1840 Indian Rebirth

Chapter 197 [Era of Telegram]

Not long after, the Queen's Chinese translator came here. He was a tall, thin, middle-aged man with a gentle appearance and light blue pupils.

"Your Majesty the Queen." The interpreter saluted.

"I guess you know who this is." Queen Victoria smiled and pointed to the horse whistle.

The interpreter glanced at the horse whistle: "Yes, Your Majesty. Now the whole of Britain knows this Indian scientist."

Queen Victoria said again: "But you may not know that Ma Shuo is also a linguist who is proficient in Chinese."

The interpreter was obviously surprised, and couldn't help but glance at the horse whistle again: "Really?"

Victoria: "I didn't know either, so I called you here."

The translator nodded slowly, then turned to face the horse whistle, thought for a moment, and said in not-so-standard Chinese: "Do you really understand Chinese?"

Ma Shao also replied in Chinese: "Yes, a Chinese friend who didn't tell me his name taught me their language."

Before the words fell, the translator couldn't help but widen his eyes, his face was full of disbelief: "This..."

Although his Chinese inevitably has some exotic accents, he knows what standard Chinese is like.

The Indian in front of him clearly spoke authentic and standard Chinese, at least much more authentic than him.

In a trance, he almost thought that Ma Shao was a Chinese.

"I don't know if my Chinese is still standard?" Ma Shao asked with a smile.

"I must admit that your Chinese is very standard, with almost no accent, and surprisingly fluent... To be honest, I really doubt that you have a Chinese soul." The translator joked.

Horse whistle also smiled.

"I want to know, how long have you studied Chinese?" The translator couldn't help but ask again, still unable to hide his surprise.

"I've been learning it intermittently for a few months." Ma Whistle said shamelessly.

"A few months!" The translator was so frightened this time that he blurted out a sentence in his native language.

If it wasn't for the queen being here, he might even have jumped out of the national quintessence.

"What months?" Prince Albert asked curiously.

The translator stammered, "He said...he has studied Chinese for several months."

"So?" Prince Albert was a little puzzled, obviously he couldn't understand the Chinese conversation between the horse post and the interpreter just now.

"However, his Chinese is so proficient!" said the translator. "I can't believe that people outside East Asia can master Chinese to such a degree, and it only took a few months. This, this is incredible!"

Seeing the exclamation of the translator, Queen Victoria couldn't help being surprised: "It seems that you are indeed proficient in Chinese. What I'm curious about now is, how is your Chinese calligraphy? Chinese people attach great importance to calligraphy, and many Chinese I have met Can write beautiful Chinese characters - even though I can't understand what the characters mean."

"Unfortunately, Your Majesty, my Chinese ability is limited to speaking and some reading, and I can't write any beautiful characters." Ma Whistle said.

His calligraphy is indeed not good, as it was in his previous life.In addition, he has been far away from Chinese characters for a long time now, so naturally he can't write any good characters, and most of them even have to pick up the pen and forget the characters, making mistakes and omissions.

"Okay." The queen nodded, with admiration and admiration in her tone, "Even so, this is still unbelievable. Chinese may be the most difficult language in the world. I have to say, you are a miraculous man, a genius."

Horse Whistle: "Thank you for your compliment, Your Majesty the Queen."

After showing his Chinese, he talked about science again.

Considering the level of Victoria and Albert, the so-called "talking about science" is actually talking about the history of science and technology, or telling stories, and basically does not involve hard-core content such as formulas.

If there is one more formula, the interest of the audience will be reduced by three points.Horse whistle knows this.

He himself loves and is proficient in the history of science and technology.This thing is as much science as it is history, and it is full of attraction to every vigorous curiosity.

After some conversation, the couple couldn't help admiring Ma Shao's knowledge.

Horse Whistle was not surprised by this.

Not to mention that in the 21th century, even in the [-]st century, his understanding of the history of science and technology can often pretend to be a force.

Enjoyed talking.

Under the deliberate guidance of the horse whistle, the topic unconsciously shifted to the telegram.

"...This is an era that belongs to the telegraph. The telegraph will profoundly change the human world, just like the steam engine, or even more." He said.

"Yes, every country wants to popularize the telegraph as soon as possible." Prince Albert nodded, "But it will not be easy, the telegraph is a complicated technology."

Ma Whistle considered it carefully: "If telegrams are to be popularized on a large scale, some theoretical improvements are still needed."

"Oh?" Albert's eyes moved, "Do you have any ideas?"

Horse Whistle nodded: "I have thought about the problems that Telegraph is facing. In fact, I think I have solved part of it... It's a pity that I have never been able to put my theory into practice."

"Can you talk to me?" Prince Albert seemed to be looking forward to it.

"Of course." Horse Whistle smiled slightly, "To put it simply, I put forward a set of theories about signal attenuation, as well as ideas about the transoceanic telegraph project, and what's more, I redesigned the English code."

The first two are things that will appear a few years later. In the original history, Kelvin proposed this set of theories about signal attenuation, which then led to the implementation of the transatlantic telegraph project.

As for the redesign of the English code, it is the application of information theory.

Ma Shao does not plan to come up with information theory. This is a great theory comparable to the theory of relativity. It has such a huge impact that it is not suitable to publish it now, but it is still possible to use information theory to create some by-products.

With the help of information theory, he made some optimizations to the Morse code to make it more efficient. Although it can't reach the point of being reborn, it should still be experienced in actual use.

"A transoceanic telegram!" Prince Albert was clearly drawn to the concept.

For humans in this era, the transoceanic telegraph does sound a bit grand and sci-fi, and basically only exists in the fantasy of scientists and engineers, but has not been reflected in reality.

"Are you serious, Horse Whistle? I mean, did you actually design a transoceanic telegraph system?" the Prince demanded.

"I'm not a professional engineer." Ma Shao said slowly, "But I think my plan should be able to inspire engineers. In my opinion, transoceanic telegraphy is not as difficult as some people imagine."

"At least, what is certain is that after I discovered the law of signal attenuation in the cable, the difficulty of this project is no longer what it used to be." While speaking, Horse Whistle apologized silently in his heart.

I'm sorry, Baron Kelvin, I'm going to plagiarize your work again...

(End of this chapter)