International Students

Ultimately, Lucien rejected the plan. This wasn't because he was the busiest among his brothers, needing to work 24/7, but because Joseph simply didn't trust his scientific knowledge.

In the end, this matter was handed over to Joseph to oversee, but the actual person in charge was Monge. His research results had been kept secret for a long time, so he was very experienced in this area.

After about a month of research and discussion, a number of scientific papers involving electricity began to be published in the French Academy of Sciences of Sciences' journal, Nature.

Along with the publication of these papers, two other things are progressing rapidly.

The first thing is the application and approval of patents. The relevant technology for a patent is to be made public, so some technologies are naturally not patented when the relevant knowledge is still confidential. But now that the relevant scientific knowledge has been made public, the corresponding technology naturally needs to be patented, such as a propeller.

Although the Britain were already testing propellers, and the propellers looked quite simple, not all propellers are the same. Different constructions and different rotational speeds result in vastly different efficiency levels. Furthermore, propellers require extremely high manufacturing precision. Therefore, if the Britain propellers were to be commercially viable, at least for now, they would be completely uncompetitive. Without competitiveness, they wouldn't secure orders, and without orders, there wouldn't be enough money to invest in research and development. Thus, the performance gap would continue to widen. At best, they would only be used by their navy.

Furthermore France, considering that France, the Netherlands, the Confederation of the Rhine, and Prussia all had agreements with France recognizing each other's patent rights, since the propeller patent was successfully obtained in Europe, it meant that every ship built by the Britain using a propeller would have to pay a patent fee to the France if it wanted to enter the ports of these countries. The end result would be that the Britain wouldn't recoup their investment in propellers and would have to rely on the state to sustain the business.

The second thing progressing rapidly is that France has begun to bring a range of products, including electric motors, to market. Many new power plants are also being built in other parts of Europe.

These power plants are naturally traded by the Military-Industrial Complex. They not only generate more money for the Military-Industrial Complex but also crowd out most other power sources in the region. As a result, almost all industries in the region will depend on these power plants in the future, and the Military-Industrial Complex that controls these power plants will have a huge influence on the region's economy.

In addition, a few months ago, a new open-pit copper mine in the Sudetenland of Prussia began producing copper in large quantities. This is one of the best copper mines in all of Europe, with shallow deposits and high grades. Its large-scale mining, coupled with the newly built copper smelter next door, has increased Europe's copper production by almost a quarter, and there is still room for further increases.

The development of this copper mine caused the previously exorbitant copper prices in Europe to begin to fall, making electricity more competitive.

On the other hand, the development of this copper mine gave Prussia a much-needed breather. Prussia had been struggling financially due to war reparations, but the commissioning of this large copper mine quickly brought in substantial revenue. This also brought another problem to Prussia: Prussia economy began to become increasingly dependent on mining.

This move by the France also had another effect: a significant increase in the number of international students studying in France. Although the France government didn't allocate many places in the field of electricity, which was what students most wanted to learn about, a series of publicly announced scientific research achievements in electricity further reinforced the impression that "France's scientific level is the best in Europe." As a result, the number of students coming to study other technical fields also increased noticeably.

This was exactly what Joseph was happy to see. Some people had objected, arguing that if too many students learned these scientific and technological skills, France would lose its scientific advantage over other countries. But this unambitious argument was immediately criticized by Joseph.

Joseph points out that the tuition fees of each international student studying in France are enough to provide compulsory education for more than twenty children, or to support two or three France youths to pursue higher education on scholarships. In this sense, France is definitely the better option. Moreover, many outstanding international students who achieve academic success will stay in France, thus becoming part of France's strength.

"This is especially true for students from less developed regions, because much of what they learn is not very useful in their own countries. Unless they are extremely patriotic and heroic enough to endure all kinds of suffering, most of them will remain in France."

As for those international students studying law, art, literature, and the like, this is even more true. After they return to their countries, they will only find that their countries are completely incompatible with the France they are used to. Moreover, we can completely educate them to identify with us and with our idea of a grand Europe union."Joseph said.

Joseph said this because in a previous life in another timeline, he had witnessed how United States) used similar methods to treat the entire Third World as a talent pool, scooping up almost all of their best students to establish its enormous scientific and technological advantage. During that period, almost half of the top students from the two best universities in a certain Eastern power ended up working in various universities and research institutes in United States. And international students from another "largest democracy" filled Silicon Valley.

On the other hand, United States and elevated his standards and his sense of right and wrong to the level of the world's sense of right and wrong, making them so-called "universal values" and gaining a large number of enthusiastic supporters.

Without the high-quality fish fry retrieved from these fishponds, it would be extremely difficult for United States to maintain its scientific and technological advantage, especially after it embarked on the wrong path of engaging in finance and deindustrialization.

Andrei Oblonsky is one such exchange student from Russia. There are quite a few Russia students in France, and France universities generally welcome them. This isn't because the France Russia Russia more friendly, but rather because Russia students are typically wealthy, almost exclusively from Russia backgrounds.

This also gives Russia students another characteristic: most of them study various arts. Compared to complex sciences and intricate law, art is much more suitable for aristocratic students.

Generally speaking, art students always have a lot of free time, so every weekend, you can always see a lot of Russia exchange students speaking French with accents in places like the Moulin Rouge.

However, Andrei was different from them; Andrei came specifically to study electricity.

In January, in Saint Petersburg, Andrei saw the latest issue of Nature magazine at his teacher, Mr. Sherpukhovskoy's, place. Andrei, who was eager to study steam engine technology in Britain, was captivated by this newfangled technology of electricity. He then made up his mind to come to France to study electricity.

Andrei's family were descendants of the Rurik Dynasty, half of the Saint Petersburg nobility, and even the Tsar was related to them. However, these connections were practically useless for studying electricity in France. There were very few full-time teachers in this field; most were engineers working for the Military-Industrial Consortium. Furthermore, a large number of places were taken by France students, making it extremely difficult for foreigners to gain admission. They would have to outperform over 90% of their competitors in the entrance exam.

However, Andrei passed the exam based on his own abilities and became an international student in the "Electrical Engineering" department at the University of Paris.

His teacher was supposedly a student of a renowned scientist. He was always in a rush, grabbing his notes and leaving immediately after class, leaving everyone with a mountain of homework. This homework often kept them up until midnight. According to his seniors, this was their teacher giving back to society, because the renowned scientist was also known for assigning a lot of challenging homework.

However, this also made Andrei's days exceptionally fulfilling, and he himself clearly felt the rise in his academic level.

Of course, this fulfilling life also made him a laughing stock among many of his classmates who were also from Russia.

"Andrei, you've been in Paris for a while now, and tomorrow is Sunday again. You're not going to have a ton of homework assigned by your teacher and be unable to even leave the house, are you?" Andrei's friend Anatole said to him with a smile.

"No, not this time. In fact, the teacher didn't assign any homework this time. It's said that Mr. Thenardier, the teaching assistant, is sick. You know, Mr. Thenardier usually grades all the homework the teacher gives us. Apparently, since there's no one to grade the homework, and the teacher doesn't want our homework to pile up, she simply didn't assign any this time."

"Oh, he's so stupid. He could have just given you a standard answer and been done with it," Anatole said. "By the way, does that mean you have time tomorrow? Ah, I suppose you've been in Paris for so long and haven't even been to the Moulin Rouge?"