Fox of France

The design and related calculations of the Calais Fort were not particularly difficult. Monge entrusted this job to Joseph, in fact, it was more for him to earn more money. But soon Monge discovered that what Joseph got from this job was not just a little money.

One day in July, Monge, who was on a business trip in Nice, suddenly received a letter from Joseph. This was a very thick and heavy letter, and if it hadn't been channeled through the army, this letter would have cost Joseph more postage. Monge opened the envelope, and inside was a thick stack of letter paper filled with various numbers and symbols.

Monge glanced at it briefly, and knew that this letter was discussing the limit of flow rate. However, he was about to go out at this time, and he had no time to study the letter carefully, so Monge stuffed the letter into the pocket of his coat and went out.

After finishing work, it was already past four o'clock in the afternoon. A few colleagues met to go out for dinner together. They naturally also invited Monge. However, Monge declined on the grounds that he still had some personal affairs to deal with. Those colleagues didn't persuade them much, so they went by themselves.

According to Christianity, there are seven kinds of sins that will make a person's soul fall into hell, namely pride, jealousy, rage, laziness, greed, eating, and lust. If this is true, the French should have the highest odds of going to hell for good food in Europe. Like the big food countries in the East, the French, especially the French aristocrats, are famous throughout Europe for "drinking for a long night". Compared to Paris, the prices in Nice are much cheaper, and there are also a lot of seafood. Several people ate from the afternoon until late at night, until the food and wine not only filled their stomachs, but even their esophagus. When they reached their throats, they got into the carriage unsteadily and returned to their residence. And when they came back, they found that their life had been very regular all along. According to the habit, the light was still on in Monge's room, who should have gone to bed long ago.

"What is Monge doing?" someone muttered.

"Whatever, that stiff guy, doesn't look like a Frenchman," replied another drunk.

But these drunken fellows didn't really want to study what Monge was doing. So they just grunted for a while, and went back to sleep by themselves.

Monge naturally didn't know what those drunks said about him outside his door. In front of his desk, there is a large stack of draft paper, neatly packed, full of various calculation formulas. He frowned and calculated earnestly until another candle was burned out, and the sky outside his window began to light up slightly.

"Joseph's research is quite good, at least I don't find any problems now. Well, he was inspired when he was dealing with the construction of the fort? It's really good to be young. When I was young, my thinking was better than now Much more agile." Monge sighed as he put down his quill.

"Joseph should have also sent this paper to the Academy of Sciences. I don't know how those guys in the Academy of Sciences evaluated it." Monge finally thought this way.

Joseph did send this paper to the Academy of Sciences, but one thing Monge did not expect was that within a week Joseph sent a new paper to the Academy of Sciences, in which he also deduced an important inequality. This inequality was originally called Cauchy's inequality in history, but now, I am afraid it has to be renamed.

But this was just a starting point. Half a year later, Joseph published another physics paper "Research on Frictional Heating". In this paper, Joseph rubbed two pieces of ice enclosed in a glass box submerged in water. The two pieces of ice of equal mass and temperature in the comparison group melted naturally, and the temperature changes of the water in the two groups were recorded. The water temperature did not drop more sharply with the friction group. On the contrary, the amount of decline is smaller, and the decline curve is more gentle. Joseph pointed out that this phenomenon is completely opposite to the inferences that can be made based on the traditional heat-mass theory. Based on this, he further deduced that the current popular heat mass theory may not be correct.

The "caloric theory" is a scientific hypothesis that emerged after Lavoisier overturned the "phlogiston theory" with experiments. This explanation assumes that heat is a substance called "caloric". Caloric is a substance without mass and does not occupy space. Objects with high temperature flow to objects with low temperature, and can also pass through the pores of solid or liquid.

"Theory of heat and mass" can be quite effective in explaining many physical phenomena. For example, cooling hot tea at room temperature can be explained by the caloric theory: the higher the temperature of the hot tea, the higher the caloric concentration, so the caloric will automatically flow to the area with lower caloric concentration, that is, the cooler surrounding air middle. The heat mass theory can also explain the expansion of air when heated, because the molecules of air absorb heat mass, making its volume larger. If we further analyze the details of the process of air molecules absorbing heat and mass, we can also explain thermal radiation, phase changes of objects at different temperatures, and even most of the gas laws. So until the mid-nineteenth century, the "caloric mass theory" was the mainstream scientific hypothesis. At that time, some people also proposed the theory of molecular motion, but in this era, people generally think that these two theories are equivalent.

However, the "thermal mass theory" also has loopholes. Because the "caloric mass theory" believes that "heat" is a kind of substance, and according to Lomonosov's "law of indestructibility of matter", "caloric mass" can neither be created out of thin air nor destroyed, but can only be Transfer between one object and another object. From this, there is a natural inference, that is, if the temperature of one object rises, the temperature of another object must drop, and the total amount of heat and mass obtained by the object that is heated up should be equal to the temperature of the lowered object. The total amount of heat and mass lost by the object. This makes it difficult to use this hypothesis to explain phenomena such as frictional heating. Because in this kind of phenomenon, it is difficult to find out, or even simply can't find the object that has lost its "thermal mass". For example, in Joseph's experiment, there was no source of the heat mass that allowed the ice to melt into water.

It is different from Humphrey David who first completed this experiment in history. Humphrey David was not fully aware of the meaning behind this experiment, nor did he conduct a rigorous mathematical analysis of this experiment. In fact, he himself didn't pay much attention to this experiment, so it was ignored at the time.

But Joseph was different. He also matched the experiment with a more rigorous mathematical analysis, proving that the caloric mass theory and molecular motion theory are not equivalent on this issue.

"To be honest, this paper has almost given the calorie theory a death sentence!" Laplace said to Lavoisier with a face full of pain, "Joseph is such a headache! There are so many people in this world. There are so many things to study, but he always seems to take pleasure in destroying other people's buildings. He... he is really..."

"Yes, I also felt your pain when he proposed that light is waves last time." Lavoisier replied with a bitter face, "In fact, I just completed a research based on the caloric theory."

"Me too," Laplace replied, "I just had an idea that perhaps some problems with Newton's formula for the speed of sound could be corrected by taking into account the change in heat and mass. Now, however, this research has just begun , it almost had to be temporarily interrupted.”

"This is not a big problem." Lavoisier said, "First of all, your research has not been carried out for a long time, and it is not impossible to change it from the perspective of molecular motion. And according to Joseph's argument, although molecular motion is related to heat and mass It is not completely equivalent, but in most cases, it can actually be regarded as equivalent. Therefore, the places you need to change should be very limited. But my research has been completed..."

"So, teacher, what do you think of his paper?" Laplace asked.

"How else can I look at it?" Lavoisier said, "Same as last time, at least for now, I haven't found any problems in his thesis. Of course, there must be something wrong with his point of view. How could the heat-mass theory be wrong? At most, there are things that need to be changed and supplemented. Well, he also admitted that there may be other explanations besides his explanation. The current heat mass theory does have flaws in the issue of frictional heat generation, but this is also It cannot be said that the thermal quality is completely finished, it just means that to make it continue to stand, we must make more repairs to it... But at present, I haven't found a way to repair it... This Joseph, always in Make trouble for us."

Laplace noticed that although Joseph's research had brought so much trouble to Lavoisier, and many places conflicted with Lavoisier's research. Under normal circumstances, Lavoisier should not have a very good impression of Joseph, but now when Lavoisier mentions Joseph, although his mouth is full of complaints, his tone of voice seems to be saying "this Children are naughty," without any malice.

"The teacher is such a generous person? It's not like that!" Laplace couldn't help thinking, "And in fact, he doesn't agree with Joseph's point of view at all. If someone else put forward such a point of view, such as me , maybe, maybe the teacher has been furious for a long time, but why is his attitude so gentle this time?"

"That kid is really smart, but he likes to make trouble too much. You said that it would be great if he could use his cleverness in useful places instead of making trouble for us. Well, when he comes back, I will definitely Have a good talk with him." Lavoisier didn't notice Laplace's thoughts, and said with a smile.