Chapter 84 Chapter 83 Looking at Mount Wumeng

On the afternoon of the second day after Ding Jieqiong returned to Beijing, Xiao Yao delivered a large pile of materials according to her instructions. The stack was more than one meter high and weighed dozens of kilograms. "Oh, Xiao Yao," Ding Jieqiong asked, "Is there a mountain station in Yunnan in China?" "Yes." Yao Huiwu was a little surprised, "You know?" "Where do you belong?" "Nominally under the Department of Science, but actually under the jurisdiction of the Institute of Atomic Energy. The full name is 'Yunnan Cosmic Ray Alpine Laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences', and 'Alpine Station' is the abbreviation."

"Well," the female professor pondered for a moment, pointing to the pile of materials in front of her, "Are there any materials for the mountain station?" "No. You mean—" "I want to know about the situation of this mountain station." "What's the situation?" "In all cases." "Okay, I'll send the materials tonight." Nuclear physics, broadly speaking, is a discipline that explores and studies cosmic rays, particle physics, neutron physics, charged particles, and the interaction of various radiation and matter.

Particles, or "elementary particles", generally refer to matter units smaller than atomic nuclei, including electrons, neutrons, protons and photons; there are also some "singular particles" that can be discovered through cosmic ray observations and high-energy physics experiments.The exploration of the smallest matter can often achieve the most significant results.Since British physicist John Thomson discovered electrons in 1897, the world has known that electrons are negatively charged.It was not until thirty-five years later that American physicist David Anderson found positrons from cosmic rays, and in 1933 "manufactured" positrons in the laboratory.

Cosmic rays are high-energy particle streams from space, discovered by Austrian physicist Franz Hess in 1911 when he was measuring the ionization state of the atmosphere on a high-altitude balloon.He therefore shared the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics with David Anderson.Part of the cosmic rays are blocked outside the atmosphere, while the other part can penetrate the atmosphere and even go deep underwater and into the ground; the other part is mainly electrons and photons, which have less penetrating power.Cosmic rays are closely related to the activities of the sun and some stars and various geophysical phenomena, and can cause many nuclear reactions and particle transformations that cannot be realized artificially, which is of great significance.

When Ding Jieqiong went to the United States to study, he began to study cosmic rays and particle physics.She works in the Caltech Particle Physics Laboratory, which is part of the Department of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy, and the director of the department is David Anderson.It is no longer realistic to go up to high altitudes by balloon like Hess did back then, the risk is too great, and there have been many accidents; so, according to Olmhaus's suggestion, we went to the high mountains for observation.This work is very interesting, like going on a trip, which fascinated Ding Jieqiong: a campervan, which has all the facilities for bathing, catering, entertainment, writing and reading, etc. It is very lively and lively for several people to live in it Interesting; the other is an observation vehicle, as the name suggests, which is fully loaded with power generation equipment and observation instruments.After leaving Pasadena, the two cars headed northwest or due north along the Sierra Nevada Mountains. More than 300 kilometers away is Mount Whitney with an altitude of 4,418 meters; The painted Yosemite National Park is also very high.Sometimes after leaving Pasadena, I headed northward to Mount Jefferson, the main peak in Nevada, with a height of 3,598 meters; The peaks of meters abound.The car stopped on a flat ground on the side of the road at an altitude of two to three thousand meters, and then started to work...

The only downside to camper vans is that they were designed with men in mind.In fact, only men usually participate in this kind of field work, and Ding Jieqiong is a "special case".She participated in this work after being approved by Professor Anderson and Dr. Olmhorse, and Dean Frege also explained that she must "wear a veil".A woman, especially a young and beautiful woman, who travels long distances for ten and a half months in a row, eats and sleeps in the open air, will definitely make the "cowboys" around her feel upset, but it can also double their motivation.Anderson and Olmhaus told Dean Frege that since the participation of "Misdin", the number of strange particles captured has increased several times!Fortunately, the observation car has a huge double cab, and the rear row can be used as a sleeper, which becomes Ding Jieqiong's "boudoir" at night.

From the end of the 1940s to the beginning of the 1950s, the United States and Britain began to establish fixed cosmic ray alpine laboratories, namely "alpine stations" in high-altitude areas.Japan and several European countries also have such intentions.Because cosmic rays can cause many nuclear reactions and particle transformations that cannot be realized artificially, thus forming the most active frontier part of contemporary physics - "cosmic ray high-energy physics" or "high-energy particle physics", so Gaoshan Station has become a scientific The symbol of the most technologically developed country; therefore, when Ding Jieqiong saw a short report on the "Yunnan Alpine Station" from the quarterly journal of the American Physical Society's "Cosmic Ray Communication" in March 1958, his heart was moved!

Certain scientific and technological conditions and research progress in New China are strictly confidential to the outside world.However, 1957 was the year of the peak of solar activity, so it was designated as the "International Geophysical Year". Its mission is to study the relationship between the sun and the earth, which has a great impact on human life; Good opportunity for galactic cosmic ray modulation.New China participated in this international cooperation, and the task of Yunnan Gaoshan Station was to observe and study the intensity of cosmic rays. The results were published and excerpted by "Cosmic Ray Communication"...

The report's introduction to "Yunnan Alpine Station" is very simple, with only a few words such as "located at an altitude of more than 3,000 meters in the Wumeng Mountains", but it is enough to arouse Ding Jieqiong's deep thinking and excitement.Hull mentioned "Wumeng Mountain" many times in his letters from China.Whether flying a transport plane or a fighter jet, Wumeng Mountain is a place he often flies over.Now, New China has built its own high mountain station after the United States and Britain, and the location is in Wumeng Mountain.In the eyes of many Westerners, China is a mystery; in the eyes of Ding Jieqiong, Wumeng Mountain and this high mountain station are also a mystery.And human nature always tends to unravel the mystery.

That day, Yao Huiwu was busy for five or six hours, and a thick file was delivered late at night.On the cover is her meticulous and neat calligraphy: "Yunnan Cosmic Ray Alpine Laboratory of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Yunnan Alpine Station)". Professor Ling Yunzhu, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, suggested setting up a mountain station as early as 1952, which was soon approved by Premier Zhou Enlai.In 1954, Gaoshanzhan was built in a ravine at an altitude of 3,180 meters in the Wumeng Mountains. It covers an area of ​​220 square meters. There are four rooms in one bungalow.The two dormitories can accommodate three to five people.The other two compartments are the library and reference room, the film room and the laboratory. The main detection equipment in the laboratory is a set of special stereo projector and two sets of multi-plate magnetic cloud chambers. The Chinese made a short note as follows:

That is, "Ding's magnetic cloud chamber".It was created by Dr. Ding Jieqiong, a Chinese female physicist, when she was studying in the United States in the 1930s.So far, it has been widely used in the world of particle physics and high energy physics. The "Ding's Magnetic Cloud Chamber", like the previous "Wilson-Ding Yun Chamber", was named by Frege, the dean of the California Institute of Technology.However, after Ding Jieqiong was secretly arrested in 1946, he changed his name unknowingly; The scientific instruments and mathematical models bearing Ding Jieqiong's surname all quietly changed their names, and did not resume even after she was said to have become a "legal alien" again in 1958. … Seeing this, Ding Jieqiong's eyes turned red—yes, the motherland has never forgotten her daughter who is far away from her!She calmed down, then looked down.In 1954, when the Yunnan Gaoshan Station was built, it carried out studies on several "strange particles" and the interaction between high-energy hadrons and matter as planned, and achieved considerable results. The station's performance in the "International Geophysical Year" in 1957 received international attention and praise, and was therefore known to Ding Jieqiong on the other side of the ocean. Since 1954, several developed countries in Europe and Japan have successively built several mountain stations.However, although all these alpine stations are located at high altitudes, they are also at high latitudes. Above 3,000 meters, there is usually a snow accumulation period of more than half a year every year, which brings many difficulties to scientific research and life.The Yunnan Alpine Station has a high altitude and a low latitude, with good weather conditions, and nearby mining areas have water sources, power sources and roads.In 1958, Gaoshan Station was moved to a mountain nine kilometers away. The altitude was higher, and the area covered, the number of buildings and the number of instruments and equipment were expanded by ten to dozens of times. It was called "New Station", while the original station The address is called "Old Station".Young researchers from the cosmic ray laboratory of the Institute of Atomic Energy of the Chinese Academy of Sciences began to work in the "new station" in batches.The comrades at the Gaoshan Station are full of energy and work together to prepare for the establishment of latex chambers at an altitude of 5,500 meters on the Tibetan plateau, the establishment of extensive atmospheric shower research equipment, and the development of ultra-high-energy astrophysics research... Ding Jieqiong was excited by the achievements of the Alpine Station in Yunnan and the prospect of cosmic ray observation in my country.The material has not been finished yet, and the Institute of Atomic Energy encountered major difficulties in its facilities in the suburbs of Beijing, and asked for help.She took Xiao Yao to the scene in person.A few days later, on the afternoon of returning to the "Chrysanthemum Garden", Xiao Yao went home because of her child's illness, and the female professor went out by car alone... The female professor returns to the "Chrysanthemum Garden" alone from outside the front door.Late at night, after wandering in the small courtyard for a long time, she returned to the house, forced herself to think about other things, and remembered that there was still a document that she hadn't had time to read.That was the "Situation Report" addressed to the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the State Science and Technology Commission in the name of Yunnan Gaoshan Station.Late that night, when Yao Huiwu handed over the thick file folder to the female professor, he first explained all the materials in it one by one.When introducing this "Report on the Situation", Xiao Yao said: "I didn't need to send it to you, because it is unnecessary. But since you said that you want to know 'all the circumstances', then I will also send it to you, just take a look." The "Report on the Situation" stated that it was issued on December 5, 1958, nearly a year ago.The more Ding Jieqiong reads, the more she finds that it is not "unnecessary" for her to read this material, but it is so necessary! The first and second paragraphs of the "Report on the Situation" are full of "clichés", which is a common phenomenon in domestic documents and materials; but from the third paragraph onwards, it cuts to the point, and is lively and vivid—— Similar laboratories in other countries have many high-altitude terraces with relatively dry and gentle terrain, which are convenient for construction and transportation, and there are few threats of floods or mudslides.The Wumeng Mountains are the watershed between the Jinsha River and the Beipan River. They run northeast-southwest and are more "cross-cut" than the Hengduan Mountains. The mountains are majestic and steep, with strong vertical changes, and the geological structure in many places is very unstable.The small rivers, Pudu River, Yili River, and Longchuan River in the Jinsha River Basin are arranged in a broom shape, with huge drops, twists and turns, abundant water, rapid currents, steep cliffs on both sides, and rich groundwater.All of these make it difficult to build roads and bridges. The quality of the roads that have been built is often not guaranteed, and they are often troubled by landslides, landslides and mud-rock flows, resulting in traffic jams.Once a flood broke out, half a mountain a few kilometers away from our station suddenly collapsed, forming a "dam" tens of meters high, blocking the river, causing the water level to rise sharply, and the waterfall-like mud rolled down with boulders wrapped in it. Thrilling!Once transporting experimental equipment, the road in front of the car collapsed, and the hillside behind the car collapsed; at that time, there were only the driver and a young scientific researcher in the car, and the two were trapped in a remote mountain without people; at night, wolves, leopards, wild boars and black bears were around the car Crouching and howling.Holding wooden sticks and cranks, the two of them stood firm for five days and five nights without a single grain of rice until reinforcements arrived... After reading this, Ding Jieqiong's eyes widened in astonishment.Her early detection of cosmic rays in high mountains in the United States was like traveling. California, Nevada and Utah were often cloudless and the sky was clear.After the car detection was changed to a high-mountain station, except for the high-mountain station in Yunnan, which was rarely known to the outside world due to "secrecy", the distribution and operation status of the high-mountain stations in various countries are almost all open to the public.A little comparison shows that there is no other high mountain station in the world that is in such a harsh environment that is "difficult to go to the sky"!But, at the same time, Ding Jieqiong's vision is more difficult and more magnificent-in her eyes, this is a kind of magnificence that only exists in China and Yunnan!Ding Jieqiong has extensive and profound artistic accomplishment.She liked painting and sculpture when she was young, and she has always maintained her interest in dancing, playing the piano, and violin; therefore, she has a full comprehension and appreciation ability for beauty, including the beauty of nature.Although she has never been to Yunnan, she is Chinese after all. She has also read many letters sent by Hull from Yunnan and Kunming, and has known the beauty of Yunnan for a long time.After entering the border, she was even more fascinated by the bird's-eye view of the Wumeng Mountains from the plane... The female scientist took a deep breath and continued to read—— From Beijing to Kunming, it is necessary to detour northward from Liuzhou, Guangxi, Jincheng River, Guiyang, and Zunyi. It takes about a week of bumps on the Guizhou-Yunnan mountain road, changing trains and long-distance buses along the way, and finally arriving in Kunming takes half a month.Sometimes materials can only be transported to Kunming by "small train" via Vietnam.From Kunming, I changed to a long-distance bus and went northward for 300 kilometers along the "dirt road" to the Wumeng Mining Bureau. Then I found a car and took a more "dirt" road. I could only walk dozens of kilometers in a few hours.This road section repeatedly descends deep ditches and climbs high mountains, with a vertical height of several hundred meters, and accidents of car crashes and fatalities often occur.In summer, it rains almost every day, often in heavy rains; roads and railways are broken and submerged, and traffic interruptions for several to ten days are common occurrences.Once, when a station in the north of Kunming was transferring from the railway to the road, it rained continuously for ten days, the bridge collapsed, the road was cut off, and the front and back were cut off. Our car carrying instruments and equipment was trapped on an "isolated island" surrounded by water for many days. Due to traffic interruption, they were forced to stay nearby for more than one month. When I participated in the "International Geophysical Year" in 1957, I encountered a more serious situation: the road was interrupted by heavy rain and flood for two months, and the materials were trapped tens of kilometers away from our station, and the observation mission was imminent.We send people down the mountain.With the enthusiastic help of the local government and the Mining Bureau, dozens of migrant workers were hired and dozens of donkeys were hired.Three young researchers opened the packing box, took out hundreds of sets (pieces) of instruments and tons of magnets, lead blocks and aluminum blocks, sorted and repacked them. Those that were delicate and fragile were carried by people, and those that were not easily damaged were carried by donkeys. .For example, the volume and shape of lead blocks are similar to bricks, but much heavier than bricks. A strong donkey can only carry four lead blocks. Together with the migrant workers, our comrades formed a special "caravan", trekking hard for two or three days along the rugged and steep trails, sleeping in the open under the edge of the forest, eating "rice soaked in rain".Passing through the middle of a cliff on the way, a donkey stumbled and fell into a 100-meter deep valley, and was swallowed by the roaring rapids in an instant!A migrant worker fell and survived because he was caught by a branch under the cliff... But we insisted on completing the transportation, assembly and commissioning tasks ahead of schedule under such difficult conditions, and then completed the observation and research tasks ahead of schedule. eye-catching. Ding Jieqiong learned that there is a mountain station in Yunnan in mainland China from the US "Cosmic Ray Communications", and learned about the activities and contributions of this mountain station in the "International Geophysical Year"; but she never thought that this mountain station The conditions "primitive" to the point of unimaginable in the Western world! Our station is unable to build roads by ourselves, so we have to "excuse the light" to use mine roads that are bumpy and have many sections or even dilapidated roads that have been run over by cars for a long time.The road terminal is on a mine at the foot of the mountain, and there is still a steep slope of one kilometer away from our station.The materials transported often weighed several tons or tens of tons. In one case, 220 tons of magnets were transported, all of which were carried up by our comrades with physical strength.Among us, whether middle-aged or young, whether cooks or scientific researchers, we all consciously act as "porters". Although there is no high-latitude mountain "snow line" here, and there is no perennial snow on the top of the mountain, it still snows in winter, sometimes with a large amount of snowfall, and the accumulation of ice and snow is very thick. It does not melt for dozens of days, which brings great harm to work, transportation and life. Big difficulty.Tracks of beasts of prey such as bears, leopards, and jackals are common in the snow.Standing here, the air is thin, and the atmospheric pressure in areas above 3,000 meters above sea level is only two-thirds of that at sea level. Even if a person stands still, the breathing rate will still increase, not to mention that it will take several tons, tens of tons, or hundreds of tons of water to be transported by human power. The materials were moved up a steep slope of one kilometer!Many comrades suffer from altitude sickness such as dizziness, nail inversion (nail valgus), and stomach cramps, and they cannot be cured unless they go down the mountain.Here, "a wind blows every year, from spring to winter", it is extremely cold and desolate; the few small trees in the "Old Station" were planted in 1953 when Vice President Ling came to select the site, and six years have passed , under the perennial strong and violent winds, it did not grow a centimeter tall, but was blown out of shape, like a torn cattail fan.The boiling point of the water here is 89.5 degrees Celsius. We drink water that is always half-boiled and eat rice that is always raw. As a result, many diseases are caused. Even young and strong comrades have to take medicine all year round... The material went on to write: Despite this, working at the Gaoshan Station is treated the same as working in a research institute in Beijing. There is neither travel allowance nor high mountain allowance. The salary is very low, but they all work hard; everyone pays the same monthly For food expenses, eat the same meals; everyone uses the open space in front of and behind the house to open up wasteland and grow vegetables, and all the potatoes and cabbages harvested are handed over to the cafeteria for shared enjoyment. Like a "primitive commune", no one "eats more and takes more".The rations are unprocessed raw grains such as wheat and corn supplied by the state. After being brought back from the grain station ten kilometers away, they have to grind them with stone mills and sieve them by themselves.In order to gain time for reading, I often push the millstone with one hand and read with the other... The Fact Sheet went on to say: There were about five or six staff stationed at the station all the year round in the "old station" era. After the "new station" was built, there were more than a dozen permanent station personnel, most of whom were unmarried young people, and those who got married were separated from each other—this is also unimaginable in the West.There is only a couple in Gaoshan Station. The man is the deputy station chief in charge of "administration", a veteran, nicknamed "Old Treasure"; his wife is a temporary worker and a cook.The hens raised by the couple actually lay eggs.In this seemingly isolated place, no matter whether there are five or six people in the whole station, or more than ten people, there is a kind of harmonious family atmosphere, and the family is happy and absolutely "equal".Even after the chickens have laid eggs, they have to make up five or six or more than ten chickens, and wait for everyone to have one before eating together... For some reason, seeing this, Ding Jieqiong's eye circles and heart were warm.She paused, wiped her eyes, then looked down— I have several difficult issues on my site, and I hope to get the support of my superiors and solve them as soon as possible: 1. Request to purchase several pressure cookers from foreign countries or big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai to solve the perennial problem of "drinking half-boiled water and eating raw rice"; 2. , to request the allocation or purchase of a batch of drugs for the treatment of altitude sickness and standing drugs for the prevention and treatment of other diseases; 3, to request funding for the construction of the "last mile" road from the mine to our station.Because, sometimes, it is more difficult to walk the "last mile" than to walk the hundreds or thousands of kilometers ahead!Fourth, ask for funding for our station to purchase some trolleys, donkeys and donkey carts to improve the efficiency of our equipment handling on the "last mile" road; fifth, please send the power transformer as soon as possible.At present, our station can only use civil lighting power supply, and sometimes even the one-kilowatt air compressor used in a cloud chamber cannot be started, and people often need to help pull the belt to start it.When carrying out research normally, the air compressor needs to be started up once an hour on average; Sixth, some fleeting "strange phenomena" are often not explained and dealt with in time, which may cause losses in science; young people have a strong desire for knowledge, but They all came to our station right after graduating from university, but the experimental content here is monotonous and the observation area is narrow.Everyone is eager to arrange one or two famous scientists or senior researchers to come once or twice a year in fine weather, even if it is only a week or two each time!Having them guide the work and study rare decay cases on the spot will be a great encouragement to the young people who are hard-working, hard-working, and dedicated to the cutting-edge scientific research of the motherland in this "wild land" for a long time... "Now, friends and comrades, please give us the warmest applause again to welcome this outstanding patriot and world-class physicist back to the embrace of our great motherland!" A burst of stormy applause woke up Ding Jieqiong from his reverie about Wumeng Mountain.Only then did she find herself on the rostrum of the "Conference of Warmly Welcome Professor Ding Jieqiong's Return from Overseas by the Scientific Community in the Capital".Beside her, Premier Zhou Enlai's speech came to an end: "The country and the people give high praise to Professor Ding Jieqiong's patriotism spirit and her outstanding contribution to science. Professor Ding Jieqiong has been added as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and will also be a member of the Higher Education Academy. The world and the scientific community assume important responsibilities and play a role in the country's political life. As Vice President Ling said just now, in the future, Professor Ding Jieqiong will live and work among us, for the prosperity of the motherland, for the rejuvenation of the nation, and follow the Let's fight together and march towards a brilliant tomorrow!" The audience stood up.The stormy applause lasted for a long time, like sea waves galloping in a strong wind. Professor Ding Jieqiong smiled and waved and applauded lightly to people.At the same time, her eyes are as sharp as a blade, and as clear as ice and snow... Not long after she boarded the rostrum, she recognized the man with a protruding forehead, clear face, gray temples, broad shoulders, bronze skin, and a thin and tall man who was seated at the rear of the hall.The man kept his eyes slightly closed, looking haggard and exhausted. Ding Jieqiong had a hunch.Su Guanlan is a scientist and works in Beijing, which means that he may appear at this welcome party, and may enter her sight again—now, as expected!However, yesterday Su Guanlan was wearing a black suit, azure tie, and light gray windbreaker; but in front of him, he was wearing a black woolen tunic suit, which is the most common style and color for Chinese people today. In the almost boiling warm atmosphere of the audience, Su Guanlan lowered his head, covered his forehead, got up and left the table; his body swayed and his steps staggered.Beside him was a girl with a frightened face—is that his secretary or assistant?There was also a bald, fat man, like his neighbor whom he had seen yesterday evening.While carefully supporting him, they whispered eagerly...