1: Edison's story
Edison is a world-famous inventor. When I was a child, because my family was poor, I only went to school for three months, and I started selling newspapers at the age of eleven or twelve. He loves science and often saves money to buy science books, newspapers and chemicals. The instruments he used in the experiment were bottles and cans picked out of the garbage.
When Edison 12 years old, he sold newspapers on the train. There is a special compartment for smoking passengers on the train, and the conductor agrees that he will occupy a corner there. He moved chemicals and bottles and cans there. After selling newspapers, he did all kinds of interesting experiments.
Once, a bottle of white phosphorus was knocked down by a sudden vibration while the train was running. Phosphorus burns as soon as it comes into contact with air. Many people came to put out the fire with Edison. The conductor was so angry that he threw all Edison's experiments out and slapped him hard that he was deaf in one ear. Edison's determination to study science never wavered. He scrimped and saved, and started his chemical experiment again. On one occasion, sulfuric acid burned his clothes; On another occasion, nitric acid almost blinded his eyes. Undaunted by the danger, he still stubbornly did the experiment.
Edison did many experiments to find a filament with low price and long life. He often works in the laboratory for dozens of hours, so tired that he lies on the experimental platform and sleeps for a while. He made unremitting efforts and finally found a suitable filament and invented the electric light. Later, Edison invented movies and phonographs ... he had 65438+ inventions in his life.
Article 2: China's first doctor of chemistry.
Zhao Chengxuan, whose name is Shi Min, was born in a Chinese medicine shop in the north gate of Jiangyin County, Jiangsu Province on the sixth day of November. I worked hard to learn Confucian classics and historical significance since I was a child, and I was a scholar in the examination in the late Qing Dynasty. Our country has a deep foundation in learning and has loved calligraphy all my life.
1905, Zhao Chengyu just turned 20, so he abandoned his studies at public expense. He received his master's degree and doctor's degree from Manchester University in England and Geneva University in Switzerland.
William Henry Perkin Junior, the chief professor of organic chemistry at Manchester University, greatly appreciated Zhao Chengxuan's knowledge and talent, and instructed Zhao Chengxuan to study the synthesis of terpenoids. His master's thesis was published in Journal of the Royal Chemical Society 19 1 1. This 13-page long article may be the first one published by China scholars in western scientific journals.
Under the guidance of Professor Shan Pen Amei Pictet, a famous organic chemist in Geneva University, Zhao Chengtuo completed the total synthesis of tetrahydropalmatine, and received his doctorate at 19 14. According to research, Zhao Chengxuan was the first doctor of chemistry in China. 19 16, Zhao Chengyu went to Rocco Pharmaceutical Factory in France to apply. Take a group photo with the tutors and colleagues of Geneva University before leaving.
During the period of 1922, news came from China that Beiyang * * * was destroying Chinese medicine. He declined the sincere retention of the pharmaceutical factory and the repeated discouragement of teachers and colleagues, and decided to return to work to realize the ideal of chemical research of Chinese herbal medicine. He said: "The motherland needs it without delay, and I am not afraid of suffering." Because his wife didn't want to leave France, Zhao Chengtuo resolutely returned to the motherland alone.
The third part: The story of a scientist in China.
In people's minds, scientists should be the lucky ones in the ivory tower. Gentle scientists wear glasses and white coats, doing all kinds of wonderful scientific experiments with flashing instruments in the laboratory. This is indeed a scene in a modern science laboratory. In such a working environment, there are indeed many scientists making contributions to science.
But Lao Duo also knows other scientists who don't have advanced experimental devices or even basic conditions, but they have also made great contributions to science. For example, Madame Curie, a famous female scientist, won the Nobel Prize in physics and chemistry with 1903 and 19 1 1 year respectively because she discovered radioactive elements polonium and radium with her husband. However, the laboratory that made such a great contribution started with a shabby shed and some extremely simple instruments. Of course, the story Lao Duo will tell today is not about foreign scientists, but about China.
At the beginning of the last century, there was a Hakka family in the Hakka mountainous area in the northeast of Guangdong Province. The elders of his family are watching a thin little boy running barefoot on the ridge. Although the child is thin but smart, the family hopes that one day the child can honor their ancestors.
He failed the expectations of his elders. At the age of 20, he was admitted to one of the few universities at that time-National Southeast Nanjing University, the predecessor of Nanjing University. This family is not very rich, and the whole family managed to collect enough money for him to go to school.
Entering the Physics Department of Southeast University, four years have changed him from a country boy to a student who is full of physical and chemical knowledge and can speak a foreign language. After graduation, he was recommended by a friend to be a physics teacher in a middle school in Nanjing. He thinks his career has begun. Although eating chalk powder is not very rich, it is far from rural life. I want to settle down here. But who knows that the time has not yet come, when the Northern Expedition was in a critical period, smoke filled the air, and Sun's defeated troops were everywhere in Nanjing. One day I met a group of wandering soldiers robbing in the street, and I was scared out of my mind. Moreover, he contracted a lung disease that was incurable at that time, coughing with blood. In desperation, he borrowed money from his friends and fled back to his hometown in Guangdong.
At this time of China, the national disaster is deep and the people are in dire straits. At such a bleak moment, 1920, another big earthquake occurred in Gansu, China, with numerous casualties, which shocked the world. At that time, Weng Wenhao, a famous geologist working in Beiyang Institute of Geology, led people to visit the site. Seeing such a tragic earthquake disaster, Mr Weng made up his mind to carry out China's instrument earthquake observation to the end. He found Professor Ye from Tsinghua University, hoping that he would recommend someone to do this job. There is no other requirement, as long as he studies physics and is good at English. Ye racked his brains and suddenly remembered that the young man from Guangdong met the requirements when he was teaching at Southeast University, so he sent an urgent telegram.
After 1927 fled to his hometown, he finally had a little luck. Although he didn't go home wearing clothes, college students are rare in rural areas in northern Guangdong. Soon after, he became the dean of the county middle school and concurrently served as a physics and English teacher. 1929 married a kind female student and established a happy family. My wife is a rich lady. After my mother-in-law's nursed back to health, my lung disease has actually recovered, and my life is really thriving. Suddenly I saw the teacher's urgent telegram, and I was at a loss. What is an earthquake? He knows nothing about it. what should he do ？ The newlywed wife said, "You go!"
So he forgot the Spring Festival, left his pregnant wife and came to Beijing alone. From then on, he began the earthquake research career that he struggled for all his life.
1930, he came to Beijing Central Geological Survey and was sent to Shanghai Xujiahui as an earthquake observation trainee. There is an earthquake observation room run by foreigners, and the person in charge is Italian Long Xiangqi. Who knows that at first, foreigners looked down on this silly boy from Guangdong and taught him nothing but smoking earthquake records. As a last resort, I had to go to the nearby library for self-study, and after learning a little about the earthquake, I asked foreign teachers for advice. Foreigners were shocked to see that the boy could ask himself some questions, so they began to teach him some knowledge of earthquake observation and let him enter his library. It didn't take long for him to study, and he was rushed back to Beijing, where the first earthquake observation station of China people was waiting for him. Later, he and Long Xiang became friends. 1934 When he was a visiting scholar at the Institute of Seismology in Pasadena, USA, Long Xiangqi recommended him to the famous American seismologist Mr. Gutenberg.
The seismic station is located on Jiufeng Mountain in Xishan, 40 kilometers away from Beijing. Few people go to that place now, let alone 1930. At that time, Beijing was still a city full of broken loess, and there were no foreign cars outside Xizhimen. There is a donkey-renting post under Xizhimen Tower. You can go to Xishan or ride a donkey or take a rickshaw. No matter what kind of transportation, it takes more than one day to travel between Beijing and Jiu Feng. Now it takes about 1 hour to drive from Xizhimen to Jiu Feng. Above Jiufeng Mountain, it is even more desolate. On the barren hill, there is a dilapidated Xiufeng Temple. Next to the ruined temple is the villa of Lin Hanggui, a famous barrister at that time. Lawyer Lin generously donated a piece of land of about 65,438,000 square meters as the venue, and the first earthquake observatory built by China people themselves was thus established. Xiufeng Temple is surrounded by pine and cypress, and the construction of seismic station begins. "Busy for a month, cement, drilling, filing, grinding, and even while the iron is hot, finally put the seismic instruments together. ..... "[1] More than 50 years later, he recalled.
On September 20th 1930, the first earthquake was recorded at Jiu Feng Seismic Station 13: 02: 02. Since then, China has its own seismic station.
This seismic station doesn't need anything. There is definitely no electricity, only batteries can be used. So every week, he rides a donkey and carries a battery to Tsinghua University, dozens of kilometers away. At night, it is even worse. In addition to listening to Song Tao's voice, it is howling. But he also amused himself by buying a small astronomical telescope from the city and propping it up on the roof to watch the stars.
Soon his wife came. They lived in a wing of Linda's lawyer's villa and listened to Songtao's voice together at night.
Soon, the Jiu Feng Earthquake Monthly Report and the Jiu Feng Earthquake Special Report, compiled and printed by the Seismological Station in accordance with the international common format, appeared in the earthquake observation networks around the world as scheduled. By 1937, Jiu Feng Seismic Station has become a world-class seismic station. During this period, apart from him, there was only another technician introduced by Mr. Ye in Tsinghua, who lived in Bei 'anhe Village at the foot of the mountain.
Later, many things happened. For example, 1937, War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression broke out, and the seismic station painstakingly operated for seven years was destroyed by war. He and his wife fled to Chongqing. During this period, he couldn't bear loneliness, and went deep into Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan and other places with traffic jams and wild animals, and evaluated the mines in Panzhihua. After liberation, Panzhihua became a famous steel company. He miraculously made the first seismograph made in China, amid the alarm of avoiding Japanese plane bombing in Chongqing. The prototype of this domestic seismograph even used cans. After the founding of New China, this seismograph became the initial equipment of the China seismic observation network established by himself. Of course, in that special era, he was not spared. The reactionary academic authority accused him of putting him in the bullpen. At the age of 60, he gave up smoking, but he started smoking again in the cowshed. 1976 restored calm. He was old, so he began to write the book Earthquake in China. After writing the last word, he fell ill and never got up again. Now his bronze statue stands in the original site of Jiu Feng Seismic Station.
The scientist's name is Li Shanbang, and he is Lao Duo's father. The reason why Lao Duo wrote about him is to let everyone know that the road to science is difficult, but it is also very happy, because they are full of enthusiasm and interest in what they are doing. More than 30 years ago, before Lao Duo left Beijing to be an educated youth in Yunnan, his father told me that you would see many butterflies and tropical insects there, and you would become an entomologist when you came back. Lao Duo didn't become an entomologist, but Lao Duo learned to learn and learned a lot.