Chapter 180: [Absolute Zero]

Then, the two of them opened the note and saw that it was all written with one person's name:

"Kano."

"Professor Thomson, it seems we have the same view." Ma Shao said with a smile.

Thomson was surprised at first, then he smiled and said, "Yes, or rather - we are all believers of Kano."

For those who study physics in later generations, the Carnot cycle is destined to be an unforgettable memory. Its proposer, Sadi Carnot, is undoubtedly the most important early founder of thermodynamics.

In fact, more than twenty years ago, this young French officer gave an estimate of absolute zero that was close to the truth.

If Carnot had not died young, the formal establishment of thermodynamics might have been advanced by ten years - the cause of his death was cholera, which resulted in his belongings, including a large amount of research materials, being burned, and the development of thermodynamics suffered a setback.

Of course, the death of such a genius slowed down the development of thermodynamics, but it did not stop it.

In the year Kelvin was born, Carnot published some thoughts on absolute zero.

Just over a decade after Carnot's death, the young Kelvin took over this mission and formally proposed the absolute temperature scale.

Now, there is no doubt that the time traveler Ma Shao will get involved.

"To design a temperature scale, we first need to establish its zero point," Ma Shao said slowly. "For a scientific temperature scale, its zero point should be the lowest temperature in nature, absolute zero."

"…Sadi Carnot's work in 1824 gave us a good demonstration. On his basis, we should go a step further and design a true 'absolute temperature scale', or 'thermodynamic temperature scale'."

Thomson agreed: "Yes, your paper with Joule has actually revealed the inevitability of the birth of this temperature scale."

"You said in your paper that 'the essence of temperature is the average kinetic energy of molecules...' I think the thermodynamic temperature scale is already evident here."

Now Thomson was completely convinced that the Indian before him was indeed the author of the paper, a physicist of rare talent.

He even vaguely felt that Ma Shao's understanding of thermodynamics and even physics as a whole was much deeper than his.

Of course, Thomson eventually denied this vague feeling - because he did not believe that anyone's understanding of physics could surpass his own, even some condescending old guys in the academy.

But no matter how you look at it, it is indeed amazing that an Indian, who is regarded as a savage in the popular mind, has such a level of attainment in physics.

It is no wonder that Joule praised Ma Shao highly in his letter and even praised the Indians as well.

"It is much easier for us to establish the absolute temperature scale," Thomson said, pulling a journal from the stack. "We now have the exact experimental data."

Ma Shao: "Is this the data published by Professor Victor Regno last year?"

"You've also read that paper." Thomson nodded and turned to a page in the journal in his hand. "In fact, the author, Mr. Regno, is one of my mentors. When I went to France three years ago, I stayed in his laboratory for a while and he benefited me a lot."

The two read the experimental data published by Regno in this journal and discussed it for a long time.

"…According to Mr. Regeno's data, we can conclude that absolute zero should be -273 degrees Celsius," said Ma Shao.

Thomson: "Yes, -273 degrees Celsius, the limit of gas compression."

The origin of absolute zero is the limit of gas compression. People have found that when the pressure is constant, the lower the gas temperature, the smaller the volume.

Then a natural idea comes to mind. When the volume of a gas is compressed to near zero, the temperature at this time should be the lowest temperature in nature. After all, the volume cannot be a negative number.

Of course, this idea still had its flaws, and it was not until the early twentieth century that the Nernst theorem was proposed that it was considered relatively complete.

More profound mathematical proofs will come in the 21st century.

For this era, things like Nernst's theorem are too early. Ma Shao now only needs to follow the ideas of Carnot and other predecessors, take out the absolute temperature scale, and then do some minor repairs.

"Oh, sorry, I think I have a class. I have to go teach my students first." Thomson and Ma Shao discussed for several hours until he realized that he still had teaching tasks to complete. He looked at the time, stood up hurriedly and said.

Ma Shao nodded: "Going to class is more important. I understand."

"You seem to be a teacher too?" said Thomson.

Ma Shao: "I am the chief of the tribe. I not only need to lead my people to defend their homeland, but also need to teach them this knowledge."

"That sounds... really interesting. We'll continue the discussion after class." Thomson quickly imagined Ma Shao teaching physics to a group of Indians wearing feathers on their heads, then he took the lecture notes and left the office.

After Thomson left, Ma Shao couldn't go out and wander around.

Although this is a university, it is not much more civilized than the market. If he goes out with a yellow face and meets someone like McIntosh again, it will be unnecessary trouble.

So he simply wrote a paper, the title of which was directly plagiarized from Kelvin's original work "On an Absolute Temperature Scale", and the content was naturally the same as the title.

Since Ma Shao had already written an entire book on "Thermodynamics" in advance, he hardly needed to think about the content of this paper and wrote very quickly.

The only pauses are a few references to Kelvin, and he disguised the paper as the result of discussions between him and Kelvin.

He did not intend to monopolize it, and he even put Kelvin's name before his own.

After all, in his opinion, this was not a very important paper. In comparison, he needed to rely on Kelvin's influence more.

Thomson finished his teaching work for the day. When he returned to his office, he saw Ma Shao looking at several pages of manuscripts.

"What is this?" he asked casually.

Ma Shao: "I wrote our previous discussion into a paper. Can you see if there is anything wrong with it?"

Thomson was stunned for a moment, took the manuscript and read it for a moment, and said in surprise: "This, you wrote this in two class periods?"

"Yeah, what's wrong?" Ma Shao seemed not to care.

Thomson was silent for a moment, then asked, "I mean... have you always written articles so quickly?"

As a recognized genius and the youngest physics professor at the University of Glasgow, he wrote very quickly. His colleagues were often amazed at his quick thinking, and he was always proud of it.

Until now…

Although the article is not long, it is a thesis after all, and it is a bit unbelievable that it was completed in only about two classes.

Thomson felt that this was the speed at which one could copy an article.