章節 189: Chapter 190: [Perpetual Motion Machine]
"Thank you for your reminder, professor." Ma Shao smiled.
Professor Smith said no more and led the group to the accommodation arranged for them by Cambridge University.
As one of the world's top universities, Cambridge University's material conditions are naturally very favorable. Ma Shao even tasted tea imported from the Qing Dynasty here.
And it wasn't just any imported tea. The Chinese characters on the packaging made Ma Shao stare blankly for a moment.
"Jardine Matheson..." He repeated these three words silently.
"Jardine Matheson's tea is the best tea in the world." Thomson did not understand Chinese, but he obviously knew Jardine Matheson.
"It's rare that Cambridge University is so generous. I haven't had this treatment before." Joule carefully took the freshly brewed tea and couldn't help but complain.
Thomson laughed and said, "Haha, you are almost becoming a member of the Royal Society."
"Ma Shao, what's wrong with you?" He noticed that Ma Shao's expression seemed a little strange.
"Nothing." Ma Shao said perfunctorily, turning his eyes away from the Chinese characters.
Thomson frowned slightly: "Do you know Chinese characters?"
Ma Shao hesitated for half a second, then smiled and said, "I know a little bit. In fact, I have learned many languages, English is one of them, and Chinese is also one of them."
"Really?" Thomson and Joule were surprised. "Show us your Chinese skills. To be honest, I'm a little curious about how you speak Chinese."
"Let's talk about it later. Our top priority right now is the next meeting." Ma Shao said.
Soon, with the arrival of physicists from all walks of life, this academic conference kicked off at Cambridge University.
The meeting was held in a large auditorium. The magnificent hall was filled with scientists from the UK and Europe, of course teachers and students from Cambridge University, and some reporters, a total of more than a thousand people.
In an era without microphones, such a scene was obviously extremely unfriendly to the speaker.
Among the thousands of people present, the one sitting in the center seat was unsurprisingly Michael Faraday, a thin old man with gray hair and heavy bags under his eyes.
Looking at Faraday surrounded by a crowd, Ma Shao suddenly thought of a photo taken in later generations, which was also a scene of an elderly physicist surrounded by a large crowd, but the protagonist was Yang Zhenning.
Originally, the nascent thermodynamics was just one of the topics of this academic conference, and not even the most important topic.
But since the whole of Britain was discussing MacArthur, one of the founders of thermodynamics, discussions other than thermodynamics were inevitably neglected. It can even be said that almost everyone was waiting for this Indian to come to the stage and speak.
This was particularly true of Professor Mackintosh, which was in fact why he was attending the meeting.
He wanted to see if the Indian who had humiliated him was really just a shameful academic fraud - it would be best if he was.
"Oh, it's finally his turn, the Apache man." A burst of discussion made McIntosh, who was sitting almost in the last row, perk up and look at the podium in the front of the auditorium.
"Let's welcome Mr. Ma Shao." The meeting was chaired by Professor Smith.
There was not much applause in the auditorium, and more people focused their energy on craning their necks to get a clear look at the Indian walking towards the podium.
Unfortunately, many people did not see some of the scenes they imagined, such as a savage wearing animal skins.
At this time, Ma Shao was dressed like a British gentleman, in a neat black suit. If it were not for his skin color that was different from that of the other participants, he would have looked like a young teacher teaching here.
"Ladies and gentlemen..." Ma Shao made a fool of himself as soon as he opened his mouth.
This is a perfectly normal opening, but the problem is that there seems to be no ladies here.
This was an academic conference, and a fairly important one at that, and in 1848 it was almost impossible for women to appear at such an occasion.
There was some laughter in the auditorium, but Ma Shao didn't care.
"Not long ago, my friend and I proposed the name 'thermodynamics' in our paper as the name of a new discipline. Maybe some people don't agree with this. I can fully understand it. After all, this discipline is so immature, like a baby..."
Faraday, who was sitting in the first row, couldn't help but smile when he heard this.
A dozen years earlier, in a similar setting, he also compared his discoveries in the field of electromagnetism to a baby.
"Although thermodynamics is as immature as a baby, I believe that the birth of this discipline is an inevitable development of physics, and it will inevitably grow into one of the most important branches of physics, just like mechanics and electricity," Ma Shao continued.
"In fact, the gestation of thermodynamics has been going on for a long time, especially in recent decades. With the discovery of Earl Rumford, people have gradually realized the nature of heat..."
As a physics teacher, standing on the podium and teaching physics is simply an instinct for him, just like eating and drinking.
After a while, he was completely into the mood, talking incessantly, and even showing his professional habits.
"Look at the blackboard." After writing a few lines of formulas on the blackboard, Ma Shao knocked on the blackboard and said at the same time, which made the professors in the audience look at each other in surprise.
"He seems to treat us as students..."
"What an arrogant guy!" Some professors couldn't help but feel annoyed. "No one dares to talk to me like this!"
"He is indeed a barbarian!" McIntosh was naturally even more annoyed, but his angry curse did not sound confident because no one could deny that Ma Shao's speech was excellent.
Some audience members praised him generously: "To be honest, I think his presentation was perfect. After listening to what he said, I was completely convinced that thermodynamics must be one of the most important branches of physics."
"He is indeed a physicist, an Indian scientist, it is amazing..."
People were talking.
Ma Shao spoke about the history of physics for half an hour, and even the journalists who were not experts in the field listened with great interest. They might not understand the formulas, but they could understand the stories of the physicists.
As the narrative progressed, he talked about the law of conservation of energy.
Ma Shao: "I think most people here have accepted the 'law of conservation of energy', or the 'first law of thermodynamics'."
"This law tells us that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but can only be converted from one form to another... From this we can be sure that perpetual motion machines cannot be made, and all attempts at perpetual motion machines are doomed to failure."
Before he finished speaking, a burst of intense discussion broke out in the auditorium again.
Perpetual motion machines are a hot topic.
Due to countless failed attempts by previous generations, most scientists have basically realized that perpetual motion machines cannot be made.
But it was not until recent years, with the discovery and popularization of the law of conservation of energy, that scientists finally gave up on this idea.
"It's a pity that the law of conservation of energy has sentenced the perpetual motion machine to death. We can no longer obtain this dream device..."
"Perhaps we can imagine another energy device, such as lowering the temperature of seawater to extract energy..."
Amidst these discussions, not surprisingly, Ma Shao heard some remarks about the second type of perpetual motion machine.
So he went on to say: "Since energy can only be transferred, can we design a device that can't create energy, but can extract energy from things that have huge energy, such as the ocean? We only need to lower the global sea water temperature by one degree Celsius, and the energy obtained may be enough to run trains for 100,000 years."
"That sounds good…" people said.
"What do you think?" Joule looked at Thomson beside him.
"Hmm... my intuition tells me that this seems impossible." Thomson murmured.
Ma Shao let people discuss it for a while, and then said: "However, I regret to tell you that such a design is also impossible. In fact, I think this design can be called a 'second-class perpetual motion machine', which is just as ridiculous as the first-class perpetual motion machine."
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