Guo Ziyu Nong asked the goldsmith to make a pure gold crown for him. After it was done, the king suspected that the craftsman had mixed silver into the crown, but the crown was as heavy as the pure gold given to the goldsmith at the beginning. Did the craftsman play tricks? The problem of trying to test the authenticity without destroying the crown not only stumped the king, but also made the ministers look at each other.
Later, the king gave it to Archimedes. Archimedes thought hard about many methods, but all failed. One day, he went to the bathhouse to take a bath. Sitting in the bathtub, he saw the water overflowing and felt his body being gently pulled up. He suddenly realized that he jumped out of the bathtub and went straight to the palace without clothes, shouting "I know" and "I know" all the way.
It turned out that he thought that if the crown was put into water, the amount of water released was not equal to the same weight of gold, and it must have been mixed with other metals. This is the famous law of buoyancy, that is, an object immersed in a liquid is subjected to upward buoyancy, and its size is equal to the weight of the liquid discharged by the object. Later, this law was named Archimedes principle.
Scientist's story 2: calculating the volume of light bulb skillfully
One day, the inventor Edison handed a light bulb to his assistant, Aptom, who was a graduate of mathematics at Princeton University. Edison asked him to calculate the volume of the glass light bulb.
Aptom pondered the light bulb for a long time, so he measured it from left to right and up and down for a while with a tape measure, drew many sketches on the paper, filled in various sizes and listed many formulas, but there was no result yet.
Edison saw him sweating profusely, so he said to him, "My God, you'd better use this method to calculate!" " He filled the light bulb with water and handed it to Aptom. He said, "Pour this water into the measuring cup and look at its volume. This is the volume of the light bulb." "Hearing this, the assistant suddenly realized, so he quickly worked it out according to the law.
The Story of the Scientist 3: The Lost Man
One day, Einstein, a great scientist from all over the world, went home, thinking while walking, and unconsciously walked through a strange place. When local people find themselves lost, they want to ask others, but they just forget their home address.
Fortunately, he remembered the telephone number of his office and made a phone call to it. Afraid of his secretary's jokes, he pretended to ask, "Excuse me, where does Einstein live?" The secretary didn't recognize Einstein's voice and said, "Sorry, Dr. Einstein doesn't want to be disturbed. His home address cannot be said. "
Then Einstein had to say, "I am Einstein." His words surprised the secretary.
Coincidentally. A similar thing happened to Balzac, the great French writer.
Balzac often goes out for a walk. Once he was afraid that someone would look for him, and when he went out, he wrote a few words on the door: "Mr. Balzac is not at home, please come this afternoon."
He thought of a novel as he walked. A few hours later, he was hungry and began to walk home. Suddenly, he found the words on the door. He sighed with great regret and said, "So Mr. Balzac is not at home." Then he turned and walked back, continuing to conceive his novel.
One is a great scientist and the other is a great writer. Why don't you even know your home sometimes? In fact, careful analysis is not surprising. From a psychological point of view, when a person is jealous and infatuated with something, the nerve center of his brain will have a great excitement, and everything else will be temporarily suppressed.
At this time, he has entered a state of selflessness, and everything in the world does not exist except what he thinks. It is entirely possible for them to forget their home address for a while. Their infatuation is the embodiment of their creative spirit reaching its peak.
The story of the scientist 4: unreasonable people
If you have a guest at home, it must be very impolite to ask him to sit down and let him stand. People will say you don't understand human feelings. However, Madame Curie, a world-famous physicist and chemist and two-time Nobel Prize winner, is such a "inhuman" person.
Madame Curie and her husband, Mr. Curie, refused to socialize together in order to engage in scientific research, and often stayed indoors for dozens of days. Sometimes they forget to cook and eat carrots to satisfy their hunger. Although the Curies are world-famous scientists, their families are very poor. One day, they received a letter from their father asking what furniture they wanted to buy.
Mr Curie said, "We only have two chairs. There is no place to sit when the guests come. Add another chair. "
Madame Curie said, "But as soon as they sat down, they didn't want to leave." . So the two agreed not to add chairs in order not to let the guests occupy their own research time.
You see, how inhuman it is! However, there will be people who are more inhuman than them. When the guests came, they wouldn't even let in the door. This was the case when Russian musician Tchaikovsky wrote.
Once, Tchaikovsky was writing at his desk when the doorbell rang in a hurry and the servant came in to announce, "Sir, a gentleman is visiting."
Tchaikovsky said, "Please tell him that I am working and don't want to see anyone."
The servant said, "That's a celebrity. Sometimes I am not afraid of your identity. "
Tchaikovsky buried himself in his creation and ignored his servants. But the doorbell kept ringing. Tchaikovsky had to stop working and open the door with a frown.
Sure enough, a well-dressed gentleman stood at the door: "Is Mr. Tchaikovsky at home?"
It turns out that this man doesn't know him. Tchaikovsky immediately said, "No."
The gentleman said, "I have been there many times, but I have never seen them." Can you tell me when he will come? "
"It's hard to say." Tchaikovsky said coldly. After the guests left, Tchaikovsky quickly closed the door and immersed himself in his creation again.
People like Madame Curie and Tchaikovsky do seem a bit unreasonable, but this is also their greatness.
The story of the scientist 5: the missing groom
French microbiologist and chemist Pasteur is keen on doing experiments. He is always upset in his life and his daily life is abnormal. People call him a madman. On the wedding day of "Crazy" Pasteur, the family was full of guests.
The bride, Miss Mary, accompanied by her parents, arrived at the wedding church early. When the priest announced the beginning of the ceremony, everyone's eyes flashed a question mark. Why didn't you see the groom?
People looked around and returned disappointed. Miss Mary was received so coldly that she began to cry sadly. Finally, a good friend of Pasteur found him in the laboratory. It turned out that Bath was conducting an experiment. His friend asked him, "Hey, have you forgotten what day it is today?"
Pasteur replied, "Absolutely not, sir." But I can't interrupt my experiment. You see, he will succeed. "In this way, he didn't feel the wedding hall until the end of the experiment, and he didn't even have time to change clothes. Although Miss Mary felt sad, didn't he decide to marry Pasteur just because he admired his dedication to science? So he forgave her husband.
Scientist's Story 6: Persisting in Returning to China
Zhou Peiyuan, a famous contemporary physicist in China, was invited to participate in the research work of the United States wartime scientific research and development agency 1945. With the end of World War II, the U.S. Admiralty established a naval military industrial test station, hoping that Zhou Peiyuan would work in the station with good treatment.
However, the Admiralty is a government department of the United States. When you work in a unit under the Admiralty, you become a civil servant of the United States government. Foreigners must join the United States to participate. Zhou Peiyuan immediately put forward three conditions to the US: First, not to join American citizenship; Second, only undertake temporary research tasks; Third, you can leave at any time.
1947 February, Zhou Peiyuan resolutely left the United States with his wife and children and returned to the embrace of the motherland.
Scientist's Story 7: Ignoring Safety
Qian Sanqiang, the founder of atomic energy science in China, went to France to study atomic theory in 1937, and was regarded as the best scientific researcher by the young Curie couple. 1948, Qian Sanqiang and his wife He proposed to return to China, but their tutors and colleagues repeatedly persuaded them to stay.
The ambassador of the Kuomintang government to France viciously threatened: "It is strange to see him on the mainland!" The meaning is clear. If Qian Sanqiang insists on going back to the motherland, the Kuomintang secret service will kill him halfway.
Regardless of personal safety, regardless of his wife's life and death, Qian Sanqiang returned to the embrace of the motherland decisively and tactfully, and made great contributions to the development of atomic energy in China, and was known as the "father of atomic bombs" in China.