In general, from ancient times to the present, the development of various disciplines of science has undergone two major leaps:

The first was between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and was marked by Newton's monumental work, The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, published on July 5, 7. Prior to this, the development of science mainly relied on the summary of experience and personal perception, and each scientist integrated his own personal subjective thoughts into it, and there were more perceptual elements in science, which fully demonstrated philosophical speculation at the same time, but also led to the blurring of the boundary between science and theology.

Newton's greatest contribution was to use mathematical methods to elucidate the most basic laws of the universe - the law of gravitation and the three laws of motion, and firmly laid the foundation of science on rigorous mathematical derivation and formula induction, making the boundary between science and theology clear. As the poet Alexander? This epitaph written by Pope for Newton:

Nature and the laws of nature,

all hidden in darkness;

God said, "Let Newton come"

And so everything became bright.

Marked by the entry and widespread application of mathematics, the development of quantitative, the popularity of observational records, and the widespread development of experiments and hypotheses, the various disciplines in the field of science quickly got rid of the fog of ignorance and entered the stage of rational experimental analysis. With the help of this trend, scientists have galloped across the field of academic research, expanded their territory, and achieved a series of fruitful results.

By the 19th century, the research methods and basic theories of physics, chemistry, astronomy, geography and other major disciplines had been completed, and the initial scientificization was realized. At this time, the researcher looked forward to the future with confidence: the future work is just the odd work of tinkering, and the students and descendants of the same generation, like Alexander, who heard that his father Philip II was conquering the city, were full of melancholy like an eggache: Since my predecessors are about to conquer the world, what can I do in the future?

In order to prevent mankind from building the Tower of Babel, God decided to send a few troublemakers: first, Lobachevsky and Riemann, who respectively created their own non-Euclidean geometry and hollowed out a large part of the originally solid foundation of the edifice of science; Subsequently, Planck, who had planned to repair the building, accidentally demolished the load-bearing wall. For a moment, the whole building was crumbling.

At this time, there are two voices in the scientific community: one is made by orthodox scientists, who demand that all unfavorable actions to the edifice be stopped immediately, and everyone will work together to fill in the holes and fill the loopholes, so that the edifice can still be inhabited; The other voice was shouted by the descendants who were afraid that the world would not be chaotic, since the building was about to collapse, then simply demolish it, just to find some work for us young people to do

In March 905, Einstein published the quantum theory and proposed the quantum hypothesis of light; In May, he completed his dissertation "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies", in which he independently and completely proposed the principle of special relativity. Website】

At first, orthodox scientists also ridiculed this stunned young man as "a mayfly shaking a big tree, ridiculous and unreasonable", who knew that after a few feet, the originally magnificent and towering science edifice in front of everyone's eyes actually collapsed Orthodox scientists beat their chests and feet, grabbed the ground with their heads, and the young people who watched the excitement on the side were overjoyed, and they had already picked up the fallen bricks and tiles, and quickly built their own nests.

This was the second leap in the disciplines of science, which took place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, marked by the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. In the beginning of the road to modernization of various disciplines, we have found several truths:

First of all, blur is also a kind of perfection. In earlier scientific systems, uncertainty was intolerable; Now, everyone thinks that some things are uncertain, and it is good to see flowers in the fog and the moon in the water, which is the principle of uncertainty measurement, Schrödinger's cat, fuzzy mathematics, etc.

Secondly, extreme is also an angle. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the research perspective has begun to go to two extremes, the small wants to split the atoms and particles, and the big wants to study the Milky Way and explore the universe. However, these two extremes are not exclusive, but rather harmonious and unified.

Third, professionalism is a kind of crossover. The most important achievement of discipline modernization is the in-depth research of various disciplines, resulting in each discipline being split into countless small disciplines, such as physics, which is divided into condensed matter physics, atomic physics, molecular physics, optics, particle physics, astrophysics, geophysics, biophysics, and so on. The intersection of any two or more small disciplines will form a new field of study, and each field will become more and more specialized.

Fourth, research is a form of collaboration. Today, with the specialization of various fields, most physicists specialize in only one field in their entire careers, and there are very few all-round masters like Newton and Einstein. A large research project often requires the cooperation of countless experts in various fields. For example, the recent Daya Bay neutrino experiment brought together more than 200 scientists from six countries and regions, including Chinese mainland, the United States, Russia, the Czech Republic, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. As for the well-known Manhattan Project, it concentrated the best nuclear scientists in Western countries at that time, except for Nazi Germany, mobilized more than 100,000 people, lasted three years, and cost $2 billion to finally make the entire project a complete success

In these two great scientific developments and leaps, China has missed them:

For the first time, China came to Matteo Ricci and Nan Huairen, and he also had Xu Guangqi and Kangxi, and saw that the fire of science had the potential to burn the prairies, but as a result, he successively encountered the rebellion of the Liukou, the Ming and Qing dynasties, the literary prison, and the restoration of Sinology, and stepped the precious fire into the ground.

Second, exchanges between the East and the West have become very frequent, and insightful scholars have begun to face up to science and actively learn. As a result, at this time, the national situation was unstable, the failure of the law change, the rebellion of the boxers, the change of the Gengzi country, the death of the emperor, the preparation of the constitution, Xinhai and other internal and external troubles, the people focused on politics, who can calm down and learn "useless" scientific knowledge?

When the situation in the country calms down a little, the students of Guangzhou University compete to travel to the west and the east, but because of the weak foundation and the poverty of the country, they can only serve as translators and introducers of advanced Western science, and if they make a little achievement in a certain field, they will immediately be crowned with the honorary title of "the founder of Chinese studies". This situation has continued to this day, evolving into the great "cottage spirit".

Sun Yuanqi is a variable, and since he came to this world in 1898, he has published a series of heavyweight papers in a stormy situation, launching a major attack on classical physics. Originally, in the eyes of Western scientists, Sun Yuanqi was completely Don Quixote riding a thin horse and charging at a windmill. Even now, most people are skeptical.

Perhaps, only Sun Yuanqi himself in this world knows all the papers he has published. While the Western scientific community is still hesitating, Chinese students can rely on the time difference to keep up with the team on the road to discipline modernization, and even achieve a lead. With his four or five years of teaching at Jingse University, at least the students of Jingse University are ahead of the world in terms of basic theories of physics, chemistry, electronics and other disciplines. The key now is to transform theory into practice and use theory to guide practice.

Speaking of practice, how easy is that? To put it mildly, Zhang Zhidong's hard-earned business is all left over from the West, not to mention that other people's industries are far inferior to Zhang Zhidong?

But if you don't work hard now, you will fall even further behind in the future. After careful consideration, Sun Yuanqi decided to adopt the plan of "tasks to bring disciplines", and the slogan put forward by the State Science and Technology Commission after the founding of New China was to take the opportunity of completing the tasks assigned by the state to cultivate talents and experience through study and research, so as to develop the discipline system.

Now, a potato peeler is one thing to try. It doesn't require too much esoteric knowledge of physics and chemistry, nor does it need too complex ideas, as long as you have strong hands-on ability.

To be honest, for Lilith, investing 20,000 US dollars in the research of potato peelers is not expensive, you must know that Sun Yuanqi's light bulb also charged 50,000 US dollars in patent fees, of course, it is not cheap, especially in China, this is nearly 30,000 taels of silver, which is equivalent to all the income of the prefect in a year, enough for an ordinary family of four to live for a thousand years

Lilith thought for a while, and then readily agreed: "Yes, but you also know that I built a monosodium glutamate factory in Shanghai before, and now I want to build a flour mill in Hubei, and I really don't have much money to spare." Or wait until next year? ”

Sun Yuan smiled and said: "The money you gave me is still some left, if you agree to this project, then I will pay 10,000 US dollars first?" ”

Lilith was overjoyed, with her head on Sun Yuanqi's chest, and whispered "um".

Sun Yuanqi was also overjoyed. If the potato peeler can be successfully researched, and the students will get a huge amount of silver, I think they will be very interested in the machinery industry, right? After developing the entire assembly line from potato cleaning to final potato chip packaging, the students have some foundations, and Sun Yuanqi has a more ambitious plan: to study how to produce ammonia industrially

Ammonia is very important to living things on earth and has a wide range of uses: it is not only an important component of all foods and fertilizers, but also a direct or indirect component of all medicines, and is widely used in chemicals, light industry, fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, synthetic fibers, plastics, dyes, refrigerants and other fields. For China at this stage, it is impossible to overemphasize its importance

First of all, ammonia plays a pivotal role in agriculture. The average nitrogen fertility of the world's soils is not high, because nitrogen is not easy to accumulate in the soil, and agricultural production promotes excessive loss of soil organic matter and nitrogen, and the increase in nitrogen yield per unit is higher than that of phosphorus and potassium nutrients under most conditions.

In China at the end of the Qing Dynasty, after thousands of years of cultivation, the land was extremely barren and the unit yield was extremely low, requiring a large amount of nitrogen fertilizer. However, the source of nitrogen fertilizer in daily agriculture is mainly from the by-products of organic matter, such as manure, seed cake and green manure, which cannot ensure the sufficient supply of nitrogen. Vera has fully demonstrated this in the experimental field in Beijing.

Ammonia is the most important raw material for the manufacture of nitrogen fertilizers and compound fertilizers. As one of the world's most abundant inorganic compounds, more than 80% of ammonia is used to make fertilizers. This is evident from this.

Secondly, for daily life, the role of ammonia cannot be ignored. In addition to being used for medicine, it is also a raw material for the manufacture of edible alkali. In middle school chemistry, I learned the "Hou's alkali method" invented by the famous Chinese chemist Hou Debang, and the chemical reaction equation can be readily available. But there is no raw material ammonia, it is really like a smart woman, and it is difficult to cook without rice

In the laboratory, it is not difficult to make ammonia artificially. But once it comes to industrial mass production, it is blind. The industrial production of ammonia using nitrogen and hydrogen as raw materials is a global problem, from the first laboratory development in 1795 to the industrial production, which has gone through more than 100 years. It was the German chemist Haber who finally solved this problem.

With the strong support of the two entrepreneurs, in 1904 Haber began to study the industrial production of synthetic ammonia, and in 1909 he succeeded as the first scientist to produce ammonia from the air. Since then, human beings have been freed from the passive situation of relying on natural nitrogen fertilizers, and the development of world agriculture has been accelerated. Haber has since become a world-renowned scientist.

Although Haber caused nearly a million casualties in the First World War, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his outstanding contribution to the synthesis of ammonia.

Right now, Haber is still thinking hard in the laboratory, does Sun Yuanqi have to wait for him for three years? Besides, even if he succeeds in developing it, he won't easily transfer this process to China, right? The so-called "it is better to seek others than to seek oneself", Sun Yuanqi decided to organize a group of students to tackle key problems. Since Haber can study it, there is no reason why the Chinese can't figure it out...