Back home, Fang Er found an excuse to send Li Tai away and then went into his study to look for books related to photovoltaics.
With his own collection, plus the foundation contributed by Motorola, he actually found what he was looking for after half an hour.
"Photovoltaic Power Generation: Principles, Technology, and Applications" published by Machinery Industry Press.
He took out the book and briefly flipped through its contents.
Professional books were indeed different; they not only explained the principles of power generation but also introduced solar radiation, and even clearly marked the distribution of solar resources in various provinces.
Moreover, it also included detailed explanations of semiconductor physics basics, crystal structures, and so on.
In the past, when taking books out, Fang Er would meticulously cover his tracks, deleting some parts of the book or translating them into traditional characters.
However, after his trip to the Ming Dynasty, there was no longer any need to do such things.
He called Li Tai over and handed him the book. "Take this back and study it carefully. If you want to build a solar-powered airplane, you first need to solve the problem of solar power generation."
Li Tai was overjoyed and quickly took the book to examine it. However, after a moment, he felt something was amiss.
"Mountain chief, why are the characters in this book missing strokes?"
The textbooks he had encountered before were all translated by Fang Er, so this was his first time seeing simplified characters.
Fang Er got up, pulled a simplified-to-traditional character dictionary from the bookshelf behind him, and handed it over. "Refer to this and read."
"Oh ~" Li Tai carefully put away both books, hugged them to his chest, and instead of leaving, pulled up a chair and sat down opposite Fang Er.
"Mountain chief, you see..."
"Is there anything else?"
Fang Er asked curiously.
Li Tai looked at him with anticipation. "Hehehehehe, although I haven't fully understood this book yet, I've guessed that solar energy won't be figured out anytime soon. Why don't you assign me some craftsmen to assist?"
After all, as the old saying goes, "three cobblers with their wits combined equal to Zhuge Liang," right?
Fang Er nodded slightly. What he said was true; any project could not be completed by one person in a short period, let alone photovoltaic technology.
After a moment, he slowly said, "In that case, let's establish a photovoltaic research and development team. You will be the leader, and Fang Yizhi and Hu Lian will be the deputy leaders."
"Furthermore, I'll give you fifty spots. You can choose from students of New Oriental and craftsmen from the workshop."
"Hahahaha, brother-in-law is indeed brother-in-law! I'm impressed by your generosity!"
Overjoyed, Li Tai even stopped calling him "mountain chief" and instead called him "brother-in-law."
As a result, Fang Er slapped him on the head. "Call me mountain chief!"
"Is 'brother-in-law' a name a man like you should be calling?"
"Heh heh, mountain chief it is, I'm going to the workshop!" Li Tai, completely unbothered, picked up the two books and walked out.
Fang Er watched his receding back, lost in thought. Building a solar-powered airplane with current technology was almost infeasible.
To build such a thing, the aircraft had to be as light as possible. Otherwise, even if it could fly, it would only be like charging for two hours and flying for five minutes.
However, if the photovoltaic technology could be successfully developed, it would greatly improve the quality of life for the people.
In Shenyang City, the legend of electricity already existed, but the common people had never had the chance to use it.
One reason was that the insulation for wires, made from tree sap, aged easily, requiring the workshop to replace the wiring almost every month.
The second was the production capacity of the Taihe River Hydropower.
Now, rubber grass was being cultivated on a large scale. In the future, if rubber trees were brought in, and once photovoltaic technology matured, electricity would be able to enter every household!
The sky was dotted with stars, and the city was brightly lit, a sight that Fang Er missed greatly.
After leaving the Duke's mansion, Li Tai appeared in the shed of the First Tractor factory and found Fang Yizhi, who was engrossed in contemplating the engine.
"Master Craftsman Fang, still studying this thing?" Li Tai walked up with a smile and greeted him.
Fang Yizhi merely nodded lightly, not responding.
At this moment, his eyes were solely on the single-cylinder diesel engine, and its "chug-chug-chug" roar was so captivating to him.
Li Tai didn't get angry seeing this because he was the same when he entered a state of deep concentration. Unless Emperor Taizong himself appeared, no one could get him to respond.
However, such people were also the easiest to communicate with. He squatted beside Fang Yizhi and pretended to be surprised, saying, "Huh? There's something wrong with this diesel engine. Look at the black smoke coming out; it's clearly due to incomplete fuel combustion. Is the throttle cable pulled too tight?"
"Are you blind? Didn't you see I've set the throttle to maximum?"
Fang Yizhi uttered a rare sentence, which almost choked Li Tai to death.
Li Tai's eyes widened: "Of course, I saw it. I just don't know what you're trying to do?"
"But it's not awkward for me, it's awkward for others. Sister~ The mountain chief taught me!"
"Do I need to ask? Of course, it's about how to collect and reuse this unburnt exhaust gas!"
After speaking, Fang Yizhi turned and rolled his eyes to express his satisfaction, only then realizing it was Li Tai who had come. He quickly stood up and saluted, "Greetings, Your Highness the Prince of Wei."
"Hahahaha, I was wondering when you would finally look at me. I didn't expect it to be so soon. Rise, rise."
Li Tai helped Fang Yizhi up and led him outside the shed.
"What is Your Highness the Prince of Wei doing?" Fang Yizhi was a bit bewildered.
"Come, come, I have something fun here. The mountain chief said to find you to play with."
Once outside, Li Tai took out the book from his embrace and placed it in front of Fang Yizhi.
"Look at this. Are you interested in doing it with me?"
Fang Yizhi curiously took the book and began to read its contents.
Simplified characters are the logical result of the evolution of Chinese characters. Chinese characters evolved from oracle bone script and bronze inscriptions to seal script, then to clerical script and regular script, with the general trend being from complexity to simplicity.
Clerical script was a simplification of seal script, and cursive script and running script were further simplifications of clerical script, while simplified characters were precisely a simplification of regular script.
Regular script began to appear in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, and simplified characters began to evolve during the Northern and Southern Dynasties and the Sui and Tang Dynasties, being called vulgar script.
However, the vulgar script of this period was still significantly different from the simplified characters of later generations. The most typical characteristic was that one character had several ways of writing, and as time went by, these writings gradually became unified.
By the Ming Dynasty, most simplified characters were not much different from those of later generations. Therefore, the characters that appeared "missing strokes" to Li Tai did not pose a significant reading difficulty for Fang Yizhi.
At least, apart from the non-professional vocabulary, he could understand the meaning of the rest by guessing and inferring.
"When sunlight shines on a semiconductor p-n junction, it forms new hole-electron pairs. Under the action of the p-n junction's electric field, holes flow from the n-region to the p-region, and electrons flow from the p-region to the n-region. When a circuit is connected, an electric current is formed."
He didn't understand what these meant, but after a quick read, he summarized one sentence.
"Extracting silicon from sand, making semiconductors, coating it with something, and then exposing it to the sun to generate electricity?"
Incredible, too incredible!