Chapter 198: [Maxwell's Demon & "Guns, Germs, and Steel"]

As expected, Kelvin decided to participate in this project that he was already very interested in, and Ma Shao immediately appointed him as the chief technology officer of General Electric.

"Chief Technology Officer?" Kelvin was obviously hearing this position for the first time.

Of course, there is no such thing as a Chief Technology Officer in companies these days. In fact, it was not until the late twentieth century that terms such as Chief Executive Officer and Chief Technology Officer began to emerge in the United States.

Ma Shao nodded: "Yes, you can tell from the name that the Chief Technology Officer is the highest person in charge of technology in the company."

Kelvin: "That sounds interesting… but I don't think I've ever heard of this position in any other company."

"Of course, this may be my original idea." Ma Shao smiled, "I hope that General Electric will become the world's leading and genuine high-tech company. It should have many fashionable things."

"Okay, so as the CTO of GE, how many people do I have?" Kelvin asked.

"Zero... I haven't recruited many people yet, especially technical personnel." Ma Shao said, "But it doesn't matter for now. We just need to get the cable, and then rent a ship to drop the cable into the English Channel. Then we can go down in history as the builder of the world's first cross-sea cable."

Kelvin smiled and said, "You have already been recorded in history."

"I think, in addition to communication technology, our cables should have these characteristics. First, they must be resistant to seawater, so we need to cover them with multiple layers of gutta-percha... Then they should be heavy, because we can't dive to the seabed to lay them..."

The early methods of laying submarine cables were extremely crude. Due to the severe lack of diving technology, people could basically only throw the cables into the water and let them sink to the bottom.

"Another thing is that we have to mark the cables with 'communication cables, salvaging and destruction is strictly prohibited'. Otherwise, it would be terrible if some fisherman salvaged them and sold them as scrap." Ma Shao added that such a thing has indeed happened in history.

Kelvin: "Those fishermen may not be able to read."

Ma Shao: "Indeed, we still need to send people to inform nearby residents... We will push for 'protecting cables' to become a social consensus and even local laws."

In the following period, the two conducted some experiments, finally determined the design of the submarine cable, and made a sample as a reference for the workers' production.

They didn't have to worry about it until the forty kilometers of cable were produced.

Northeast of mainland England.

The capital of Scotland, Edinburgh.

The famous University of Edinburgh is located on the seafront here. It is the highest institution of learning in Scotland and one of the seven classical universities. It was founded in the Renaissance and has been passed down to this day.

In universities, young students full of vigor and vitality can be seen everywhere, and wise elders with white hair can also be encountered from time to time.

Of course there are exceptions, such as at this moment, in a quiet corner of the University of Edinburgh, a handsome boy is writing. He looks like the youngest person in the school, and logically, he should be in middle school.

After a while, a middle-aged man came over with a smile on his face: "James, are you writing poetry? Or are you studying optics?"

"No, Mr. Forbes, I'm writing a letter." The boy hesitated.

"Who is it for?"

"Mr. Ma Shao... is the Indian scientist who gave a speech at Cambridge University not long ago. I remember that you also attended that lecture."

"Yes." Teacher Forbes asked inquiringly, "Why did you write to him?"

The boy was a little shy and subconsciously covered the contents of the letter: "I heard that many people wrote to him, and this Indian scientist also wrote some replies... I am very interested in the second law of thermodynamics he talked about, but I have some doubts, so I want to write to him to ask for advice, maybe he will reply."

Teacher Forbes nodded. "But you'd better not hold out hope. I know several teachers who have written to him, but have not received a reply yet. This Indian scientist is a famous person. His Majesty the King personally met him. I think he must be very busy."

"I know." said the boy called James, "but no one seems to be able to answer my questions."

"Can you tell me about it?" Teacher Forbes asked.

The boy pondered and said, "Well... I imagined a scenario like this. Suppose there is a magical tiny creature that lives in the middle of a sealed space. There is a switch here that allows a single particle to pass through. When a fast-moving particle comes near the switch, the creature turns on the switch to let it pass, and vice versa, so that the hot particles and cold particles are concentrated on one side of the space respectively... Of course, I know this should be impossible, but I want to know why. Existing theories seem difficult to explain."

…

London a few days later.

As usual, Ma Shao received many letters, most of which were academic and came from the UK, but also from Europe. There were more and more letters from Europe, which clearly showed that his influence was spreading outward.

Of course, there were also many non-academic letters, such as asking him, the barbarian, to get out of the British Empire.

Ma Shao would ask his men to screen these letters, discard those that were irrelevant or offensive, and then take some time to sort through the remaining letters again, like a Chinese teacher marking essays.

Kelvin sometimes came to help. At this time, he sat next to Ma Shao, crossed his legs, and looked through the letters in his hand.

Compared with Ma Shao, he read letters at a much more leisurely pace. Even if the letters were casual, he would read them out of curiosity or just to watch the fun.

"Ma Shao, I think this letter is quite interesting. You can take a look at it." Kelvin finished reading the letter in his hand, glanced at the signature, and handed it to Ma Shao. "It looks like it was written by a college student, from the University of Edinburgh."

Ma Shao didn't take it seriously at first. After all, he had received too many letters during this period of time, not to mention these student admirers.

However, not long after receiving the letter, he was immediately attracted by the hypothesis described in it, and his brows suddenly brightened.

"It's quite interesting, isn't it? A magical creature arranges the distribution of random thermal motion particles to break the second law of thermodynamics... I can see that this student has some creative ideas." Kelvin noticed his expression and smiled, "But your expression seems a bit exaggerated."

Ma Shao said: "My intuition tells me that this seemingly naive assumption is not that simple."

Before he finished speaking, he moved his eyes to the signature of the letter and saw a name, not surprisingly:

James Clerk Maxwell.