The fastest ship of this era was the three-sail fast warship built by the East India Company to travel between Britain, the Cape of Good Hope, and India, which was the merchant ship of the East India Company, and it was also a kind of warship because it had to fight pirates and enemy warships. Since the steam turbine was not yet powerful enough to drive the ship to sufficient speed, it still needed to be assisted by three sails, which was one of the last styles of pure steamship before the advent of pure steamboats.

Now, Mr. Windsor is also a person with status, the person who led the East India Company, the "most bullish underworld in history", to the road of technological prosperity. Naturally, there is no cost to sail on the ship of the "home" company.

From Kolkata into the vast Indian Ocean to the Cape of Good Hope, the only passage between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans before the opening of the Suez Canal, it was unthinkable that wooden steamers in this era would not have been replenished by the Cape of Good Hope, and the importance of the Cape of Good Hope can also be seen. Similarly, before the opening of the Panama Canal, the Strait of Magellan, the only safe passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, was in the hands of the East India Company, symbolizing the maritime hegemony of the most awesome of the worlds.

You may marvel at the sophisticated and rational way of thinking of the Prussians (the German subject), or the passion of the French in the Enlightenment that dominated all mankind, but the British, who inherited the best of the Romans' ability to build a legal system, were the darlings of the age, and the English understood the most important thing to organize the crowd effectively – the law. When the Spanish Empire ruled the Age of Sail, it was the ability of the British to organize the whole country against Spain by making rules, and the famous "pirates royal" authorized by Queen Elizabeth appeared, privateering the Spanish fleet. Even pirates were subject to legal organizations, let alone paramilitary organizations like the East India Company. When respect for the rules led to the disappearance of the British Empire, people all over the world missed the days of empires without corruption, think of Hong Kong, think of Canada, Australia, Singapore, and so on. (After Singapore's independence, the power of final adjudication remained in the United Kingdom for a long time.) ）

Therefore, Downing was not too worried that the East India Company would use illegal means to oppress him, but out of the intuition of Chinese origin, he remembered that he wanted to go to Cambridge to become a professor. (The Chinese are the wizards of power struggles).

If there is a Cambridge or Oxford professorship, it is more beneficial for Downing to be able to speak in front of the behemoth of the East India Company.

What kind of qualifications should be taken to instantly conquer the hearts of elite school administrators? Invention is certainly not possible, because it takes cycles, and the academic community may have an unpredictable attitude towards practical technology, imagine that Harvard University has made achievements in engineering for so many years, and it is simply giving up all the opportunities for engineering development to MIT. This is a great opportunity for MIT, and a sad for Harvard. The rise of Stanford in the silicon age is a testament to the inherent flaws of the old university.

Cambridge and Oxford: That's the old of the old, you have to know.

Let's just find a breakthrough in mathematics. Downing thought of the famous Fermat conjecture, which is outstanding on two points: one is that the time it takes for human beings to solve it from the time it was proposed in 1637 to be completely solved in 1995, during which more than 300 years of mathematicians have been pondering and meditating, and new solutions have been proposed. The second is that this conjecture opened up many fields of mathematics in the process of solving, including elliptic curves and modular forms in algebraic geometry, as well as Galois theory and Heck's algebra.

Downing had studied Fermat's theorem when he was interested in number theory as a freshman, and had been immersed in this "one-time metaverse" for a long time, and now he uses it as a stepping stone to Cambridge Oxford, which is really good.

He wants to stay on this three-sail clipper for at least half a year, so it is better to take this opportunity to write Fermat's theorem into a mathematical paper, because there are many fields involved, even if he has figured it out many years ago, it will take a lot of horsepower to write it again in a language that contemporary mathematicians can understand.

There are several and a half years in life, and this speed is really fatal, so many East India Company employees who set out from England to work in India often have to be prepared to go to India and come back after retirement. Downing has made a resolute plan that the next time he crosses the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, he must take a pure steam-powered clipper built by himself. Of course, shipbuilding is an absolute heavy industry, and this time will not come too soon.

In addition to sorting out Fermat's theorem, Downing asked Rawlinson, the shareholder of the East India Company, who was accompanying him, about the shipyard of the East India Company. The process from wooden to iron-hulled ships is a huge leap, imagine which is more load-bearing strength, wood or iron plates? Large-tonnage ships are the world of iron-hulled ships. The shipbuilding technology of the East India Company was ahead of its time.

Of course, if Downing were to build a shipyard, he would do so in a way that the so-called "Anachronism" could never have dreamed of.

"I have a small shipyard under my hands, and it's a desolate place in Australia, but ...... Hey, hey, to tell you a secret, there's gold mines in Australia! ”

Downing: "Uh...... I don't have much interest in gold. ”

Rawlinson laughed: "I just know this to tell you, but after the news of the release of gold mines in California two years ago, many Australians went to California, but they didn't know that Australia itself has gold mines." I think the Australian authorities should also let the news out, otherwise our already short of labor force Australia will be even more uncomfortable. ”

Downing: "You seem to be interested in Australia. ”

Rawlinson: "yes, because I'm probably going to be the governor of the Bank of Victoria, and there's a Victorian state in Australia. ”

Downing: "Haha, yes, it's the best state with the same name as the queen, right?" ”

Rawlinson: "Yes, Melbourne is the heart of Australia, right in Victoria. Would like to spend more time in London......"

Downing: "London is dirty, I don't like it, but I can't help it, I want to go to Cambridge or Oxford, and I'm afraid that there won't be enough for my lab research." ”

Rawlinson: "Ugh...... I see the formula you are writing, it is so complicated mathematics, I can't understand a word, are you from a mathematical background? ”

Downing: "Math is just a tool...... I even have ideas for shipbuilding. ”

Rawlinson was intrigued: "yes, let's hear it." ”

Downing: "Basically, replace iron with steel, build a larger tonnage, replace a hybrid with sails with pure steam power, be faster and more stable, and use welding instead of riveting, and build faster." ”

Rawlinson laughed: "Do you really understand or too advanced, none of the three technologies you said are feasible in my opinion, the price of steel is more than double that of iron, is it cost-effective to increase the tonnage by a little bit?" As the tonnage increases, pure steam power becomes even more insufficient, even if you build a better steam engine. So what, what is welding? I haven't heard of it yet. ”

Tang Ning: "The purpose of riveting now is to put two iron plates together, but in fact three iron plates are needed, one of which is used to bridge the gap between the iron plates, and it is undeniable that this technology first heats the rivet to reach the incandescent state, and then hammers into the pre-cut hole with a mallet to weld the three pieces into one, and the effect is still good." But this extra iron plate is not only wasteful, but also should not be made too thick, at least not as thick as the main board, so that the hull can resist pressure is relatively limited. The welding I want to invent is to create a stable high temperature of more than 3,000 degrees Celsius directly between two steel plates, and fill the gaps of molten steel into the gaps of the steel plates, so that the hull is almost as reliable and economical as a one-time molding. ”

Rawlinson: "Oh, it sounds interesting, I have never heard of the principle of radio waves, but I can probably understand this welding, how can it produce a stable high temperature of 3000 degrees?" ”

Tang Ning: "There are two methods, one is to burn acetylene in oxygen to form a flame of 3,300 degrees Celsius, and the other is to use high voltage electricity to generate an arc, which is even more powerful, and the temperature in the center of the arc can reach 10,000 degrees. ”

Rawlinson: "This ...... Do you mean burning in pure oxygen? This preparation of pure oxygen seems difficult, and even more impossible than you say replacing iron with steel. ”

Tang Ning: "Yes, shipbuilding is worthy of heavy industry, which is a difficult process, and the generation of high-voltage electricity is even more difficult. So, it all takes time and money, and I'm still honestly inventing wireless telegraphy and seeing how much it can sell. ”