Beethoven had just returned to Vienna from Heligenstadt. In the past period, his hearing problems became increasingly serious, and even developed so that even when people shouted into his ears, he could hardly hear anything.

As a musician, nothing is more terrible than this. In the midst of anxiety, Beethoven developed severe diarrhea again. After consulting the doctor, he decided to leave Vienna and go to Heiligentstadt in the suburbs to recuperate.

In Heligenstadt, Beethoven's diarrhea problem was solved, but the ear problem was not relieved and even became increasingly serious. Finally, it reached a point where he was almost completely deaf. This made the strong Beethoven extremely desperate. He once wanted to commit suicide, and even left a famous suicide note to his younger brother.

But Beethoven finally defeated despair with courage enough to make the entire human race proud, and returned to the center of music, the city of Vienna.

In Vienna, Beethoven continued to maintain the habit he formed in Heiligentstadt, leaving his residence early every morning and walking in the park not far away with his student Carl Cherny.

Perhaps because yesterday he successfully wrote a melody that satisfies himself, Beethoven was in a pretty good mood. He walked forward with great strides, like a legendary giant beast that could separate the sea water. Carl Cherny, who was still a half-aged child, followed behind with fear that his teacher would be killed by a carriage that suddenly appeared - because his teacher, Mr. Beethoven, could not hear the sound of horse hooves and bells.

As Beethoven walked, he hummed the melody he wrote last night in his mouth. However, Beethoven could not hear the sound of his humming in his ears, so the songs he hummed were actually completely out of tune - just like some people in later generations who listened to music with headphones while singing - so that no one could hear what the tune was originally like except for the Che Niel who followed him and sorted out the records for him.

As soon as he arrived at the entrance of the park, a huge scream came over. The sound was so loud that even Beethoven, who was almost deaf, heard it.

Beethoven raised his head in surprise, looked over there, and said, "Carl, what happened?" While speaking, the surprise on his face also disappeared - because he did not hear his voice.

At this time, a student-looking person with an excited expression was holding a newspaper in his hand and hurriedly walked towards them. The student kept muttering something, and sometimes waved his tightly clenched fists twice in the air. Che Nier vaguely heard the words: "Try hard... Come on... Go to Paris... Long live!... Paris!"

Che Nier quickly stopped the student and asked, "Sir, what happened? Is there a war?"

"War?" The student stopped, "Yes, it was a war, the horn of a great march towards the unknown territory of this world has sounded, and I can't wait to join this glorious holy war!"

"Ah, sir, who did you go to war with?" Cherny didn't understand.

"With the unknown, and everything about the unknown! You can understand by buying a newspaper yourself! I'm going to rush to the library now, ah... I've never been as full of fighting spirit as today!" The student ran away after saying this.

"Newspaper? By the way, newspaper." Cheniel looked around and saw a newspaper boy coming from there with a stack of newly printed newspapers, running and shouting: "The French Academy of Sciences has established an amazing prize of one million francs to reward scholars who have achieved great achievements in exploring the unknown world!"

A group of people surrounded him. Che Niel relied on his small size to get in through the gaps in the crowd. After a while, he came out with a newspaper and ran to Beethoven who was smiling and looking at him.

"Carl, your clothes are wrinkled." Beethoven said in stuttering words.

Beethoven could not hear his voice, so when he spoke, it was difficult to control the tone and the length of the sound. It was not easy for others to understand what he was saying, which naturally made Beethoven more withdrawn. Fortunately, Che Nier was one of the few people who could understand what Beethoven was saying.

"Sir, look at this newspaper." Che Nier handed Beethoven the newspaper in his hand. "I failed to grab the Scientific Truth, only bought the Businessman, but there was the same news, and it was also on the front page."

Che Nier knew that Beethoven didn't like newspapers like the Businessman's newspaper, which was full of philanthropy. However, at that time, there were too many people and too few newspapers, so it was already good to be able to grab such a copy.

Beethoven took the newspaper and a line of words came into his eyes: "The French Academy of Sciences established the 'Prometheus' award, with a prize of up to one million francs!"

"One Million Francs" are made of Arabic numerals, and the subsequent series of zeros almost make people's eyes blurry. Francs are actually much lower than pounds. Calculated in gold, the gold content of a franc is about 0.29 grams of gold, while one pound costs about 7.32 grams of gold. But one million francs, converted into gold, is also a total of 290 kilograms of gold. So much gold is enough to make most people who see this news go crazy. Even those like Beethoven, who regard money as dirt, are still shocked.

"The French really value science very much." Beethoven sighed.

"Isn't it? One million francs is really unimaginable. Do you think so?" Che Nier also sighed.

"Carl, do you regret learning music?" Beethoven actually didn't hear Cheniel's sigh, but the French value of science is actually very much about Beethoven's appetite, because in Beethoven's opinion, what is important about science is also talent and hard work, not background. So when Beethoven asked this question, he was joking and his face was full of smiles.

"No, I feel a headache when I see the numbers... Teacher, I don't think this is something we can do, so we should try our best to write the prelude to the Olympics first."

However, in the UK, when Watts and the others saw the news, they were not as calm as Beethoven.

"God, this guy is so generous? Everybody is just one million francs! With so much money, this really makes everyone millionaires. William, are you moved?" Watt asked his assistant William Murdoch.

Murdoch smiled and said, "I remember you mentioned this matter to me a few months ago. I remember that this award is aimed at basic science, not technology. Except for medicine, basically anything that can be patented or technical is not within the scope of the reward. Well, Mr. Watt, I think that at my age, I don't have time to change to study medicine. Even my son is too late. Now I can only count on my grandson who doesn't know where I am."

"If President Bonaparte did mention this to me at that time, he said that the difficulty of basic science is no less than technology - well, I think it actually exceeds technology, at least I can't understand many of those damn maths - but studying basic science is not like researching technology, which can bring patents to yourself. You can't invent a solution to an equation, and then ask everyone who solves equations in this way to pay you a patent fee, right?

So he proposed to set up such a bonus to encourage those who devote themselves to basic scientific research and to allow them to obtain certain wealth compensation. After all, those who can achieve great achievements in basic science are very smart people. If they use their intelligence to do something else, they will probably make more money.

I agreed with his proposal at the time. The only thing I didn't expect was that the French were so generous. At first I thought that it would be very generous to have a prize of 10,000 francs. Well, by the way, he also invited me as a member of the award committee. As a member of the award committee, I have the right to recommend a candidate and vote during the selection."

"So, sir, who are you going to recommend?" Although I know that this matter must have nothing to do with me, I am still full of interest in who will become the lucky one who has the chance to win a prize of one million francs. Yes, as long as I can be shortlisted for this candidate circle, it is a lucky one, because even if he cannot get the final prize, he will be shortlisted, which itself will bring him a huge reputation.

"Ah, this question, this year we will award awards in mathematics and medicine. To be honest, there is no suspense in medicine at all. It must be the Irish named Carol. Well, in the UK, there must be many people who don't want to see him win the award because of his political attitude... But considering his research on bacteria, the great significance of the epoch-making medicine in medicine, I think this award should be undisputed."

"So, what about mathematics?" Murdoch asked.
Chapter completed!