Seeing Chen Muwu's long list of paper titles, Eddington was a little disappointed to find that the content was not about general relativity, but about Rausch light and electrons.

But when entrusted by others, he must be loyal to others, and the things that Einstein confessed must be done beautifully for him.

So he still took the paper, returned to the editor on duty and asked, "Did this paper fail your review?" ”

The duty editor looked at Eddington like a monster: "Why should I review a paper written by a monkey?" The shelves are all scrapped manuscripts, and when they have accumulated a certain amount, they will be discarded together. ”

Founded in 1798, the Journal of Philosophy is one of the oldest scientific journals in the UK.

Because of its long history and fame, it has attracted many great scientists to publish papers on it.

Because more and more scientists are publishing papers on it, the fame has further expanded.

The two complement each other, so that the Journal of Philosophy has gradually reached the status of Taishan Beidou in the academic circle.

Not to mention China, India, and Malaya, it is not easy for even American physicists to publish a paper on it.

The American physicist Van Vleck once recalled: "In 1922, when I learned that my doctoral dissertation had been accepted by the British Journal of Philosophy, I was very happy because more people would read my work. ”

In the end, it is because the Second World War has not yet begun, and although the United States has money, it is still the little Anglo-Saxon cousin on the other side of the Atlantic.

The academic center of the world has to look at the authentic old Europe, especially Britain and Germany, with the blue flag and twelve gold stars.

That's why this editor on duty has such a big tone, his ancestors are too broad, and he has crazy capital.

Eddington had no choice but to reveal his identity: "I am Arthur Eddington, a fellow of the Royal Society and director of the Cambridge University Observatory, and I was commissioned by Dr. Einstein to recommend this paper for publication. You should at least find a few reviewers to review before you can decide whether this paper is life or death, right? ”

"Well, FRS,[1] if you insist, we'll review the paper," the editor on duty took the paper from Eddington's hand, and then changed the subject, "but we can't afford to waste the reviewer's time, so it has to go through our preliminary review." ”

After all, he is an editor of a well-known journal, and his academic skills are not thin, so there is no pressure to read an academic article.

He hastily flipped through Chen Muwu's paper, then raised his head and smiled playfully, and said to Eddington: "I'm sorry, Fellow Eddington, I'm afraid this paper won't even pass my preliminary examination."

"Dr. Einstein explained the photoelectric effect and said that the energy of light is a quantum of light like thermal radiation, at least Milligan's experiments have verified this, and I have nothing to say.

"However, the Chinese person you recommended actually swore in the paper that light is a particle, which is ridiculous!

"I really don't know, did he deliberately say such crazy remarks to attract attention, or did they say that they were really savage, ignorant and uncivilized, and didn't know about Huygens's fluctuating theory?

"How much did you and that Einstein receive from the Chinese to help him recommend this paper so hard?"

was so ridiculed by an unknown person, where did Eddington, who has always regarded himself very highly, receive such an insult, and suddenly a nameless fire rushed up.

The only remaining gentlemanly demeanor on his body prevented him from stretching out his slap and slapping the other party in the face, but changed the course of his palm, slapped the table hard, picked up the paper and scolded with his finger editing nose: "Good, good! You're not the only journal in the UK, so we'll see! ”

Come with the excitement and return with the defeat.

Because he failed Einstein's instructions, Eddington felt that he was very shameless, and he didn't even go to the Royal Society, so he went back the way he came, and took the train north to Cambridge at King's Cross Station.

On the train back, a frustrated Eddington passed the time by reading the papers of the Chinese man he had never met.

Although he is an astronomer by profession, he also has a good knowledge of physics, and the physics knowledge involved in Chen Muwu's paper is not profound, so Eddington reads it relatively easily.

Before getting off the train, he finally understood that the Chinese had proposed a very new theory, but there was a lack of experiments to verify whether the theory was correct or not.

As long as his theory can be proved by experiments, then the publication of the paper should be unimpeded.

Speaking of experiments, the University of Cambridge has the world's most famous physics laboratory, the Cavendish Laboratory, founded in 1874.

After graduating with a master's degree from Trinity College in 1905, Eddington's first job was to work in the Cavendish Laboratory to study problems related to thermal radiation.

Although he soon left experimental physics and switched to astronomy, the Cavendish Laboratory was half of his mother's home.

Back in Cambridgeshire, after leaving the train station, Eddington did not go back to his observatory, but took Chen Muwu's thesis and went straight to Trinity College by the River Cam.

He was coming to visit Sir Joseph Thomson[2], the director of his laboratory during his time at Cavendish and now the director of Trinity College.

As a graduate of Trinity College and a former researcher at Cavendish Laboratories, Eddington can be described as a dual descendant of Thomson, and the relationship between the two is naturally very harmonious.

After the meeting, there was no need to be too polite, so Eddington got straight to the point: "Sir, I went to London today, and I came back with a lot of anger. ”

He then briefly recounted to Tomson what he had seen and heard during the day in the editorial office of the Journal of Philosophy, emphasizing how powerful and unsightly the editor was.

Then he said that this paper was recommended and published by Einstein, who was lecturing in the Far East, and the content in it was also full of real talent and learning, and put forward a very novel theory, which lifted Chen Muwu, who had never met before, to the sky.

Eventually, Eddington proposed the purpose of his trip, which was to ask Tomson if he could help design experiments to test the theory.

Thomson himself was an experimental physicist, and his main achievements were not only the discovery of electrons and the atomic structure of the raisin pudding model, but also the Thomson scattering.

What is Thomson scattering?

To put it simply, it is a low-energy photon that collides with a non-relativistic freely charged particle.

And what is written in Chen Muwu's paper?

is a high-energy photon that collides with a non-relativistic free electron.

It can be said that Chen Muwu's paper is, to a certain extent, to extend Tomson scattering to the high-frequency level, and it is difficult not to attract the attention of Tomson, a great scientist.

*****

[1] Author's note: The Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an honorary title conferred by the Royal Society on individuals who have "made outstanding contributions to the progress of the natural sciences, including mathematics, engineering physics and medicine". The Guardian refers to the Fellowship of the Royal Society as "an honour on par with the Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement", and many institutions celebrate the awarding of the Fellowship every year. Those who receive the title do not have the honorific title "Sir" or "Dame", but they can add the abbreviation "FRS" to the end of their name. At this time, Eddington had not yet been knighted as a Lower Order, so the only title after his name was FRS.

[2] Author's note: that is, J· J. Thomson.