Everyone knew in their hearts that since Sun Yuanqi mentioned how bats catch insects, the principle of the discovery of the plane must be roughly the same. But bats are used to flying at night, and as for how it catches food, no one has really thought about it carefully.

Qian Nengxun was obviously also very interested in this, and asked uncertainly: "Lord Sun, the bat can catch insects at night, does it have the same extraordinary night vision ability as cats, dogs, rats and foxes?" ”

Sun Yuanqi shook his head slightly: "At the end of the eighteenth century, the famous Italian biologist Spallanzani was very curious about how freely bats could fly in the dark, so he captured a few bats, blinded them, and put them in a room full of obstacles, and they were still able to avoid obstacles and fly freely. A few days later, he captured and dissected the blind bats again, and found that their stomachs were stuffed with insect remains. What does this experiment illustrate? This shows that the flight and predation of bats do not depend on vision.

Sparanzani then experimented with the bat's other senses with his usual seriousness, and finally found that as long as the bat's ears were plugged, the bat could no longer do anything, and flew around the room, occasionally crashing into obstacles. Why is this so? Can animals see with their ears? Unfortunately, Spallanzani did not explain this, and this peculiar experiment came to an abrupt end. ”

Everyone's curiosity was hung in their throats, but they didn't expect Sun Yuanqi to give such an ambiguous answer, which made everyone feel that they couldn't go up; I can't help but look at each other.

After a while, Sun Yuanqi continued: "It was not until not long ago that relevant scientific discoveries showed that there is a structure called a 'nasal-like leaf' on the mouth and nose of bats, and there are very complex special skin folds around it, and this strange device has the function of emitting ultrasound waves, which can continuously emit high-frequency ultrasound waves of 40,000 to 300,000 hertz; In addition, each bat has its own specific frequency and can distinguish the sound waves it emits with its ears, so that large groups of bats can fly together at night without worrying about interfering with each other.

"So how do bats use ultrasound to spot and identify obstacles? When the ultrasound waves are emitted, if they hit obstacles or flying insects, the ultrasound waves are reflected back and received by the bat's extraordinary large ears.

The feedback information will be quickly analyzed in their brains, and according to the size, time, and direction of the ultrasonic reflection, they can locate and identify different insects or obstacles for their flight paths, and effectively avoid or hunt them. In short, it's about using echoes

"In fact, we also use echolocation in our daily lives. For example, in a dark night or foggy morning, when we can't see the road ahead clearly, we are used to throwing a small pebble in front of us, and according to the sound of the stone falling on the ground, we can roughly identify the basic road conditions ahead; You can also shout a few times and use the echo to determine if there is a huge cliff in front of you. In the same way, we can also use this method to identify incoming planes in the sky, as well as submarines lurking underwater, and even the fetus in the womb of pregnant women. ”

In real history, the first person to invent the method of using ultrasonic echo positioning should be the handsome man Lang Zhiwan, who had an ambiguous relationship with Marie Curie. During the First World War, in order to deal with German submarines lurking at the bottom of the sea, he came up with the idea of using sound waves to detect submarines and determine their location with their echoes. By the time the device was operational, the First World War was over.

Radar, which uses radio methods to detect targets and determine their position in space, appeared during World War II. At that time, Britain and Germany were at war, and Britain, which was suffering from German air raids, urgently needed a radio detection and ranging technology that could detect metal objects in the air, so that it could be the first to detect German aircraft in anti-air raids, so radar came into being. Of course, before the advent of radar, there were many people who put forward the idea of using echo positioning to measure distant objects, including Lang Zhiwan, Marconi, the father of radio, and some other scientific researchers, radar is just one of the more successful and widespread applications.

The association between ultrasonic echo localization and bats began in 1920 in Hatai, but Hatai's prompt did not attract people's attention at the time, because scientists could not imagine that bats, a lower creature, actually had such advanced technology as "echolocation". It was not until 1983, when an electronic measuring instrument was used to accurately measure the sound waves emitted by bats, that Hatai's view was finally confirmed.

Therefore, in the objective history of science, the invention of radar has nothing to do with bats at all, but it is only after the fact that everyone discovers that the two principles are so similar. The so-called "the principle of radar and sonar is inspired by bats" and "bats are the prototype of radar, radar is an extension of bats" can only be regarded as a beautiful imagination, or a kind of self-gold trick of biomimicrians.

Qian Nengxun couldn't help but praise it: "Bats fly at night, people are used to it, who would have thought that there is such a profound truth in it?" Even if anyone could get a glimpse of it, who would have thought that it could be used to detect incoming planes in the sky? Being able to see the subtleties in this way, seeing the big in the small, Lord Sun really deserves to be a saint and a famous person today! Qian obeys! ”

Sun Yuanqi politely said that Brother Qian was ashamed of his praise, and Sun was just imitating the sages of ancient times. ”

"Oh? Which sage is it? Qian Nengxun was a little surprised: although he was not well-read, he had read a lot of miscellaneous books before the Ming and Qing dynasties, and there seemed to be no books that talked about the truth of bats flying at night, otherwise he should have an impression.

"It's Luban!" Sun Yuanqi replied firmly, "It is rumored that he once invented the iron saw according to the edge of the silk thatch, 'cutting bamboo and wood to make a magpie, and flying it, not falling for three days, these are imitations of the special skills of animals and plants in nature and by extension, and finally become a good tool for our human beings, this kind of learning can be called 'bionics, and Lu Ban is undoubtedly the originator of this science.'"

"The so-called biomimicry, simply put, is a science that imitates the special skills of organisms, such as imitating fish using the principle of sinking and floating of fish bladders to build submarines, and using the principle of blue ears to hook clothes, you can create a new type of buckle. As for the creation of saws, airplanes, and radars to detect objects, this is only a superficial application of bionics. In time, biomimicry is bound to achieve even more significant results. ”

If you take a few short stories from the classics, you can find a wonderful way to deduce them into an esoteric knowledge, how can you have such skills that ordinary people can have? Everyone couldn't help but admire it even more.

Li Fuji replied at this time: "Mr. Sun, our research institute will quickly transfer some young backbones to set up a research institute to specialize in the development of weapons and equipment to counter aircraft; Biomimicry you mentioned provides a new way of thinking for solving specific problems, and we will also learn from it in the actual scientific research process. ”

Sun Yuanqi circled around the northwest and soon returned to Beijing, waiting for a response from Outer Mongolia.

Unexpectedly, for Sun Yuanqi's "Mourning Book of Medun" (ultimatum), the first person to reply was not the so-called "Mongol Emperor" Jebtsundamba, nor the puppet Foreign Minister Hangda Dorji, but the Tsarist Russian Consulate in Dihua. In the note, they declared: "According to the six conditions for Sino-Russian representations put forward by Russian Minister Kupensky on 14 December last year, Mongolia is a sovereign state until the two countries sign a treaty, and the sovereign state has the right to station troops on its own borders to resist foreign aggression, and no one is allowed to interfere." ”

Regarding the note sent by the Russian Consulate, Sun Yuanqi directly chose to return it and did not make any comment. In his view, Outer Mongolia is an internal affair and does not need foreign forces to interfere, and foreign forces have no right to interfere. If there is really any reason or explanation in Outer Mongolia, please send a telegram directly to Jebtsundamba or Hangda Dorji!

There is no doubt that Tsarist Russia and Outer Mongolia regarded Sun Yuanqi's silence as cowardice, and under their overt or covert signals, Danbaijiangcun actually led his troops to advance another 50 miles in the direction of Xinjiang.

Sun Yuanqi is gentle and elegant on weekdays, and he tries to be kind to people when he interacts with people, not to mention Sun Yat-sen, Yuan Shikai and other bigwigs, even Song Jiaoren, Cai Yuanpei, Zhang Jian, Yan Xishan and others pit him without any psychological pressure. But this does not mean that he is a soft persimmon, anyone can pinch it, the so-called "dragon has reverse scales, and those who touch it die", as long as he touches Sun Yuanqi's bottom line, he will incur his strongest revenge.

The bottom line is the Jingshi University, which has condensed his countless efforts. Therefore, when the Praetorian Guards besieged Jingshi University under the command of Shimada Han, Zaitao and others, Sun Yuanqi was angry at the crown, and even dared to use aircraft to threaten to bomb the Forbidden City, which indirectly led to the rebellion of the Praetorian Guards and the abdication of the Qing family.

The bottom line is the territorial integrity of the country. Although limited by his own strength and limited to his personal temperament, Sun Yuanqi could not personally lead a million-strong army to eliminate the people and thieves and foreign insults, but within the scope of his ability, he still paid great attention to safeguarding the territorial integrity of the country. Therefore, he once reprimanded Sun Yat-sen for betraying the country, and he could make concessions to Yuan Shikai and others because of the national territorial issue, and send troops on an expedition when his own troops were insufficient.

Sun Yuan has long been resentful of the rebellion in Outer Mongolia and the aggressiveness of Tsarist Russia, but it is only the disparity in strength and the imminent parliamentary election that he has endured it so far. In the original plan, he was prepared to delay the Outer Mongolia issue until after the outbreak of World War I, when Germany would first defeat Tsarist Russia to the point of losing its armor and crushing its army, and the front of the army would be directed to the line from the Gulf of Riga to the Dniester River; Russia's domestic economy collapsed, factories closed, unemployment soared, arms supplies were extremely difficult, soldiers were extremely war-weary, strikes and protests continued, and soon the February Revolution and the October Revolution would break out one after another. At that time, Russia was too busy to take care of itself, and it was not able to take care of the slugs thousands of kilometers away, and the tanks under Sun Yuanqi's command also happened to be an army, and they could safely and boldly sweep the rebels in northern Cyprus!

Unexpectedly, the Outer Mongolian rebels were not even willing to wait these days, and actually challenged Sun Yuanqi's bottom line again and again. The tiger is not powerful, you and I are a sick cat!

Seeing that the five-day period had passed, in the early morning of February 1 in the second year of the Republic of China, Sun Yuanqi decisively issued a punishment action order to the four provinces of Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu, and Xin, and decided to launch a devastating blow to the Outer Mongolian army within 500 kilometers of the border of the four provinces.