The Royal Astronomical Society's original service was not for astronomers who studied science, but for gentlemen of British high society who had a certain love for astronomy.

Of course, there is no conflict between the two, and before the productivity of Britain was improved, observing the stars overhead with a telescope was indeed a hobby that only wealthy and idle gentlemen and aristocrats could afford.

Burlington Palace, home to the Royal Astronomical Society, is located on Piccadilly Street in the heart of the city, a stone's throw from Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street, the heart of the United Kingdom.

If Eddington and Chen Muwu's destination is here, then they can easily get to the city center after getting off the bus.

But Eddington didn't plan to take Chen Muwu to the Astronomical Society at all, so the two didn't leave the station at all, but directly transferred to the North London Railway at King's Cross Station to London Bridge Station, and then transferred to the suburban railway to Greenwich here.

It was the first suburban railway to be built in London and the first elevated railway in the world to be built entirely in mid-air.

On this viaduct that appeared in the world more than 90 years ago, the train pulled by a coal-fired locomotive made Chen Muwu feel a strong steampunk style.

After leaving the Greenwich train station, take another uphill climb up the hill, and you will find the Royal Observatory of Greenwich built on Greenwich Hill.

It is not now a tourist attraction open to the public, as it was in later generations, and is flanked by royal guards in military uniforms on both sides of the gate.

The reason for this security is that thirty years ago, there was an attempted "international terrorist" attack here, which was also the first in British history.

A bomb was detonated in a park near the observatory, and the French anarchist who carried the bomb died on the spot.

A French anarchist who goes to bomb the British government institutions, does he want to have no government, or just want to have no British government?

Eddington pulled out his papers and shook them, and was quickly released.

But when he arrived at Chen Muwu, even if Eddington came forward, his documents were carefully checked by the guards over and over again, and finally with suspicious eyes, Chen Muwu finally entered the gate of the observatory.

Unlike the eastern and western hemispheres that are divided by two meridians of 20 degrees west longitude and 160 degrees east longitude in middle school geography books, people still default to the prime meridian plus 180 degrees of longitude to divide the eastern and western hemispheres.

When you come to the Greenwich Observatory, the first thing you need to see is the prime meridian embedded in the ground.

Seeing this line, Chen Muwu also wanted to be like Fang Tangjing, jumping around on both sides of the prime meridian, shouting in his mouth, "I'm in the Eastern Hemisphere!" "I'm in the Western Hemisphere! ”。

But the only remaining reason in his brain, and the calm personality that he had been deliberately creating, stopped him from doing so.

Of course, in addition to this meridian, Greenwich has another attraction in which a wall is inlaid with standard pieces of various imperial length units.

For this ghost place, Chen Muwu didn't want to see it, and even wanted to take a sip.

On the roof of the observatory stands an iron rod with a red ball on the top.

The ball fell from the top of the ground with a "bang" sound, startling him.

I remember reading in popular science magazines that the ball would fall punctually at one o'clock in the afternoon every day to tell the time to the boats in the lower Thames.

"Mr. Eddington, our train journey seems to be quick! I left Cambridge at 10 a.m. and arrived at the Greenwich Observatory at 1 p.m. ”

Eddington reluctantly took out his pocket watch, opened the lid and shook it at Chen Muwu: "Actually, it's already two o'clock, Mr. Chen, we don't have much time, let's go inside, right?" ”

It has not been said in the popular science book that the ball will also fall once at two o'clock, and Chen Muwu, who came to make an oolong, made a red face, and could only follow Eddington into the observatory building and walk to the door of a certain office.

This time, however, Eddington did not take off his hat and greet him with cumbersome etiquette as a gentleman would have been.

After he knocked on the door, he didn't even wait for the people in the house to say the word "please come in", and directly pushed the door with Chen Muwu.

"Sir, great discovery! We observed Planet X! ”

Eddington shouted at the middle-aged man behind his desk.

The director of the Greenwich Observatory, now the Royal Astronomer, Sir Frank Dyson, who wears a mustache like Rutherford, was behind his desk when he was startled by two men who suddenly broke in.

Could it be that the terrorists are making a comeback again?

After seeing that one of the comers was Eddington, Dyson's nervousness had just calmed down a little.

Then, when he heard "Planet X" come out of Eddington's mouth again, his heart pounded again.

This phenomenon also shows that light travels faster than sound.

After the brain fully accepted the information of what he saw and heard, Dyson understood why Eddington, who had always been mild-mannered, behaved so recklessly and frizzily this time, and the "discovery of Planet X" was indeed a major discovery in astronomy.

Before he had time to introduce the young man behind him to Dyson, Eddington directly motioned to Chen Muwu to put the photos taken in the past few days and the piece of paper with the formula for calculating the X-orbit of the planet on Dyson's desk.

After a brief explanation by Eddington, Dyson felt that this time the Cambridge University Observatory may indeed have caught a big fish from the vast galaxy.

But astronomers have a bad problem, that is, hearing is false, seeing is believing, and this was the case with Eddington, and Dyson was no exception.

He first calmed Eddington's agitation, and then noticed Chen Muwu behind him: "Arthur, who is this gentleman?" ”

"Sir, this is Chen Muwu, who has caused several waves in the physics community before, this time this planet X;

"Chen, this is the Royal Astronomer, the Director of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, Sir Dyson."

The most powerful person in the British astronomical community is not the president of the Royal Astronomical Society, but the Royal Astronomer.

This title is only awarded to one person at a time, and the recipient of the title automatically becomes one of the royal officials, acting as the king's astronomical advisor, equivalent to one of the king's courtiers.

That's why Eddington was respectful to Dyson after reacting to his faux pas.

Dyson is also a graduate of Trinity College and a senior of Eddington and Chen Muwu.

Chen Muwu now feels that although he is lucky to enter the Cavendish laboratory, he is even luckier to enter Trinity College than to enter Cavendish Sh.

From the King to the Prime Minister, from the Chancellor of Cambridge University to the Dean of Trinity College, plus today's Royal Astronomer, the helmsmen of all walks of life in Britain are basically related to Trinity College.

If Chen Muwu wants to speculate, then his status as an alumnus of Trinity College will also be an increasingly valuable golden signboard.

Like Eddington, Dyson was an enlightened physicist who had long supported the theory of relativity.

In 1919, after the end of World War I, British astronomers went to the southern hemisphere to observe a total solar eclipse and verify the correctness of the general theory of relativity.

Eddington led the team to the island of Principe in West Africa, and the captain of another expedition to Brazil was none other than Dyson.

After Eddington's mutual introduction, Chen Muwu quickly stretched out his hand and shook hands with Dyson's hand on the other side of the desk: "Sir, it's a pleasure to meet you." ”

Although as Eddington said, Chen Muwu did set off a few storms in the physics community, but those are not Dyson's old profession after all, so the director is not so interested.

In fact, many astronomers in this era have switched from mathematics, and Eddington and Dyson are the first and second among their two classes of Cambridge mathematics graduates, respectively.

can hear Eddington say that Chen Muwu is still the discoverer of Planet X, so he can't help but impress Dyson.

"Young man, I have heard of your name for a long time, I didn't expect that we would meet here, and I didn't expect that as soon as we met, you gave me a surprise gift."

He didn't politely ask Chen Muwu about the discovery process of this planet X—these should be the questions that reporters asked later—but asked the two people directly, "What do you think we should do about this planet X?" ”

"Of course, before those Yankees, we can publish the results!" Eddington said this very proudly, "Sir, you, plus me, have invited President De Laere from the Royal Astronomical Society, and the three of us will make another observation of the trajectory of this planet at the Greenwich Observatory tonight, and if it is confirmed that the star in the photo is indeed a new planet in the sun, we will announce this exciting good news to the world early tomorrow morning!"

"As for you, Chen, I don't think you need to rush to prepare for the writing of the new planetary essay now, but you should be in your stomach and think about what you should say to the reporters who have broken through the threshold tomorrow during the day!"

After making a decision, the three of them went their separate ways, and Dyson called the Royal Astronomical Society in the city, asking the secretary on duty there to inform President Delare, and ask him to get to the Greenwich Observatory before it gets dark tonight.

Eddington took Chen Muwu out of the observatory building and came to a house with a dome next to him.

Under the dome is a 28-inch refracting telescope built by the Greenwich Observatory 30 years ago, which is now the largest refracting telescope in the United Kingdom.

Chen Muwu remembered the Father Change Star project in his mind again, but as Eddington said, the immediate priority is not this, but this mysterious planet X.

Cold toast and cold caviar was a simple dinner for three people at the observatory, and after dark, De Laere, president of the Royal Astronomical Society, arrived in a hurry on the last train.

Because the ticket was bought late, the tickets for the first-class train had long been sold out, so he could only choose the third-class carriage with the lowest grade, so his clothes were also covered with a layer of soot.

Rather than an Englishman, Delarere is a Dane who has lived at Oxford University and succeeded Eddington as president of the Royal Astronomical Society last year.

As soon as he arrived at the observatory, he did not care about cleaning up the soot on his body, but went directly to Dyson and Eddington, and asked them what had happened when they called him in such a hurry.

When Eddington told him the ins and outs of the matter, Delaire was shocked.

With the endorsement of a top British astronomical telescope and three of Britain's top physicists, as long as this new star can be observed at the Greenwich Observatory tonight according to the calculated trajectory, it can finally be confirmed that the mysterious planet discovered by Chen Muwu is the ninth planet in the solar system other than Neptune that people have been looking for.

Unlike these three excited astronomy bosses who were very excited, Chen Muwu was only very sleepy now.

After staying up for several nights in a row, he even slept on the back of the chair behind him.

……

It wasn't until there was exclamation and applause in his ears that he woke him up again.

"Call, call Fleet Street and tell them that we have discovered the ninth planet of the solar system!" Dyson, who reacted from the shock, shouted excitedly.

"Don't bother, Sir. I think these journalists are now guarding the gates of the Greenwich Observatory, and now it's just a matter of you ordering them to come over. ”

Eddington said, and patted Chen Muwu's shoulder again: "Young man, go wash your face and sober up, the next interview will depend on you." ”

In fact, the newspaper and radio reporters had travelled from London to Greenwich on the same last train as De Laere last night.

And it was Eddington who informed them.

He had already seen the new planet in the telescope in Cambridge last night, so he was sure that it would be a sure thing to find it in the telescope in Greenwich tonight.

So after Dyson had finished calling the Royal Astronomical Society, he also took the time to call a few of the big newspapers on Fleet Street that he had a good relationship with.

And the reason why he met with the newspaper can be traced back to last year because he helped Chen Muwu publish a paper and punched the editor of the "Philosophy Journal".

It was not easy to say that the reporters stood in the cold wind of the winter night and stayed outside the Greenwich Observatory for half the night.

When they saw someone coming out of the building and coming towards them, they knew that the matter about the planet should have been settled, and it seemed to be a good outcome.

The Greenwich Observatory has opened a conference room that is a small press conference site.

Reporters flocked in, all trying to grab a front-row spot for themselves to raise their hands and ask questions.

The staff of the observatory brought them a few pots of freshly brewed coffee, and after a while, the Royal Astronomer Dyson and his party arrived.

The reason for the delay for a while is that although planet X has been seen in the telescope, it has been preliminarily determined that this planet is the ninth planet in the solar system that colleagues in astronomy around the world have been looking for for so many years.

Seeing someone enter the room, the already buzzing conference room suddenly became more problematic.

"Sir Dyson, I'm a reporter for The Times, can you tell us a little bit about this new planet?"

"I'm the Telegraph......"

Dyson stretched out his hands and gestured down to the front: "Everyone, don't be impatient, don't be impatient, it's still a long time before dawn, enough for you to have an interview." ”

The group of four sat in the front row facing the venue, and the dignified president of the Royal Astronomical Society, De Laere, was squeezed into a position in the far corner.

Reporters were also curious as to why on the podium, in the middle seat next to Dyson, was sitting an East Asian with black hair and yellow skin.

"Sir Dyson, could you please tell us more about this new planet? Who first discovered it? ”

"This afternoon, Professor Eddington of Cambridge approached me with a photograph and said they might have discovered something remarkable. Tonight, after the observations and calculations of the Greenwich Observatory, we can hereby announce that after so many years of hard work, mankind has finally found the ninth planet of the solar system. ”

As soon as Dyson's words fell, the reporters turned to Eddington: "So, Mr. Eddington, did you discover this new planet first?" ”

"No, no, it's not like that," Eddington didn't mean to take credit for himself at all, but stretched out his flat palm to introduce Chen Muwu to the reporters, "It wasn't me who discovered this planet, but this young man from China, he is a student of Trinity College, Cambridge University, Chen Muwu." ”

In the past year, although Chen Muwu's name has been on the news every once in a while, he has always been "the dragon sees the head but not the tail", and his jade photos have never been published in the newspaper, so at the beginning, no one knew who this young man was, and no one would associate them with the "two" individuals.

When it was finally known that this person was Chen Muwu, the reporters in the conference room let out another burst of exclamation.

"Mr. Chen, can you tell us how you discovered this new planet?"

Chen Muwu told the truth, since he went to the Cambridge University Observatory two months ago to find Eddington, how to learn the control of astronomical telescopes with him, how to be in front of the boring telescope day after day, facing the dark and bright night sky, lonely looking for the same lonely star.

The discovery of a new planet that mankind has been pursuing for a long time is already a very interesting piece of news.

And this discoverer is still a Chinese, a Chinese who has made a great name in Britain before.

The combination of the two pieces of news makes it difficult not to make public opinion explode.

(End of chapter)