Chapter 40 Traits of Great Men

On Sunday night, Wu Bin was sitting at his desk at home, reading a book with relish. But what was rare was that what he was holding in his hand was not a textbook, but a biography book given to him by Cai Guoping. Who is it?

It is the top figure in physics who often lifts the coffin board and wants to shout something, Isaac Newton.

The full title of the book is "The Last Alchemist: A Life of Newton"

It was written by British novelist Michael Connelly.

When Cai Guoping gave him this book, he said, "This is a biography of Newton that I personally like very much. I recommend you to read it. It may have some influence on you."

Before reading this biography, what Wu Bin knew most about this great scientist was his three laws.

And how could a man who could lay the foundation of modern physics make a person who likes physics not be curious about him?

Therefore, Wu Bin still squeezed out some time to read this biography in his intense study schedule, but unexpectedly, he fell into it after reading it.

When he came to school the next day, Wu Bin returned the biography he had read to Cai Guoping and said expectantly: "Teacher, do you have any other books about Newton?"

Cai Guoping smiled after taking the book and said, "I can recommend a few more books to you. They are available in the school library. You can borrow them."

"Okay, thank you teacher."

Cai Guoping nodded and took out a pen from the pen holder and started writing the title of the book on the note paper. While writing, he asked: "Tell me what you think after reading it?"

"In a sense, it made me understand the upper limit of human beings?" Wu Bin thought for a while and replied.

"Haha, he does have the qualifications."

After Cai Guoping finished speaking, he tore off the note and handed it to Wu Bin, "By the way, how are you doing in other subjects now? Teacher Bi has come to ask several times, and she is even more anxious than me."

"Tomorrow, I spent an unexpected amount of time studying chemistry, so it kind of messed up my plan, causing me to fall behind in my biology study. But I should be able to finish it all tomorrow."

"Wu Bin, what a loud tone. Let me tell you, if you can't pass 120 in English, I won't let you go."

At this time, Chen Fang, who was watering the flowers, raised her head and said to Wu Bin.

"That's me too. If your score doesn't satisfy me, don't blame me for helping you stay in the office. Don't think that you passed the test just because you answered the cell fusion question yesterday."

Jiang Lan also immediately added.

"Teachers, please rest assured. As soon as I... I will try my best to get a score that satisfies the two teachers."

Wu Bin originally wanted to say that he would definitely get the exam, but he was afraid of irritating the two teachers, otherwise he would be a little timid if he found two sets of Hengshui legendary difficulty papers.

Taking advantage of the two teachers' satisfied nods, Wu Bin quickly slipped out of the office.

During lunch break, Wu Bin came to the school library after eating. He was indeed a little impatient for Newton's biography.

In fact, it's not that Wu Bin really admired Newton to this extent, but that he saw the direction he should move forward in Newton's biography.

That's right, Newton's biography does not tell you how to become a god of learning, but what you can do after becoming a god of learning.

Wu Bin read books like biographies very quickly. During a lunch break, Wu Bin had already read through the books recommended by Cai Guoping.

Genius, god, human limit, every line of words in several books revealed this information, and Wu Bin felt that they were not wrong.

If you want to describe how great Newton's contribution was, it would probably be like this.

If there was a Nobel Prize in the 17th century, then Newton would be the man who won at least four physics prizes. The construction of mechanical systems, spectrometers, reflecting telescopes, and universal gravity were each of them with far-reaching influence.

In addition, in the world of mathematics, the "Calculus" invented by Newton, oh, that is, the calculus that contemporary students hate so much and rack their brains, can also easily win the highest award in mathematics, the Fields Medal in Mathematics.

There is a joke that Newton devoted himself to developing calculus to generate revenue for Cambridge. That is of course just a joke.

In the seventeenth century, there were many mathematical problems that required calculus to be solved.

For example, when studying the motion of an object, find the instant speed, find the tangent line of the curve, find the maximum value of the function, minimum value problem, etc.

It can be said that calculus is the greatest creation in all mathematics after Euclidean geometry.

In fact, in the seventeenth century, calculus was studied by at least a dozen top mathematicians, such as Fermat, Wallis, Barro, Kepler, etc.

But in the end, the founders are generally considered to be Newton and Leibniz, which shows their great contribution.

In addition, there is a little story here. Looking at these two people as the creators of Calculus, some people will think that they are a cooperative relationship, but in fact... it does not exist!

After Newton turned 30, apart from thinking about God and alchemy, the most he did was to denounce and discredit Leibniz.

Because it was Leibniz who published the first calculus paper.

Therefore, many people later said that Newton used his power as president of the Royal Society to continuously suppress the weak Breinitz for the honor of being the "founder of calculus".

This is also one of the arguments most commonly used by Newtonian scholars to attack his character.

After telling the short story, he continued to talk about his academics.

The discoveries and scholarship mentioned above were all completed by Newton before he was 26 years old. It can be said that it is difficult to express Wu Bin's mood in four words: "unimaginable". I just want to ask if the system has also possessed Newton in the past. body.

Oh, by the way, as I just said, Newton has been tinkering with alchemy since he was 30 years old, and alchemy was actually the chemistry of their century, but it was too rudimentary. At that time, there was no concept of elements, and oxygen was also called "phlogiston"

This is also the reason why Newton didn't make much discovery in chemistry. The main reason was that they were all on the wrong path at that time.

Wu Bin firmly believes that if Newton had been born in an era with microscopes and the Periodic Table of Elements, he would have easily won several chemistry prizes.

Of course, in addition to touting Newton's great contributions to academia, the biography also contains some personal details, such as

“If I can see farther than others, it’s because I stand on the shoulders of giants.”

“I am like a child playing on the seashore, rejoicing now and then to find a smoother stone or a prettier shell than usual, while before me lies a completely unexplored sea of ​​truth.”

I believe most people have heard these two sentences. They come from Newton's mouth, and later generations also like to use these two sentences to describe Newton's humility. However, if these two sentences are substituted into what Newton said at the time, The context of the sentence means nothing like this at all.

For example, the context of the phrase "standing on the shoulders of giants" is actually this.

In fact, British scientist Hooke had discovered the law of universal gravitation long ago and derived the correct formula. However, due to poor mathematics, he could only barely explain the circular motion of the planets around the sun, and he did not realize that the forces that govern the movement of celestial bodies are actually universal. What exists is "all that is".

In addition, Tycho discovered that the revolution of the planet is actually elliptical motion as early as 100 years ago, and Kepler even proposed the three laws of planetary motion. Therefore, the scientific community does not pay much attention to Hooke's results.

But later, Newton, a little math madman, used calculus to solve this problem extremely satisfactorily and successfully extended his three laws of mechanics to the galaxy space, changing the old view that the heaven and earth are not the same since Aristotle. It is regarded as the greatest discovery by the scientific community.

This result made Hooke furious and accused Newton of plagiarizing his work.

Next is the time when the classic sentences appear. According to Wu Bin's description in the book, Newton's tone at the time was probably like this.

"Yeah, I'm really standing on the shoulders of giants."

What I'm probably thinking is, why don't you blame me for being so bad at math?

When Wu Bin found out about this section, he almost laughed. He didn't expect that such a thing as partiality would happen among top scientists. This made him more determined to make all disciplines advance hand in hand.

Later, the context was removed from this sentence, and it became a very classic modesty, which is also very interesting.

The second sentence is similar to picking up shells.

In his later years, Newton was definitely not the god of physics who was worshiped by others. After decades of officialdom, he naturally had many enemies. Hehe, it can be said that there are many people around him.

At a party, several emerging scientists asked him, physics is becoming more and more broad, but you haven't discovered anything new for so long, what else is so awesome?

Then Newton threw this sentence to them, which actually means, what qualifications do you scumbags who can't even pick up shells have to BB me?

It has to be said that Newton, who has been in official circles for decades, has reached the pinnacle of his art of speaking, and it has become such a legendary classic when he criticizes anyone casually.

I believe that people who don’t understand the context can only feel the artistic conception that is so beautiful and poetic.

Unruly, this is what Wu Bin read from several short stories. After reading this paragraph, Wu Bin couldn't help but glance at Gu Fan sitting next to him. Is it because he likes to mock him so much because great people are destined to have no friends? ?

Newton's life was a life of genius and a pioneering life, but it was probably a life without friends, not even a wife.

But on this point, Wu Bin actually resonates quite a bit.

"Where is the fun in learning when you're in love?"

"At this point, I do think the host has the potential to be a great scientist."

Wu Bin was a little surprised when he heard the system take the initiative to talk to him for the first time, so he asked, "How do you say it?" ’

"When initially scanning the interest area of ​​the host's brain, the host's interest in the opposite sex is almost zero, which is rare among humans. This is a very good potential for becoming a great person."

'oh? Really, it’s rare to hear you praise me. Is there any reward for that? ’

"Sorry, this question is not within the query range."

‘Oh, system. ’