Oliphant was indeed Australian, and it was true that he had done a series of proton bombardment experiments in the Cavendish laboratory following Rutherford's instructions, and there was nothing wrong with that.

What surprised Chen Muwu was that he felt that Olyphant's arrival in the UK was a bit early.

If the things he did in England could not affect Adelaide, an island in the South Pacific Ocean in southern Australia, then this time Oliver came to Europe to study in 1927 after receiving a scholarship for the 1851 exhibition, following the same trajectory as the original time and space.

If he had already arrived at Cambridge in 1927 and entered the Cavendish laboratory, how could he have achieved results in 1933 and 1934, when he had been unknown until then?

But after thinking about it, Chen Muwu quickly figured out what was going on.

The prerequisite for the success of Oliphant's experiment was that before him, the American chemist Yuri had already discovered the existence of the first isotope of hydrogen, deuterium, which has an atomic mass of 2.

In addition, there is the Cavendish Laboratory's Cockcroft and Walter, who invented the world's first Cockcroft-type particle accelerator for use in the laboratory at the University of Cambridge.

With the raw materials needed to shoot targets and the instruments to shoot at the target, Olyphant was able to carry out those experiments and discover the first nuclear fusion in human history, and the second isotope of hydrogen, tritium, which has a relative atomic mass of 3.

If no one else had laid the groundwork for these natural experiments before him, Oliphant's experiments would not have gone so smoothly, and he would not have been able to design and conduct them.

This led to his silence in Cavendish laboratories for five or six years, and his accumulation until the end of his blockbuster.

It is precisely because his credit is basically based on other people's experiments that although Oliver completed the first nuclear fusion and discovered the isotope tritium, he did not win his Nobel Prize in Physics or Chemistry like Blackett, who completed the first nuclear transmutation of mankind, and Yuri, who discovered the first isotope of hydrogen, deuterium.

After thinking about this, Chen Muwu felt a lot less guilty about robbing Olyphant of the two most important physics experiments in the first half of his life.

In his lifetime, he first discovered deuterium, the isotope of hydrogen, in the cold at the David Faraday Laboratory in London, and then built the world's first particle accelerator at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge.

With these two achievements laying the foundation, Chen Muwu can make the next experiments, which is undoubtedly a matter of course.

Moreover, the particle accelerator has been completely open to the faculty of the Cavendish Laboratory and the University of Cambridge, but none of them have tried to bombard the deuterium nucleus with the accelerated protons, let alone try to change the particle source in the particle accelerator from hydrogen to deuterium, and the accelerated particles from protons to deuterium nuclei.

Only Rutherford had mentioned it to his proudest and best student, Chen Muwu, but that time he was hastily denied by his good student who made an excuse casually.

So these experiments dragged on for more than half a year, and it was not until Chen Muwu came to attend the Solvay Conference and left Cambridge University that he finally made these experiments.

After greeting Chen Muwu, Olyphant, who had been sitting in the corner of the room without saying a word, made up an excuse to leave Rutherford's room.

After he boarded the ship from Adelaide, he was accompanied by only Rutherford who had returned home from visiting relatives in New Zealand during the months he had been on the sea journey to Europe.

Olyphant had fully seen Rutherford's warm and cheerful and loud side, which made him much more reserved than before during his more than two months of steamship travel.

He felt that Chen Muwu had just come to Brussels from England, and he didn't go to his room to rest and adjust, but came directly to Rutherford to visit, and he must have something important to discuss with his teacher.

It was reasonable that he should not have stayed in this room, so Olyphant retreated with interest.

After he left, Rutherford did not forget to comment to Chen Muwu about his fellow countryman: "Mr. Oliver is a very industrious and obedient man, and the head of the physics department of the University of Adelaide has repeatedly stressed this matter to me, and after a few months of getting along with the steamer, I myself have verified this. Chen, I'm sure he'll be able to help a lot under you. ”

If it weren't for Chen Muwu's familiarity, his teacher's voice was originally so loud, he would definitely think that Rutherford deliberately raised his voice and said it to Oliphant, who had just left the door and hadn't left a few steps.

"I also believe this, teacher, your eyes are really vicious, Cavendish Laboratory can come to this day and achieve so many achievements, it is inseparable from your discernment time and time again, teacher."

He said that the skills of compliments have been perfected, and he can be invisible.

"Dr. Chen, I haven't seen you for a few months, and you still talk like this. I'm not modest, what you're saying is really good, and I can basically say that I have a lot of experience in knowing people.

"In the almost 10 years I've been in the Cavendish Laboratory, including when I was in Manchester, Montreal, Canada, I've only seen my eyes once in all the years, and that's four years ago, when you first entered my office.

"Before you, the Cavendish Laboratory was not without Asian students, and the work that Mr. Blackett had done to improve the cloud chamber had been done by a student of this before.

"I was full of curiosity about you at the time, and I thought that since you were specially recommended by Professor Einstein in a transcontinental telegram, and you were full of praise in the telegram, then you must have something that could impress Professor Einstein.

"And Professor Eddington also brought with you the paper that was rejected by the Journal of Philosophy, and the research work you are engaged in is also in line with our laboratory, which is very much to my liking.

"So before the two of us met, I would give you the judgment that it should be a young man who was better than the one before Cavendish Lab, but not much stronger.

"But what you've accomplished in the years you've spent in the Cavendish lab has made me realize how wrong I was in my earlier judgment.

"But you are at the same time the greatest achievement of my management career, and if I am ashamed to say that Sir Thomson's last contribution to the laboratory was to appoint me as his successor; The biggest contribution I have made to the lab was to nod my head and agree to accept you as a member of the Cavendish lab. ”

The more the words in Rutherford's mouth became, the more numb he became, and the expression on his face became more and more agitated as he spoke.

- Only the voice cannot be louder and louder, because Xinjiang has reached its peak from the moment it first opened its mouth.

Within a few minutes of meeting, they got such a true confession, and those who are familiar with the inside story know that Rutherford and Chen Muwu have not seen each other for a few months, and tell their inner feelings.

People who are not familiar with the inside story must think that Rutherford has suffered some major changes during his time in New Zealand, and it is like asking for a lonely person to reveal his true feelings so unscrupulously.

"Teacher, you are serious, if it were not for your careful cultivation in the past few years, I would not have reached today's height."

Chen Muwu hurriedly found a gap in his words, and interjected to stop Rutherford, who wanted to continue.

He was afraid that if he didn't seize this opportunity. I didn't know what strange topics to say next, so I forcibly changed what was being talked about between the two.

"Teacher, Professor Eddington and I did a few more small experiments in the lab before the Sowell meeting, do you know about this?"

"Of course, of course! To tell you the truth, I left the lab with you and James on my way away, thinking that you two kids just don't get me in any big trouble.

"I didn't expect that you would give me a gift for returning home just after I came back to Europe this time.

"When I disembarked at the port of Marseille, France, I read in the newspaper a few weeks ago the frivolous theory that the American astronomer had made to cause panic among the people, and I saw your criticism of his claim, and said that you would do experiments to simulate the reaction of the sun's interior.

"At that time, I was in a hurry, so I didn't look for a specific physics journal in the local area, and it wasn't until I arrived in Belgium that I saw the first two issues of Nature.

"I thought you were just joking, but you actually did the experiment.

"Tell me, what's going on with your experiment? Also, your newsletter in the journal Nature was too short and perfunctory to write about it in the future! ”

Xiao Chen Xin said that it was deliberately written so briefly.

He told Rutherford all the ins and outs of his experiments with Eddington's "cooperation", and explained that the reason why he was vague in the journal Nature was to save the full version for the speech at the Solvay meeting.

Listening to the students' reports, Rutherford had a satisfied look on his face.

But even so, he still didn't forget to hear a few deliberate criticisms with a straight face at the end:

"Chen, you've done a pretty good job in this experiment. But I have to say a few more words, that is, this first experiment you did, bombarding the deuterium nucleus with accelerated protons, was it the first time I imagined it with you after you discovered deuterium in 1925?

"And after the particle accelerator was built, I told you about it again, and even wanted to make it our first experiment on the accelerator, but you used all kinds of excuses to perfunctory me.

"However, what is the result now? As a result, the experiment did get positive feedback, although it did not meet expectations, and the electric neutral particle in the deuterium nucleus was bombarded with protons, but it was still a blessing in disguise, and helium-3 was obtained from it?

"Dr. Chen, Dr. Chen, if you had listened to me, you would have done this experiment a long time ago!"

Rutherford is still very proficient in the way of the emperor, and Chen Muwu is of course very happy to produce the results of his experiments.

But these last words of criticism can be a good way to knock out the tail of the young man who is easily complacent before he has time to, so that he will not become fluttering because of his praise just now.

Although he knew that Chen Muwu was by no means that kind of person, he still had to say these words.

He is not trying to re-establish his prestige in front of students who are becoming more and more prominent, but to sincerely do it for the good of students.

In the face of Rutherford's last few heavy words, Chen Muwu had 10,000 reasons to quibble, and even refuted Rutherford speechless, but he didn't choose to do so.

The easiest way to do this is to say something like, "Teacher, how do you know that I also found neutrons in the Cavendish lab?" ”。

But Chen Muwu was not stupid enough to unveil the hole cards in advance in order to be quick to talk for a while.

And Rutherford was completely for his own good, so he pretended to be a good student in front of the teacher, and deeply reviewed the mistakes he made in the experiment:

"Teacher, what you criticize is that I have just deliberately concealed the mistake I made in the experiment, that is, the reason why I was reluctant to do this experiment before was because I didn't think about how deuterium gas, as a gas, should be put into the particle accelerator as a target element for bombardment.

"It was only after reading papers published by others in the lab that I learned how to use the crystallization of inorganic compounds to fix gas molecules into solids.

"If Professor Eddington hadn't forced me, I might not even have read other people's papers, and I still took it for granted that deuterium gas could not be put in a particle accelerator as a target.

"I have to review this matter, probably because after becoming the acting director and having the power in my hands, my enthusiasm for academic research has slackened. There is a saying in China that learning is like rowing against the current, and if you don't work hard to improve, you will be swept backwards by the current.

"The chair of the laboratory director, only after you sit on it can you know that it is covered with thorns, fortunately, you have rushed back to China in time, and professional things should be handed over to professional people to do.

"I must not slack off like I have done in the past few months, I must think of myself as a newcomer who doesn't know anything before every experiment, and I can't judge with my previous experience, otherwise, this time on the particle accelerator will be repeated again and again."

While reviewing his mistakes in this experiment, Chen Muwu quietly returned the rights to the Cavendish laboratory to Rutherford.

In this room of the Solvay Palace, two foxes, one old and one young, played and chatted.

(End of chapter)