Chapter 199: [Darwin's Visit]

Maxwell's reputation needs no further explanation. In the history of physics, the number of physicists who have achieved more than him can be counted on one hand. As a physics student in later generations, Ma Shao naturally has to respect this great god.

Later generations had the term "the four sacred beasts of physics", namely Zeno's tortoise, Laplace's beast, Maxwell's demon, and Schrödinger's cat.

The "magical creature" described in this letter is none other than the famous Maxwell's demon, which was also proposed by Maxwell in the original history, but much later. In Maxwell, the scientific giant, the historical changes caused by the horse whistle have obviously been reflected.

Maxwell was just a teenager at the time, and his idea came as a bit of a surprise to Ma Shao, even though the description was rather rough.

Maxwell's demon once troubled physicists for many years until the birth of information theory, when it was finally conquered.

Before this, the best answer physicists had to this question was probably what Karl Eckardt summarized as "thinking creates entropy."

So Ma Shao wrote a reply letter to the young Maxwell with this sentence as the title.

"Thinking creates entropy..." When Kelvin saw this sentence, he couldn't help but ponder and fell into deep thought.

After Ma Shao finished writing the letter, he suddenly said, "Maybe I can publish this letter in a magazine."

"This way, the boy might get too much attention," Kelvin said.

Ma Shao: "It's not necessarily a bad thing for geniuses to receive more attention. Thomson, you also became famous at a young age."

"You seem to admire him particularly?" Kelvin asked.

"I have a feeling that this Maxwell will achieve extraordinary success." Ma Shao said mysteriously.

He just wanted Maxwell to become famous at a young age, get more attention earlier, and then get more resources.

This may be a double-edged sword for Maxwell. He may be able to develop more fully because of it, but he may also get lost in the honor that comes too easily and eventually become lost in the crowd.

But in Ma Shao's view, the physical process of this world has been accelerated and distorted by him, and it will be even worse in the future. A conventional version of Maxwell is dispensable. In this case, why not try to create an unconventional version of Maxwell?

In fact, he would rather take Maxwell as a student and teach him personally.

But conditions did not allow him to stay in Europe forever. He had to return to North America after some time. Even if Maxwell was willing to go to North America with him, he might not be willing to live in the Indian world.

Furthermore, it was impossible for him to teach Maxwell everything he knew now, as he still had to publish papers on so many important scientific achievements.

Maybe there will be a chance in the future.

This open letter titled "Thinking Creates Entropy" was quickly published. Since it did not contain even a single formula and its content was as popular and interesting as possible, it was well received by the public.

For the general public, it is rare for the incredible Indian to publish an article that is still understandable after connecting all the words together, so naturally we cannot miss it.

For a time, "Thinking Generates Entropy" became a popular reading material among the public.

Thanks to the popularity of this open letter, Maxwell, the previously unknown teenager, quickly became a household name in the UK.

Now everyone knows that there is such a talented young man at the University of Edinburgh. He is not only gifted, hardworking and studious, and was admitted to the university early, but also received public response and high praise from the magical Indian scientist.

If this happened in future China, it would definitely be set as an example, reported by the central media, and then selected as a popular positive energy material for college entrance examination essays.

Maxwell was a very low-key and humble person, and his public visibility has always been low. Therefore, it can even be said that Ma Shao's move directly raised Maxwell's public visibility to a level no less than that of later generations.

Next, let's see what kind of life trajectory this talented young man who has come into the spotlight will take.

Compared with the public, the scientific community's reaction to "Thinking Generates Entropy" was much calmer. After all, this easy-to-understand open letter seemed to simply state a basic fact: thinking also involves thermodynamic processes - what's so surprising about this?

No one has yet realized what is hidden behind Maxwell's demon...

Of course, there was another reason - Ma Shao's book was finally published.

As soon as "Thermodynamics", which systematically expounded the preliminary results of thermodynamics, came out, it attracted the attention of all physicists. Within a few days, every physicist in the UK had a copy.

European scientists were not willing to lag behind and rushed to buy "Thermodynamics". As a result, "Thermodynamics" quickly spread in the Western scientific community, and the branch of physics with the same name was officially presented to the world.

The waves that "Thermodynamics" caused in the academic world were already quite astonishing, but compared with "Guns, Germs, and Steel", it was still dwarfed by the big one.

After all, when it comes to physics, the experimental data and logical reasoning are right in front of you, and you have to accept them whether you like or not.

But "Guns, Germs, and Steel" is different. This book is like history but not history, like biology but not biology. Even if it was published more than a hundred years later, it would still be very trendy, let alone in 1848.

More importantly, when Ma Shao stated his views, he hardly listed any evidence - much of the evidence was the results of professional research from the next century, which he could not produce and could not remember at all.

Basically, he said this: Although there is no clear evidence yet, it is not difficult to figure out this truth blabla…

If it were an ordinary point of view, it would be fine, but the core ideas in Guns, Germs, and Steel, when put into this era, which one is not groundbreaking?

Ma Shao has already written it very restrainedly, and there are serious deletions and water injections. Half of the content is advertising for Apache, but this book still inevitably caused an uproar and was extremely controversial.

For example, he tactfully expressed the view in his article that "Indians' IQ is no lower than that of white people", which led to some white racists scolding him - you Indian barbarians really don't know your place!

You know, the original work's point of view is that "Indians may have higher IQs than white people," and it is stated explicitly without any euphemism.

If an Indian dared to say such words in a white country in this era, he would probably be beaten to death on the street.

So Ma Shao didn't say that, but just said "Indians' IQ is no lower than that of white people."

He felt that saying this was already very humble, but he didn't expect it would still attract a lot of insults.

Of course, at least in academia, such offensive remarks are still a minority, and most controversies arise around his views and way of thinking.

For example, the difference in the axis of Eurasia and the Americas led to huge differences in agricultural development in the two regions. Since differences in latitude can lead to drastically opposite climate differences, the difficulty of spreading crops across latitudes is much higher than across longitudes. Therefore, the east-west Eurasian continent quickly developed mature agriculture, but the north-south Americas did not. This in turn led to a series of subsequent civilization differences.

This unprecedented viewpoint and strong historical materialism have had a huge impact on the academic community.

Ma Shao thought that he could relax a little after the book was published, but he didn't expect that it would become even worse. Every day, scholars in the fields of biology, history, etc. came to him for communication, some in newspapers and magazines, and some visited him in person.

"I can't stand it anymore. I'm going to Lincoln." Ma Shao threw away the letter in his hand and decided to use silence to end the endless argument.

Kelvin smiled and said, "I plan to go with you."

"Why?"

"Let me discuss your book with you, I just finished reading it recently," Kelvin said.

"You mean... Thermodynamics?"

"No, it's another one. The edifice of thermodynamics you built is already quite perfect. There is nothing to argue about." Kelvin picked up Guns, Germs, and Steel from the bookshelf. "I was not very interested in it before, but now I finally understand why it has caused so much controversy."

Ma Shao: "…"

"Big Chief, someone else came to visit you." An Apache warrior came in and said, "He said he had conducted a global survey..."

"No." Ma Shao waved his hand subconsciously, and then seemed to think of something, "What did you say, global investigation?"

"Yes."

"What's his name?" Kelvin asked in his broken Apache. He had learned a little Apache from watching and listening to Ma Shao, and would show off from time to time, although most Apaches thought he might as well speak English.

"He said his name was Charles Robert Darwin."