166. After being drunk, there is no intention to be cowardly

The term element is familiar to laboratory directors: but tnansunanic is undoubtedly a new word, and it has attracted a lot of discussion.

When Sun Yuanqi wrote the word on the blackboard, everyone found that the meaning of the word was not difficult to understand: tnans, the prefix means to leapfrog and exceed, such as tnanslation, tnanspontation, etc.; Unanic, chemically "uranium". Taken together, the two words mean "transuranic".

What is a transuranic element?

Uranium is the heaviest element that can be found in nature, and chemists have been trying to discover heavier elements ever since 1789, when the German chemist Kraprot separated it from bituminous uranium. One hundred and twenty years later, chemists have discovered more elements, even determining that uranium has an atomic number of 92, but still no heavier element has been found.

Transuranic elements? Is there an element in the world with an atomic number that exceeds sodium? Everyone has this question in their minds.

"Yes, transuranic elements." Sun Yuanqi said with certainty, "There is no doubt that uranium is the heaviest element that can be found in nature." Elements that exceed uranium are largely absent in nature because most of them are unstable and have a very short half-life. The only way to discover and produce them is through artificial nuclear reactions.

Regarding the proposal of transuranic elements, Sun Yuanqi struggled for a long time, because there are generally two ways to prepare transuranic elements:

The first way, which is easier to achieve, is to accelerate the construction of the core to bombard uranium-238, thus obtaining the cup 239. The cup is an element with atomic number 94, and in this way, the concept of a transuranic element is confirmed. However, the fast fission rate, small critical mass, long half-life, and some nuclear properties are better than uranium-235, and the high reserves of uranium-238 in nature made Cup-239 once the most important nuclear charge in early nuclear weapons. The atomic bombs dropped on the cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima at the end of World War II were made using the 239 cup as the core part. Of course, there are pros and cons, the cup 239 is very large, the production cost is also high, and complex production reactors and reprocessing plants need to be built to achieve industrial production.

The second way, best known, is to bombard uranium with neutrons. When an element is bombarded with neutrons, it often transforms the bombarded element into an element with a larger atomic number. In this way, transuranic elements can be found in a steady stream. But there are two problems.

First of all, no neutrons have been discovered yet. Neutrons are not hard to find, especially now that particle accelerators have been invented, as long as they are used to accelerate a particle, and then bombard lighter elements such as boron, boron, or lithium, neutrons can be obtained. Although the average lifespan of a neutron instability alone is only about 16 minutes, it is enough to do many things, such as bombarding uranium after acceleration.

The second is that once uranium is bombarded with neutrons, in addition to the emergence of new elements, the most likely phenomenon is nuclear fission! Nuclear fission is not only an extremely complex nuclear process, but also has great practical value, and once it is made public, it will attract the attention of the whole world. As soon as the hypothesis of uranium nuclear fission was proposed, all the physical laboratories in the world immediately boiled and quickly launched intensive research on this phenomenon. In less than a year, more than 100 scientific papers on nuclear fission have been published, which is unprecedented in the history of physics. Since everyone is engrossed in the study of nuclear fission, the chain reaction will inevitably be discovered, and the nuclear weapon is about to be released.

Of course, from the discovery of chain reaction to the realization of controllable chain reaction, it is not achieved overnight, and it is even more difficult to use it to make nuclear weapons. Initially, all the research work carried out in the laboratory was to use uranium-235 to achieve a controlled chain reaction. Uranium is a rare isotropin, and the amount of hán in natural uranium is only 0.7%. To achieve a nuclear bào 駞zhà may require a few kilograms to dozens of kilograms of uranium-235 with a purity of more than 90%. Before 1940, mankind had never obtained even a very small amount of pure uranium-235 to produce such a thing in "kilograms", which is nothing less than a fantasy!

The pros and cons of these two aspects, Sun Yuan has been in Quanheng for a long time. At this time, the concept of "transuranic element" was proposed, but he had already made up his mind in his mind: "Before, we discovered the first man-made element obstacle with the nuclear irradiation phase. In the same way, if we irradiate uranium with a core, will new elements be produced? I think the answer should be yes!

"There must have been a lot of people who have thought about irradiating uranium with a nuclear after the discovery of the hindrance, but no results have been reported so far. Why? The reasons for this can be imagined by everyone: firstly, uranium is very precious, and ordinary people are not capable of doing this experiment: secondly, before uranium is irradiated with a nuclear building, it must be accelerated by a large particle accelerator to obtain the results. Such an accelerator is currently only available in our Element Lab, which gives us an opportunity, and I believe that as long as we overcome the difficulties such as small sample quality and high difficulty in separation, we will definitely find something! “

Why is the first kind of square fǎ? Sun Yuanqi has his own considerations:

Before nuclear fission was discovered, some of the properties of the cup did not attract much attention from researchers. Moreover, to achieve industrial production of Purification Cup 239, it is necessary to build a complex production reactor and reprocessing plant, at least Sun Yuanqi does not have this kind of research capability and industrial base for the time being, so he must give enough sweetness to the Sufficient Element Laboratory, and then use the reasonable excuse of "studying the preparation method of known elements" to let them take a step forward in order to indirectly achieve their goals. Even if the Elemental Lab doesn't take the bait, you can learn from the technology of separating cups in their experiments. This technology is not to be kept secret from the head of the laboratory, right?

Every year, the Element Lab warmly invites Sun Yuan to work in the United States, but the actual work that Sun Yuanqi does for the laboratory every year is extremely limited, just a few points, judgments, and a formality. These words can actually be explained in the letter, but the laboratory still pays a lot of salary every year and invites Sun Yuan to come over. Perhaps, as in the story, Steinments drew a chalk line and asked for $10,000 from Ford Ford:

"Draw a line, $1: Know where to draw a line, $9,999."

Despite everyone's enthusiasm, Sun Yuanqi only stayed at Yale University for a short day and a half, and hurried to MIT, because the electronics laboratory was waiting for him to go to fight the fire!

This has to start from Sun Yuan's first visit to the United States in 1900. At that time, he roughly described the working principle and development prospects of the TV to Elena, Professor Rossi and others, which caused stars to appear in the eyes of the audience, urging Sun Yuanqi to turn it into reality as soon as possible. At that time, however, electronics was still in its infancy, and this wish could only be left for later.

In the following years, under the impetus of Sun Yuanqi's advanced concepts, colleagues in the MIT Electronics Laboratory successively developed electron tubes and transistors, which quickly pushed the development of electronics to a new stage. In the process, it also brought great business opportunities, the most famous of which were those radio broadcasting companies, which snowballed into media giants comparable to traditional paper publishing in just a few years.

The conglomerates and tycoons who missed the opportunity couldn't help beating their chests and slacking in frustration when they saw the bills of dollars entering other people's pockets. As the saying goes, "It's not too late for the king to make amends." These people quickly set their sights on the television project under development in the electronics laboratory, which, according to the analysis of the existing materials, is much bigger than the radio broadcast!

The degree of secrecy of the commercial machine in the early twentieth century is now seen as a layer of window paper. The TV project soon became a well-known secret. The tycoons who had previously invested in radio broadcasting wanted to be the first to do it: the chaebols who didn't get a drink from the broadcast project wanted to come out on top. In this way, when the research on television sets was still in the stage of tackling key problems, the war for patent use outside had entered a white heat.

Those competitors with limited financial resources slapped their heads after leaving the jú ahead of time: "Okay, since you don't take me to play, then I'll throw off my arms and go it alone." Even if you can't do it, you have to be hearty! "How else to say that there are no stupid people in the world? They obtained the relevant information and gathered a group of radio engineers to analyze it carefully. After analyzing and analyzing, they really found a lifeline: TV signal standards, which are commonly known as "TV standards".

Usually, we mǎi go back to the TV, connect the power, turn on the switch, at most wipe the wired signal, you can watch TV, who will be idle to figure out how the TV works? Even if someone thought about it, it probably wouldn't take into account the difference in TV signals, right? In fact, there are currently 13 black-and-white TV systems in the world, and there are three color TV systems: PAL, NTSc, and SECAM.

At the beginning of the reform and opening up, many people encountered this kind of problem: The color televisions brought back from the United States, the United States, and Russia could not be used in China. In addition to the difference in power supply, there is also a reason for the difference in standards: we use the PAL standard, the United States and China use the NTSC standard, and Russia uses the SECAM system.

When Sun Yuanqi gave face-to-face teaching to the MIT electronics laboratory, he naturally used the D/K system of black and white TVs in Zhongyao, and did not take anything else into account. As a result, people have taken advantage of the loopholes, researched nearly 10 different new standards in one go, registered patents around the world, and ambitiously prepared to research new televisions and electronic laboratories.

Of course, researching the new TV is a complete joke. Not to mention that the electronics laboratory has previously registered a large number of circuit patents related to the principle of television, even diodes, transistors, transistors and other basic electrical components, MIT still has more than ten years of patent protection, how do you build a TV?

Despite this, it still makes my colleagues in the electronics laboratory very angry. It's like working hard for more than ten years to raise a girl who is like a jade, and he is reluctant to move a finger, and as a result, the little young man who is a little stunned comes up with his hands and feet. I know that this matter can't be avoided, and you can just talk about the conditions with Ming Zhengda, and the key is that some bad embryos are still taking advantage of crooked ideas in private. No one can stand it!

After all, people's patents are also cooperative, and cooperation between the two should be the main thing. Against this backdrop, MIT convened the "National Television Technology Conference" in an attempt to reach an agreement.

When it comes to their own interests, no one is willing to take the initiative to let go. The participants have lips and tongues, and you have come and gone, and you have turned the academic meeting into a debate. Originally, the meeting was expected to last for four days, but now it is the eighth day, and not only has no agreement been reached, but the views have become more antagonistic and the contradictions have become more acute.

At this time, the electronics laboratory invited Sun Yuan to help on the spot.

167, more affectionate and affectionate

When Sun Yuanqi appeared at the venue surrounded by reporters and conference organizers, the participants were quite stunned.

As soon as he sat down on the stage, the moderator of the conference couldn't wait to say that today, we are fortunate to invite a world-renowned scientist. This outstanding scientist not only made pioneering work in many fields such as chemistry, physics, astronomy, electronics, etc., but also made outstanding contributions to electrical inventions. He put forward theories that subvert our view of the world and matter; He invented the electric lamp, which illuminated rooms all over the world; The radio broadcasts he developed enriched everyone's spare time. While everyone was still talking about the magic of radio broadcasting, he described a new tool for information dissemination: television. He is our most honored guest today, Yank? Dr. Johnson"

Because Sun Yuanqi was the first to explain the working principle of television and the transmission mechanism of television signals, he was recognized as the "father of television" by the society. held a national television technology conference, but there was no Sun Yuancheng to show up, just like the parents were not present when they got married, and there was always something unjustifiable. Now, after listening to the introduction, all the participants gave a standing ovation and gave the warmest welcome.

After they sat down, many people were inevitably uneasy. In addition to being the "father of television", Sun Yuanqi also has an important position: the Chinese director of the MIT electronics laboratory. Who can guarantee that he will not pull the shelf? Besides, it was originally a party that was at a loss. Even if he doesn't pull the shelf, as a famous scientist, he can say a few fair words casually, and it is not enough to come to the stage

The moderator was very pleased with the sensational effect of the presentation, and then we have Dr. Johnson to speak."

Ten days before Sun Yuan got up to the lecture table in full view of everyone, I was in London drinking tea and chatting with them; Five days ago, I was watching the sunset and sunrise on a ship in the Atlantic; Two days ago, I was in New Haven with my colleagues at Yale University to discuss plans for work in the coming years; Then, at the invitation of the conference organizers, come here today. It was so rushed that I couldn't make any meaningful suggestions or comments on what was discussed.

"And in fact, I haven't set foot in the field since I roughly came up with the concept of television a few years ago. The research results on television technology and signal modulation are all the credit of my colleagues in the MIT Electronics Laboratory, and I dare not indulge in the United States. So here today, I don't dare to talk about TV technology. If I could, I would prefer to describe the future of television. ”

After a pause, Sun Yuanqi went on to say that TV, as a household appliance, is like a light bulb in my eyes, and sooner or later it will become popular and enter thousands of households. Of course, it is not only a household appliance, but also a completely new tool for disseminating information. This kind of active signal receiver with sound and image will bring the most significant changes to the cultural development and information dissemination of the world in the 20th century, and even the content of politics, religion, education and any other field of public affairs will inevitably be redefined by the expression of television.

"This is not alarmist, I can give you a few examples. Take the current U.S. presidential election as an example, many voters can only get a vague idea of the presidential candidate through a few blurry photos in the newspaper. Under such circumstances, people will be more concerned about his remarks, thoughts, and policy program. But when television enters the lives of ordinary people, can you imagine a 300-pound, fat-faced, fat-headed, big-eared candidate gushing about a speech in front of you? For ordinary people, an interesting advertisement and a beautiful melody are far more interesting than a lengthy speech. At this time, the candidate's handsome appearance, new costume, and superb acting skills may attract the attention of voters more than the analysis of the international situation and the budget report, and then win votes. In extreme cases, even an actor with an IQ of only 80 can defeat the old and spicy politicians and win the presidency

"For example, if you want to understand the real life of Chinese thousands of miles away, there seems to be no better way than to take a half-month ship and go around China in person. But with television, people all over the United States can sit in their living rooms, drink coffee, and enjoy China's 4,000-year-old civilization, majestic mountains and rivers, and rich and colorful cultural life, and then it is a civilized country no less than Europe and the United States, not as desolate, barren, ignorant and backward as depicted in our geography textbooks.

"From these perspectives, the emergence of television is not just a small invention, but can be regarded as an epoch-making event."

The above content is all about the world-famous media culture researcher and critic Neil ? Bozeman depicts it in his book "Entertainment to Death". In the daily life of later generations, television was a slot machine for entertainment. It will turn politics, journalism, education, and the whole world into a noisy and colorful "juggling". On that magnificent TV screen, no matter how brutal the murder, no matter how terrible the earthquake, how absurd the political scandal, as long as the host gently says "next", everything will disappear from people's minds......

This description aroused the enthusiasm of the audience: It seems that TV is really a fighter in an airplane, and everyone used to fight for every inch of land, but now it is even more important. After all, any little income that we strive for this time may be rewarded tens of millions of times in the future development

"Now, everyone has undoubtedly realized that television is a very promising project," Sun Yuanqi quickly changed his words, "and the United States, as a pioneer in the research of television technology, is at the forefront of the world, which is undoubtedly a precious opportunity for everyone here to take the lead." But at this time, everyone is fighting for some technical problems, ignoring the huge market of the world, which I personally think is very unwise

In my opinion, the main purpose of this national television technology conference should not be to strive for the dominant position and market share of various companies and research institutes in the United States, but to quickly integrate existing research results, formulate one or several sets of effective television technology standards, rise to international standards, and promote them in the world, so as to avoid the chuckles of latecomers. "What is a technical standard? What are international norms? After the same thing is invented, due to factors such as national sovereignty and market interests, different standards will be artificially formulated. For example, the gauge of the railroad tracks, there are now standard gauge (1435mm), Cape gauge (1067mm), Russian gauge (1524mm), Indian gauge (1676mm), Iberian gauge (1688mm), meter gauge (1000mm), etc. "Now that the world has just entered the electric age, there are already various differences, such as the style of chā head, mains voltage and frequency in different countries, the United States and the United Kingdom, and Russia and the United States and the United Kingdom. Fortunately, engineers around the world are aware of the problem. In order to solve the problem of standardization, six international electrotechnical conferences were held between 1887 and 1900. In June 1906, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) was formally established in London, responsible for international standardization in the field of electrical engineering and electronic engineering. "However, with the development of science and technology, globalization is intensifying, and the flow of technology between countries is becoming more and more frequent. Although the United States is currently leading the way in television technology, once other countries notice this hot spot, it is very likely that they will concentrate their technological efforts on studying it and achieve results in a short period of time. It is conceivable that if we do not formulate a common television technical standard now, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and other countries will definitely throw off the United States, formulate their own standards, and submit them to the International Electrotechnical Commission. As a result, the losses will be incalculable. The audience nodded their heads: this kind of thing has happened more than once or twice in history.

Limited to latecomer's G competition. Take TV signals as an example, different TV signals need different TV signal receivers, and if there are 10 different signal modes in the United States at the same time, it is difficult for both TV stations and viewers to accept, thus limiting the development of the TV industry. "And it can be said that in the near future, technical standards will become the most important factor in the development of the industry, and whoever has the technical standards of their products will lead the development of the entire industry once they are recognized by the world. Whoever masters the standard means that he has the first ticket to enter the market, and then obtains huge economic benefits from it, and even becomes the definer of the industry. As a result, a new economic pattern of 'first-class enterprises set standards, second-rate enterprises sell technology, and third-rate enterprises make products'. Sun Yuanqi said that it was targeted. This is the kind of problem that exists in China right now. Take 3G mobile phones as an example, there are currently four sets of standards in the world, in addition to the latest iMAX, there are three in the Chinese market: China Telecom CDMA2000, China Unicom is CDMA, China Mobile is TD-SCDMA, and it has almost become a 3G standard expo. Moreover, between different standards, mobile phones cannot be used universally, resulting in a large resource làng fee. Qualcomm of the United States, which does not produce mobile phones, but has the core technical standards of CDMA and CDMA, and Chinese mobile phone manufacturers have to pay Qualcomm a patent royalty for each such mobile phone production. After listening to Sun Yuanqi's new theory, the audience felt refreshed, and when they thought about it carefully, they couldn't help but secretly admire it. Someone raised his hand and asked, "Dr. Johnson, I'm inspired by your point." But I have two questions: first, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) is mainly responsible for cable communications (telegraph and telephone), lighting and power systems, and I am afraid that it is a foreign person to television technology, how to lead the development of technical standards? Secondly, who should be the subject for formulating technical standards? After Sun Yuanqi's flickering, the focus of the meeting began to shift from the battle for market share to the battle for technical standards. Sun Yuanqi pondered for a moment, and then replied: "There is no doubt that in today's rapid development of electronics, it is very inappropriate for the Institute of Electrical Engineers to remain confined to the original academic boundaries. If you can agree, you can apply to the Institute of Electrical Engineers to expand the research limits of its membership, change its name to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and add a professional committee on television technology. Of course, if you can get the Institute of Electrical Engineers to agree to recommend TV standards to the International Electrotechnical Commission, you can also set up a separate American Radio and Television Association (NAB) and the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE). "It doesn't matter who sets the technical standards. I propose to set up a society first, and then the society will subdivide the various technologies of television, and determine their share of future royalties according to their importance. Similar to TV signal standards, you can choose several, and then coexist. After the technical standards are passed, the market will survive the fittest and choose the most reasonable solution. "Give the wild goose down first, and then discuss how to cook it. This kind of muddy approach quickly won the approval of the participants, and in just one afternoon, a resolution was passed to establish the National Radio and Television Association (NAB) and formulate the association's charter. With his pioneering contributions to radio and television, Sun Yuanqi was elected as the first president of the American Radio and Television Association. In addition, Sun Yuanqi is also the president of the American Computer Society (ACM), which was founded in 1904. In a letter to the Institute of Electrical Engineers, Sun hoped that they would keep pace with the times, change their name to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and the Radio and Television Society and the Computer Society would be willing to become two subordinate societies of the new society. The Institute of Electrical Engineers could ignore Sun Yuanqi's prestige, but it could not ignore two new disciplines that were on the rise, and after weighing them, it finally changed its name in mid-1908, allowing the IEEE, which was supposed to be founded in 1963, to appear early. Of course, this is not an afterthought. After the establishment of the association, everyone began to discuss how to divide the various technologies. Sun Yuanqi's opinion seems to be fair, but in fact, it is still a little biased towards the MIT electronic laboratory, after all, the electronic laboratory was the first to enter the field of television technology research, and the first thing to solve was hardware technology, and a large number of patents were obtained. These patents have a unique xìng, and no matter which standard TV adopts in the future, these patents cannot be bypassed. Even for signal modulation methods, electronics labs are not left behind. Moreover, with the reputation of the electronic laboratory for the development of radio broadcasting and the rich technical accumulation, there is no doubt that more consortiums are willing to use MIT's technical standards. Although Sun Yuanqi is named in many patents of MIT, it is naturally not his turn to sit on the ground and share the spoils, and he is also happy to be idle, and he just takes advantage of the rare time to go to the house of Mr. Bergman, his father-in-law, to see his son who has not seen him for three years.