing didn't expect for a while, he thought it was quite generous to own 15% of the shares without paying a penny.

Downing, a local tyrant, now doesn't pay attention to the currency in hundreds at all, so he can't understand Faraday's distress, and Faraday also feels that an opportunity to get rich is in front of him.

Downing left Faraday to continue his troubles, leaving behind his masterpiece tungsten lamp, and he left to visit Mr. Hancock, the British rubber patent holder.

For the controversial chemical engineer, Downing was originally only interested in obtaining the authorization of the patent, because this Mr. Hancock was likely to plagiarize the idea of Goodyer, the inventor of the authentic vulcanized rubber process in the United States, and Hancock himself admitted that he had seen "rubber products from the United States", but insisted that he had invented the vulcanization process. That is, the character of this chemical industrialist is most likely problematic. However, after Downing came into contact with the industrialist, he found that Hancock's business acumen was sharp enough to make a good business partner.

The wire is not high-tech, and Downing finally chose Mackintosh as the first cable supplier.

When Downing went to Hancock to talk about business, Faraday told the trustees of the Royal Academy that he would devote himself full-time to Faraday Power, a partnership with Downing. Naturally, the Trustees did their best to retain the top position of their Royal Academy, and almost became the President of the Royal Society, Master Faraday. The Royal Society of the United Kingdom is the equivalent of the National Academy of Sciences. Helplessly, Downing's genius imagination of electricity inspired Faraday's last passion in his later years, he must "start a business" at the age of 60, otherwise, when Downing develops those great and gorgeous products in the history of electricity, his light as the father of electricity will be covered.

Mr. Faraday finally decided, and Downing happily announced his own equity distribution plan, Faraday and his team enjoy a 30% equity pool, of which Faraday owns half of it: 15%, as president, chief scientist. Other shares are used to reward outstanding engineers and scientists in the future, and he himself invested a huge amount of 80,000 pounds to account for 40% of the shares, and served as chairman and chief engineer. （http:／/）。 The other 30% go to other investors. This "other investor" is particular, not everyone can do it, Downing's attention is to invite Lloyd's Insurance Company's most well-connected financiers to invest.

Lloyd's Insurance Co., Ltd. was originally opened in 1688 as a café near the River Thames in London, where merchants often met to discuss transactions, and gradually developed into a trading place for marine insurance and shipping business; Because the founder of the café is called Edward? Lloyd (edwardlloyd), hence the name. 1769 by Thomas? Replaced by a separate café by Thomas Fielding, which still bears Lloyd's name, it gradually developed into an international insurance market.

In the era of open flame lighting, fire insurance was a big business for insurance companies, perhaps second only to ship insurance, and the Lloyds Insurance Company building itself suffered a fire in 1838 that destroyed a lot of information. It was not rebuilt until 1844. Even if it is a shipwreck, there is a high probability that it will be caused by a ship catching fire. The biggest advantage of electric lighting is that it will greatly reduce the probability of fire, and the introduction of Lloyd's Insurance Company to become a shareholder of the power company will promote electric lighting as quickly as possible, because Downing's idea is that the insurance premiums for ship insurance and fire insurance that do not use electric lighting will increase! This is the best and most powerful advertisement. What's more, after the radio navigation function is released in the future, it can be said that it can be used for ships, which can really be described as "great attention".

When Downing told Farah about his "great exquisiteness" for the first time, the professor couldn't help but be moved by the talent of this business genius...... Exquisite.