Chapter 179: [Young Kelvin]

Walking through the gate, Ma Shao entered the University of Glasgow.

Seeing this scene, the Scottish teacher who was almost fainted by his words just now, felt angry again.

His face flushed, he clenched his fists, and looked furious, as if Ma Shao had entered not the University of Glasgow, but his wife.

Of course, the huge difference in size allowed him to retain a bit of sanity.

So his first choice was to find a stick, and then walk towards Ma Shao from behind, preparing to launch a sneak attack on the Indian strongman who weighed more than 200 pounds.

His sneak attack was doomed to fail.

If he carefully got behind Ma Shao, he might be able to hit him with a club.

However, he did not control his emotions very well; his heavy breathing and footsteps betrayed him.

Ma Shao's senses and reaction abilities are much more obvious and sharper than those of most people. To him, such movements are no different from simply shouting "Stop!"

Listening to the noise behind him, he couldn't help but feel a little regretful, thinking that he shouldn't have said that just now. Now it seemed that he had to rely on taking action to solve the problem.

Fortunately, the worst did not happen.

Just as the Scottish teacher was about to approach, a student ran over and stopped him in time: "Mr. McIntosh, don't do this... Don't do this, Mr. McIntosh!"

"Let me go!" Mackintosh said angrily, "I want to kick this savage out of Glasgow University!"

Ma Shao turned around, walked up to him, and said slowly: "Mr. Mackintosh, in fact, before this, I always thought I was a barbarian. I thought that when I came to the UK and came to the University of Glasgow, I would be able to see the civilization and etiquette in my mind. However, I didn't expect that I would see real barbarians here."

"Thank you for correcting my view, Mr. McIntosh."

He said no more and turned away.

McIntosh stared at Ma Shao blankly, his expression frozen but his emotions churning inside.

He had never felt this way before - anger, shame, confusion, powerlessness, and grievance all mixed together.

This American savage who appeared out of nowhere actually ravaged him severely with just words.

When this Indian, who was as strong as a bull, said in a gentlemanly tone that he was a real savage, he could not think of any words to refute except a complete feeling of powerlessness.

Ma Shao quickly put this little episode behind him and followed the teacher who led the way into an office.

"Thomson, someone's here to bring you a letter—from Joule."

"Okay." A gentleman who was writing something raised his head and pointed to his desk, "Put it on my desk."

Ma Shao walked over and said, "Professor Thomson, Mr. Joule hopes you can read this letter as soon as possible."

"Well... okay." Thomson was stunned for a moment, but didn't say anything. He opened the envelope and read it on the spot.

During this time, Ma Shao looked at the future Baron Kelvin.

The illustrations of Kelvin in various textbooks in later generations are basically in the style of Engels - a wise old man with a big white beard.

Kelvin was just 24 years old at this time. He was tall and thin, with slightly prominent cheekbones. He had a gentle temperament and even gave people the feeling of a good student.

There is nothing strange about this. Isn't it normal to be a student at the age of 24?

However, Kelvin was not a student, but a professor. In fact, at the age of eighteen, he was already a serious scientist, chatting and laughing with all kinds of bigwigs. He was a young genius.

After reading Joule's letter, Thomson looked at Ma Shao and asked in surprise, "You are the other author of the paper on the first law of thermodynamics? An Apache?"

"Yes." Ma Shao smiled. "As an Apache, it is not easy to visit a professor at the University of Glasgow."

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Ma Shao." Thomson stood up and shook hands.

"Please take a seat." He asked Ma Shao to take a seat, and then said, "After reading that paper, I was thinking of going to Manchester to talk to Joule in person. But now that the other author has come in person, I don't have to make another trip... Although the train is more comfortable than a carriage, a journey of hundreds of miles makes people reluctant to sit for too long."

"Indeed, there are some sections that even make me suspect that the train will overturn." Ma Shao agrees deeply. Trains these days do have a lot of problems. When passing through some dangerous areas, the experience is somewhat similar to that of a roller coaster, and there is indeed a possibility of overturning.

However, the possibility of dying from the fall is not high. After all, the speed is limited, about the same as the speed of a human running.

Because of this introduction, the two chatted about trains for a while before getting to the point.

"…Joule introduced you to me in detail in his letter. Although it sounds surprising, I believe Joule." Thomson said, "Have you read all my papers?"

"Yes, almost all of them." Ma Shao nodded. "I have read many papers by outstanding scientists, and you are one of the authors who inspired me the most."

"Thank you for the compliment." Thomson smiled.

Although Thomson had the image of a gentleman, he was quite confident in character and did not show any embarrassment like Joule when he was praised like this.

Perhaps it was because of this kind of character that in the future he would announce the completion of the physics building with great fanfare.

The two talked about the new thermodynamics.

Thomson obviously did not believe Joule as much as he said, and was somewhat skeptical of Ma Shao's knowledge.

After all, it sounded too far-fetched that an Indian who suddenly appeared out of nowhere was directly involved in the creation of thermodynamics. He even thought about the possibility that Joule was kidnapped.

Therefore, in the initial conversation, Thomson often threw out some questions intentionally or unintentionally, trying to test Ma Shao.

But facing a future person standing on one's shoulders, this approach is obviously meaningless.

No questions raised by Thomson could stump Ma Shao. On the contrary, as the conversation progressed, his thoughts were completely guided by Ma Shao to the predetermined topic.

Thomson said: "...it would be nice to have an absolute temperature scale independent of the properties of matter, as thermometers are too crude."

Absolute temperature scale, this is exactly the purpose of Ma Shao's trip.

Judging from this sentence, Kelvin should not have yet developed the absolute temperature scale.

"You're right. If we want to improve thermodynamics, we first need a more reasonable absolute temperature scale." Ma Shao nodded.

Thomson: "Have you thought about this question, too?"

Ma Shao nodded: "In fact, I already have an idea that may not be very mature."

Thomson blinked, hesitated for a moment, and said, "I also have an idea that may not be very mature... I don't know if our ideas are the same."

Ma Shao smiled and said, "How about this, we write down our ideas on paper and then compare them to see if they are the same."

"Interesting." Thomson also agreed with a smile.

Then, they each took a piece of paper and wrote a few words on it.