afterglow

Chapter 173 Chapter [-] Nuclear - Alchemy

Zhou Changfeng did not stay in Jiujiang much because he was preparing to join the military expedition, and he set off for the capital on February 24th.

Before leaving, Zhu Lingjing asked someone to send him a very delicate letter. She thought that there was something secret to be told in writing, but in the end...

"Mysterious," Zhou Changfeng muttered as he opened the envelope in a cubicle in the toilet of the train station, "Didn't you say you didn't have anything to do with me recently? It's really..."

The muttering stopped abruptly, because there was no letter paper here at all, but two checks.

A piece of [-] yuan, a piece of [-] yuan.

Grass!
If there were Arabic numerals, Zhou Changfeng might think that he was delusional, but the Chinese characters written on this check were capitalized, "九万圆圆" and "九千圆圆", which were clear.

He immediately recalled what Zhu Lingjing said on the phone some time ago, "I have prepared a gift money for you".

It is true that what you say is what you say, but this huge sum of money is really frighteningly large. Roughly converted according to purchasing power, it is equivalent to 900 million yuan.

In comparison, the reward he earned for his achievements on the front line was only [-] yuan.

No wonder some people are willing to befriend a rich woman. With this kind of treatment, they would be willing even if it wasn't for marriage.

After sighing at Zhu Lingjing's generosity, Zhou Changfeng carefully collected the two checks, then left the toilet as if nothing had happened, went to the platform and boarded the train bound for the capital.

When passing through Wuhan, he was still a little entangled, because his sister had invited him to go back to his hometown several times in letters, but he kept refusing it. Now that he is passing through Wuhan, he can't stay.

Since it was a business trip, Zhou Changfeng took a first-class car, which was divided into multiple compartments with spacious bunk beds, so the fourteen-hour journey was not too difficult.

When the train stopped at Hanyang Railway Station, a slovenly young man with a handbag came to the compartment he was in. His hair was messy and was just tied up casually. He was always distracted, as if he was thinking about something.

The tickets for the first-class car are more expensive, and there are not enough seats, and there are only two of them in the four-person compartment.

It wasn't until late at night that the two finally had a conversation.

Zhou Changfeng learned that his name was Zhang Shilin, and he was a bachelor's (doctorate) candidate in the Department of Chemistry of Imperial Gezhi University. Because the research he was engaged in was cumbersome, he often had to go back and forth between the capital and Wuhan.

"...So, what kind of research do you do?"

"Nuclear transmutation is the transformation of one substance into another."

Hearing this, Zhou Changfeng, who was eating dinner, almost choked on a mouthful of rice, and quickly took a mouthful of soup.

Although not as well-known as fission and fusion, he had heard of transmutation—it refers to the transformation of one element into another, or between isotopes; transmutation can occur naturally or can be artificially induced .

Just a few years ago, the Hungarian physicist Szilard put forward a conjecture about the chain reaction; Madame Curie's daughter Irena and her husband Yori also publicly announced that radioactivity can be artificially induced, which caused great controversy. A big sensation, because before that, the scientific community generally believed that radioactivity was naturally occurring.

Ever since, this has aroused the interest of many scientists in the world and began to devote themselves to research in this area.

"The road to explore the origin of things is full of unknowns and surprises," Zhang Shilin raised his fist, looking forward to: "One day we will be able to turn lead into gold!"

In Zhou Changfeng's eyes, his image is more or less like a Frankenstein. The only inconsistency is that his glasses are thinner, not the bottom of the wine bottle.

"Speaking of which..." After thinking for a few seconds, Zhou Changfeng asked: "What are you using to bombard the nucleus now? A type of ray?"

aha?Are there any military officers who understand this?

Feeling very surprised, Zhang Shilin was stunned for a moment, and then replied: "The efficiency of the bombardment of nitrogen, boron, and aluminum by type A rays is not high. Now we have switched to neutrons, and the effect is remarkable."

The so-called type A ray is α-ray, and the three types of ray A, B, and C represent α, β, and γ-rays respectively.

Alpha rays are essentially high-speed helium nuclei, composed of two neutrons and two protons, with two units of positive charge and a larger mass.

Because it is charged, it will be electrostatically repulsed when it hits the target nucleus, so it is not easy to hit and the efficiency is not high.

The neutron was discovered just a few years ago. This is a kind of neutral particle without charge. Its discovery seems to open a wider door?
Charged particles dissipate energy as they penetrate matter, but neutrons, which are electrically neutral, are quite different -- they are only affected by the strong force when they come into close contact with an atomic nucleus.

Zhou Changfeng pretended to be casual and said: "So, have you tried bombarding some special heavy elements? For example... uranium?"

"No," Zhang Shilin shook his head, feeling a little baffled, "What do you use it for? What do you change it into?"

By bombarding the atomic nucleus to change the number of protons, as long as element 79 can be finally obtained, artificial gold will be truly realized, and that is the technology that will subvert the world!
However, everyone should take it for granted that it is best to use elements with atomic numbers similar to element 79, such as element 78 platinum, element 80 mercury, and element 82 lead.

Zhou Changfeng can't help feeling sorry for this, he can't control the research topics of Imperial Gezhi University now, and it's impossible to stop the ongoing scientific research projects.

But the good news is that, according to Zhang Shilin, Suncheon University of Technology has a similar research, but the progress is not smooth.

In the early morning of the next day, the sky was still dark, the moon was dark and the stars were bright, and the last quarter moon in the sky had come to the west and was about to set.

Just after Maoshi, Zhou Changfeng took the ferry to Jiangnan, and found that it was still early, so he took a car to the vicinity of Dingjia Lane on Chaotian Palace West Street.

He raised his hand and looked at his watch. It was 90.00% likely that Xia Xiaoshi hadn't left the house until after six o'clock.

As it turned out, only a quarter of an hour later, Zhou Changfeng, who was pacing on the spot, caught a glimpse of a figure pushing the door out.

"Huh?" After a brief surprise, she stepped forward and said happily, "Come back so soon? I thought I would have to wait half a month."

"Because things are going well."

"Oh, that's it... run, the car is coming!"

The two ran in small steps for a while, and as soon as they reached the station, they saw a tram slowly approaching.

The fare is divided into three classes, starting at two cents, and depending on the distance, it can be increased up to four cents.

Haven't seen each other for many days, Xia Xiaoshi talks more than Zhou Changfeng, asking this or that.

Seeing her so happy, the latter was a little embarrassed to tell her the "bad news". After struggling for a few seconds, he said seriously: "I have something to tell you, um... I may have to talk to you in a few days." Went to Spain with the military expedition."

(End of this chapter)