Fox of France

Joseph didn't care too much about winning or losing the bet with Napoleon. He remembered that among the movies about Napoleon he had seen in his previous life, there was a story about Napoleon submitting a manuscript to the French Academy of Sciences. It seems that Napoleon wrote an article on the analysis of social issues at that time, and after it was submitted, it disappeared. Therefore, Joseph felt that it was at least unlikely that he would lose this bet.

However, this thesis still requires careful preparation. If it is normal research, the first thing that needs to be done is naturally the experiment. But for Joseph who came from time travel, this matter can be delayed for a while. The first thing he needs to prepare is to prepare some mathematical tools for subsequent arguments and calculations.

In this way, the problem is complicated, because the two to three decades from the 1770s to the beginning of the 19th century were the era when mathematics, especially French mathematics, made a great leap. During this period of time, France has produced a series of mathematicians who have made Joseph take a deep breath and tremble for a long time when he thinks about it. Even if he became a time traveler, as soon as he thought of them, Joseph immediately remembered the fear of being dominated by Fourier, Laplace, and Lagrange, and a chill rose from his tailbone. Cool to the back of the neck. And Fresnel's ability to perfectly explain double-slit diffraction is also inseparable from the achievements of these great and terrible guys. To replicate Fresnel's argument directly, it almost required several key mathematical breakthroughs.

"It's really 'To solve North Korea, we need to solve Manchuria; to solve Manchuria, we need to solve China; to solve China, we need to solve America'. When did my approach become like those A Showa staff who is used to creating a bigger problem to solve a small problem without a brain?" Joseph couldn't help mocking himself. But considering the impact of this experiment on history, under the influence of vanity, Joseph still intends to write this. Of course, as long as possible, he should try his best to use the existing mathematical methods to solve the problem. In principle, this is not impossible, but the whole demonstration process will be very cumbersome and cumbersome. It's like a problem that can be calculated by multiplication, but you have to turn it into addition.

As a result, after trying to work for a few days, Joseph found that if he really wanted to completely bypass these mathematical tools that had not yet appeared, it would probably require even more space.

"Some necessary mathematical tools still have to be developed, otherwise, we can't really use addition to calculate multiplication." Joseph thought so.

After spending nearly a month in this way, bypassing some high-level tools with relatively cumbersome means, and inventing some "low-level" tools by the way, Joseph finally completed his thesis. Looking at the thesis, which was as thick as a book, Joseph nodded in satisfaction and said, "I have managed to reduce the length by half. A thesis not only has breakthroughs in physics, but also breakthroughs in mathematics." Breakthrough, it's a great value experience. The only pity is that I didn't get real world feedback."

Joseph made another copy of the paper and sent one of them. The other one was shown to Amon.

As soon as he saw the pile of mathematical symbols in the paper, Amon frowned: "Joseph, what have you been up to these days? It turns out that you were doing this. Well, before that, I was I can barely understand it. You think light should be a wave, not a particle—this is different from Sir Newton’s view. Your experiment is also very interesting. I can recognize all the symbols behind these things , but what does it mean to put them together, to be honest, I don’t understand at all. Of course... You shouldn’t show this thing to me, but to my uncle, right?”

"Yes," Joseph said, "I would like to hear Mr. Lavoisier's opinion on this."

"Well, well, tomorrow is Sunday, and I'll take this paper over to show him."

...

"Good morning, Mr. Lavoisier, do you need anything?" A waiter hurriedly opened the door and said to Lavoisier, a member of the French Academy of Sciences and a famous chemist.

"Ah, Mabeuf, is M. Laplace here today?" Lavoisier asked while handing his cane to the waiter.

"Yes, M. Lavoisier, M. Laplace is in his office," replied the waiter.

"Very good, please bring me a pot of black tea to his office later." Lavoisier said as he strode along the corridor towards Laplace's office on the left.

"Okay sir, I'll send it to you right away."

Lavoisier walked to the door of Laplace's office, reached out and knocked gently on the door, but there was no sound from inside. Lavoisier smiled slightly, and knocked lightly on the door again, but there was still no sound from inside.

Lavoisier gave the door a slight push, and it opened. He walked in and saw Laplace sitting at the desk with his head down, shaking his quill, and calculating something. His desk was littered with used manuscript paper.

Lavoisier didn't speak, just walked over, pulled a chair, sat down opposite Laplace's desk, and waited quietly.

At this time, Ma Baifu came in with a pot of black tea.

"Ah, Mabeuf, put it here, pour me a glass." Lavoisier said.

Mabeuf put the teapot on the table next to him, poured another cup of tea, and served it to Lavoisier.

"Well, it's all right here. You can leave." Lavoisier took the tea and said with a smile.

Ma Baifu bowed slightly, then walked out lightly, and gently closed the door behind him.

While drinking tea, Lavoisier watched Laplace calculate; and Laplace never looked up, he never noticed a person sitting opposite his desk.

After a while, Laplace put the quill in his hand into the ink bottle again, but he failed to write the number on the manuscript paper as he wished—the ink in the ink bottle ran out.

"Damn it! I should get a bigger inkpot," said Laplace, looking up and seeing Lavoisier sitting across the table.

"Mr. Lavoisier, why are you here? How long have you been here?" Laplace asked.

For quite a long time, Laplace worked as an assistant to Lavoisier, and together they determined the specific heat of many substances. In 1780, the pair showed that the heat required to decompose a compound into its constituent elements is equal to the heat given off by those elements forming the compound. This can be seen as the beginning of thermochemistry, and it is another milestone towards the law of conservation of energy following Braque's work on latent heat. So the relationship between the two is quite good.

"Ah, I've been here for a while. Why, I think you seem to be checking the 'Bonaparte's spot'?"

"Yes, Monsieur Lavoisier." Laplace stood up and said, "Have you read that paper? It's so counterintuitive. But, damn it, it actually worked in the experiment. Observing...that is to say, if his whole derivation is correct, then light must indeed be a kind of wave. Well, Hooker will roll happily in his grave."

Lavoisier said: "Yes, I have read that paper, I read it yesterday morning. This paper is my art-loving nephew, um, you have seen him, one of his It was written by a classmate named Joseph Bonaparte. He passed this paper to me through Amon. I have to say that although the conclusion of this paper is somewhat uncommon, the two experiments are really impressive. .Especially the 'Bonaparte spot'. Well, I think this young man also submitted this paper to the Academy of Sciences, hoping to get a prize. Well, not to mention other things, just two experiments, I think it is worth it Six hundred francs, maybe more."

"The few mathematical tools he established in this paper alone are worth it." Laplace said, "However, the conclusion of waves alone may be difficult for many people to accept."

"It's hard to accept? Just because Sir Newton said that light is a particle?" Lavoisier said disapprovingly, "Aristotle has a lot of mistakes. Is Sir Newton the pope who never makes mistakes? But you know , I always have a lot of things. And there are too many mathematical calculations in this paper. Although he made some tricks, the amount of calculation is still too large. I also have my research, so I just verified it yesterday His experiment, and then looked at his argument in general, as for the specific mathematical details, I have not had time to study in detail. You know, I am not as good as you in mathematics, and if it comes to the speed of calculation, the world In fact, I think, there will be no one stronger than you. So I plan to ask you to verify it in detail. I didn't expect that you are already doing this. "