Chapter 58 The Eve of the Defense
It is June 6th, and there are only five days left until Li Qiwei's graduation defense.
He was scheduled to be the last to defend his thesis as the final speaker, and the college's graduation ceremony and degree awarding ceremony would be held at the end of June.
In the dean's office of Trinity College, Sanders, Professor Case, and Li Qiwei were chatting and laughing.
Sanders looked radiant, leaning back comfortably in his chair, and said with a smile, "Bruce, Professor Case spoke highly of your graduation thesis."
"If nothing unexpected happens, this year's graduation defense will become a symbol of Trinity College."
"Then let those arrogant Oxford guys see who is the number one university in the UK, hahahaha."
Li Qiwei exclaimed in his heart, wow, an ordinary graduation defense was used by Sanders to show off and slap him in the face.
Professor Case also agreed: "Bruce, I read your paper three times. It is really well written."
"The most important thing is that you explained the entire history of light research very clearly, especially the final conclusion, which is really amazing."
"I can't wait to see your defense presentation. I have a few questions prepared for you."
Li Qiwei smiled, but his expression was calm. He had become numbed by the praise, and now the threshold for his mood swings was too high.
"Professor Case, you are overpraising me, because I personally think that it is time to give a definitive conclusion on the nature of light."
"Let me put an end to this argument."
The simple yet domineering words shocked Professor Case, with admiration in his eyes.
The debate over the wave-particle nature of light has been going on for hundreds of years, and has not yet been concluded. Now Li Qiwei has made such a bold statement.
Sometimes Professor Case wonders whether his obscurity in the physics community is due to being too honest.
At this time, Sanders continued with a smile: "Okay, two physics experts, let's stop discussing academics. I don't understand it either. It feels terrible." Professor Li Qiwei and Case chuckled.
"Let's talk about the specific arrangements for the defense, so that Bruce can prepare for the rest of the day."
"According to my estimation, there will be about 50 people from other schools and about 200 people from our school participating in the defense."
"When the time comes, we will use the largest lecture hall in Trinity College, which is equipped with a loudspeaker."
"But Bruce, I have to remind you that most of the audience this time are students, and there may be people who are not majoring in physics asking questions."
"You have to be prepared to politely decline questions you don't know how to answer."
Li Qiwei nodded on the surface, but he was disdainful in his heart. As long as the questions were related to his graduation thesis, he didn't think there was any that he couldn't answer.
Then, the three of them discussed the details and confirmed that the various processes were accurate.
The next day, when Li Qiwei was working in the laboratory, Wilson rushed in and interrupted him, "Bruce, come and see, your photoelectric effect has been proved by the experiment."
Swish!
Li Qiwei immediately stood up, took the magazine from Wilson's hand, and found that it was "Science", which is the Chinese word for "Science".
In later generations, these are the two supreme academic journals that are on par with Nature.
Science magazine was founded by Edison in 1880 and became the most famous scientific journal in the United States by 1894.
Like Nature, Science is also a weekly magazine that publishes the best original research papers, reviews, and some short news.
The so-called short message is not a complete paper, but information such as the purpose and results of the experiment.
Now, the front page of the latest issue of the magazine is a short news report on the experiment of the photoelectric effect. Ridgway discovered that the author was actually Millikan. It seems that the history in the United States has not changed much. Millikan was the first to verify the photoelectric effect with an experiment.
However, it was advanced by more than ten years. I think my physics assignment has indeed stimulated many people, and experimental physics also has a bright future!
In this experimental brief, Millikan used six different wavelengths of monochromatic light to measure the photocurrent under different voltages.
The voltage of the cathode under the irradiation of light of a certain wavelength can be obtained from the relationship curve between photocurrent and voltage.
The voltage obtained from the 6 sets of photocurrent curves, and the curve that Millikan obtained as a function of light frequency, happened to be a beautiful straight line.
Based on the slope of this straight line, he calculated the value of the Lie-Planck constant h, which is the same as the value of h in the Lie-Planck radiation formula.
This perfectly confirmed the photoelectric effect equation and proved the correctness of the light quantum theory.
Of course, the specific original experimental data was not released. Millikan published a brief message, reporting only the most important experimental results.
This shows that he wanted to seize the initiative and was afraid that others would publish ahead of him.
I guess Science magazine took the risk and agreed to publish the article because of the photoelectric effect.
After all, this is the most cutting-edge physics theory at the moment and has a huge impact. The magazine even specially invited reviewers to Millikan's laboratory for face-to-face exchanges.
Ensure the accuracy of experimental results.
Today, the United States' ambitions are gradually expanding, and it also wants to increase its influence in the physics community.
In the foreseeable future, there will be fierce confrontations between Nature and Science.
After coming to his senses, Li Qiwei looked at the magazine with a smile on his face. Now his position was as stable as a rock.
Wilson was excited and patted Li Qiwei on the shoulder. "Bruce, with this experimental result, no one will oppose your quantum theory anymore."
"I feel like you have great competition for the first Nobel Prize in Physics."
Li Qiwei said: "That's not necessarily true. There are too many big names in the physics community nowadays. Everyone has made great achievements and the competition is too fierce."
Wilson still believed in Ridgway because of his intuition. "Bruce, I really envy you. You are so young, but you have created such a great theory. Compared with it, the photoelectric effect is not as good as it seems."
Ridgwell smiled and said, “No, the photoelectric effect is actually very important, and I think it is the basis of a broader theory.”
Wilson was puzzled. Doesn’t the photoelectric effect show that light also has particle properties? Similar conclusions were reached hundreds of years ago. Is there anything special about it?
What he didn't know was that more than 20 years later, a young man named de Broglie would be inspired by the wave-particle duality of light and publish a paper.
The paper is only a few pages long, but it proposed a groundbreaking statement: everything is a wave, that is, any real particle has the dual nature of wave and particle!
For this achievement, de Broglie won the 1929 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Li Qiwei smiled when he thought of this. The wave-particle duality derived from the photoelectric effect is the second foundation of quantum mechanics.
Quantum theory, wave-particle duality, and the uncertainty principle, and now he has put forward the first point.
And four days later, at his graduation thesis defense, he will publicly confirm the wave-particle duality of light, preparing to put forward the second point.
Thanks to all the book friends for their monthly tickets and recommendation tickets, the climax is coming soon. Lao Xu is here to collect and read.
This book is now in the second round of PK. Lao Xu is very ambitious and wants to sprint to the third round, so I hope that all book friends can click to the last page and support my reading. Thank you.
(End of this chapter)