At the Cavendish Laboratory, the master and his three students finally calmed down from their excitement.
Thomson took back the letter and said in a resonant voice, "Everyone here has a chance to make a run at this prize."
"Even if you aren't selected for the first one, there will still be great opportunities in the following years."
"For instance, Rutherford, your results were only published this year. Even if the committee wanted to nominate you, it's probably already too late." Rutherford nodded, not particularly concerned. He had not planned to fight it out in the very first year anyway.
"Bruce, you're harder to judge. Personally, I think very highly of your achievements, but you are simply too young. Those old pillars of physics may be biased against you." Li Qiwei knew his own weakness as well, but he had not given up.
"As for Wilson, don't be discouraged either. Once your cloud chamber design matures, it will surely be an achievement worthy of a Nobel Prize."
"Perhaps in a dozen years or so, our Cavendish Laboratory will have four Nobel Prize in Physics laureates."
Thomson was brimming with high spirits, and the three were all infected by his confidence. Bright, hearty laughter filled the room.
Only Li Qiwei knew that the laboratory's glory would go far beyond this.
And he could not stop moving forward either. Then let his first small goal be: Special Relativity.
If Quantum Theory had merely overturned Newton's view of "continuous" space and time, physicists could still accept it intuitively.
After all, in the macroscopic world, the laws of Newtonian mechanics still held sway. Quantum Theory and Newtonian mechanics simply studied matter at different scales.
But Special Relativity overturned Newton's view of "absolute" space and time, something physicists could not accept no matter what.
Special