Author: Xia Jian

Although Mr. James C. Maxwell is a rigorous physicist, he is quite calm in the face of supernatural phenomena, which may be due to his wife Mary's interest in all folklore for many years.

At present, the uninvited guest is sitting by the fireplace, looking a little shabby. At the repeated request of his master, he reluctantly took off the thick, wrinkled dark green pointed hat on his head and put it on his knee to knead it, revealing his sweaty forehead and his trademark furry ears.

"Sorry to bother you." Mr Maxwell said, and got up and left the living room. Mary stood at the end of the corridor with coffee.

"That's the legendary goblin?" She asked curiously.

"At least that's what he said himself."

"It's quite big." Mary commented, "It's just that it's not very useful."

Indeed, the one sitting by the fireplace (what should I call it? Things? ) There is no majesty, magic or terrible appearance at all. Wearing a worn-out coat, he looks like a farm worker who just came out of a corn field, although he did appear in Mr. Maxwell's laboratory with a loud noise and a puff of smoke as legendary.

"I think this is a joke." Mr Maxwell shrugged his shoulders. "Although I don't understand why."

"But you'd better be careful. The power of goblins may not be what it seems. " Mary said, but there was no worry in her tone. They went back to the living room together.

After drinking a cup of hot black coffee, the devil seemed to relax a little, so Mr. Maxwell started talking again: "Dragon ... I'm sorry, sir, what did you say your full name was at first?"

"Coreno Rias Gustav Lang Paris Dilchin" replied the goblin, almost embarrassed. "This was given to me later, a very old German surname."

"Yes, yes, sir. But let's go on, I remember we just talked about Archimedes ... "

"Yes, he is my first master. To tell the truth, he is a real old madman. " The goblin said with a straight face, "I've been bossed around by him for decades, and I don't know how many messy things I've done." The night before the Romans entered the ancient city of Silas, he sealed me on a stone tablet for more than a hundred years. "Speaking of which, the goblin's eyes are a little moist, and he quickly wiped them with the back of his furry hand.

Mr. Maxwell cleared his throat: "I understand, but you haven't said what bet you made at that time?"

"Bet? Oh, yes. Too long, I, I can't remember. " The goblin stammered and continued to rub his hat. "As a matter of fact, I was doomed to suffer from that from the beginning. You know what a difficult old man he is."

"So, how did you get it from Mr. Faraday's experimental notes?"

"It's a long story, many things happened in the middle. If you know my master's name, you can guess what it is. I won't talk nonsense with you here. " The goblin raised his head and looked at each other with almost sad eyes. "In short, you normal people who are engaged in physics, take that Mr Faraday for example. I was winding a coil for him that day when he suddenly came with me. I have nothing for you to do. I didn't even say goodbye, so I took a notebook and sealed me, and then I came to you in a daze. After following him for so long, he didn't even want to ask me for a copper coin except for a coil. "

Mr. Maxwell just wanted to comment on this matter, because it is well known that Mr. Faraday is his teacher, but Mary appeared at the door slowly. "Zhan, do you want to keep this gentleman for dinner?"

The goblin immediately fidgeted. "No, don't bother, sir and madam. I think we'd better get things done as soon as possible. " He fumbled for a roll of greasy parchment from his pocket, which was incomplete because of its age.

Mr. Maxwell began to look carefully, and the goblin continued, "On the whole, it is like this. Let's make a bet. If I lose, I will be at your disposal. " If you lose, your soul and all your property will belong to me, and I will be free from now on. "

"Do we have to do this?" Mary leaned over and asked.

"As usual, madam, everyone has done this for thousands of years. You may have heard of some. "

"Betting with goblins may not make money." Mr Maxwell looked up. "What can you bring me?"

"A lot ..." The leprechaun held out his furry paws, and shiny gold coins came out of his palm. He deliberately let them fall to the ground. "Wealth, power, status, as long as you speak."

Mr Maxwell looked at his palm curiously. "Anyway, this seems to be an opportunity ..." He muttered, "Well, Mary, we'll have dinner later. Take a pen first."

Here's the rule of gambling. Mr Maxwell posed a difficult problem. If the goblin can't solve it within 24 hours, the victory will belong to Mr. Maxwell, otherwise the goblin will win everything. Of course, the premise is that there must be some specific answers to this difficult problem.

"You can't embarrass me with vague questions, Sir. You can let me travel all over America, but don't ask me if I can think of a problem that I can't answer myself. " Mr Maxwell accepted this.

"Honey, I'm afraid it's not that easy." Mrs. Maxwell is a little upset. "How can you have the confidence to defeat the goblin?"

"Listen to me, Mary." Mr Maxwell lowered his voice carefully. "I have read the contract carefully. Guess what is the most interesting thing I found? That long list of signatures, Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, Copernicus ... almost all the great physicists I know are on it, which is complete enough to be compiled into an encyclopedia. This is not unusual, but think about it, for thousands of years, I have never heard of anyone who lost his life because of a contract with the devil. I don't think I am the first. "

Mary blinked quickly. "Poor goblin." She sighed. "How are you going to embarrass him?"

"Take your time, actually I'm not sure."

Just as the goblin wiped his pointed hat 108 times, Mrs Maxwell invited him into her husband's laboratory with a kind smile, carefully rescued the worn hat from his hand and hung it on the coat rack.

At this time, Mr. Maxwell is further debugging the embryonic glass instrument.

"I think this is enough." Mr. Maxwell took the end with the rubber plug out of the sink and said, "Come on, this way is the entrance."

The goblin looked at this pile of sparkling glassware with almost desperate eyes. Its main body is a large glass bottle with rubber stoppers at both ends. The middle of the bottle is divided into two halves by a vertical glass partition, and one side is filled with some liquid ether.

"Are you going to put me in?" The goblin asked weakly.

"Yes, let's see if you can find a way out." Mr. Maxwell replied, "This will be a very meaningful experiment."

The goblin stood at the other end of the empty bottle and hesitated for a moment. With this resigned expression, he shrank and got into the bottle. With a loud noise, the bottle mouth was blocked. He floated in the air and looked around. The glass bottle unfolds in a smooth arc, which magnifies the scenery outside many times. Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell looked in curiously.

It is impossible to go out directly. As we all know, in any fairy tale, no matter how powerful the devil is, as long as he is locked in a glass bottle, he never wants to go out again. This strange fact may indicate that the transformation ability of the goblin is limited, otherwise it can be reduced to the atomic level, and then he can get out of the huge neat grid of silicon dioxide, although it is hard to say whether he will be firmly adsorbed on a valence bond by electrostatic force. Obviously, Mr. Maxwell took this into account in this interesting experiment-oh, no, I almost forgot that this is a life-and-death gamble.

Then, there is only one way out, the only way out decided by the experimenter in advance.

We should say that Coruna Rias Gustav Long Pailes Dilchin, a leprechaun, has a pretty good scientific mind, or at least learned some scientific ways of thinking during his thousands of years with physicists.

When Maxwell and his wife drank a cup of coffee and went into the laboratory to observe the progress, the goblin turned himself into a scale visible to the naked eye, covered with wet ether vapor.

"I found two small holes in the diaphragm," he announced. "They were a little narrow for me, but I walked to the other side and saw nothing but dizzy gas." ⑤

"Those holes are not for you." Mr Maxwell said apologetically, "I'll try to make them smaller for experimental purposes."

"I think I can understand you soon." And then it became invisible.

When they walked out of the lab, the Maxwell couple blinked naughtily like a girl and said:

"I began to think that you would win, dear. Let's just say it's a woman's intuition. Can you reveal some military secrets to me? "

"In fact, I want to see if it is possible for him to separate hot and cold gases, in other words, fast and slow, here it is.

This involves the problem of entropy reduction. "Mr Maxwell replied, but obviously a little absent-minded. He put his arm around his wife's shoulder and kissed his forehead. Go to sleep first, dear. I want to keep observing for a little while. "

When he went to see it again an hour later, he found that the devil had mastered the trick.

"I have shrunk to the limit I can reach. On this scale, air molecules fly around like some crazy marbles. " The goblin gasped, "As long as you can control these two holes and only let the speed enter the other side, you will.".

Raise the temperature there, turn the liquid into gas, push the plug and even explode. "⑥

"It seems that you really know a lot." Mr. Maxwell praised: "Come on, help me remember if possible."

Record the speed at which those small molecules fly to you. Maybe I can take this opportunity to test my velocity distribution theory. "⑦

Then he left.

After breakfast the next day, Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell enjoyed an impromptu piano piece by Schubert, and then walked briskly to the laboratory. The cool morning breeze blew in from the rose garden outside the window.

"How about it?" He leaned down and looked at it carefully. The ether level did not drop significantly. "It seems that your efficiency is not high."

Goblins didn't even show up, but shouted at the top of their lungs:

"You try it yourself, Sir, bullets, ouch! Yeah, I mean, it's good to have a foothold,

Ouch! Ouch! Hey, I heard it's a cowboy thing. Come on, I won't tell you! "

Mr Maxwell shook his head, and then Mary leaned in from behind and whispered:

"You look disappointed, Jane?"

"Maybe a little." He turned around and kissed his wife's fragrant curly hair. "We goblins are not smart, but we are also very hard."

"Our?" Mary gave him a naughty wink. When her husband left the laboratory for research, she carefully closed the curtains to keep out the bright and warm sunshine in the morning, so as not to affect the experimental accuracy.

When they came back from a walk at night, they finally saw some results-the temperature on the other side of the bottle did rise, but it was not enough.

They sat by and waited quietly. The huge clock struck nine, and with a bang, the goblin gasped against the inner wall of the glass bottle.

"I give up!" He said hoarsely, "Let me out."

Mary brought bread rolls and hot coffee very thoughtfully, and the goblin wolfed it down and finally recovered.

"I have never done such a tiring job. I really want you to find a chance to try it yourself. "

Mr Maxwell had a cigar in his mouth, a curious expression on his face and a smile.

"I think that must be very interesting." As he spoke, he took out a long contract written on parchment, and the devil looked depressed.

Signing in his clumsy font clearly shows that the new master-servant relationship has taken effect.

"I will listen to you in the future." He put a hand in his mouth and began to bite his nails in turn. "But can you explain to me what just happened? There must be some scientific principle. Tell me about it. "

Mr Maxwell scratched his head, stood up and said:

"Well, you come with me to the study. Here are some books written by myself. You can add some basic knowledge first ..."

He put his arm around the broad shoulders of the goblin and went out. Mary sighed and threw a pile of cups and plates all over the table. She has long thought that these things can be done by goblins from now on. Anyway, the future life looks quite worth looking forward to.

That's how Mr. Maxwell easily subdued the goblin, or to put it another way, this goblin cornelius, who met Archimedes, decided a series of tragic experiences in the next few thousand years? Gustav. "Dragon" is another unfortunate failure story, but this story is not completely over.

When Mr Maxwell and his wife died one after another, they planted a small rose in the corner of heaven. At that time, there was no physical research to disturb their leisurely and quiet life, but kind-hearted goblins occasionally came to see them.

"What did you bring?" Asked Mr Maxwell, sitting in a chair. His wife stood gently aside, in a posture and position no different from what they were used to before their death.

"A photo, sir, madam." The goblin took out the thin, smooth paper from his back and looked a little wriggled. "I took it."

Mr. Maxwell held the photo up to his eyes and looked at it carefully. He doesn't know some people.

"Let me guess ... who is your master now? Or, who read my manuscript? "

"The front row, the middle one, sir, no, a little further to the left, can you believe it? He was only sixteen at that time, and I watched him grow up. " The goblin sighed and said, "Although he is so untidy now, his hair looks like lightning. He is a handsome boy. "

"What did he ask you to do?" Mr Maxwell asked curiously.

"He said to me,' No, run as fast as you can after this light, and don't forget to tell me what you saw when you caught up with it.' Tell me, is this human nature? "

"Of course, of course ..." Mr. Maxwell mused. "I think this idea is great. As we all know, the speed of light is constant, which I have proved. " ⑧

"I don't quite understand." Mrs Maxwell said softly, "That sounds rather difficult."

"That's not all, madam." The fairy blinked, and the glistening tears were spinning. "You should take a look at this first.

Naturally, I didn't know what was going on behind me, so I took out a box and mysteriously let me in. I can get it from you.

The son learned his lesson and solemnly suggested that he put a cat in to try. We all bet on what will happen, but we still don't know whether the poor little guy is dead or alive. "⑨

"I don't understand." Mr. Maxwell said.

"You will understand later that this is not the same as what you learned before." The devil proudly replied, "the most important thing is this old guy." Yes, I just want to talk about him. He told me about the material structure all morning, patted me on the shoulder with a smile and praised me for learning quickly. Finally, he circled two small balls on the messy picture on the blackboard with a red pen and said,' Well, if you can turn them in the same direction, I'll take you there.' " ⑩

Mr Maxwell shook his head suspiciously. Obviously, this is not in his research field, but it undoubtedly rekindled his interest in physics.

"I will raise these questions at the tea party this afternoon. Do you want to attend? Maybe you want to meet your former master, and now you know more than us. "

"Will they all come?" The devil asked timidly.

"Most of them will come. If Mr Archimedes hadn't forgotten the time and Mr Newton hadn't been ill, we would have tea together every afternoon. This tradition has lasted for thousands of years. "

"Mr Archimedes? You mean Mr Archimedes? " The goblin grabbed his pointed hat and jumped up from the chair. He looked around nervously. "Oh, no, thank you for your kindness, but I think I'd better go."

"What a pity. Do you really want to see him so much? " Mr Maxwell stood up and took the goblin to the door. "Then can you tell me what questions he asked you? I haven't guessed for a long time. "

The goblin turned around, and the quiet afternoon sun in heaven shone on his furry ears and sad yellow eyes. It was so warm and quiet, but he still awkwardly shrank his neck, as if he could not help shivering under the impassioned deterrence of the excitable old man.

"Actually, he is a nice guy, and sometimes I really miss him." He replied, "But he shouldn't yell at me:' Give me a fulcrum!'" "This is something even God can't do. "⑿

note:

(1) This is indeed a very old German surname pieced together by the author himself, among which the name Pailes Durkheim comes from Grimm's fairy tales? Gnome essence, among which Gnome essence asked the queen to guess his last name, and if she couldn't guess, she took the child away.

Everyone knows that Archimedes died in the war. At that time, the Roman army captured the ancient city of Silas and rushed into his room. At that time, he was solving a math problem and said calmly, "Let me finish this problem." Then an angry Roman soldier killed him.

(3) This is a simple method to test the air tightness of containers. Heat the container with the palm of your hand to see if there are any bubbles leaking out.

(4) The crystal structure of silicon dioxide is three-dimensional honeycomb, and the valence bond between every two silicon atoms is connected with an oxygen source.

But strictly speaking, glass is not made of pure silica.

⑤ Ether vapor can be used as anesthetic gas in medicine, but its low boiling point is mainly used here.

The principle of Maxwell demon needs no further explanation.

⑦ This is the key point in our thermal textbook-abnormal Maxwell distribution law, an equation about the probability distribution of molecules with different speeds, which I haven't understood yet.

Einstein first put forward the viewpoint of relativity when he was sixteen. He wrote in a paper: "If you can travel at the speed of light, you can see static and oscillating electromagnetic waves around you. This is really a wonderful contradiction. " And this idea is based on Maxwell's theory that the speed of light is constant.

Pet-name ruby Schrodinger's cat ... It seems that everyone knows this, so I won't explain it. I will observe a minute's silence for the cat. ...

Attending the Pauli exclusion principle, it is believed that for fermions, two electrons existing in the same energy level must spin in opposite directions, which seems to be from high school chemistry textbooks.

⑾ Newton's health deteriorated in his later years, suffering from anorexia, insomnia and other serious symptoms, and suffering from intermittent persecution paranoia, and died in 1727.

Archimedes' famous saying: "Give me a fulcrum, and I can move the earth!"