Scholar’s Advanced Technological System

by Stayrr

After suffering from a heat stroke while working under the scorching heat of summer, Lu Zhou, a hardworking but poor university student, somehow becomes the owner of an advanced technological system. With the cheat given by the system, his university life changes overnight. A Master’s degree? Easy. PhD? Not a problem. From a nobody, he quickly becomes a huge celebrity in the wor

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Read Scholar's Advanced Technological System - Chapter 292 - I'm More Interested In You online free - Novelfull

Chapter 292: I'm More Interested In You

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

In the evening after the first day of the conference, the American Mathematical Society hosted a dinner party at a hotel near Berkeley.

For the mathematics world, the dinner party after the conference was a way to interact and communicate with other scholars.

However, for this type of young scholars conference, unless there was a particularly interesting thesis report, most big names would not come to the dinner party. The reason why Lu Zhou came was that he wanted to bring Vera here.

Due to the rarity of big names, the few big names that did show up were even more "sought after".

Lu Zhou was very low-key when he walked into the venue and he entered through the side door of the banquet hall. However, once he was inside, people were constantly trying to talk to him. He could not even take a break.

As for his student, she was following closely behind him and looking around nervously. Obviously, she was not used to this type of social event.

Lu Zhou told her many times that this was a good opportunity for her to expand her network and that she should not stand behind him. The reason was that, whenever Lu Zhou was around, no one would notice her.

However, the little girl did not listen to him.

At last, Lu Zhou gave up and let her be.

Honestly, he had never seen such a timid and fearful girl.

He was still a long way from developing her into an outstanding scholar.

Halfway through the banquet, the dance floor started to play elegant music.

With the sound of the music, the people in the banquet hall began to slowly migrate to the dance floor. Lu Zhou was finally freed from the crowd.

He took a glass of champagne and sat down.

He was listening to music while enjoying his champagne. Suddenly, a tall American girl walked over and bravely started a conversation.

"Hello, Professor Lu, I am Hannah. It is a pleasure meeting you."

Lu Zhou replied, "Hello, Miss Hannah, what's the matter?"

Hannah, "If it's nothing too difficult for you… Can I sit here?"

"Of course you can," answered Lu Zhou. He looked at her with confusion as he did not know what she wanted.

"The thing is that I'm very interested in mathematical physics. Next year, I want to apply for a mathematical physics master's degree at Stanford," said Hannah embarrassedly. She looked at Lu Zhou and blushed before she said, "I have always admired your story and I didn't expect you to see you at this dinner party… Can you please write a letter of recommendation for me?"

Oh, this is what you want?

For foreign professors, writing a letter of recommendations was no big deal. Many professors would write dozens of them at the end of every semester. They did not give it out for free, but most of the time they were happy to write them.

"Of course I can, but don't think it is going to be so easy. I can give you a chance. It is up to you to perform," said Lu Zhou. He looked at her and smiled before he asked in a relaxed tone, "Then, are you prepared?"

Hannah was surprised by Lu Zhou's response. She clearly was not mentally prepared. Her brain even froze for a few seconds.

"Wait? What?" Hannah was stunned. She panicked and looked around before saying, "But… Okay, I'm ready."

She took a deep breath and calmed herself down.

Miss Hannah looked down at the table. She bit her lip and whispered, "I'm… prepared."

Although Lu Zhou was a professor, he was not much older than her. Thus, she did not feel too much psychological pressure. In fact, she could tell that Lu Zhou liked her.

However, this was too direct, so she was not fully prepared.

However, this could be her only chance…

"OK, it seems that you are ready," said Lu Zhou. He nodded with satisfaction. Then he looked at Vera and said, "Vera, come up with a complex functions problem to test her. Don't make it too difficult. A question along the undergraduate level is fine."

Vera: "…"

Hannah: ???

…

Complex functions and partial differential equations were the two foundations of physics. However, the latter was a bit too difficult for an undergraduate student. A complex functions question was more reasonable.

Although most professors would write a recommendation letter as long as the student was "sincere", Lu Zhou felt that he should have his own unique requirements.

It should not be that easy to get a recommendation letter from him.

If someone did not know Lu Zhou personally, they would have to do a test!

Although Vera was muddled, she still followed her supervisor's requests.

There was no paper or pen in the banquet hall, so she went to the hotel lobby with Hannah.

Lu Zhou was finally alone. He leaned back on his chair and relaxed.

However, God did not let Lu Zhou catch a break. The second the two girls left, the president of the American Mathematical Society, Mr. Francis, walked over with another man.

"Hello, Professor Lu, we meet again," said Mr. Francis as he looked at Lu Zhou with a friendly smile.

He was the one that gave Lu Zhou the Best Young Speaker Award and $10,000 USD in Princeton. Although they did not communicate much academically, they still had a good relationship.

Lu Zhou stood up and shook hands with him. He then looked at the man standing next to Francis.

Lu Zhou felt this guy looked familiar, but he did not know who he was.

"Long time no see… This is?"

Mr. Francis smiled and said, "Let me introduce you to Elon Musk."

Elon Musk?

Lu Zhou was totally shocked.

He had no idea why Musk was here.

"It's nice to meet you, Professor Lu," said Musk. He looked at Lu Zhou and smiled as he said, "Although this is our first time meeting, I've admired your work for a long time."

Lu Zhou looked at him and shook his hand as he replied, "Hello, it is nice to meet you as well."

Elon Musk was on a completely different level.

Musk received a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania, and within a year, he received a double degree in physics.

In 1995, due to his passion for science, he enrolled at Stanford University to study a PhD in materials science and physics.

However, maybe he did not like the title of being a genius, he only stayed at Stanford for two days before leaving the campus and went to Silicon Valley.

Most people knew what happened next. Within 10 years, he founded , SpaceX, and Tesla. His name was legendary in Silicon Valley.

Whether it was online payments, renewable energy vehicles, or ambitious "Falcon 9" rockets, Musk did it all. He made his ideas came to life and changed the technology industry.

Of course, all of his ideas were on the technical side.

Musk and Lu Zhou were two different types of people in this regard. One was a CEO, the other was a genius, one was an engineer, the other was an academic.

It was like "Iron man" and "Mister Fantastic".

As such, Lu Zhou was confused about why Musk was here.

He had never heard Musk's name in the mathematics world.

Mr. Francis saw that Lu Zhou was confused. He smiled and said, "Mr. Musk is a sponsor of this academic conference. He heard you were attending and came all the way from Palo Alto."

Lu Zhou looked at Musk and said, "Mr. Musk is also interested in mathematics?"

"Of course, science is inseparable from mathematical physics. Although my research in mathematics isn't as deep as in physics, I still greatly admire mathematicians. When I was studying my physics degree at Pennsylvania, the most troublesome thing I came across wasn't the physics problems, it was the mathematics problems."

Musk smiled at Lu Zhou and said something surprising.

"However, I'm more interested in you than in mathematics."

Lu Zhou:…?

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Chapter 293: Different Kind Of Person

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

"Of course, I'm not only interested," said Musk. He cleared his throat and looked at Lu Zhou as he said sincerely, "I also have to thank you for your research has been a great help to me."

"I'm happy to help," said Lu Zhou. Facing Musk's enthusiasm, he smiled politely.

To be honest, he was a little confused at this sudden encounter.

Even if Lu Zhou's research results did help Tesla, there was no reason for Musk to specifically come here to visit Lu Zhou.

Maybe because Lu Zhou had been dealing with people trying to buy his patents, whenever he encountered a businessman, his first reaction was to think about the other party's interests.

He was not suspicious of anyone; this was just his automatic reaction.

"It seems that you two have a lot of interesting topics to talk about. Other than mathematics or rugby, I'm not very interested," said Francis. He smiled softly and said, "Then, you two take your time, I'll see you guys later."

Musk smiled and said, "Thanks, I do want to talk with Professor Lu."

After Mr. Francis left, Musk sat down next to Lu Zhou and spoke in a thoughtful manner, "When I was studying economics at the University of Pennsylvania, I thought about the future of mankind, the problems that mankind will face. I came to three conclusions: energy, internet, and space exploration."

Musk looked at Lu Zhou seriously and said, "I'm an engineer, you're a scholar. From your perspective, what is the key to solving these three problems?"

Lu Zhou felt like he was listening to Shinichi Mochizuki doing a report. They were probably the type of people that got lost in their own imaginative universe. Although there was nothing wrong with this, it was difficult for some people to understand them.

Lu Zhou thought for a bit before he said, "I'm not sure about the internet problem, but for the other two, I think the issue is on the materials."

The bottleneck of energy and space technology was in many areas and disciplines, so it was not only materials science. However, the interesting thing was that if the materials problem was solved, many other complex problems would become a lot more simple.

Whether it was photovoltaic solar panels, nuclear power generators, lithium-sulfur, or lithium-air batteries, the most crucial part was the materials.

Musk smiled and said, "Then it seems that we have the same opinion. My engineering team also came to this conclusion. We plan on investing $10 billion USD to build a material research institute in Silicon Valley. If you're interested, I want to hire you as the chief researcher of this research institute."

$10 billion dollars?!

Lu Zhou was so shocked by this number that he did not even pay attention to the second half of Musk's statement.

Tesla's revenue isn't even this high, right?

"Your idea is interesting. I believe that the materials science community will be thrilled to have a generous billionaire in the field. However, no offense, but how does Tesla plan on getting this money?" asked Lu Zhou. He remembered hearing that Tesla's financial situation was not good.

Musk said, "We don't have it now, but we'll if you come on board."

Lu Zhou: "…"

He did not know what to say.

…

Lu Zhou had to admit that for any researcher, Musk's proposal would be very tempting.

If this was Sarrot, he would not even hesitate for a second. He would definitely take his lithium-air battery project and run to Musk.

However, for Lu Zhou…

He was not that interested.

"I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I can't help you."

Musk did not expect Lu Zhou to reject this attractive proposal. He frowned and said, "Are you sure you don't want to think about it? I can promise that as long as you come on board, you'll never worry about research funding again."

"I'm a mathematics professor, and materials science is not my cup of tea. You should find someone else," said Lu Zhou. He paused for a second before adding, "Also, even if you grant me a large research fund, my research wouldn't even need that much money."

Although Musk still wanted to convince Lu Zhou, he saw that Lu Zhou had no intentions to change his mind. Musk could only helplessly sigh as he said, "Okay then, I have to say that you just missed a chance to change the world… Of course, if you ever change your mind, you can find me."

Lu Zhou said, "Sure."

Musk gave Lu Zhou his business card. The two then continued to talk for a bit but Musk had lost his enthusiasm.

Musk had previously watched Lu Zhou's Crafoord Prize interview where Lu Zhou said that he "will use mathematics to change science". Musk then saw Lu Zhou made a breakthrough in the anode material industry and thought Lu Zhou must be the same type of person as him, but now it seemed that was not the case.

The pair continued to talk for a bit before Musk made an excuse to leave and walked away.

After Musk left, the surrounding area quieted down.

Lu Zhou poured another glass of champagne and tried to enjoy the banquet.

Suddenly, Vera and Hannah returned to the banquet venue.

Lu Zhou could tell from Hannah's excited face that she solved the problem.

Lu Zhou looked at Vera and asked, "How was the result?"

Vera nodded and said softly, "I gave her an undergrad level complex functions question. Within half an hour, she successfully solved the problem."

Lu Zhou nodded and looked at Hannah as he said, "Nicely done. Then congratulations, Miss Hannah. You've passed my test. Give me your email and tell me the supervisor you want to apply to."

Lu Zhou was a man of his word.

"Okay! Thank you, thank you so much!" Hannah excitedly nodded her head and took out a paper and pen.

Generally speaking, recommendation letters were directly sent from the professor to the supervisor. The student would never actually read the letter.

Thus, a foreign professor's recommendation letters were more influential.

Their recommendation letters could determine the future of a student.

However, most professors were happy to recommend their students with potential. After all, watching their students grew to become a brilliant scholar was one of the joys of being a professor.

Vera looked at Hannah walking away and gently squeezed her fists.

She took a deep breath, and finally got the courage to speak, "Professor."

Having just completed a good deed, Lu Zhou was in a good mood. He asked, "What's up?"

Vera opened her mouth as if she was about to say something.

However, all of a sudden, a piece of farewell music started to play from the dance floor.

The people from the dance floor started to leave reluctantly.

Clearly, the dance party was over.

It was like Vera missed out on something as her big, bright eyes sadly looked away.

Vera lowered her head and said, "Nothing…"

I just wanted to dance with you…

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Chapter 294: Best Young Speaker

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

On the morning of the second day of the conference, Woolf called Lu Zhou.

"Our headhunting company has found a suitable manager according to your request. This manager has five years of experience in the intellectual property department at Verizon, and his resume is squeaky clean. When do you want to meet him?"

Lu Zhou was sitting in the hotel lobby enjoying his breakfast, and he thought for a moment before replying, "Let's meet in a few days. I want to finish dealing with this matter by the end of January. I'm at the hotel near Berkeley. Ask him to come to San Francisco and reimburse his plane ticket."

"Okay, professor," Woolf respectfully said. "He's in California, I will ask him to contact you as soon as possible."

The sooner AM finished this task, the sooner Lu Zhou would pay them, and the sooner Woolf would get his commission.

Therefore, Woolf was even more enthusiastic than Lu Zhou to get this matter done.

Soon after Lu Zhou hung up on Woolf, he received a call from the former executive from Verizon. They agreed to meet at 2 p.m. at a coffee shop near Berkeley…

…

[White Sheridan. 35 years old, male, PhD in management from the University of Pennsylvania. Served as head of intellectual property department at Verizon, five years work experience…]

Lu Zhou placed the resume down and looked at the man sitting opposite him.

"Your resume is great. However, the one thing I don't understand is that Verizon offered you a US$200,000 per year salary, but you decided to quit."

White shrugged and said, "Head of the Intellectual Property Department at Verizon is a good position, but it can't give me a sense of career accomplishment. There is nowhere for me to go. Compared to the other executives, I'm more like a lawyer."

Lu Zhou: "What about now? The main business of Star Sky Technology is patent management, so your work will probably be the same as before, there won't be much change."

White didn't hide his intentions. Instead, he smiled and said, "You're right. However, Star Sky Technology can give me a US$300,000 per year salary, and Verizon can't match that."

US$300,000 per year salary definitely counted as upper class in America. According to Glassdoor statistics, even Microsoft's Chief Development Manager only earned US$294,000 per year.

Of course, that was only an estimate, it didn't include benefits and bonuses.

In short, a US$300,000 salary was an irresistible offer for White.

Dreams were important, but money was even more important.

Lu Zhou was satisfied with this honest answer.

Although it would be better for White to talk about potential development plans for the company and corporate culture, he didn't do this. The most important thing about White was his impressive resume and his extensive experience in patent management.

Lu Zhou smiled and reached out his right hand.

"Congratulations on your new job. I hope we can build a better Star Sky Technology under your management."

White smiled and shook Lu Zhou's hand.

"I promise you we can definitely do it."

…

Lu Zhou originally wanted Star Sky Technology to be a company similar to Qualcomm which focused on research and development and to become the whale of the industry as well as investing all profits into scientific research.

After giving White a brief overview of Star Sky Technology's development strategy, Lu Zhou ended this meeting.

The rest could be discussed through email.

After Lu Zhou finished his work with Star Sky Technology, he put his attention back on the academic conference.

Maybe it was because one of the greatest additive number theory problems, Goldbach's conjecture, was solved, recently there had been an influx in number theory research theses.

Many scholars had done research on Waring's Conjecture using the Group Structure Method and achieved great results.

For example, a PhD student from Columbia University was reporting his research results at the conference. He used the Group Structure Method to research on the g(6) value range.

Although he was far from solving the problem, his results were still inspiring, and he had received thunderous applause from the audience.

Lu Zhou was happy at all this.

Solving the Goldbach's conjecture wasn't very practical in and of itself.

However, if the tools that Lu Zhou created when solving Goldbach's conjecture could be used by many other people, then his thesis in Annual Mathematics would be in the textbooks used by the future generation.

In a blink of an eye, a week had passed, and the academic conference came to a successful conclusion.

Mr. Francis stood on the podium on stage. As usual, he used a gentle and steady voice to introduce himself to the young scholars in the venue.

"… Thank you, everyone, for coming to this mathematics conference. Thank you, Parker, Tesla… for sponsoring this event." Mr. Francis adjusted his glasses and looked at the young scholars before he said, "Now it is time to give out the best young speaker award. I'm getting old now, let's get the important stuff out of the way."

The crowd smiled and gave Francis a round of applause.

Mr. Francis cleared his throat and said, "The best young speaker of this academic conference is…

"Vera Pulyuy from Princeton!"

The crowd burst into applause.

Vera stood next to Lu Zhou; her white cheeks instantly turned red.

She wasn't prepared for this surprise at all. Lu Zhou patted her on the back and said, "Go on."

He then gave her an encouraging look as he added, "This is your moment."

"… Okay!"

Vera looked at Lu Zhou gratefully and nodded. She walked through the crowd and got on the stage.

Lu Zhou looked at her tiny figure and couldn't help but think.

It's good to be young…

Lu Zhou could still remember when he first won this prize. He was so excited that he couldn't sleep for days. Jin Ling University and Yan University both congratulated him.

In addition to the honor, the award also carried a US$10,000 prize.

At that time, the US$10,000 prize was a huge amount to him.

However, Lu Zhou didn't realize that among these scholars, he was one of the youngest ones, so he had no room to call Vera young…

Vera stood on the stage. Although she looked a bit nervous, she was still doing a lot better than when she first did her report.

The award presenter was the mathematics professor at Berkeley, Crafoord Prize winner, Tao Zhexuan. Vera was in Tao Zhexuan's partial differential equations class before.

Tao Zhexuan handed the certificate to Vera and said, "Congratulations, Miss Vera."

Vera nodded nervously as she replied, "Thank you."

Tao Zhexuan nodded as well.

He suddenly remembered something, so he continued to speak, "I remember that a year ago that you told me you really admired Professor Lu's work and hoped that I could write a recommendation letter for you. At that time, I thought I made the correct decision; I still think I did, but I hope you don't make me regret my decision."

Vera was stunned; she had a confused expression.

"Professor? I'm not sure what you are trying to say?"

Tao Zhexuan shook his head and said, "Nothing, I just hope that you only admire his knowledge. In fact, I admire him as well. His talent in pure and applied mathematics is one of the best I have ever seen. However, his youth is the most valuable thing he has.

"His name will likely be noted down in history.

"And your recklessness might lead to some unwanted results.

"I hope that I had misunderstood, but if I didn't, I hope that no matter what feelings you have for him, you should wait until after you graduate before you express those feelings."

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Chapter 295: Steady Career

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The Spring American Mathematical Society's conference was a normal conference; it didn't have a large influence on the mathematics community. It was not comparable to the annual European Mathematical Society's conference.

If a student won the best speaker award at one of these conferences, it would at most bring some glory to the university. Other than that, not a lot of people would pay any attention to the conference awards.

However, most pure mathematics scholars still paid attention to the theses submitted to the Spring American Mathematical Society's conference.

After all, mathematics was the land of geniuses. 80% of outstanding achievements were made from scholars under 40 years old…

An office in the mathematics research institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Academician Xiang Huanan leaned on his office chair. He was reading a pile of printed theses while casually drinking tea.

The old man came across a certain thesis, and he raised his eyebrows as he spoke with a smile.

"This guy really can't take a break. He had just completed a big project, and now, he had already found something else to do."

Although Academician Xiang Huanan didn't say who "this guy" was, the other person sitting in his office knew what Xiang Huanan was talking about.

Academician Wang Yuping was drinking tea as well. He then casually said to his friend, "Young people are full of energy, they won't take a break."

Academician Xiang placed the printed thesis on the table, smiled, and said, "Collatz conjecture."

Printed on the A4 paper was Vera's thesis that she submitted to the American Mathematical Society: [The equivalent equation for the Collatz conjecture h(z3) = h(z6) {h(z 2) And Complex analysis of λh(λz2)λ2h(λ2z2)}].

Both them knew that Miss Vera Pulyuy was a student of Lu Zhou at Princeton. Lu Zhou was the second author on the thesis.

Academician Wang Yuping was slightly surprised as he said, "Collatz conjecture? That thing is not much simpler than Goldbach's conjecture, right?"

Although Collatz conjecture wasn't as famous as Goldbach's conjecture, it wasn't much lower in difficulty than Goldbach's conjecture. In some sense, it was even more difficult than Goldbach's conjecture.

The reason for its difficulty was because unlike Goldbach's conjecture, it didn't have countless predecessors paving its path of research.

The reason why Lu Zhou was able to solve Goldbach's conjecture was due to the countless scholars that had previously built the tower of Goldbach's conjecture. On the other hand, the Collatz conjecture had no existing tower.

At best, it had a foundation.

Lu Zhou couldn't just "disassemble" the Goldbach's conjecture tower and use it to build the Collatz conjecture tower. He needed to create new bricks and new materials.

Academician Xiang smiled and said, "Who knows, I'm not a number theory mathematician. If you're curious, why don't you just ask him?"

"I'll have to ask him next time I see him. But this Lu Zhou kid is impressive, even his students are geniuses." Academician Wang couldn't help but shake his head, and he said, "It's unfortunate that Lu Zhou didn't come to Yan University."

Academician Xiang smiled and said, "How is it unfortunate? He's an internationally renowned scholar now. Compare to Yan University, it'd be great if he even returned to the country."

If foreign Chinese researchers were willing to return to China and join the Thousand People Initiative, they could earn several times the salary of domestic researchers. Many researchers who returned were granted a million USD in research funds; this was something unimaginable in America.

Although the Thousand People Initiative had achieved great results, it still wasn't attractive enough for world-class scholars.

"I'm just saying," Academician Wang shook his head and said, "Mr. Lu's teaching experience at Princeton, and his talent, combined with Yan University's resources, can single-handedly build a world-class mathematics department at Yan University. But if it was Jin Ling University instead…"

Academician Wang didn't finish his words, but his meaning was self-evident.

Constructing a building from scratch was undoubtedly more difficult than renovating a ready-built building.

Academician Xiang understood his old friend's words, but he didn't make any comments and only laughed.

In the past, he agreed with Academician Xiang; he thought that Jin Ling University was not a good choice. He even gave Lu Zhou an offer last time. But now looking back, he suddenly felt like Jin Ling University wasn't too bad of a decision.

Neither the Chinese Academy of Sciences nor Yan University could give Lu Zhou the amount of space for development as well as the freedom he needed, but Jin Ling University could.

Jin Ling University was also ranked Top 40 in the country, and like Yan University, it also had great resources.

Although Yan University had more resources than Jin Ling University, Lu Zhou chose Jin Ling University due to its creative freedom.

Maybe Lu Zhou could build an entire mathematics department himself.

No one knew for sure.

…

After the spring American Mathematical Society's conference ended, Lu Zhou finally got on a flight back home.

This time he didn't tell anyone he was coming back. He secretly bought a plane ticket, got on the plane, hopped onto the train, and got back to his home in Jiangcheng.

A bright and loud voice welcomed him back, "Oh, bro, you're back?! Let me take your luggage!"

Xiao Tong ditched her gaming teammates, climbed down the sofa, and ran toward the door.

Lu Zhou looked at her excited expression and smiled.

"Your gift's in the luggage, go get it yourself."

Lu Xiaotong received a gift from her brother every year; this was a Lu family's tradition.

Although it wasn't a particularly expensive gift, it was still a joyful experience for Xiao Tong.

Lu Zhou gave his luggage to his sister, changed into slippers, and sat on the living room sofa.

After a while, Xiao Tong found the gift and happily walked into her room.

Lu Zhou gift for her was a Swiss cosmetics brand makeup set. He didn't know makeup well, but thankfully his student, Hardy, was surprisingly knowledgeable on this subject.

Xiao Tong came back to the living room and sat on the sofa next to Lu Zhou. She then picked up her phone and prepared to start a new match.

Lu Zhou looked at the screen and saw that her ranking in the game hasn't increased, so he asked casually, "How were your exams?"

Xiao Tong replied proudly, "Ah, I'm obviously a genius student as university courses are way too easy."

Lu Zhou was amused by this.

When he was in his first year, he also naively thought that the course content was all high school material.

Especially English.

The college entrance requirement was only at fourth level English, it was nothing more than rote learning.

However, the second semester came and the difficulty increased exponentially.

Then, the real struggle began when core and elective classes came.

However, Lu Zhou didn't feel the struggle at all. His three roommates were the ones that did. When he started his core subjects, most of the material was too easy for him.

"… And I'm a university student now, stop asking about my grades all day. Don't get the impression that I play on my phone all day. I'm on a holiday, do you get it? I study a lot during the semester," Xiao Tong replied before she quickly started the next game and left the spawn fountain.

Lu Zhou certainly believed his sister.

There was no way that Xiao Tong could be stuck in Bronze for an entire year when even his "mental retardation" AI, Xiao Ai, could climb out of Bronze. She had to have been studying instead of playing Kings of Glory.

Xiao Tong suddenly smiled sneakily as she teased her brother, "Oh yeah, bro, don't talk about me all the time, how are you?"

Lu Zhou didn't notice her sneaky smile when he replied, "Me? I'm okay, my career and academics are going steady…"

Xiao Tong immediately asked, "What about your love life?"

Lu Zhou: "…"

F*ck sake!

You're doing this intentionally, aren't you?

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Chapter 296: Difficult To Keep It Low-key

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Xiao Tong successfully shut her brother up, and she happily continued to play Kings of Glory.

However, her match didn't go well, and her smile disappeared.

Her teammates died five times in five minutes, and all of them had negative KDA.

Her teammates went AFK and left her alone.

Xiao Tong angrily threw her phone away and leaned on the sofa as she muttered, "A bunch of kids."

Lu Zhou looked at her.

I told you not to play so much.

Xiao Tong was looking a little depressed, so Lu Zhou left her alone and tried to switch the topic of conversation.

"Stop playing games, tell me about your university life."

Xiao Tong's eyes suddenly lit up, and she started to blabber.

Lu Zhou was surprised; although she was a slob at home, she was a "model student" at school.

She ranked first in her class and third in the year. Not just that, she was also the leader of the 2017 finance club and was given a national scholarship.

Xiao Tong was right, she wasn't a disappointment to the Lu family at all. Lu Zhou didn't have to worry about her living expenses anymore due to her scholarship, and her performance in her first year was even better than Lu Zhou's.

Normally, the national scholarship was for second-year students. To receive the scholarship as a first-year student meant that one was either really smart or had connections…

Xiao Tong obviously belonged to the former. She earned the recognition of her teachers through her relentless work ethic. In fighting for the scholarship, she spent half a month preparing the PowerPoint materials for the oral defense.

Lu Zhou was genuinely happy for her.

She was really trying her best.

It would be best not to reveal the real reason why she received the scholarship.

As long as she was happy…

…

There were quite a few changes to Lu Zhou's home.

Although it was still in the same neighborhood, the house had been renovated and looked much more beautiful than before.

In the beginning, Old Lu persisted that he would never spend the money from Lu Zhou's card and that he couldn't be persuaded.

Then around July, Lu Zhou told his old man that his salary was US$400,000 after tax. The old man finally changed his mind and accepted his son's offering.

The timing was perfect; Xiao Tong was off to university so the old couple refurbished their house.

Actually, Lu Zhou's initial idea was to sell the house and move into a better neighborhood. However, his parents were strongly against this idea.

His father said that he had been living in this house for more than 20 years and that he was emotionally attached to this place.

In the old man's eyes, this was the best neighborhood. The environment was lively, he was familiar with his neighbors, and there was a place for him to fish nearby.

If they moved into a high rise apartment, they would have more neighbors, but it would be cold and quiet. Plus their children were not around, what if they got sick?

Lu Zhou thought about it and it made sense.

Still, he would definitely choose to live in an apartment, and he believed that Xiao Tong would agree.

Perhaps this was because of them being in different generations.

"One day, if you ever overworked yourself in that big city, you can come and rest in this home. Don't stare at your phone all day; your father and I never use that thing, and we're doing just fine."

Lu Zhou was eating dinner with the family when he heard this.

He swore that he didn't even use his phone that much. He only used it to share the joy with his fans through Weibo and WeChat.

His mother's words should be directed at Xiao Tong instead.

Old Lu asked, "Is it cold over there?"

Lu Zhou: "It's very cold. I got off in Shanghai and had to take my jacket off. Jiangling is a lot warmer than Princeton; it's so nice here."

Fang Mei was worried, and she asked, "Is it snowing there?"

Lu Zhou: "Yeah, it is. It's been snowing since Christmas."

Fang Mei said, "It must be very cold then, remember to put on your sweater and trousers, don't catch a cold."

Although Lu Zhou knew that his parents were only concerned about him, he was still a little annoyed.

Lu Zhou helplessly said, "Okay… I know."

Old Lu asked, "Is there a heater at your place?"

Lu Zhou said, "My house doesn't have central heating, but it does have a fireplace. When the doors and windows are closed, the house isn't cold at all."

Xiao Tong didn't speak for this whole time, but then she suddenly got excited and asked, "Fireplace? Bro, did you move out? How big is the new house?"

"It's pretty big, but not too expensive." Lu Zhou smiled and said, "If you want, you can take a vacation there this summer."

"You bought a house over there?" Old Lu looked at Lu Zhou in surprise as he asked, "So you're not coming back?"

Lu Zhou said without thinking, "Of course I'm coming back. Jin Ling University is still waiting for me to save them. As for the house, I can just sell it when the time comes, it's not that expensive anyway."

Old Lu said, "Oh, wow! Money really changes you, look at you showing off."

"It's a pity to sell the house. Just keep it and rent it out." Fang Mei's concern was somewhere else and she continued, "Xiao Tong can live there when she goes overseas to study."

Lu Zhou's parents were oddly attached to houses, and it made Lu Zhou speechless.

He would have to pay a yearly property tax if he didn't sell the house. Princeton's housing market wasn't looking good, and he was a "foreigner", so he couldn't take advantage of the New Jersey tax exemption policy.

It was fine if he worked there as his income tax covered his property tax. However, once he returned to China, Princeton wouldn't pay his taxes anymore.

Xiao Tong rolled her eyes and said, "Mom, how many times do I have to tell you, my major is finance, not mathematics. Even if I wanted to study abroad, I would go to the University of Pennsylvania instead, okay?"

Old Lu said, "What the heck is the University of Pennsylvania? Isn't Princeton better?"

Ever since he heard that Princeton's mathematics department was better than Harvard, Harvard's ranking in his heart had dropped significantly. In his mind, Princeton was the best.

Xiao Tong was speechless; she started to regret arguing with her parents.

Actually, this wasn't Old Lu's fault. It was difficult to explain to people the difference between university rankings and course rankings.

Thankfully, Lu Zhou coughed and ended the argument.

"Princeton doesn't have a business school…"

…

After coming back to China, Lu Zhou was finally able to relax and not worry about his work.

However, a scholar of his level couldn't escape from work.

Jin Ling University seemed to have estimated that Lu Zhou would come back for Chinese New Year, and in less than two days since he got back, he received a call from Jin Ling University.

Unsurprisingly, it was Professor Tang who called.

Old Tang smiled and said, "Principal Xu told me to ask if you were coming back for New Year's this year. So, when are you planning on coming back?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "I'm already home."

Old Tang was astonished, and he asked, "What? You're already back?"

Lu Zhou: "Yeah, I came back after the conference at Berkeley. The schedule was a little tight, so I didn't tell anyone."

Of course, the reason why Lu Zhou didn't tell anyone was actually that he didn't want anyone to bother him.

He only wanted to quietly enjoy his new year and didn't want any trouble.

Old Tang sighed and said, "I wanted to buy you a meal before New Year's Day, but now it seems that isn't possible."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Are you the one inviting me or is the school inviting me? If you are, I'll come to see you three days after New Year's Day."

"You must be kidding! How are you going to buy a ticket? Just rest at home, I don't need you to visit me." Old Tang paused for a second before he said, "Principal Xu told me to ask you when you are back because according to him, he has something to discuss with you."

Lu Zhou said in a serious tone, "Is it important?"

Old Tang said seriously, "Don't know if it's important, but it's definitely something good for you."

Lu Zhou the replied politely, "Okay then, on the fifteenth day, I'll visit Jin Ling University before I go back to Princeton!"

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Chapter 297: I Need Your Help

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Lu Zhou rested at home until the fifteenth day. He then accompanied Xiao Tong back to school.

Several hours of journey later, the train finally arrived at Jinling station.

Lu Zhou got off the high-speed train. He originally planned on taking the subway to school, so he didn't expect Old Tang to call him.

"Where are you now?"

Lu Zhou: "At the station. I'm about to go on the subway, why?"

Old Tang smiled and said, "Don't bother, just come out."

Lu Zhou said, "Don't tell me you're picking me up? The subway is so close, you're making me ashamed."

"Haha, you feel ashamed?" Old Tang smiled and said, "Okay, no more goofing around. Go tell Academician Xu this, I don't have time to deal with your shamefulness."

When Lu Zhou heard him mentioned Academician Xu, he was a little surprised.

There was only one Academician Xu in Jin Ling University, and that person was Principal Xu. Although he wasn't shocked by the fact that Principal Xu was picking him up, he was still a little surprised.

Lu Zhou thought for a long time; he couldn't remember making any headlines recently.

That lithium dendrites thesis published in Nature was six months ago.

It seemed that he really had to find something to do.

…

Lu Zhou didn't want the two professors to wait for long, so he walked with Xiao Tong out of the train station.

Lu Zhou saw two black sedans parked outside the main entrance. He knew this was his ride.

Xiao Tong was a little muddled by this situation, so she nervously grabbed her brother's arm and asked in a low voice, "Bro, who are these people?"

Lu Zhou said, "It's your principal, you won't know the other people."

Xiao Tong: "Oh… What?!"

While the two were talking, the car door opened. Academician Xu and Professor Tang got out of the car and waved at Lu Zhou.

"Professor Lu, you have finally arrived."

Lu Zhou shook Academician Xu's hand, smiled, and said, "Sorry to keep you waiting."

Academician Xu smiled and looked at Xiao Tong, who was standing behind Lu Zhou. He then said with a welcoming tone, "Student Lu Xiaotong, I have some things to discuss with your brother, how about you let Teacher Hou send you back to school first?"

Teacher Hou was probably the driver in the other car.

It was obvious that the school knew that Lu Zhou would come back with his sister, that was why they sent two cars. This confirmed Lu Zhou's suspicion that Jin Ling University had something cumbersome planned for him.

As for Xiao Tong, she was completely dumbfounded.

She knew her brother was nutty, but she didn't expect the principal to know her name.

She looked at Lu Zhou. When he nodded at her, she dragged her luggage and walked to the other car.

Once Lu Zhou and Academician Xu sat in the backseat, the car started to move and Lu Zhou asked, "Academician Xu, can you give me a clue? What is going on?"

"It's actually not a big deal." Academician Xu paused for a second before he said, "A month ago, the Ministry of Science and Technology of China joined forces with several other ministries to research and introduce a new energy technology development program. They decided to develop in the direction of photovoltaic technology. Due to the 13th Five-Year Plan, the Jin Ling University is also participating in this program.

"The city bureau also supports Beijing's decision. They plan on building a high-tech development area along the Jin Ling University to Jin Ling City's subway line. This is to integrate talents from various universities in Jinling. The leadership team from Beijing took this matter seriously and sent a team down here.

The team's leader is the leader of the Energy Bureau. He heard that you are going back to Princeton soon, so he assigned you to work on the first part of this plan."

Academician Xu looked at Lu Zhou and smiled.

Lu Zhou had one reaction.

You're telling me this isn't a big deal?

Lu Zhou gulped and said, "Did he say why he wanted me here?"

Academician Xu smiled and said, "I don't know the specifics, but I promise you it is a good thing."

…

Lu Zhou certainly believed Academician Xu's words.

The squad returned to school and went to an office in the chemistry research building. Lu Zhou saw Academician Li and someone he knew.

He met him at Boston before.

"Professor Lu, we meet again," Lu Kaimin smiled at Lu Zhou and reached out his right hand.

Lu Zhou smiled and shook his hand as he said, "Director Lu, hello."

Lu Kaimin visited Lu Zhou in Boston and asked his opinions on the development of lithium battery technology.

Although this time Lu Kaimin was here as a government official, he didn't look high and mighty at all.

He was an internationally renowned scholar, therefore he was amiable enough to treat a young man with great respect.

"Don't refer to me as director, just call me Mr. Lu." Mr. Lu released his hands and said, "I originally planned to visit you in Jiangling, but I still had some things to do here. Thanks for coming here, Professor Lu."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "All good, I wanted to visit my old school anyway."

Old Lu nodded and put on a serious expression as he said, "After talking to you in Boston last time, I went to Beijing and gave your opinions to the higher-ups. After consulting an expert team, our final conclusion is that lithium-sulfur batteries are the most suitable choice."

Lu Zhou wasn't surprised by this decision.

Compared to lithium-air batteries, lithium-sulfur batteries were undoubtedly more realistic. The country was willing to invest in this area as it was more applicable and could be implemented in the battery industry. The country didn't want to waste money on theoretical Science and Nature publications.

Of course, Lu Zhou didn't believe that his opinion actually influenced the country's choice. At most, he probably slightly impacted the final outcome. After all, his vote was only one vote among many.

However, he was happy to see his vote came into effect.

Lu Zhou said, "Lithium-sulfur battery has great potential, I am happy to see the country make the right decision."

"This is all thanks to Professor Lu's advice." Old Lu smiled and revealed his true intention when he said, "Actually, the reason why I wanted to meet with you was to ask for your help."

Lu Zhou: "Help?"

"Yes." Old Lu nodded seriously and said, "Energy development is the top priority in our country. In order to accomplish the 2025 plan, we need batteries with higher energy storage performance. The batteries have to be low cost, high production, and recyclable.

"However, the general feedback from the industry is that many theoretical problems have to be solved in order to produce such batteries. Otherwise, safety and recyclability cannot be guaranteed.

"Although we don't seek hegemony, we also cannot allow anyone to set up international patent barriers that would attack our energy strategy."

"You are an expert in this field." Old Lu said sincerely, "We need your help!"

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Chapter 298: Large Lithium-Sulfur Battery Project

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

International companies had been researching lithium-sulfur batteries for a long time.

To put it in perspective, if humans needed to solve 10 technical problems to "unlock" lithium-sulfur batteries, these 10 technical problems could be divided into 10 patents each for a total of 100 patents. International research institutes had already obtained 30-40 of these patents.

Under the WTO regulation, a company could not set up barriers with their patents, otherwise, it would put other companies at a disadvantage.

For example, Qualcomm had completely dominated the silicon processor field. If they forced one to release one's patents under the WTO law, one couldn't do anything but to oblige.

The industry was based on the fact that both parties had equal access to resources; if the access wasn't equal, then there would be no competition, and a monopoly could form.

The same applied to countries. Except instead of stock prices, they were dealing with a trade surplus.

When Lu Zhou heard Old Lu's request, he thought about it seriously before he said cautiously, "Although I really want to help you, I have only researched anode materials. I don't really know the lithium battery industry well, I'm afraid I can't help you."

Lu Zhou wasn't lying, he was telling the truth.

Although the modified PDMS film solved the biggest lithium dendrites problem, the technology involved did not translate to anode materials.

For example, the electrode cycle performance was extremely poor.

The sulfur positive electrode didn't generate lithium sulfide when it was discharged. Instead, it was accompanied by the formation of lithium polysulfide intermediate products. Lithium polysulfide would dissolve in the electrolyte, causing dissolution loss. These dissolved lithium polysulfides would diffuse to the negative electrode and then oxidized at the positive electrode.

This phenomenon would eventually cause the positive electrode material and the negative electrode to stick together. Although this issue didn't make the battery dangerous, it made the battery non-recyclable.

And this "shuttle effect" was exactly what Professor Kerr told Professor Sarrot at the MRS Conference.

There were many potential methods to solve this problem such as from the anode material side, the electrolyte side, or from the electrode material. Although there were many paths, none of them were easy to accomplish.

Lu Zhou's high-tech lithium battery scan model was probably the highly advanced lithium-air battery, which was at least two generations ahead of the current technology.

Although lithium-air batteries also used lithium as its negative electrode, it didn't use sulfur as the positive electrode. It didn't even need electrolytes, so it didn't have the "shuttle effect".

"Of course, this burden will not be placed on you alone," said Old Lu with a smile. He then added, "This study will involve more than 20 national research institutes such as the Institute of Physics and Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Nanoscience Research Center. This study will focus on technical difficulties in the energy field. Lithium-sulfur batteries are one of the most important aspects of our new energy development plan. Other than you, there will be many expert research groups working on this problem!

"Our lithium battery expert professors have unanimously agreed that you are the most suitable candidate. We are not trying to change your research plan, we just hope that if you are looking for a new research direction, try to prioritize the lithium-sulfur battery direction. We will try our best to monetarily compensate you!"

Lu Zhou heard this and couldn't help but scream in his heart.

Originally, he thought that Old Lu was talking about an ordinary support policy. He didn't expect the higher-ups to take this matter as a national project.

If the former was an air-drop supply for researchers fighting on the front lines, then the latter was equivalent to an "army" composed of research units at all levels preparing for a large-scale operation on the fight for new energy.

Outsiders might not have been able to feel this impact, but for the people in the industry, this was a big deal.

This was obviously a good thing for Lu Zhou. Old Lu's statement was clear, Lu Zhou would get heavy research preferential treatment.

Although Lu Zhou didn't lack money, the support policy could still help him get rid of a lot of troubles.

Lu Zhou smiled and nodded at Old Lu.

"If this is the case, then I agree!"

…

The intention of cooperation was obvious; next was the discussion of the specific content of the cooperation.

Old Lu's proposal was to build a material science research institute in Jinling's newly-launched high-tech industrial park, focusing on the development of lithium-sulfur battery-related technologies. At the same time, the state would provide preferential policies such as five-year tax exemption, import equipment rebate, and three-year new energy research subsidies.

Part of the research funding would be subsidized by the country while the remainder was from the enterprise.

At the same time, Jin Ling University could offer experts to work at the laboratory.

Like physics, the materials science department was one of the strongest departments at Jin Ling University. Their organic and nanomaterials research were cutting-edge.

Lu Zhou was satisfied with Old Lu's requests.

However, this wasn't the main point.

What Lu Zhou cared about was the research result.

This was what any researcher would care about.

If this was natural sciences, then there wouldn't be much concern. Any research result would benefit the entire human race. However, if it was engineering-based research, not only would it benefit the entire human race, it would also benefit specific organizations and individuals.

A manifestation of the phenomenon could be seen in patents.

Old Lu thought cautiously about Lu Zhou's question before he said, "I'm not an entrepreneur. I can't give you a specific plan. However, I can guarantee that 30% of the profits in lithium-sulfur batteries will go to you."

Under normal circumstances, the government did not care about profits and losses on research projects. Therefore the researchers often wouldn't receive a profit from the research results.

On the other hand, companies would pocket the majority of the research profits. They would never give out 30%.

Because scientific research was like gambling, investing in it was a bottomless pit. Companies had to bear considerable risks when conducting research. The only researchers that would get a share of the profits were researchers that had a stake in the research fund.

The television show "The Big Bang Theory" talked about this problem. The research results that the university professors did were split in a ratio of 25% professor, 75% university.

For the profit-oriented companies, this split would be even more extreme.

Therefore, Old Lu's proposition was quite generous.

However, Lu Zhou wasn't lacking in money, and he was sure that he could achieve the results.

Although Lu Zhou knew the Old Lu was doing this out of kindness, he still refused.

"I don't need companies to invest in this project, I can invest in it myself."

Old Lu heard Lu Zhou's request and smiled.

"That's great then. If Professor Lu is willing to fund his own research, as long as this research institute is built on Chinese soil, all of the research results will go to you!"

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Chapter 299: The Jinling Institute for Advanced Study Prototype

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

China took scientific research very seriously.

Old Lu didn't want to waste Lu Zhou's time and wanted to show to his bosses that he was being diligent. The second day after the meeting, Lu Zhou received a call from Secretary Liu.

Lu Zhou felt that Secretary Liu was interesting even though he had only met him a handful of times. However, every time they met, it was like they were meeting as close friends.

After some small talk, Secretary Liu set a time and date with Lu Zhou on the phone.

In the same afternoon, Lu Zhou met Secretary Liu's assistant Zhao Zhengye; he wore glasses and looked very gentle.

Zhao Zhengye shook hands with Lu Zhou and politely said, "Hello, Professor Lu, I am Secretary Liu's assistant. You can call me Xiao Zhao."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "You're older than me, I'll just call you Assistant Zhao."

"Sure." Assistant Zhao pointed and said, "This way please."

Assistant Zhao drove Lu Zhou to the high-tech development park.

Assistant Zhao found a place to park, then pulled out a map with a circle marked on it. He pointed at the circle and said to Lu Zhou, "This is the concept map of the Xianlin University high-tech development zone. The first phase of the project has been completed, and the second phase will be completed within a year. Because this project has only just begun, only 13 research units have checked into this development zone. There is a lot of room to spare.

"There are several good office buildings not far from the subway station. They are still empty right now, so feel free to tell me which one you fancy."

Lu Zhou shook his head and said, "My nanomaterial experiments have to be done with high precision equipment. Normal office buildings cannot reach these standards. I hope you can find me a piece of empty land, and I will contact an engineering contractor to build my own office."

When Assistant Zhao heard Lu Zhou's words, he nodded and said, "No problem. There are many pieces of land here that are yet to be sold. Tell me which one you want and I will report it to the secretary."

Lu Zhou looked at the map for a while. He then selected a piece of land on the map. This 1.65 acres would become the research and development center.

It turned out that Lu Zhou's intuition was quite accurate.

Assistant Zhao drove them to the site, and the land was far from traffic and had a quiet environment. It was a good place for research.

As for the specific construction plan, Lu Zhou would contact the manager of Star Sky Technology, White, to hire engineering experts and conduct project bidding. Lu Zhou didn't have to worry about it.

Also, with the state subsidy policy, Lu Zhou was able to receive a large discount.

An acre of land here would cost up to 42 million yuan per square meter.

However, Old Lu promised that as long as Lu Zhou invested 200 million yuan, the state would subsidize 30% of the cost of the land. If Lu Zhou's investment exceeded 400 million yuan, then the subsidy would double. Lu Zhou's original plan was to invest US$100 million, therefore he would receive the maximum subsidy possible.

The price given by the city bureau to Lu Zhou was around 30 million yuan per acre. With the government subsidy, he would only have to pay 12 million yuan per acre.

This way, Lu Zhou would have more money to put to the experiment and pieces of equipment.

The research institute location had been decided.

Lu Zhou gave White a call, and the rest of this matter would be handled between Star Sky Technology and Jin Ling city government. Lu Zhou didn't have to worry about these trivial things.

Before the research building was built, Lu Zhou could only use Jin Ling University's laboratory building. Thankfully the new Jin Ling University campus had many empty laboratory buildings, so they were happy to accommodate Lu Zhou.

Dean Li, the head of the chemical department, personally took Lu Zhou to Jin University to look at the laboratories.

The two started to chat while walking on campus.

Dean Li smiled and said, "Everyone says Princeton has the smartest brains in the world. You have been working there for over a year, do you have any thoughts?"

Lu Zhou thought for a moment before he said, "I think it's a pity."

Dean Li said, "Oh? What kind of pity?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "In my opinion, the freshmen at Princeton aren't smarter than students here who aced the college entrance examination. We are not falling behind in high school education. In fact, we have an advantage."

Lu Zhou paused for a second before he continued, "However, from the undergrad stage, the difference between the two will start to get bigger. Once they get to the master's level, the difference is huge."

Dean Li said, "Professor Lu, this comparison is unfair. Princeton is a world-class education institute. Even MIT and Harvard can't compare to them."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Yeah, this is why I said it's a pity."

Lu Zhou paused for a second before he said excitedly, "Actually I have an idea. We can build an Institute for Advanced Study here that is similar to Princeton's model."

Dean Li said, "This is a good idea, but it doesn't seem realistic."

Lu Zhou nodded and said, "You're right."

Copying the success of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton wasn't that easy.

Jin Ling University could build a building and hire some researchers, but it wouldn't achieve the same level of success as Princeton.

The institute would only become a second school for those pursuing their master's degree; it would be completely meaningless and a waste of resources.

Dean Li: "To be honest, if we implemented Princeton's research institute model here, it would be difficult for it to survive. Even if it did survive, it would not be able to achieve any success."

"We can still try. Maybe because I'm younger, I'm still very optimistic." Lu Zhou smiled and said in a joking tone, "How about we just call the unopened research institute the Jinling Computational Materials Science Research Institute?"

Academician Li smiled and said, "Sure, we would be honored! Jin Ling University is planning on creating a computational materials department, how about you work as the department head? I'll find some top students for you to train?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Maybe not, I might accidentally convert all of the students to mathematicians."

"Oh no, please don't!"

Both of them were joking, no one took this conversation seriously.

However, after hearing Dean Li's proposal, Lu Zhou couldn't help but take this question seriously.

The battlefield was the best training ground. The country's energy plan wasn't only a battlefield for lithium-sulfur batteries, but it was also an opportunity to cultivate research-oriented talents.

Lu Zhou didn't have to copy the model of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton; he could just invent a new model that would be more suitable for domestic academic research.

If this model proved to be feasible, Lu Zhou could extend it to mathematics and physics.

Even if the model wasn't successful, it would still be something meaningful.

Lu Zhou said in a joking tone, "Then I'll have some requirements."

Dean Li said politely, "What do you want, say it!"

Lu Zhou only said one word.

"People!"

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Chapter 300: Big Chemistry Department News

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The chemistry department at Jin Ling University had gone through some changes.

The first class meeting of the semester was held by the chemistry department supervisor. He threw a stack of documents to the school committee leader and signaled him to pass it around.

"… Internship document for Jinling Research Institute? Why are you giving us first years this thing?"

"Oh sh*t, there's a salary?"

"10 hours of work a week. A thousand yuan a month, not bad. My living expenses are only 800 yuan."

The applied chemistry class one students started to discuss the matter intensely.

Han Mengqi was the same; she felt strange about the content of this leaflet.

However, some people didn't feel strange at all.

A tall slim girl who sat next to Han Mengqi poked Meng Qi's arm and asked her curiously, "Meng Qi, Meng Qi, are you interested?"

The applied chemistry class one cohort only had eight female students who were split into two dorms. This young girl, Li Fang, was Meng Qi's best friend and roommate.

"Not interested…"

Han Mengqi shook her head and stuffed the leaflet into her drawer.

First of all, she wasn't interested in an internship with a thousand yuan pay for a month. Secondly, she was about to transfer majors anyway, so she didn't need this on her resume.

To be honest, she didn't understand. Most of the first-year classes were all general classes; they could barely memorize chemistry equations. What could a first-year do in a chemistry experiment?

"Okay, everyone, please quiet down and listen," said the supervisor as he clapped his hands and signaled everyone to quiet down. He cleared his throat and spoke with a loud voice, "In order to cultivate research talents and to adhere to the national new energy strategy, our department has cooperated with the Jinling Institute of Computational Materials.

"I believe you have all read your leaflets, so I won't waste my time. Simply put, this is an internship opportunity for you to research in materials science.

"The work you have to do is simple and elementary. The minimum working hours per week is 10 hours; this is mainly done on the weekends. If you are interested in research or want to do a master's, take this opportunity seriously. Undergrad students don't have a lot of research opportunities, so you guys should take this opportunity seriously as well."

Suddenly, a student raised his hand and asked, "Teacher, is this internship legit?"

The supervisor was amused, and he replied, "The director of this project is an alumnus. Do you think it's legit or not? It's at least more reliable than finding an internship elsewhere."

He's an alumnus?!

The voice of people chattering could be heard in the classroom as the students were trying to figure out who this nutty alumnus was.

Finally, someone couldn't resist and they raised their hand to ask, "Teacher, what kind of student is this nutty?"

The supervisor smiled and said, "Of course it's Lu Zhou. It's computational materials science, who else could it be?"

Suddenly, the students in the classroom held their breath as excited expressions appeared on their faces.

God Lu!

Of course, when these students enrolled in Jin Ling University, God Lu was already in Princeton. However, they were well aware of the legacy that God Lu left here.

From Zhou's conjecture to Goldbach's conjecture, from Cole Number Theory Prize to Crafoord Prize. As the youngest professor at Princeton University, this 23-year-old had already achieved more than what most people could ever hope for.

They didn't expect the director of the Institute of Computational Materials Science was this legend.

Maybe this legend was unsatisfied with mathematics and wanted to jump ship to chemistry?

When Han Mengqi heard this name, she froze.

The supervisor told the students that if they were interested they could tell the class leader. He then said some ending words, and the meeting was over.

Once again, the classroom was filled with intense discussion from the applied chemistry students in Class One.

"An older student I know said that it is good to participate in these things as it'd be useful on your resume. This counts as a scientific research experience. Also, this research institute seems to be one of the major national projects."

A guy couldn't help but ask, "Then is the competition very fierce?"

"It's mainly about participation." Another guy patted him on the arm and said, "They obviously won't give us the internship, but there's no harm in applying."

"But I think that we have to take two more mathematics classes if we get in."

"Who cares? Anyway, it doesn't count as credits, so your score won't matter."

Han Mengqi had her head down while she thought for a long time.

She was thinking of a different problem than her classmates.

She had been struggling to catch up with her tutor's footsteps. Even though she had been trying her best, she hadn't improved much. She was far from a Crafoord Prize or Cole Number Theory Prize.

Even though in her classmates' eyes, she was a genius student, but she was nothing compared to Lu Zhou.

In fact, after her college entrance examination, she sent her resume to Princeton. However, she didn't receive a reply from the admission department of Princeton. She didn't even tell her sister about this thing.

At least, in mathematics, she knew that it would be impossible for her to follow her tutor's path.

But it could be possible outside of mathematics…

Han Mengqi squeezed her tiny hands; the confusion in her eyes gradually disappeared.

Li Fang saw that her good friend wasn't talking, so she asked with concern, "Meng Qi? What is wrong? Are you feeling uncomfortable…"

Han Mengqi's suddenly looked determined.

"I am going to apply!"

…

Carbon nanomaterials research institute.

Professor Li looked at the graduation application document and sighed.

"You are the most talented among all my students, it's a waste not to study a PhD. To be honest, I don't want you to leave."

Qian Zhongming shook his head and insisted, "There are places other than the university where I can do research. Plus, I am very interested in the emerging field of computational materials science, I hope you can fulfill my wish."

Although Professor Li didn't want to let him go, he sighed in the end and signed the document.

"Just remember to write a self-assessment and prepare your graduation oral defense. You still have to go through the official procedure."

The salary and benefits from the Jinling Institute of Computational Materials were pretty good. They offered full-time contracts in addition to internships. Their master's student base salary was 8,000 yuan per month and it came with bonuses and other benefits. This was much higher than the industry standard.

Originally Li Rongen planned to wait for Qian Zhongming to graduate, then get him a research and development position at Zhongshan New Materials. But now it seemed that wasn't possible anymore.

Professor Li looked at his student and paused for a second before he said, "Go ahead, Professor Lu is a brilliant person. You will be able to learn many things from him."

Qian Zhongming said sincerely, "Thank you."

Professor Li nodded and didn't respond.

Saying anything more would be superfluous.

Liu Bo, who was standing silently by the side, suddenly spoke.

"Professor, I want to apply for graduation as well."

Professor Li looked at him and smiled.

"Give me the application, I'll sign it."

Liu Bo was hurt, and he said, "Professor, you don't plan on convincing me to stay?"

Professor Li joked and said, "Oh, you don't want to graduate? Great, stay here for another year."

Liu Bo panicked and said, "Oh, please don't! I already got the offer."

Professor Li smiled and waved his hand.

"Fine, stop bothering me here.

"You two can screw off together."

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Chapter 301: Purchasing Instruments

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The Jinling Institute of Computational Materials needed talented researchers. Although they could attract them by offering short-term contracts with a high salary, they needed a good research culture for them to stay long-term.

Lu Zhou needed a group of researchers to help him in the long term. He also needed to use this group of researchers and equipment to cultivate new talents.

Although he couldn't guarantee that all of the interns working here would definitely work here after they graduated, it would be worth it as long as a third of them chose to stay.

Lu Zhou wasn't particularly concerned about this.

Unlike most companies, Lu Zhou neither did this for money nor for sublime reasons. Even if he did receive money out of it, that would only be a by-product.

His only goal was to conduct research as he pleases. He wanted to reveal the hidden secrets of the high-tech system and look toward the future.

And doing all this on his own was impossible.

Therefore, while talking with Dean Li, Lu Zhou put forward a request for talents. He conveyed that not only did he want to hire PhD students to do research, but he also wanted to hire master's and undergrad students as interns.

Dean Li told Academician Xu about Lu Zhou's idea, and Academician Xu instantly agreed.

The academician was a "reformist", he was determined to improve Jin University's reputation.

According to the agreement between the Jinling Institute of Computational Materials and Jin Ling University, every year the chemistry department would send 30 undergrad students, 10 master's students, and 1-3 PhD students to enter the research institute for internships. They would do basic assistant work.

If the method proved to work, then they could expand the number of interns.

These internship positions would not delay the students' academic studies, and it would also enhance their professional experience.

Especially for undergrad students, the opportunities to gain research experience was limited.

Because of this, the undergrad chemistry major students jumped at this opportunity.

Especially for the third and fourth-year students that planned to go into research, their application rate was very high. They would have to be selected by their grades.

Lu Zhou also allocated some of the internship spots to first and second-year students.

Although they were less knowledgeable, they often had more potential and was more malleable.

Even those who couldn't do experiments and could only clean up the laboratory, they could still listen to the experts and learn something about chemicals.

"All of the top students in the chemistry department are on this list." Academician Li had a name list in his hand as he smiled and said, "Remember our agreement; cultivate talent however you want but don't convert all of our precious students to mathematics."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Don't worry about this, I promise you I'll return all of your students."

Although computational materials science needed mathematics, it was still mainly based on chemistry. However, in cutting-edge research, the difference between disciplines wasn't that clear. If a student wanted to transfer to mathematics, they definitely could.

"Okay, I will remember your words." Dean Li smiled and handed the name list to Lu Zhou before he said, "Then the matter is in your hands now!"

This wasn't just about the name list, there was also an empty laboratory building.

The new laboratory building was originally intended as a material mechanics laboratory for dynamic mechanical analyzers, electronic tensile testing machines, quartz crystal micro-equal, and other new equipment.

The building was fully built, but the instrument hadn't arrived yet. Therefore, it was borrowed by Lu Zhou.

Lu Zhou asked the people from academic affairs to lend him an office.

Lu Zhou basically stayed at Jin Ling University these days. His office was on campus, he ate at the school cafeteria, and his hotel was near Jin Ling University.

Although he had a house near the university, it was too messy to live in. It was too troublesome to clean up, and the house was full of Xiao Ai's chassis smell.

Every time he called to ask someone from the computer store to help him with hardware maintenance, the people from the computer store would ask him why the house was so messy.

Lu Zhou asked his student, Vera, to help him apply for a two-week holiday extension from Princeton.

Although Lu Zhou didn't care about the professor salary anymore, the work still brought him inspiration for his research. Also, it gave him time to learn some of the "obvious" problems and discover if they were really as trivial as he thought.

He and Mr. Fermi were the same in this regard; learning and cultivating students go hand to hand.

Also, watching his students grew into top scholars was a very rewarding feeling.

Fortunately, his number theory classes would begin at the end of February, and his interviews for the fall admissions could be done online, so it was fine for him to take the two-week extension.

…

Once the people were recruited, the next step was to delegate work to these people.

The interns could wait until the project had officially begun. However, formal researchers should be arranged to work as soon as possible.

Inside the laboratory building office, Lu Zhou met with Liu Bo and Brother Qian.

Lu Zhou asked them, "Does Professor Li hate me?"

Liu Bo said helplessly, "No, he just asked us two to screw off."

Lu Zhou smiled embarrassedly.

There was no other option other than to steal talent from Professor Li. His laboratory project at Silicon Valley had only just begun, he couldn't spare any talents from there. He had to rely on his two friends.

Especially Qian Zhongming. Although he only had a master's degree, his experience in the field of materials science was undoubtedly at PhD level. Even in the field of research, most PhD graduates hadn't done as much research as him.

This was why Professor Li valued him so much.

Brother Qian was wearing a white lab coat, and he smiled and said, "Don't call me brother anymore, I'm here to learn from you, I'll have to call you master now."

"I can still learn from you. Let's learn from each other, there's no need to call me master," Lu Zhou smiled and said.

Qian Zhongming shook his head and said with a serious tone, "I can barely teach you anything. But in the field of computational materials science, I can only learn from you."

Lu Zhou saw how serious Brother Qian was and smiled.

He cleared his throat and changed the subject.

"This time our project belongs to one of the key national scientific energy research projects. Specifically speaking, we have to solve the shuttle effect in lithium-sulfur batteries; I believe you know this already."

Brother Qian nodded and said, "So, do we have any ideas?"

"Some, but it is still very vague." Lu Zhou shook his head and said, "But we have another problem to solve— the problem of equipment."

Qian Zhongming and Liu Bo both nodded.

It would be impossible to do experiments without equipment. Even if one made a mathematical model of an experiment, one would still have to test the theory through real-life experiments.

Lu Zhou paused for a second before he said, "I already contacted Umicore and ordered a batch of equipment through their contact. Although I hired some people from Star Sky Technology to go to Europe to look over the purchase, I still need someone reliable to sign the contract. Therefore, you might have to go to Europe for a day."

"No problem," Qian Zhongming smiled and said, "I used to help Professor Li do equipment purchases as well. It isn't just about money, the equipment also has to be reliable."

Lu Zhou nodded and said, "Yeah, thank you."

Liu Bo saw that he wasn't assigned anything, so he raised his hand and asked, "Then what about me?"

"I hope you can go with Brother Qian." Lu Zhou looked at Liu Bo and smiled as he said, "I'd be worried if he went alone."

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Chapter 302: I Want To Hear His Opinion

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The deposit for the purchase of the equipment was directly wired from the Star Sky Technology's overseas account to the account of the European instrument manufacturer. After Qian Zhongming signed the document, the remaining payment would be sent to the other party.

At the same time, the equipment purchased would be sent to Jinling through a specialized transportation company.

The total price of the equipment was over US$50 million, which was more than 300 million yuan.

The pieces of equipment were important, so Qian Zhongming didn't want to delay this matter. He and Liu Bo immediately booked a flight and went to Europe.

Lu Zhou was also busy. Three days after Brother Qian went to Europe, Jin Ling University organized a seminar.

This seminar was huge. Not only did it invite professors from Zhi University, Shuimu University, Fu University, and various other C9 alliance universities, but they also invited technology schools such as Jinling Polytechnic University. Professors in the field of synthesis, as well as engineers from battery companies such as BYD, also participated in this conference.

Unlike the MRS Conference, this seminar was semi-academic in nature and was mainly focused on future research rather than research results.

In addition to lithium material professors, representatives of the national research funds, as well as representatives of energy companies such as BYD and Sugi, also participated.

The subject for the discussion was obviously lithium-sulfur batteries.

As an internationally renowned scholar, Lu Zhou naturally participated in the conference.

The conference would begin at ten o'clock, but at only nine o'clock, the conference room was already crowded and packed.

It was like people knew that this conference was going to be difficult, so everyone had a serious expression on their face. Although it was packed with people, it was oddly quiet inside the conference hall.

Lu Zhou opened his water bottle and took a sip. Before the conference began, he took the chance to observe the faces of his peers.

In short, the situation didn't look good.

Around 9:30 a.m, Old Lu whispered a few words to the academicians from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Once almost everyone had arrived, Old Lu adjusted the microphone, cleared his throat, and said, "Since everyone has already arrived, we won't waste anyone's precious time."

The conference room quieted down. They waited for Old Lu to continue.

"… Energy is the lifeblood of the industry. Whoever masters energy, masters the future. This mission is very difficult as it relates to the strategic layout of our country in the field of energy.

"At the last meeting, the top executives have decided to develop in the direction of lithium-sulfur batteries. However, the wisdom of everyone here today is needed to solve the technical problems.

"The main discussion topic of this conference is about the thought process to solve these problems.

"I hope that everyone can brainstorm and to speak up if they come up with any ideas."

Old Lu was the moderator of the conference, therefore, he was the one to make a brief opening remark.

On the surface, this conference looked like it was useless. Everyone wasn't talking about existing results, but rather the thought process of problems. However, this wasn't the case.

The national and company research fund was limited and not every research project was able to apply for adequate research funding.

Generally speaking, if the country decided on the direction of lithium-sulfur batteries, then the projects related to lithium-sulfur batteries would increase, and other lithium batteries related projects would decrease.

This was the same for research.

There were thousands of ways to solve the lithium-sulfur battery shuttle effect. It was possible both from the positive electrode material and the electrolyte.

However, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Finance did not understand academia.

But that didn't matter. When they made a decision, they would often consult the industry experts and take their opinion into account. They could guarantee sufficient research funding on a certain research topic.

There was always a few research topics that had potential and could bread high-quality results.

This was why this conference was so important.

Everyone hoped that their research topic or direction could receive more financial support.

Because of this, the atmosphere was heavy even before the conference began. But after the conference began, the discussion was quite enthusiastic.

The first to speak up was Professor Wang Haifeng from Zhi University.

Professor Wang stood up and smiled as he said, "Since Director Lu told everyone to brainstorm and share their ideas, I will throw in my two cents.

"Our research team found a highly ordered nanostructured carbon-sulfur positive material. This can be used as a carbon structural framework to limit the dissolution of sulfur during charge and discharge, thus effectively curbing the sticking effect."

Professor Wang took out some existing research results to back up his claims.

Old Lu took Professor Wang's opinion seriously, and he asked, "What are the costs? What is the energy density? Is this technology reliable?"

"The costs are not high and the energy density is quite impressive. The theoretical energy density measured in the laboratory was close to 2000Wh/kg. This far exceeds current lithium batteries. I have published relating theses on 'Advanced Materials', but this technology needs to be perfected."

Professor Wang paused for a second before he continued, "In fact, in the current mainstream practice in the academic world, the key to solving the shuttle effect of lithium-sulfur batteries is to use porous carbon materials to block polysulfide ions and reduce the loss of sulfur. My suggestion is that we can adopt a similar approach. The focus of research and development should be on sulfur-carbon composites."

Old Lu nodded seriously.

The assistant sitting next to him quickly started to type on his laptop.

After Professor Wang ended his speech, he smiled at his peers and sat down.

Suddenly, another professor spoke.

"I have something to say."

It was Academician Wu Shigang from Aurora University; he was also a big name in the materials science industry.

Old Lu looked at the old man and said respectfully, "Academician Wu, please go ahead."

Academician Wu grabbed the microphone and paused for a second before speaking, "I was involved in the 863 Program, therefore, I have already considered carbon-sulfur composite materials when I was other lithium-sulfur batteries issues. This strategy seems to be very effective on paper, but the actual effect is very limited.

"The experiment in the laboratory was based on a small button cell, the electrode was very thin, the sulfur load was not high, and the total sulfur content was only about a few milligrams. Actual batteries have a much larger sulfur content, generally at a gram. Also, the electrode is very thick and the unit sulfur load is very high.

"The laboratory was able to circulate 1,000 times of sulfur/carbon composite material, which in turn can only be cycled several times in actual batteries.

"Moreover, the most deadly problem of carbon-sulfur composites is that the energy density is not high enough. If it were used in 3C products such as computers and mobile phones, it would be fine to use carbon-sulfur composite materials as the positive electrode. If it were used in cars or larger electronics, it might not be the best."

The old man had been doing research in this area for over 10 years. As an engineer, he paid extra attention to the practical value of technology as opposed to the theoretical academic value.

Moreover, he was involved in the field of solid electrolytes, which was the opposite of Professor Wang.

Professor Wang was naturally unhappy.

However, it wasn't him that refuted; it was another professor in the field of carbon-sulfur composite materials that spoke up.

"You are right, sulfur-carbon composites do have defects in this area, but in my opinion, these defects can be solved with repeated experiments. A year ago, we all thought that lithium batteries were unstable. But what about now? Who can doubt the potential of lithium batteries?"

Lu Zhou: … ?

Lu Zhou, who stayed silent this whole time, was inexplicably targeted.

The meeting was becoming fiercer.

Although it wasn't as aggressive as the MRS Conference, everyone could still feel the tension in the room.

Lu Zhou started to think.

Fortunately, the system's scanner gun saved him a lot of research and development costs, and the technology of lithium dendrite was sold for a good price. Otherwise, he would have to bite the bullet and join this discussion.

Suddenly, another professor spoke.

"Let me say a few words."

This time, it was Professor Sun Hongbiao from Shuimu university.

Although Shuimu ranked lower than Aurora University or Yan University in the field of lithium battery, it was still quite influential.

However, his words were different from the previous big names.

This old professor coughed and said slowly, "I noticed that Professor Lu hasn't spoken yet, but I can tell he has some good ideas about this problem. I don't want to say anything, I just want to hear his opinion."

Lu Zhou: ? ? ?

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Chapter 303: Hollow Carbon Sphere

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

After Professor Sun Hongbiao finished speaking, multiple pairs of eyes looked straight at Lu Zhou.

Especially the representatives and engineers from various companies, they were all staring at him.

Lu Zhou was holding a water bottle in his hand; he was confused.

Who said that I have an opinion?

How come I don't know about this?

Actually, the reason why he had not been participating in the discussion wasn't that he didn't care about the conference, he just had nothing to say.

As a mathematician, Lu Zhou didn't like to brag without having anything to back him up. Suddenly, Professor Sun shined the spotlight on him, and he felt somewhat unprepared.

Suddenly, Lu Zhou put down the water bottle, adjusted the microphone, and spoke in a clear voice, "… According to my findings at the MRS Conference, the biggest problem of lithium-sulfur batteries is the shuttle effect. The academic world hasn't come up with a single unified solution to this problem.

"My personal opinion is that both of these ideas are good. Solving from the positive electrode material is one way, and using solid electrolytes is another way. I think we can pursue both ideas seriously."

Lu Zhou couldn't help but feel proud of himself.

He didn't know if he was correct, but he didn't care.

Answering this way would ensure that he wouldn't offend anyone.

The professors here were trying to secure research funding, but Lu Zhou was using his own money to fund experiments, so he didn't want to get embroiled with the fight.

He was responsible for his words.

However, Professor Sun Hongbiao didn't let him off the hook.

The old man smiled and continued to ask, "Professor Lu is right, but we have limited resources. From your point of view, which path do you think is more promising?"

This Shuimu Professor was quite the character.

He probably wanted to research polymer positive electrode materials. He saw that Lu Zhou solved the lithium dendrite problem with the modified PDMS film, so he bet that Lu Zhou would be optimistic about the polymer direction just like himself.

But honestly, although Lu Zhou solved the problem of lithium dendrites with the modified PDMS film, he was not optimistic about the shuttle effect of lithium-sulfur batteries.

Lu Zhou couldn't come up with a reason either, and this was just his intuition.

Lu Zhou didn't know what to do.

He felt like whatever he ended up saying, he would offend someone.

After all, Lu Zhou was a big name in the lithium battery industry; his opinion was valuable and influential.

If Lu Zhou knew it was going to be like this, he wouldn't have come at all.

He sighed.

He had no choice.

He didn't want to speak with unfinished research results, but he if continued to dodge the question, it would be a little suspicious.

After all, since he was given special treatment by the government on this project, he had to show his value.

He thought for a bit before saying, "I personally think the direction of the hollow carbon sphere is the best."

People were stunned.

Especially Professor Sun. Obviously, he didn't expect that to be Lu Zhou's answer.

The professors and scholars in the room all had different expressions. Some were disdainful, some were surprised. The representatives of companies were waiting for Lu Zhou to continue.

Old Lu asked, "Can you please tell us the reason?"

"Of course I can." Lu Zhou paused for a second before he continued, "The hollow carbon sphere has a large internal cavity and is suitable as a carbon matrix with high negative sulfur content. Also, the outer porous shell structure can effectively inhibit the diffusion of polysulfide ions. In addition, it has strong structural stability and good electrical conductivity. I personally think it is a good choice."

Academician Wu from Yan University said, "I have a question."

Lu Zhou replied, "Academician Wu, please go ahead."

Academician Wu said slowly, "The hollow carbon sphere is a very new concept, but the concept has hidden traps. Technically speaking, when lithium ions are embedded, with charge and discharge cycles, it will cause volume expansion of the material. This volume expansion causes the alloy to pulverize. I think this technology is very difficult to be industrially applicable."

Lu Zhou: "Reducing the particle size of the active material can reduce the degree of micronization, this is technically achievable with today's technology."

Academician Wu continued to ask, "What about the volume expansion? Have you thought about the volumetric energy density?"

Academician Wu was an interesting person; he was against anything that wasn't solid electrolyte. So far, he avoided talking about his own views in order not to give people a chance to debate with him. He intended to wait until the end of the conference to give a final blow.

This tactical wasn't unusual.

Science was objective, but their applications were subjective.

Many technical problems were not so black and white.

People had to doubt and question other people's opinions, that was the whole point of this conference.

Lu Zhou said to Academician Wu, "The sphere can be alloyed with lithium metal. In theory, the volume expansion problem of the active component can be solved through a 'buffer skeleton'."

Academician Wu didn't have anything to say, but another person stood up.

Professor Wang, who was previously arguing with Academician Wu about the feasibility of carbon-sulfur comparatives, asked with a skeptical tone, "What is your level of certainty?"

Lu Zhou wasn't happy to hear this.

I'll forgive Academician Wu since he's an outsider. You are in the field of carbon-sulfur composite materials, so we're in the same boat. Do you think that by attacking me, you won't have to worry about the volume expansion problem yourself?

Lu Zhou said with a serious tone, "Scientific research is risky. Don't expect it to be successful just because money is thrown in. I can tell you that I'm 1% or 99% certain, but what difference does it make?"

Professor Wang turned bright red; he had nothing to say.

Old Lu coughed and said, "Everyone has good intentions here, so let's keep our discussion focused on academics."

Professor Sun saw that Lu Zhou's answer didn't meet his expectations, so he got up and spoke again.

"Let me say something."

The old man smiled awkwardly and said, "Professor Wang is only asking out of concern. Actually, I am also confused about this hollow carbon sphere. However, I heard that Professor Lu is an expert in the field of computational materials. He must have some unique insights. Maybe, Professor Lu can share those insights with us?"

When Professor Sun asked this question, he didn't think that Lu Zhou could really answer this question from a mathematics perspective. Professor Sun was afraid that Lu Zhou would fool and convince Old Lu.

After all, the shuttle effect of lithium-sulfur batteries…

Was his research direction!

However, he didn't expect Lu Zhou to come up with an answer.

Lu Zhou smiled embarrassedly and looked at Old Lu.

"This is easy. Is there any blackboard around?"

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Chapter 304: Then I'll Prove It To You

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

They certainly had a blackboard.

Even if they didn't, someone would find out just for Lu Zhou.

Old Lu heard Lu Zhou's request and immediately told his assistant.

Within two minutes, the conference staff dragged a blackboard from a classroom into the auditorium.

Lu Zhou walked to the blackboard, picked up a piece of chalk, and started to write on the blackboard.

He actually already studied this question when he was researching the topological transformation of spherical surfaces back in Princeton.

Particularly, the relationship between the electrochemical and mechanical properties of the hollow carbon spheres. He had systematically analyzed and produced mathematical models in this area.

Now all he needed to do was to present his research.

This wasn't difficult for Lu Zhou at all.

The conference hall quieted down.

No one made a sound, they were all watching Lu Zhou.

Professor Sun stared blankly at the blackboard; he didn't expect Lu Zhou to actually start writing.

Actually, if Professor Sun was familiar with the mathematics industry, he would know that any mathematician would be able to prove their ideas. Especially Lu Zhou.

After all, the person standing in front of the blackboard once proved the twin prime conjecture on the spot, leaving a legacy at Princeton.

In contrast, proving an already established theory was nothing difficult.

Lu Zhou wrote down the last line of equations and stopped. He looked back at the other professors in the conference room.

"According to my calculations, hollow carbon nanospheres with a specific surface area in the range of [2326m2g-1, 3762m2g-1] and a diameter of [60nm-70nm] can theoretically slow the diffusion of polysulfide compounds and inhibit the shuttle effect.

"Of course, this is all theoretical. Specific chemical formulas, molecular morphology, and more conclusions need to be validated through repeated experiments. I only demonstrated the possibilities.

"This is the basic situation, are there any questions?"

This…

I don't have any questions.

The professors looked seriously at the blackboard, but they were muddled on the inside. The engineers from various companies were taking down notes; they didn't care if it was useful or not, they wanted to copy it down first.

Old Lu's eyes lit up. Although he didn't understand what Lu Zhou had written, he saw the possibility of a new form of energy.

Lu Zhou placed the chalk in his hand down.

At the MRS Conference, no one was able to understand his proof. The group of lithium-ion professors could only nod at his conclusion without even asking a single question.

It was the same here.

…

Actually, Lu Zhou had been thinking about a problem when he was researching "Debris No.1".

It wasn't about the technology itself, but things outside of the technology.

Objectively speaking, the birth of a piece of technology had to be in accordance with certain laws.

For example, the zipper. Human civilization invented clothes for protection, and in order to make the clothes more convenient to wear, buttons were invented. Then, in the 19th century, the industrial revolution made a dramatic breakthrough in production technology, and the zipper was born.

For the same reason, Lu Zhou believed that there had to be previous inventions before the lithium-air batteries.

In their high tech civilization, there had to have existed a previous iteration of the invention.

It was highly possible that this invention was the lithium-sulfur battery.

Although the carbon nanospheres in the anode material of Debris No. 1 wasn't directly related to lithium-sulfur batteries, it still brought inspiration to him.

Technological inventions weren't done in a day. The hollow carbon sphere had to have been invented before the lithium-air battery.

Lu Zhou remembered the prompt of the mission task; his intuition told him that the hollow carbon spheres had to be the key to solving the lithium-sulfur battery problem.

Therefore, he conveyed this viewpoint at this conference.

However, he didn't know if people would believe him.

The conference ended, and people began to exit the auditorium.

Professor Wang sat in his seat and didn't move; he had a dissatisfied expression.

He had no logical reason to be unhappy. After all, he was involved in carbon-sulfur composite materials, and a hollow carbon sphere was also a kind of carbon-sulfur composite materials, but Lu Zhou's attitude toward it made him very dissatisfied.

A 23-year-old researcher had just educated him?

Not only that, but he also thought that Old Lu thought way too highly of Lu Zhou.

Scientific research was esoteric, but there was no special technique. The method was nothing more than continuous experimentation, trial and error, summing up mistakes, and using the experience to build new theories.

In a sense, to experiment was to gamble.

Many people had tried to add surface polymer materials to the surface of lithium anodes. The company, Moli, had spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this research topic. After their bankruptcy, the project was picked up by NEC, who also burned hundreds of millions of dollars on the topic, but they still hadn't produced any results.

However, a mathematician like Lu Zhou just came in from nowhere, wrote a couple dozen lines of calculations, and claimed to solve this billion-dollar project? Wasn't that outrageous?

Wang Haifeng was furious.

However, he had to accept the reality.

Computational materials science was previously an unpopular master's major. Most students in computational materials science ended up working in software development. However, after the paper Lu Zhou published in Nature last year, many universities started to contemplate whether or not they should add a functional analysis class to their course.

Wang Haifeng looked at Lu Zhou and said to academician Wu Shigang, "Don't you think this kid is crazy?"

Although they had differences in academic viewpoints, they were both in the field of lithium batteries, so their non-professional relationship was still good. However, Lu Zhou suddenly appeared out of nowhere, shocking the materials science field.

But, Academician Wu and Wang Haifeng had different opinions.

Most engineers were more pragmatic, and in his opinion, age and identity were secondary. Although he had opinions about Lu Zhou, they were purely academic.

Also, Academician Wu usually spoke what was on his mind.

He was brutally honest in conferences and in his daily life.

Wu Shigang looked at Wang Haifeng and said, "He funds all of his research with his own money, why is it any your business? Just do your own research."

After that, Mr. Wu packed his things and left.

Wang Haifeng was just defeated by Lu Zhou, and now, his old friend attacked him as well; his blood pressure started to rise, and his face started to blush.

Finally, after a while, he was able to mutter something, "Why is that Lu Zhou guy so happy anyway… He's nothing."

Wang Haifeng picked up his vacuum flask and walked away.

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Lu Zhou left with the crowd after the meeting finished.

He was planning on walking to the laboratory building, but suddenly he heard someone called out his name.

"Professor Lu, long time no see."

Lu Zhou turned around and saw Professor Li Rongen walking toward him with a smile.

Lu Zhou remembered that he had just poached two good soldiers from this professor, so he felt a little embarrassed. He smiled and greeted the professor, "Long time no see, how's your health?"

"Everything is good except for my heart." Professor Li looked at Lu Zhou and smiled as said, "I was finally able to cultivate two good students, but now you have poached them away."

"This… How can you call it poaching…" Lu Zhou coughed and said, "Also you'll definitely find better ones in the future…"

Professor Li shook his head and said, "Fine, I'm not here to complain, I'm happy that they found a good place to work at. Even though it is a shame that they didn't do their PhDs, but they can still learn a lot from you."

Professor Li was exaggerating. Just because they were his students didn't mean they had to work for him. However, he did have plans for them to work at Zhongshan New Materials after their graduation.

However, the students made the right choice to go with Lu Zhou. Any student would make this their choice. This was why Li Rongen didn't oppose his two students from going to Lu Zhou. In fact, he supported them.

It wasn't like Professor Li's research team would be heavily impacted due to the loss of two students.

The old man looked at Lu Zhou and said with a serious tone, "Honestly, I didn't really understand your proof process during the meeting. Are you serious about the hollow carbon spheres?"

Lu Zhou nodded and said, "I was completely serious."

Among the carbon-sulfur composite materials, the hollow carbon spheres was a relatively new idea and had huge potential.

Also, thanks to various breakthroughs in carbon nanotechnology, the price of carbon nanotubes, fullerenes, and graphene materials were falling every year. However, there was a real application use in industrial production.

Professor Li stared at Lu Zhou for a long time. He then suddenly shook his head and said, "… That Sun Hongbiao guy is poisonous, but he is right, you really do have a plan."

Lu Zhou smiled and humbly said, "I don't really have a plan, I'm only 30% certain on this idea."

Of course, this 30% was only the total chance of success; it wasn't some kind of experiment success rate. Who knew how many experiments it would take…

After all, his estimations on hollow carbon spheres were based on inferences. Although he could use mathematical methods to prove the feasibility, it was really hard to find the actual hollow carbon sphere materials.

"A 30% chance of success is very high. Normally, our experiments have a rate of 10% chance of success," said Professor Li as he looked at Lu Zhou. He then added, "Then, I will wait for your good news."

Lu Zhou asked, "Is your research team not involved?"

Professor Li shook his head and smiled as he said, "You're already in it, so what's the point of me joining? I'll just wait to read your thesis."

Zhongshan New Materials wasn't some kind of industry giant; they had limited resources. It was difficult to produce short term results from lithium-sulfur batteries. Li Rongen was one of the major shareholders of Zhongshan New Materials. Therefore, he didn't want to invest in this direction just yet.

Also, the Chinese lithium battery anode materials market still had a huge market cap unfulfilled. It was much better to fill in the pre-existing market demand than to research and develop new materials.

The lithium-sulfur battery project was only pursued by industry giants.

…

The summary documents for the conference would be released in two weeks, but it didn't have much to do with Lu Zhou.

The national project was important, and Lu Zhou was able to enjoy advantageous government policies. However, the system mission was also very important, so Lu Zhou had to focus on both ends.

Although Lu Zhou's two laboratories both researched hollow carbon spheres, their respective missions were different. However, the two laboratories were still able to occasionally complement each other.

The next morning, Lu Zhou did some student interviews through online video calls. He then called Professor Sarrot who was at Silicon Valley.

The instrument was going to take a while to arrive at Jinling's research institute. However, the laboratory in Silicon Valley was ready to start doing experiments.

US$100,000 salary wasn't cheap; Lu Zhou wanted to put his money to good use.

Lu Zhou wrote up a research plan and sent it to Sarrot's email.

"… I already sent the specific research plan to your email. Read it, and ask me if you have any questions."

Lu Zhou's topological analysis of the carbon nanosphere proved that its prototype could be disassembled into a C70 fullerene molecule and a carbon nanotube.

Chemically speaking, the π bond of the C70 fullerene material was opened and modified by a carbon nanotube, and its molecular space configuration was changed.

Although this sounded complex, it wasn't actually that difficult to do this.

First, they could produce a vacuum in the arc chamber before introducing helium gas. The two high-purity graphite rods would then be brought close to each other, and an arc effect could be generated using a high-voltage electricity charge. The plasma generated by the carbon rod gasification would continuously collide under the inert gas atmosphere and form stable fullerene macromolecules such as C60 and C70.

Then screened out the C70 molecules and mixed with carbon nanotubes produced by a CVD vacuum tube furnace. A thermal reaction would then occur in the vacuum environment.

Due to the instability of the π bond and the large π bond, a complicated chemical reaction would occur during the heating process. Then, the physical and chemical properties of the product would be analyzed using the polymer model.

It might be possible to find a few milligrams of treasure in a thousand grams of the product. Then one could draw different graphs using time, materials, and other factors. After that was to find a similar empirical formula before finally establishing a perfect theory.

Although this method seemed stupid, it was actually the most efficient method and the best choice.

Before looking for a stable preparation method, one would have to consider all of the possible problems. In fact, many materials science experiments were done through this "stupid method".

Even though Sarrot knew that this boring experiment was the only choice, after he saw the research plan formulated by Lu Zhou, Sarrot couldn't help but say, "To be honest, we can totally outsource these experiments."

Lu Zhou said, "I don't trust other people's data. Furthermore, what's the point of having you if I'm just going to outsource everything."

Sarrot smiled and changed the topic of conversation.

"I promise, boss, I will follow your request immediately."

Lu Zhou nodded with satisfaction and said, "Okay, trust in your research. This could turn into a Nature thesis."

Although Sarrot knew not to complain, he still couldn't help but think.

This thing is going on Nature?

Impossible.

This thing has no hope.

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Chapter 306: Market Is Moving

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The research institute managed by Sarrot had been following the instructions for the experiment step by step. Lu Zhou had to deal with the Jinling Institute of Computational Materials matter, so he didn't pay much attention to his Silicon Valley venture.

Lu Zhou didn't expect to see his name on the news. It was reported together with hollow carbon spheres and lithium-sulfur batteries.

The article gave an overview of the meeting on lithium-sulfur batteries. It didn't use any click-baiting headlines. It only contained a brief quote from the professors about lithium-sulfur batteries.

Lu Zhou was obviously one of the professors.

Recently, the energy market had been extremely sensitive; a small gust of wind could cause huge changes.

Lu Zhou's opinion greatly influenced the market.

The market would analyze and try to interpret his quotes.

After all, Lu Zhou was the one that opened the door to lithium batteries.

This article was quite surprising to Lu Zhou.

He didn't know who leaked the news; he wasn't even informed that an article would be written.

However, it didn't matter too much. Although production technology could be stolen by other companies, most people were still happy to announce their research results. It wasn't like this was military weapon technology.

The person who recorded the conference was probably a reporter from CCTV, and he or she was probably rolling in cash from the article right now.

Lu Zhou didn't care about anything else. Some people agreed with his idea on hollow carbon spheres, some people criticized it.

People that agreed believed that the hollow carbon spheres had potential in the field of carbon-sulfur composites. Although there were many problems, if they could solve these problems, it might become the key to solving the shuttle effect.

Critics believed that Lu Zhou shouldn't make such public remarks without the results from the experiments.

Actually, this wasn't Lu Zhou's fault.

He did say those words, but it wasn't him that leaked the words.

Of course, the voice of criticism was still in the minority. Lu Zhou had more important things to pay attention to.

During the second week of Qian Zhongming and Liu Bo's trip to Europe, the first batch of equipment had finally arrived.

However, Lu Zhou didn't expect Umicore's CEO to also arrive at Jin Ling University's laboratory building.

At the entrance of Jin Ling University, the Belgium man got out of his car and extended his right hand as he said, "My dear friend, it is nice to see you again, how are you?"

Due to the patent of the modified PDMS material, Umicore's stock price had been roaring. This was evident by the smile on the CEO's face.

In order to enter this battery field, their old rivals, BASF Group and Nichia Chemical, had to pay a high "patent fee".

Whether it was the securities market or the materials market, Umicore was in great standing. Particularly, due to the irreplaceability of lithium battery anode materials, BASF Group was forced to give up the United States Argonne National Laboratory and file a lawsuit against Umicore on the battery patent issue.

Because of this series of good news, the board of directors was very satisfied with Grynberg's work.

Grynberg would definitely marry Lu Zhou if he wasn't a guy.

Of course, this was only an exaggeration.

"Not bad." Lu Zhou shook Grynberg's hand and looked at him curiously as he asked, "Why are you here?"

Although Lu Zhou bought the equipment through Umicore's channels, there was no reason for the CEO to personally come here.

Grynberg smiled at Lu Zhou's question.

"Remember our agreement? Thanks to your blessing, we have dominated the anode material market. The reason I came here was to talk to you about the profits."

Lu Zhou looked interested, and he asked, "How much?"

"BASF Group and Nichia Chemicals have paid US$50 million and US$70 million in patent licensing fees for the lithium anode materials. This was in exchange for production licenses for two to three years in the global market, and of course, this excluded the Chinese market. Also, for every one ton of anode material that they produce, they must pay us US$1,500."

With a big smile on his face, Grynberg said, "US$100 million in licensing fees have already been paid in advance. According to our agreement, half of this belongs to you. How would you like us to pay this amount?"

Lu Zhou said, "Pay off the costs for the equipment, then convert the rest to RMB and transfer it to my account in China."

Lu Zhou planned to invest this money directly into Jinling Institute of Computational Materials. Due to his five-year tax exemption policy, there was no additional tax deduction required on this money.

After the equipment passed through customs, the research institute would soon begin their experiments. This required research funding.

Originally, Lu Zhou planned to use his money from Star Sky Technology, but he obviously didn't have to do that anymore.

Umicore had branches in China, so they could handle the money transfer for him.

Just like Lu Zhou expected, Grynberg agreed quickly.

"No problem, I will send this money according to your requirements!"

Although the CEO was here to send money, it still didn't warrant that big smile on his face.

He was here for another reason.

Grynberg smiled and talked about his true intention for this trip.

"The thing is, I heard you are researching lithium-sulfur batteries?"

Lu Zhou said, "I guess you could say that. The field of lithium-sulfur batteries is very interesting, and I have plans in this area."

Grynberg immediately asked, "What a coincidence! We are interested in lithium-sulfur battery research as well, do you need any investment?"

Lu Zhou knew Grynberg would ask this, so he had already prepared his words of rejection. He said, "Do you think I still need outside investors?"

Grynberg didn't want to give up, so he said, "But have you thought about the risk? You must know that scientific research is like gambling, no one can guarantee their research results. I can promise a 70% investment in this research project, and the investment size will be over US$400 million! Also, we only want 50% of the research results. I trust no one will be able to provide a better offer."

Grynberg was right; no one would be able to provide a better offer.

If it wasn't for Gyrnberg's recent success in anode materials, he wouldn't care to offer such a huge investment.

Although this offer might seem irrefutable for most people, Lu Zhou wasn't tempted at all.

Because Lu Zhou had one more option that didn't involve money.

That was to spend a large number of general points and ask the system for help.

However, Lu Zhou wouldn't do this unless he had spent half of the US$400 million.

Although the number of experience points for the missions had been increasing, the general points had not increased at all, thus making the general points extremely valuable.

Unless it was an unsolvable problem, Lu Zhou didn't plan on using the general points.

Lu Zhou shook his head and said, "I will not consider borrowing chips from other gamblers unless I have lost all my chips."

Grynberg asked, "Losing all of your chips? God… You're crazy. Do you plan on investing all your money in this? I'm offering US$400 million, are you sure you're not going to reconsider?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "This isn't a smart investment from a business point of view. However, I am not a businessman, I look at the problem from a different perspective."

If Lu Zhou only wanted wealth, he would just invest in real estate.

Obviously, he wanted something more than just wealth.

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Grynberg sighed with a look of defeat; he looked helpless.

"I admire your commitment to science. I hope you will consider us if you are successful."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "I'll see first. If the modified PDMS material cooperation satisfies me, I wouldn't mind co-operating on new projects."

A smile appeared on Grynberg's face.

"I hope you succeed… Oh yeah, I want to ask about the hollow carbon spheres. Do you really think it is the key to solving the shuttle effect? I'm not inquiring about your research, it's just…"

Lu Zhou replied, "I did say some things about lithium-sulfur batteries during the meeting, but I hope you don't over-interpret it. I am only optimistic about it, but I am not 100% sure."

There had been countless people asking Lu Zhou this question.

Lu Zhou was responsible for everything he said. He couldn't help but panic about getting so many people excited over hollow carbon spheres.

What if I'm wrong?

What will happen to my reputation?

Lu Zhou finally knew why the Scottish professor, Peter Bruce, still pursued lithium-air battery even after being proved wrong many times.

This wasn't just about research funding.

This was also about commitment and reputation.

It seems that I have to work harder…

Grynberg smiled and said, "I was only asking, don't take it seriously."

However, Grynberg didn't look like he was only casually asking about it.

Grynberg didn't stay at Jin Ling University for long. He waited for the equipment to arrive before leaving.

Even though it was a pity that he wasn't able to reach a cooperative RD agreement with Lu Zhou, this was nothing unusual. Scientific research was like gambling, and even top scholars couldn't guarantee good research results. Maybe Grynberg dodged a bullet.

After all, Grynberg could still sign a patent agreement with Lu Zhou after the results came out.

…

After the first batch of equipment for the experiment had arrived, Lu Zhou's research institute in Jinling was no longer an empty laboratory building.

According to Qian Zhongming, the last batch of equipment had already been shipped. He and Liu Bo would probably return to China within a few days.

Qian Zhongming's tone on the phone sounded like he was excited.

After all, that was tens of millions of yuan in research equipment. Any researcher would be thrilled to work with these pieces of equipment.

The head of the chemistry department, Dean Li, heard the news and went to the laboratory building.

The old man touched the instrument and said, "Good god, this thing must be over ten million yuan."

Research on semiconductors and nanometers needed high-resolution microscopes. There was a huge difference between images collected with ordinary electron microscopes and images collected by SEM 1 .

There are many types of scanning electron microscopes.

The resolution of the high-end tungsten filament gun scanning electron microscope was about 3 nm, and the resolution of the field emission gun scanning electron microscope was below 0.8 nm. Needless to say, there was a huge difference in price between the two.

Lu Zhou equipped the laboratory with cutting-edge equipment. Whether it was the imaging lens on a scanning electron microscope, the electron gun, accelerating tube, or even the high-voltage generator… they were all top-of-the-line.

Although they were expensive, it counted as a long term investment.

Researchers were not the only ones who loved expensive equipment, journals did as well.

If someone used a high-quality scanning electron microscope to do an experiment, they could easily publish in Nature or Science.

The chemistry department at Jin Ling University had an electron microscope, but it wasn't high in quality.

It wasn't just the chemistry department that wanted the microscope, the life sciences department was also in need of it. Each professor had an allocated time to use the microscope, while the PhD students would have to apply in advance.

Dean Li always wanted to add a new SEM to the chemistry department, but his application was never approved.

"Not ten million, maybe eight or nine," Lu Zhou smiled and said, "but it's in USD."

Eight or nine million… USD.

Which means 40 million RMB?

Dean Li's eyebrows started to twitch after hearing Lu Zhou.

He couldn't say Lu Zhou was wasting money because Lu Zhou was using his own money.

Dean Li was jealous.

"You do love to spend… You might have to invest hundreds of millions on this experiment."

Lu Zhou shook his head and said, "I can save money on other places, but definitely not on the equipment. A rigorous mathematical model needs rigorous equipment to support it."

Actually, the scanning electron microscope was basically the largest expense. For the experiment, the other pieces of equipment such as the CVD vacuum tube furnace, arc chamber, Fourier infrared spectrometer, and etc cost a lot less.

Of course, even though the pieces of equipment cost a lot of money, Lu Zhou still didn't care.

It was fine to cut down on wages, but he couldn't cut down on the costs of the pieces of equipment.

If the data from the experiment was inaccurate, he couldn't produce any samples. The experiment would then be a failure.

Also, these equipment weren't for one-time use, Lu Zhou could use them for his next project.

According to Lu Zhou's plan, the first investment phase would consist of US$50 million. After that, he planned on adding another US$50 million and to buy equipment such as atomic force microscope and transmission electron microscope. His laboratory would be one of the leading laboratories in China.

It was no exaggeration to say that people would be willing to work at the laboratory for free just for the equipment.

After all, if a researcher worked under Lu Zhou and published a few theses, their entire career would change.

They were definitely willing to work for free.

Although having no salary would be unfortunate, but that was one of the sacrifices one had to make in research.

Dean Li said, "Most people really can't afford to research computational materials science."

Previously, Dean Li would talk to other people about opening a computational materials science department at Jin Ling University, but now it seemed that he severely lacked the money for it.

"Yeah," Lu Zhou said. He continued, "Actually, I want to buy a supercomputer as well."

A supercomputer was like a nuclear weapon of computational materials science. It was similar to "Anton" 1 .

Simple algebra and geometry calculations could be done with a piece of paper and a pen. However, if someone wanted to do quantitative calculations, even if the data from the experiment accurately simulated the polymer space model, it would still be insanely computationally intensive.

However, Lu Zhou had just spent US$50 million on equipment, so he didn't want to spend more just yet.

Lu Zhou planned to wait for some results before making any new purchases.

Suddenly, Lu Zhou noticed that Dean Li had stopped talking.

"What?"

Dean Li: "…"

He ignored Lu Zhou.

He didn't want to say a word.

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Chapter 308: Hot Pot Restaurant

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Ever since the pieces of equipment had arrived, several professors from the life sciences department had been trying to get close to Lu Zhou by visiting the laboratory.

However, Lu Zhou was researching materials, and it didn't involve biotechnology. Otherwise, just to justify their visits to the laboratory, the professors would send their students to work as researchers for Lu Zhou.

However, Lu Zhou didn't mind their visits. After all, he previously took advantage of the resources from Jin Ling University and Princeton as well.

As long as they didn't affect the progress of the experiment, the professors were welcomed to occasionally use the instrument.

However, Lu Zhou had a strict rule. Magnetic samples were banned, and so were high voltage experiments.

Also, interns were prohibited from operating any equipment.

These restrictions meant that the old professors could only use the equipment to scan images.

In addition to Qian Zhongming and Liu Bo, Lu Zhou also hired another researcher, Dr. Yang Xu.

Dr. Yang spent two years studying for his PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was experienced in using the instrument that Lu Zhou had bought, and he was knowledgeable in the field of nanomaterials.

Although he wasn't a big name in the field of materials science, he was well-known enough for Lu Zhou.

Lu Zhou didn't need big names; he only needed people to follow his research experiment step by step.

A week ago, Dr. Yang flew to Jin Ling city from MIT.

Lu Zhou met him at a hot pot restaurant near Jin Ling University.

Dr. Yang immediately shook Lu Zhou's hand and spoke with a smile.

"Nice to meet you, Professor Lu!"

Yang Xu looked like a normal guy; he wore glasses and had no special features.

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Nice to meet you, please sit down."

Normally, Lu Zhou and his roommates would go to the fish restaurant, so it was his first time at this hot pot restaurant. However, Lu Zhou heard from a couple of old professors from the life sciences department that this place was good. Therefore, he decided to meet with Dr. Yang here instead.

Lu Zhou ordered a large plate of beef slices and watched the waiter as he turned the hot pot stove on. They chatted for a bit before arriving at the topic of research.

"The use of hollow carbon spheres and sulfur to form a composite material to solve the shuttle effect is a very promising direction. This is our main direction of research.

"The hollow carbon sphere has a large surface area, it can increase the sulfur loading and the utilization of sulfur in the electrochemical reaction. The small-sized nanopores can inhibit the diffusion of soluble polysulfide ions into the electrolyte.

"Your mission right now is to collect data on the surface area of the hollow carbon sphere, the effect of the pores on the sulfur loading, and the mass fraction of polysulfide in the electrolyte. After that, send all of the data to me.

"You've done similar research studies before, right?"

Yang Xu nodded his head.

"I did a similar study at MIT, so just send the requirements to my email. Oh yeah, which reagent do you plan on using?"

Lu Zhou thought for a bit before he replied, "Use a copolymer of polyaniline and polypyrrole for the precursor, and for the pores, use polydiallyldimethylammonium chloride."

While the two chatted, the hot pot began to boil, producing a strong scent.

There was nothing wrong with talking about chemistry. However, it was a bit unappetizing to talk about chemical products while eating.

The two then switched the topic of conversation.

"You just came back right, do you have a place to live?"

"I'm from Jinling, I have a house here," Yang Xu replied. He then smiled and said, "I haven't been back for a long time though, and there has been a lot of changes."

Lu Zhou: "How long have you been overseas?"

Yang Xu: "Around five years. I have been living at MIT since my master's."

Lu Zhou: "Actually I have a question about your resume, but I forgot to ask it during our interview. I don't know if it's appropriate to ask the question now."

Yang Xu smiled and said, "Go ahead, just don't take my offer back."

"Of course not, you'll have to work for at least three years before I let you go," Lu Zhou said. He then smiled as he continued, "With your resume, you can earn a lot more working in Silicon Valley, why did you come back?"

Yang Xu could easily get a US$100,000 per year job in Silicon Valley. However, he would struggle to even earn half of that in China.

Unless a researcher was invited to work in China by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, that researcher would earn a lot more working overseas.

Yang Xu heard this question and placed his chopsticks down; he had a depressed look on his face.

"A PhD has no value in Silicon Valley anymore. This is especially so in the field of engineering where the market is saturated. During my two years of PhD studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I have been applying to jobs everywhere, but I couldn't find a suitable position."

Most researchers had to eat the crumbs left from big-name researchers.

Dr. Yang shrugged and said, "Plus my family is urging me to get married, so there's no point for me to stay overseas. I'd rather just come back here."

The biochemical materials industry was new.

People said that materials science was one of the three pillars of modern technology.

They also said that the 21st century was the century of biology.

However, the field of biology had yet to produce any titans.

Lu Zhou thought for a bit before asking, "Are you interested in teaching?"

Yang Xu: "I have thought about working as a lecturer at Jin Ling University. However, I heard that the lecturer positions at Jin Ling University were difficult to apply for. Maybe once my career is stable, I'll apply for a position at Jinling Polytechnic."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Don't go to Jinling Polytechnic. If you want to work at Jin Ling University, I can help."

Yang Xu's eyes lit up as he said, "Really? Thank you so much!"

Including the end-of-year bonus and welfare from the provident fund, a lecturer could earn more than 100,000 yuan per year. The lecturer could also enjoy the academic resources of the university.

Working at Jin Ling University would provide a much better future than working at Jinling Polytechnic.

This faculty position was highly sought after. However, Lu Zhou only had to write a recommendation letter for Yang Xu to get in.

Lu Zhou was quite a compassionate boss to his researchers.

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Chapter 309: Teasing Personality

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

After he had arranged Yang Xu's work and finished eating, Lu Zhou picked up the check and left.

He got back to his hotel and checked his email. He received an email from the Philadelphia branch of Star Sky Technology.

The content of the email was very concise. It contained a list, and on the list, there were Chinese companies that had signed patents licensing agreements with Star Sky Technology. Among them were giant lithium material companies, and also investment companies and universities.

It came as no surprise that Zhongshan New Materials, the company that Professor Li had shares in, was also on the list.

If Lu Zhou had to carry out these negotiations by himself, he would be busy for the next two months.

[I have sent a copy of the relevant documents to your office at Princeton Institute for Advanced Study. If you think there are no problems, please sign the documents and return it to Philadelphia.

Best regards, White Sheridan.]

Lu Zhou replied to the email.

[I will return to Princeton in the near future. I will sign the documents as soon as possible.]

Lu Zhou clicked "Send" and threw his phone on the bed. He then got up and went to take a shower.

After his shower, he lay in bed and was about to take an afternoon nap. However, his nap was interrupted by a notification.

[Professor, when will you come back?]

The email was from Vera.

Lu Zhou remembered that he had been away for a long time and felt a little apologetic.

Although he planned to let his students take on the Collatz conjecture by themselves, he also agreed to give them advice and methods. He hadn't been back for an entire month, and he had left the little girl alone.

Lu Zhou typed a few words on his screen and replied to the email.

[Soon, in a few days.]

Lu Zhou had already arranged for all of the necessary research work, so there was no reason for him to stay at the research institute. He could easily communicate from Princeton using the Internet.

Vera lay in bed and looked at the email on the screen. She finally sighed in relief.

Over the past few days, she had been worrying about Lu Zhou quitting his job as a Princeton professor to go back to China to teach.

But now, it seemed that her worries were superfluous.

The anxiety in Vera's heart disappeared, and she gradually smiled.

A long time ago, when she was Ukraine, her peers viewed her as a strange child. No one could understand her strange math symbols.

The time she spent at Princeton was the best time of her life.

At Princeton, she could focus on any mathematics problem she wanted. She could devote her full attention to deep mathematical proofs.

She felt like time flew by when she was discussing mathematics problems with Lu Zhou. She had never felt this way before.

Not only that, but she had never received genuine care from a professor before. There weren't any Berkeley professors that cared about her family difficulties or offered her a teaching assistant job.

Hardy always complained that Professor Lu was too demanding and gave him too much academic pressure. However, Vera had never experienced this kind of concern, so she quite enjoyed it.

On the other hand, she had mixed emotions.

Suddenly, another email notification popped up on her screen.

[How is the conjecture going? Is there any progress?]

Vera shook her head and got rid of her strange thoughts. She typed a reply on her screen.

[Not yet, but I recently discovered a new idea when I was reading a paper by Professor S. Eliahou. I have told Qin Yue and Hardy about this idea. This idea may become the key to solving the problem between the set of normal points z0 and transcend the whole function g(x).]

The Collatz conjecture was equivalent to the function equation h(z3)=h(z6){h(z2)λh(λz2)λ2h(λ2z2)}/3z] (where λ=e{2πi/3}) and the analytic function solution in the unit disc {z:z1}: h(z)=h0h1z/(1z) (where h0, H2 is a complex constant).

This conclusion was proved by Professor Benguez and Professor Minardus in 1994. The follow-up study on the Collatz conjecture had been based on this foundation.

In Lu Zhou's research framework that he developed for his students, he let g(z) be the transcendental function, z0 be a point in the complex plane, and Φ(g) be the set of normal points of g(z).

If someone could prove that the function column {g(z)}k=1 existed and that sub-column locally converged to or some analytic function in a neighborhood of the point z0, then the normal point where z0 is g(z) could be obtained.

In theory, these problems could be solved using the Group Structure Method. Its difficulty wasn't much higher than Polignac's conjecture.

Lu Zhou raised his eyebrows and looked interested.

[What idea?]

[It's about…]

Vera stopped typing.

Perhaps it was because of her teasing personality, but she quietly deleted the sentence and wrote a new line.

[I want to tell you after you get back.]

When Lu Zhou read this message on the other side of the planet, he smiled and shook his head.

This chick is leaving me hanging.

However, she has been bad at expressing her thoughts, so I guess this is a small improvement.

After all, being extroverted means that you have to present yourself whether it is an academic point of view or a personal point of view. She has always been afraid of this.

Lu Zhou might consider introducing the Ivy Club to her.

The food there was delicious, but it had a high barrier of entry. Only well-known scholars or scholars that could debate with others could get in.

Right now, only Hardy earned the right to eat there. Lu Zhou took out US$5,000 from the Collatz conjecture fund to pay for his yearly membership fee.

Qin Yue was still working on his social skills.

As for Vera, she was still a long way from debating with the other scholars.

Lu Zhou wrote an email and hit "Reply".

[Then tell me when I come back. I look forward to coming back to Princeton.]

Vera read this email and sighed. She was disappointed that Lu Zhou didn't respond to her teasing.

She thought that Lu Zhou would react strongly to her flirtations.

But now it seemed that she had thought too much about it.

Vera sat on her bed and sighed before she buried her face in her knees.

After a long time, she crawled under the blanket and went to sleep.

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Chapter 310: Following The Trend

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

While Lu Zhou was taking a lunch break in his hotel room, Wang Haifeng was carefully reading a document in the laboratory building.

Ever since the meeting, he had been waiting for the summary document. Now, it was finally in his hands.

Only the real leaders of the field could ignore external factors such as politics or the market and focus on their own research.

But normal bosses still paid attention to political news.

After all, this was closely related to funding.

Money was needed for everything in this "cruel" world.

The price difference between domestic equipment and imported equipment was a factor of 10. Some raw materials were more expensive than gold. Once the personnel expenses, third-party testing fees, and even business trip expenses were added in, the costs were astronomical.

These were the difficulties one had to face when trying to become a big name.

Other than those successful academicians, most scholars had to consider these real-life problems.

Wang Haifeng read the summary report from beginning to end and started to smile.

He was very satisfied that carbon-sulfur composites were mentioned at the conference.

But soon, his smile turned into a frown.

In the document, the argument for hollow carbon spheres as positive sulfur materials was exactly the same as Lu Zhou's argument.

Obviously, the research group from Beijing accepted Lu Zhou's opinions.

This wasn't the worst part.

Wang Haifeng always thought that Director Lu from Beijing paid too much attention to Lu Zhou.

Even though Lu Zhou was a genius who won the Crafoord Prize, that was in mathematics, it had nothing to do with materials science.

And even though Lu Zhou's thesis in Nature shocked the whole industry, Wang Haifeng interpreted it as luck as opposed to ability.

After all, scientific research was like gambling. No matter how beautiful the theory or graphs were, it still depended on reputation.

However, Wang Haifeng couldn't completely ignore Lu Zhou's opinions.

After all, he was in the field of carbon-sulfur composite materials, and the hollow carbon spheres could bring great benefits to him.

Wang Haifeng placed the document on the table and looked at Liu Hong, who was sitting at the desk next to him. He then asked, "Have you researched the thesis yet?"

He was obviously talking about Lu Zhou's writings during the meeting.

Although Lu Zhou's writings at the meeting were not officially submitted to a journal, the organizers of the meeting edited Lu Zhou's proof process according to academic standards.

Of course, the meeting wasn't as formal as the MRS Conference, so the standard of the thesis was still relatively low.

After Lu Zhou agreed, the thesis was published in the latest edition of the journal by Shuimu University, Natural Sciences.

The impact factor of this journal was low, but it had a large following and could be found in the libraries of many universities.

After the journal was published, Wang Haifeng immediately bought a copy for himself and gave it to his PhD student to read.

Liu Hong scratched his head and pulled out the thesis from his drawer before he said, "I have consulted the mathematics professor, Professor Liu, about this, and there is nothing wrong with the proof…"

Wang Haifeng said, "No sh*t! I know there is nothing wrong with it, I'm asking what do you think of it?"

Lu Zhou is a mathematics professor at Princeton. Of course you won't be able to find a problem.

Who would write bullsh*t at a conference like that?

Liu Hong couldn't help but complain.

I'm only a PhD student, why are you asking for my opinion?

Wang Haifeng felt a little better after releasing his anger on his student.

He looked at the other master's student in his office and spoke with a calmer voice.

"You are not able to evaluate the thesis with your current ability. I am only asking your opinion on the hollow carbon spheres; you can say anything you want."

Liu Hong suddenly had a thought and said, "Professor, I think that the hollow carbon sphere is a promising direction. Since we are also in the field of carbon-sulfur composites, why don't we try to develop in this direction?"

As expected, Professor Wang changed his tone and criticized, "What are you trying to say? How many times have I told you that the most important thing in scientific research is to be down-to-earth?! The hollow carbon sphere has gotten popular recently, but we can't jump on the bandwagon like others. Otherwise, what are we even researching here?"

After being criticized, Liu Hong wasn't depressed. Instead, he felt relieved.

This old man's temper was quite strange, and he would often do illogical things.

However, the old man was also gullible.

Liu Hong continued to speak, "Professor, you are right! We have our own research, we cannot be influenced by other newly rising topics!"

Liu Hong spoke in a polite tone, "However, we are in the field of carbon-sulfur composites, and the hollow carbon sphere is in the scope of our research. Making minor adjustments to our research isn't jumping on the bandwagon, but instead, it means that other people are jumping on our bandwagon."

Wang Haifeng nodded and smiled.

This was what he wanted to hear.

Like Liu Hong guessed, Wang Haifeng only wanted a reason to change the research topic.

After all, Wang Haifeng had been talking sh*t about Lu Zhou to his students, so it would be embarrassing for him to suddenly switch to researching hollow carbon spheres.

How could he still be a leader to his students?

Wang Haifeng sighed and said, "You're right, this topic is important, I'll have to do more research."

Wang Haifeng was talking about hollow carbon spheres.

He paused for a second before he said, "Oh yeah, time is ticking, you can start writing the opening report. I'll hand this matter to you."

Liu Hong asked, "How much should I apply for the research fund?"

Wang Haifeng said, "Try 10 million yuan for now."

Normally his projects wouldn't get funded for this much.

But this was a special time; the country was vigorously developing new energy technologies, and research projects in related fields were being heavily funded.

Coincidentally, Wang Haifeng's laboratory was planning on buying a new scanning electron telescope.

He could use this opportunity to upgrade his equipment.

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Chapter 311: Two More Students

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

After the last batch of equipment was shipped off, Qian Zhongming and Liu Bo left Belgium and went back to China.

Including Dr. Yang, Lu Zhou had three official researchers in his research institute.

This number of employees was low for a research institute. However, with the help from PhD and master's student interns, they were still able to undergo experiments.

Lu Zhou arranged for Yang Xu to design experiments regarding the specific surface area of the hollow carbon sphere, the effect of pore size on the sulfur loading, and the mass fraction of polysulfide in the electrolyte.

Lu Zhou would then use mathematical techniques to analyze the experiment data and design new experiments regarding the polysulfide compounds.

Technically speaking, this was Lu Zhou's first-ever research experiment in materials technology. It was also his first time applying his computational materials knowledge to practical experiments.

After all, the modified PDMS film technology from the Debris No. 1 was obtained from the powerful scanner gun. The mathematical model that Lu Zhou built was only to give a reasonable theoretical explanation to the scanned image.

Therefore, if this experiment was successful, it would provide objective proof for his theory.

Because of this, Lu Zhou was full of expectations.

Although solving the lithium dendrites problem changed the energy industry, this experiment could build the bridge between mathematics and chemistry.

From the perspective of both mathematicians and chemists, it was an exciting thing.

After the experiment had begun, Lu Zhou's duties in China were finally finished. It was time for him to go back to Princeton.

Academician Xu heard Lu Zhou was leaving and drove him to the airport.

During the car ride, the old man had a disappointing expression. They were close to the airport when the old man asked, "How was your time here?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "It's been pretty good."

Academician Xu: "How about you just stay here? You don't have to borrow the laboratory building anymore. It's yours as long as you stay here!"

Lu Zhou knew the old man would say this, so he lightly shook his head.

"It's not time yet."

Academician Xu couldn't help but say, "But receiving a Fields Medal at Jin Ling University is the same as Princeton?"

"It's completely different." Lu Zhou was brutally honest when he said, "A native-trained Nobel Prize winner and an overseas-trained Nobel Prize winner might look the same on the outside, but their status is completely different. As an academician, you should know this."

Lu Zhou's statement was straightforward.

However, since his relationship with Jin Ling University was good, Academician Xu didn't take offense to it.

Also, Lu Zhou had more reasons. For his system missions, he needed a higher stage to perform.

Academician Xu went silent for a while. He then sighed and said, "You're right… Have a safe flight."

Lu Zhou nodded and said, "Take care."

…

At the end of February, Lu Zhou's flight arrived in Philadelphia.

At the airport entrance, he saw Qin Yue driving his Ford Explorer to pick him up.

Before Lu Zhou left Princeton, he placed his car keys in his office drawer. He told Qin Yue to get his keys and pick up him in his own car.

Lu Zhou placed his luggage in the trunk and got in the car. Qin Yue started the car and chatted with Lu Zhou while driving.

"Professor, you're finally back."

Lu Zhou: "There was some stuff I had to take care of in Jinling. Are you guys doing well?"

"Very well." Qin Yue nodded and said, "I just feel a lot of pressure as there are geniuses everywhere. It wasn't like this in Kai University."

Princeton was like other American universities; there were countless clubs and societies to join. Princeton students were just like any other students; they didn't study in their room all day.

However, Princeton students worked hard and played hard. A lot of Princeton students took second-year classes in their first year. Most of them completed all of their undergraduate classes by the second year.

This was especially so in the mathematics and physics departments. If a student couldn't keep up, they would have to switch majors to maybe history.

This was the Princeton model.

Of course, most of Qin Yue's pressure came from Vera.

He had to put in twice the effort to keep up with her on the Collatz conjecture.

Even among the geniuses, there was still a difference in skill level.

"You should learn from Hardy. Hard work is the key to success, but don't let study and work affect other areas of your life," Lu Zhou said with a relaxed tone. "My suggestion is to find a hobby, a girlfriend, or something."

Qin Yue coughed and said, "Professor, I already have a girlfriend."

Lu Zhou was stunned as he looked at Qin Yue with disbelief. "You do? When?"

Qin Yue said awkwardly, "Yeah, she's in China. We started dating in my third year."

Lu Zhou: "…"

…

Lu Zhou decided to go to the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study before he went home.

Qin Yue parked the car in the building for Institute for Advanced Study and gave Lu Zhou the keys. Qin Yue then quickly went into the building.

Lu Zhou was confused. He didn't know why Qin Yue didn't wait for him to walk inside together. Lu Zhou didn't think much of it and went inside.

Lu Zhou was confused about why his office door was closed.

He pushed the door open, and suddenly, he heard a confetti gun went off, and the office was soon filled with colorful small pieces of paper.

The five people inside the office building chanted, "Welcome back, professor!"

Lu Zhou looked at Hardy and immediately knew that this was Hardy's idea.

Vera had a confetti gun in her hand as she blushed and said, "This was Hardy's idea, I tried to persuade him not to do it."

Hardy had a smug look as he said, "I originally planned to get champagne, but I heard you can't have alcohol here, so I had to drink it myself."

"Thank you for your gesture." Lu Zhou patted a piece of confetti off his ear and said, "Also, please clean this place up."

Although he was touched by his student's gesture, his office was a mess.

Hardy grudgingly picked up the broom and said, "Oh, Professor Lu, can't you make the newcomers do this job?"

A young man with freckles said, "How about I help you?"

"Don't. This person is full of energy; he needs something to do," said Lu Zhou. He walked to his office desk and looked through the pile of documents as he tried to find the resumes. However, he couldn't find it.

Lu Zhou turned around and looked at the two newcomers in the office. He then cleared his throat and said, "You guys… Introduce yourselves."

They were the two new master's students.

One was from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, while the other was from Yan University.

Lu Zhou only planned to recruit three number theory students, but these two students applied for the field of functional analysis. Compared to number theory, functional analysis was more related to applied mathematics.

Although Lu Zhou wanted to recruit a student from Jin Ling University, no one from Jin Ling University was able to pass Princeton's interview.

Lu Zhou had to admit that Yan University had a stronger mathematics department than Jin Ling University.

The freckled boy immediately said, "I'm Jerick".

The other boy looked more serious as he said, "I'm Wei Wen."

Lu Zhou looked at Wei Wen for a while. He then suddenly asked, "Have we met before?"

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Chapter 312: Old Opponent

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

During the interviews, Lu Zhou was busy working at the Jinling Institute of Computational Materials. Therefore, he didn't pay much attention to every interviewee.

Also, seeing someone in real life was completely different than seeing them through a camera.

Lu Zhou didn't know why, but this student looked familiar.

However, he couldn't remember where exactly he met this guy.

Wei Wen replied awkwardly, "We met during the interview… and the mathematical modeling competition."

Of course they met during the interview.

As for the second part…

During the final stage of the competition, Wei Wen arrogantly walked up to Lu Zhou and said, "Your thesis wasn't bad, but the championship is mine."

In the end, Lu Zhou was the one that won the Higher Education Society Cup.

Since then, Wei Wen had been trying to catch up to Lu Zhou.

However, the difference between them only became bigger and bigger; Wei Wen couldn't even see God Lu's taillights.

When Wei Wen attended the conference at Beijing Normal University, he saw Lu Zhou winning the Shiing-Shen Chern Mathematics Award. Wei Wen wanted to jump off a bridge, but he still aimed to catch up to Lu Zhou.

However, even though Wei Wen set an unrealistic goal, he was still able to accomplish many achievements.

Wei Wen received his bachelor's and an offer from Professor Lu at Princeton. He was a god among his peers and a "model child" among his family friends.

However, Wei Wen was still far from where he wanted to be.

It was actually his decision to choose Lu Zhou as his supervisor.

The reason was simple; Wei Wen wanted to improve.

Lu Zhou didn't really know the personalities of his two students yet, so he didn't assign them any work. He only gave them each a textbook and told them to write notes on it.

Fundamental studies would start from the textbooks. In order to find an interesting topic to conduct research on, one needed a comprehensive understanding of that field.

After that was more advanced studying.

To really dive into a certain topic, advanced studying would require reading theses and documents.

Even if someone used these theses as resources and made a millimeter of progress, it would still be worthy of a graduation thesis.

These two master's students were still far from publishing any theses.

Right now, they had to build up their fundamental knowledge.

There was no shortcut.

By the time Lu Zhou got back, his office laboratory had returned to normal.

Even the energetic Hardy had calmed down and was quietly doing his research.

Time flew by.

Around six o'clock, some of the students left the office and went downstairs to eat.

There were only two people in the office.

Vera looked around the office.

She made sure that there was no one else in the office before she picked up the first draft of her thesis and walked to Lu Zhou's desk.

Lu Zhou looked up at Vera and remembered her emails. He then placed down his pen and asked, "Do you plan on telling me about your discovery?"

Vera looked embarrassed as she handed out her thesis.

"… Please look at it for me."

Lu Zhou took the thesis and flipped through the pages. After a while, he nodded his head.

Not bad.

Among his three students, Vera was the only one that had a true understanding of the Group Structure Method. She was the only one that could integrate it into her own research.

Not only that, but her thought process was similar to Lu Zhou's.

Strictly speaking, the Collatz conjecture was an additive number theory problem, but it looked like a complex analysis problem as well. However, it wasn't fully compatible with the Group Structure Method.

What Vera did was to convert the Group Structure Method to be compatible with all natural numbers instead of only using prime numbers.

Of course, this was no easy task. She only did a specific analysis of a specific problem, and the flaws in her work were obvious.

Lu Zhou looked at the thesis and drew two question marks on it. He then said, "I have a few questions."

Vera said, "Please go ahead, professor."

Lu Zhou: "13th line, fourth page. I noticed that you set the mapping K: equals to πog = f, can you tell me what this part means?"

Vera looked at the thesis and explained: "K(x) is a bounded holomorphic function on the complex plane. Using Liu Wei's theorem, we prove that Q(x) is the value function, then we can prove that equation (7) holds."

"This step is fine." Lu Zhou was impressed at Vera's logical reasoning, and he said, "But on line 11, page seven, I noticed that you are using equations (7) and (8). Your conclusion was that each branch of D of Φ(g) containing a positive integer has z0D, but this step is wrong."

Vera looked at the thesis for a while.

She was a little embarrassed, and she lowered her head.

"You're right… I'll rethink it."

"Don't be discouraged, your work was good," Lu Zhou said. He continued, "If you solve the problems, this thesis would be an outstanding achievement."

Vera bit her lip and shook her head; her blonde hair gently swayed.

"But I was still wrong."

Lu Zhou looked at his student and thought for a moment before he said, "I have my first number theory class on Wednesday, you should come."

Lu Zhou: "Although undergrad classes aren't that useful for you, you're still my assistant. You need to cover for me when I'm busy."

Vera suddenly looked nervous, and she asked, "Do I have to lecture?"

"Of course, lecturing is part of being an assistant, I told you this before."

Lu Zhou smiled and continued, "Also, occasionally thinking about obvious problems will be very helpful for your research. It might inspire you. When I was solving Goldbach's conjecture, I was inspired by Fefferman's number theory class even though his class had nothing to do with Goldbach's conjecture."

Vera opened her mouth and wanted to say something, but Lu Zhou patted her back and interrupted her.

"Relax, you already did the Berkeley report, so why are you still scared of a Princeton lecture?"

Vera blushed and lowered her head.

"Okay."

…

Lu Zhou was jetlagged, and therefore, he wasn't that hungry.

He asked Vera to bring a bacon sandwich for him. He then stopped working and started to sort through his mail.

He was gone for a month, and his drawer was filled with mail.

Most of them were contracts sent by White.

On the bottom of the pile of mail, Lu Zhou pulled out a surprisingly well-packaged letter.

He looked at the sender's name and was stunned.

"American Chemistry Society?"

Lu Zhou opened the envelope.

"Dear, Professor Lu, I am the president of the American Chemical Society…"

Lu Zhou skipped the middle and read the last line.

From his experience, the important part of the letter was always at the bottom.

He was shocked.

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Chapter 313: Party For This Great Moment

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Ever since 1995, the Roger Adams Award had been given out to scholars who had made outstanding contributions to the field of organic chemistry. The award was awarded twice a year by the American Chemical Society.

Many world-class chemists had won both the Nobel Prize and Roger Adams Award.

This was one of the top awards in the field of organic synthesis.

Among the 29 winners of the Roger Adams Award, 11 of them won Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Although the Adams Chemistry Prize was only in the field of organic synthesis, people still thought highly as if it were at the level of a Nobel Prize.

The first reaction after Lu Zhou received this letter was, "Thank god I checked my mail."

The second reaction was…

F*ck, they're not actually going to give a prize, right?!

Lu Zhou was confused and excited. Suddenly his office door opened, and Hardy walked in with Jerick and Wei Wen.

Hardy looked at the letter in Lu Zhou's hand. He then looked at Lu Zhou's face and suddenly shouted, "Oh my god, professor, did you receive a love letter?"

Lu Zhou nearly ripped the letter.

What the f*ck?

Vera came back holding a bacon sandwich. When she heard Hardy mentioning a love letter, she walked to the door nervously.

Fortunately, it was a false alarm…

Lu Zhou stared at Hardy and spoke in a rude manner, "If you joke about my personal life again, I promise you'll have a very busy spring break."

Hardy suddenly looked uncomfortable.

"Oh, please don't be like this, I already have plans with my…"

Qin Yue coughed and tapped Hardy's arm.

Qin Yue knew that nothing good would come out of Hardy's mouth.

Hardy originally wanted to say that he planned to go for a vacation with his girlfriend in the Great Rift Valley over the spring break and to enjoy a taste of Southern East Africa.

Vera felt relieved after hearing that there was no love letter, and she curiously asked, "Professor, what is that?"

Lu Zhou: "Nothing, it's from the American Chemical Society."

Hardy whispered, "Jesus, there are still people that physically send mail?"

Wei Wen had a different focus, and he said, "American Chemical Society?"

Lu Zhou placed the letter in his drawer and said, "Yeah, remember my Nature thesis a while ago? They plan on giving me the Adams Chemistry Prize."

The office was suddenly quiet.

Everyone stood frozen to the spot as they stared at Lu Zhou.

Especially Wei Wen, his mouth was wide open.

There wasn't a higher mathematical award that could be given to Lu Zhou. Even if he won the Ramanujan gold medal, it would only be the icing on the cake.

However, this Adams Chemistry Prize was obviously not in the field of mathematics.

Wei Wen didn't know chemistry that well, he didn't know what lithium dendrites were. But now, he knew that not only was Lu Zhou a god in the field of pure mathematics, but Lu Zhou's skills in applied mathematics was also godly.

He didn't know why; having a nutty supervisor was suppose to be a good thing, but he felt a sense of distaste in his heart.

Jerick gulped and asked, "Professor, do you plan on opening a class? Can I apply?"

Applied mathematics was one of the strongest fields at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Jerick had a double degree in organic chemistry and applied mathematics.

The reason why he applied to the field of functional analysis was that he wanted to study under Lu Zhou.

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "If you carefully complete the tasks that I have given you, I can tell you some insider information. However, I haven't perfected my theory yet, so my help will be limited."

There was no one in the entire materials science field that could understand Lu Zhou's theory, and not many mathematicians were interested in this field.

Thus, Lu Zhou was happy to distribute his knowledge.

However, it would be a waste of time trying to teach this knowledge to Jerick.

Jerick said, "Professor, you're too humble. If you think that your theory isn't perfect, then no one can claim to really understand the field of computational Materials."

"I'm not humble, this is only the thoroughness of science," said Lu Zhou. He then continued, "The mathematical model of the modified PDMS film is the only example, and this theory isn't applicable to the other fields. A perfect computational materials science theory should be capable of being applied to all materials.

"A theory that cannot be applied, no matter how strong, is not perfect."

This wasn't only the goal of computational materials, this was also the goal of computational chemistry.

A mathematical approximation could be used to calculate the properties of molecules. Properties such as energy, dipole moment, quadrupole moment, vibration frequency, reactivity, etc… These could be used to explain chemistry problems.

If someone made a mathematical model on this scale, the impact on the entire industry would be huge. The experimenter would only need to input the properties of the required materials, and he or she could deduce the molecular structure through complex calculations. Even if the model provided hundreds of possibilities or only a general direction, it would save millions of dollars in research.

This might sound unfeasible, but with the current rate of computer development, it wasn't impossible.

Perhaps in the near future, supercomputers would become the standard for every large material science laboratory, and every small and medium-sized research institutes would purchase computing credits.

Jerick was shocked by Lu Zhou's words.

It was almost like Lu Zhou had just opened a door and showed Jerick a completely new world.

If Lu Zhou succeeded, he would undoubtedly change the chemistry industry.

Jerick was now even more appreciative that he had Lu Zhou as his supervisor.

Wei Wen had a complicated expression on his face.

He had been studying applied mathematics, but he had never thought about extending a mathematical theory to another field. He was only interested in mathematics.

Maybe it was time for Wei Wen to make some changes…

"A theory that cannot be applied, no matter how strong, isn't perfect," Vera quietly whispered to herself. Her blue eyes shined with excitement.

She didn't know if she found her inspiration from Lu Zhou or if she felt that this was her mission, but she was suddenly more motivated than ever before.

The students in the office were lost in deep thought.

Hardy was the one to break this silence.

He came up with a conclusion and spoke in a serious manner, "A famous mathematician just won a chemistry award, and this is no doubt a great moment.

"I think we need to party and celebrate!"

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Chapter 314: Misunderstandings

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Maybe it was Lu Zhou's age which made him feel closer to his students, or maybe it was because Hardy and Qin Yue were actually one year older than Lu Zhou and that there was barely an age gap…

Maybe in his students' eyes, he was more of a figure that deserved respect as opposed to a strict "boss".

In order to convince Lu Zhou, Hardy pulled out the "This is a Princeton tradition" card on him. Lu Zhou had been living at Princeton for a long time, but this was his first time hearing of this tradition of having a party to celebrate for an award.

Obviously, Hardy made it up.

However, seeing that Hardy and his other students were so enthusiastic, Lu Zhou agreed.

The location for the party was at Lu Zhou's house, and there were originally six attendees.

However, the scale of this party went out of Lu Zhou's expectations.

Originally, he only planned to invite his students for a celebration. However, the news of his party was spread around and more and more people started to arrive at his house.

First, it was Luo Wenxuan and his girlfriend. After that, it was Edward and his supervisor, Witten.

Then, it was Deligne. Although this old Belgium man didn't like crowded places, he still came to the party with a bottle of whiskey.

After that, it was Lu Zhou's friends from the Ivy Club, his professor friends, and researchers…

Thankfully, Lu Zhou had prepared a lot of food and champagne beforehand.

The lawn in front of the small house was filled with the smell of barbecue and beer.

Lu Zhou stood next to the long table, and he was discussing with his previous supervisor.

Deligne had a different point of view than Lu Zhou, and he thought that this was a meaningless job and that Lu Zhou was wasting time.

"… Mathematics is pure, it's more of an art than a tool. Mathematicians should leave the applications to chemists and physicists."

The old man took a sip of whiskey and looked sharp as ever.

Witten suddenly joined in the conversation and said, "My dear Professor Deligne, I have to disagree with you. Mathematics is a great tool, but its greatness cannot be shown only in the field of applied mathematics. It has to be applied to other fields to truly show its value… For example, mathematical physics."

Deligne then responded ruthlessly, "I don't see your M theory being applied anywhere." He turned to Lu Zhou and raised his glass.

"Regardless, congratulations on the award."

Lu Zhou toasted with his ex-supervisor and said, "Thank you."

"Congratulations as well," said Witten as he smiled and toasted with Lu Zhou. He then casually said, "Maybe the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study should open a new department…"

Deligne said, "Impossible."

Witten shrugged and said, "Okay, I was only joking."

The original intention of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study was to establish an institute engaged in purely theoretical research. The seven full-time researchers in the Natural Science Research Institute were all researching theoretical physics and astrophysics.

As for the mathematics department, there were many fields of research, but they were mainly in pure mathematics.

After all, there were more than enough people studying applied science. There was a need for people to engage in purely theoretical research.

As for the point of theoretical research?

Before computer chips, no one knew the importance of quantum mechanics and theory of relativity.

…

Everyone had a great time at the party; Lu Zhou was also quite happy.

The Adams Chemistry Prize was unexpected.

He thought that his first non-mathematical award would be in the field of theoretical physics; he didn't expect it to be chemistry.

Although the US$10,000 prize money wasn't much, most scholars didn't care about the money.

Chemistry scholars were more industrious than mathematics and physics scholars. As long as they dabbled in intellectual property, they could easily achieve financial success.

Lu Zhou would have to give a speech at the Organic Chemistry Conference held in San Francisco in April this year.

This speech could be either academic or non-academic; it was up to the prize winner.

Even though Lu Zhou didn't have to submit a thesis in advance, he still wanted to prepare for it.

Coincidentally, the third day after he returned to Princeton, Professor Sarrot video-called him and reported on the research progress.

"… According to your request, we have done 200 sets of experiments. The relevant experiment data has been sent to your email. However, I have some bad news. We didn't observe your prediction of the cage-like molecular molecules. In my opinion, the use of carbon nanotubes to modify fullerene materials sounds interesting, but it isn't a good research idea."

Sarrot sounded burnt out.

He had been dealing with this matter for a month— controlling reaction temperatures, reaction times, and doing a lot of experiments. Unfortunately, they didn't discover any surprising result.

Lu Zhou sat in his office chair as he twisted his pen and asked, "So, nothing came of it?"

"Not necessarily." Sarrot shrugged and said, "Although we didn't get what you wanted, we still found a lot of by-products that were never seen before… But we don't know what the samples could be used for."

Lu Zhou was interested, and he said, "Send me the by-products."

Sarrot: "Okay, I'll send it to your office at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study?"

Lu Zhou said, "Send it to the Frick Chemistry Laboratory. I'm not sure if the reception at Princeton Institute for Advanced Study allows chemical packages."

Lu Zhou hung up the call and turned on his computer. He then pulled up the email from Sarrot.

The email contained product information, analysis tests, and other data.

Lu Zhou carefully read the experiment report and sighed. He leaned back on his chair and went into deep thought.

From the data, Lu Zhou could see that against his predictions, the π-bonded carbon nanotubes and fullerene materials didn't recombine under the thermal reaction.

Although this reaction was theoretically feasible, from a practical perspective, the countless side reactions made this process extremely difficult to achieve.

Lu Zhou didn't expect that he wouldn't even receive a microgram of a sample.

"It seems that I have to redesign the experiment!"

Lu Zhou lightly tapped his pen on the desk and began to think.

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Chapter 315: First Lesson As A Professor

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Lu Zhou spent a long time looking at the data from Sarrot, but he couldn't find anything of value. He decided to tackle this problem again after the samples had arrived.

As for now, he had something important to deal with.

And that was to prepare for his class.

After all, he was a professor…

Time quickly passed by.

On Wednesday, Lu Zhou's finally began his first number theory lecture at Princeton.

The classroom was already fully packed five minutes before the class began.

It wasn't that these people were all enrolled in the number theory class. In fact, many of them who were not enrolled in this class chose to attend it.

It was almost like this stage was made for Lu Zhou. Ever since his first Princeton report, he had become a legend on the Princeton campus.

Even now, graduate students were still talking about that legendary report.

A class taught by the professor who solved the Goldbach's conjecture and twin prime conjecture? Of course everyone would be interested in what this class would be like.

In order to live up to the expectations, Lu Zhou heavily prepared for this class.

In order to look more like a professor, he even wore a suit and tie to the lecture.

Since Lu Zhou had a decent figure, he looked quite sharp after cleaning himself up.

As he walked into the classroom, many female students looked at him with interest.

Just like how a young female teacher attracted the attention of the boys, a handsome male teacher was equally attractive to girls.

Vera sat at the back of the classroom. She covered her blushing face with a textbook.

However, most people didn't notice Vera at all. They didn't associate this petite girl with Lu Zhou at all. Instead, they thought that she was a first-year student and didn't realize that she was an assistant lecturer.

Lu Zhou stood on the podium and looked at the students. He then smiled and said, "Let me introduce myself. I am Lu Zhou, and I'm from Jiangling, China."

Lu Zhou wrote down his introduction on the blackboard before looking back at the students. He said with a relaxed tone, "This is our first time meeting. In order to deepen our understanding of each other, you guys can ask me three questions before the lecture starts."

The students didn't think that the legendary God Lu would be so approachable; they were all surprised at this gesture.

A male with darker skin and glasses raised his hand.

"Professor, can we ask any question?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Sure."

The student with glasses then asked, "The Lu Zhou who published the chemistry paper on Nature, is that you?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "If you're talking about the modified PDMS film thesis, then yes, I was the one that wrote that."

The people in the classroom gasped.

Although there had been rumors of this before, most people didn't believe it.

In Western countries, having the same name with someone else was a common occurrence. In fact, many Westerners would often name their sons after their fathers.

It wasn't uncommon for scholars to be proficient in both mathematics and physics, but it was extremely rare for a scholar to be proficient in both mathematics and chemistry.

This rumor was finally confirmed.

Not only that, it was confirmed by the legendary God Lu himself.

A white girl with long hair who sat next to the guy with glasses spoke in astonishment, "Which is saying, that patent fee…"

Lu Zhou coughed and said, "I will not answer any personal questions regarding the patent."

An Asian student cleverly changed the words and asked, "Then, can I ask what was the first thing you bought after receiving the patent money?"

The crowd was waiting for Lu Zhou to answer.

Obviously, they didn't expect Lu Zhou's answer.

Lu Zhou thought for a moment before he answered, "Strictly speaking, it was a research institute. I need experimental data in order to perfect my computational materials science theory."

The crowd was in disbelief.

A chubby guy sitting next to the window said, "A laboratory? If it were me, I would definitely buy a Porsche."

Another person said, "I'm guessing the professor is lying. If it were me, I would rent a mansion and hire a dozen girls…"

"Hey, Monroe, you're way too perverted! Maybe this is why you can't get a girlfriend."

"…"

Lu Zhou looked at the noisy classroom, clapped his hand, and said, "Okay, enough nonsense, let's begin. Turn the textbook to the introduction page. Although I know that many of you have already read this part, we will still start from here."

A student raised his hand and asked, "Professor, there's still one more question left."

Lu Zhou replied mercilessly, "We'll leave it to after class. I am disappointed at you guys."

Of course, Lu Zhou was only disappointed at the pointless questions.

Because after the class started, Lu Zhou was quite surprised at the performance of these students.

No wonder this was the smartest place in the world. Princeton students left a deep impression on Lu Zhou. Lu Zhou was impressed not at their talent, but their ability to concentrate as well as their pre-class preparations.

They were able to quickly absorb every topic that Lu Zhou taught.

Although Lu Zhou didn't deliberately speed up the lecture, he was already on page 30 after half an hour, and no one was falling behind.

At the very least, he didn't feel like anyone was lost.

Lu Zhou was gaining experience by teaching to these students.

Even though this experience might not be of any use right now, but it could come in handy one day.

The lecture gradually came to an end.

Lu Zhou closed the textbook and announced the homework assignment.

The students started to applaud.

Lu Zhou smiled and nodded at his students. He then walked out of the classroom.

He was walking in the hallway and about to go downstairs. Suddenly, Professor Fefferman popped out and said, "It seems that you're quite popular among the students, how do you feel?"

Professor Fefferman was the head of the mathematics department at Princeton University. Even though he had won a Fields Medal, he was still a humble person. Because of this, he had a good relationship with many people, and this included Lu Zhou.

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "I feel pretty good. The students here are all talented, and I feel a sense of accomplishment when teaching them. Also, it's useful to occasionally think about simpler, basic problems."

Fefferman was surprised at Lu Zhou's statement, and he said, "I'm glad to hear this. I hope this job will bring inspiration to your research."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "It definitely will."

…

Vera sat in her chair inside Lu Zhou's office as she quietly sorted out her lecture notes.

When Lu Zhou walked in, she placed her pen down. She took her notebook and walked up to Lu Zhou.

Lu Zhou smiled and asked, "How do you feel?"

Vera was a little puzzled, and she said, "I feel so difficult… Teaching and researching are two completely different things."

"You're right, but the two can be combined," said Lu Zhou as he took her notebook and flipped through the pages. He nodded his head and said, "It seems that your understanding is pretty good. How about you teach the next class?"

"The next class?" Vera was flustered, and she whispered, "But… I haven't finished preparing yet."

"You have a week to prepare, so this shouldn't be difficult." Lu Zhou gave Vera her notebook back as he said, "You can do it."

Vera took a deep breath and said, "I can do it!"

"Yeah, do your best."

Lu Zhou returned to his office desk and opened up his email.

There was an unread email, lying in his inbox.

It was from the Frick Chemistry Laboratory.

The package that Sarrot sent over had apparently been delivered…

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Chapter 316: Something Big

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The samples traveled across the country and finally arrived at the Frick Chemistry Laboratory.

Lu Zhou picked up the package and took the samples to his temporary laboratory.

He recently found out that not only did the Frick Chemistry Laboratory offer third-party testing services, but their laboratory could be rented for a fee, and he could buy time credits to use their equipment.

The fees for third-party testing services were generally more expensive and were in the range of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, but the price for renting the equipment was more reasonable.

Lu Zhou rented a piece of equipment. He then called Professor Chiric and borrowed a PhD student to be his assistant.

Just like last time, his assistant was Connie.

This buff PhD student looked like a rugby player, but he was much more jacked compared to last year.

Lu Zhou looked at Connie weirdly.

"Did you switch to researching biology?"

Connie was confused, and he asked, "No, why did you ask that?"

"No reason…" Lu Zhou shook his head and said, "Forget about it."

If this guy gets any buffer, he would basically be a hulk.

But he'll probably get offended if I say this.

"… Actually, I know what you want to say." Connie sighed and scratched his head as he said, "Because I'm too jacked, Professor Chiric doesn't let me operate the equipment. He said that I might break it."

"That's…" Lu Zhou looked at Connie and didn't know how to comfort him. Instead, he said, "I won't treat you like that."

Professor Chiric wasn't skinny either. At the very least, he had the physique of a basketball small forward player.

Connie rubbed his nose and said, "Really? What do you need me to do?"

Lu Zhou looked at the scanning electron microscope in the laboratory and said, "Just… help me with the sampling processing. You know how to do it, right?"

Connie smiled and said, "I got this!"

Lu Zhou took out more than 30 samples from the sealed small glass jars and told Connie some important things to be aware of. He then carefully removed a small amount of black powder from the glass jar marked with No. 1 and mixed it with ionized water.

Sarrot had already processed the samples before shipping them. The sample powders were already purified and no further filtration was required.

However, Lu Zhou couldn't just stuff the sample inside as the collection of hollow carbon spheres would worsen the observation.

Under Connie's help, Lu Zhou ultrasonically dispersed each sample and carefully dropped the sample on copper plates.

"Done!"

Finally, after the samples were processed, Lu Zhou sighed and placed down the last piece of copper before he stretched his stiff neck.

Since carbon itself was a conductive material, the processing was complete. If it was an insulator material, the sample had to be processed with gold.

Was this method expensive?

No, actually it wasn't that expensive.

Gold was actually relatively inexpensive compared to the other precious metals and organic reagents used in the laboratory. For the samples sent by Sarrot, the average cost per milligram was more than one hundred dollars.

The reason why Lu Zhou was so meticulous was that the cost of this experiment was coming out of his pocket.

Fortunately, his assistant Connie lived up to his expectations and didn't mess up a single sample. Connie placed the copper plate down and asked Lu Zhou, "My side is done, what do we do next?"

Lu Zhou said, "Let's scan it with the electron microscope."

The rest of the work was easy, and Lu Zhou operated the equipment step by step. He stuck the copper plate onto the sample holder using a conductive plate before he fed it into the chamber.

Once Lu Zhou confirmed that the pressure inside the chamber was stable, he carefully began to input various parameters.

"The emission current is set at 10μA, the working distance is 8mm, and the scanning mode is Sei…"

Lu Zhou used the two joysticks on the sample controller to carefully move the sample into position. Connie stood in front of the computer and adjusted the aperture and acceleration voltage.

The work was completed.

Now, it was time to harvest the results.

This was the easy part.

Lu Zhou could easily collect any data he wanted just by adjusting the resolution, the accelerating voltage, and the working distance.

Connie looked at the equipment and said emotionally, "This thing is much easier to use than a normal electron microscope."

"Of course." Lu Zhou smiled and said, "If the experiment is successful, I can give the rest of the renting credits to you."

Connie said, "Really? Thank you!"

Even though Connie wanted to use Professor Chiric's scanning electron microscope, Professor Chiric didn't want to waste time on his student's PhD thesis. After all, Chiric had a ton of experiments to do himself.

Right now, Lu Zhou was like an angel sent from heaven.

Lu Zhou smiled and said nonchalantly, "Of course, as long as you follow my instructions, I will compensate you."

Connie was even more motivated after hearing Lu Zhou's words.

The resolution was enlarged to the nm scale, and the microstructure of the hollow carbon sphere was visible to the two experimenters.

Lu Zhou looked at the scanning images and was intrigued.

He suddenly thought of something and said, "Connie, from these samples, help me find hollow carbon nanospheres with a specific surface area in the range of [2326m2g-1, 3762m2g-1] and a diameter of [60nm-70nm]!"

"Okay," Connie replied. Without any hesitation, he began to operate the computer. Soon after, he said, "… Professor, samples 11, 14, 15, and 23 all fit your requirements. What does this indicate?"

Lu Zhou found the corresponding sample jars and stared at the black powder inside.

"I need you to do something."

Connie said seriously, "Anything you want."

"Borrow a battery tester and a button-type battery mold for me." Lu Zhou look around the laboratory and added, "And some samples of sulfur.

"I have to do something big."

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Chapter 317: Do It Fast!

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The Frick Chemistry Laboratory had state of the art hardware. Princeton was not only willing to spend money on professors, but they were also willing to spend on the equipment.

Connie carried the latest MACCOR high-precision battery testing system over to Lu Zhou and smiled.

"This is the best battery testing system in the entire Frick Chemistry Laboratory, I borrowed it for you!"

Lu Zhou: "Actually I don't need such a good battery testing system…"

Connie said, "But you said that investing in the equipment is better than wasting money on producing more samples."

Lu Zhou stared at Connie and suddenly realized that he wasn't as dumb as he thought.

The money for this machine came from Lu Zhou's account.

If it was before, Lu Zhou would definitely feel like he was wasting money.

But now…

Okay, he was still a little distressed.

However, he wasn't as distressed as before.

Lu Zhou asked with a serious tone, "Does the equipment make battery samples?"

Connie immediately said, "No problem, this is easy!"

Lu Zhou thought for a bit and said, "You are responsible for No.11 and No.14. I'll do samples No.15 and No.23. Mix the hollow carbon sphere powder with sulfur, using the ratios of 30%, 20%, and 10%. Then make a positive electrode material, and assemble the lithium battery, do you understand?"

Connie said, "Of course!"

The negative electrode material synthesis process was a piece of cake. The modified PDMS film and the copper core lithium plate was the standard of any major materials research institutes.

However, the positive electrode material was slightly more difficult.

It wasn't just the hollow carbon spheres; all carbon nanomaterials had similar problems.

The simple mechanical stirring and grinding could only macroscopically mix the hollow carbon spheres with the matrix powder. It couldn't disperse the hollow carbon spheres on the microscopic level.

Before the hollow carbon spheres were mixed with the sulfur, they were also dispersed in ethanol by adding a surfactant such as polyurethane.

The remaining steps were similar to Lu Zhou's first lithium battery experiment.

The batteries were assembled in a glove box and then connected to a battery testing system. The testing system was able to calculate the performance of the materials by doing a large number of charge and discharge tests.

This step required no skills.

Actually, researching materials science wasn't that difficult.

The current research and development of new materials were based on the researchers' "scientific intuition" and a large number of repeated "trial" experiments. They tried to find a feasible material under set conditions. If Lu Zhou could build a set of materials science theories, then it would be game-changing.

Although mathematical methods could greatly reduce the number of experiments required, Lu Zhou still had to do some experiments.

…

Lu Zhou remembered that the last time he worked this hard was around this time last year.

In order to complete the Goldbach's conjecture, Lu Zhou locked himself in his 20 square meters apartment. He completely immersed himself in the labyrinth of numbers and eventually found a way out.

Lu Zhou's excitement right now paled in comparison to back then.

He felt nostalgic for his mathematics days.

It had been a week since his experiment started.

Other than sleeping, Lu Zhou had spent all his time in the laboratory.

Two days ago, Yang Xu, who managed the experiment at the Jinling Institute of Computational Materials, created a spreadsheet of the effects of the surface area, pore size, and the ratio of polysulfide in the electrolyte on the sulfur loading. This data arrived in Lu Zhou's mailbox.

In order to not delay the Jinling research institute's progress in the experiment, Lu Zhou needed to build a mathematical model as soon as possible and develop a plan for the next experiment.

His work seemed to be piled together.

Lu Zhou threw his pen aside and looked at Connie, who was looking at a sample.

"How is No. 15 doing?"

Connie had dark circles around his eyes as he looked at the scanning electron microscope and shook his head. He said, "The last group was completely scrapped. Almost all of the sulfur was deposited on the surface on the carbon material. You can look at it, it looks very pretty…"

Lu Zhou sighed and said, "Take a scanned image of the sample and dispose of it… I've seen enough."

This is horrible.

It seems that samples 11, 14 and 15 are all useless.

Facing the tragic result, Lu Zhou couldn't help but wonder if his theory was wrong.

Can the surface area of [2326m2g-1, 3762m2g-1] and the hollow carbon spheres in the range of [60nm-70nm] really inhibit the diffusion of polysulfide compounds?

He didn't want to doubt his theory and assumption.

Because he had calculated this assumption many times and received the same result.

If his theory was wrong, then he would face a difficult choice.

He could either pretend he didn't know or he could be a moral scholar. Once he found his mistakes, he could earnestly ask the Shuimu University to withdraw his thesis submission…

The former solution was feasible. Even if Lu Zhou were proven wrong by someone in the future, he could claim that it was an "honest mistake". No one would blame him…

Wait a minute…

Lu Zhou suddenly realized something.

My experiment isn't even over, why am I thinking of the aftermath.

What kind of mentality is that?

Lu Zhou clenched his fists and took a deep breath. He then calmed himself down and looked at Connie.

"How is sample No. 23 doing?"

"Let me look at it… 10% and 30% were destroyed within 200 revolutions, and 20% is… Unbelievable, it has been 500 revolutions, but it's still struggling to survive."

The word struggling was used interestingly.

It seemed that Lu Zhou's assistant had no hope for this experiment.

However, Lu Zhou still had hope.

He restrained his excitement and asked, "What is the volume change of the anode material?"

Connie looked at the battery through the transparent glass. He squinted his eyes and said, "It doesn't seem to have changed."

Lu Zhou shouted, "Don't give me an estimation, I want an accurate answer!"

"I know, I'm just kidding…" Connie disassembled the battery and carefully removed the positive electrode material. He then measured the width change with a vernier caliper.

Even at a macroscopic level, the volume expansion of carbon-sulfur composites was very obvious.

Connie recorded the measurement and was confused.

He recorded it again.

And again…

Connie looked back at Lu Zhou. Lu Zhou frowned and asked, "A failure?"

"No…" Connie shook his head. He gulped and said, "The results are unbelievably good…"

"Determine the chemical composition of the electrolyte!" Lu Zhou stood up from his chair and snapped, "Do it fast!"

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Chapter 318: Nature Or Science?

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

"Yes," Connie said quickly; he was shocked by Lu Zhou's enthusiasm. He quickly placed the sample of the positive electrode material inside a piece of glassware. A small amount of electrolysis was extracted from the inside with a pipette, then the liquid was collected and stored in a test tube.

On the other hand, Lu Zhou quickly walked to the corner of the laboratory and took out another instrument— the Fourier transform infrared spectrometer.

An infrared spectrum was generated by the absorption of specific wavelengths of infrared light when the compound molecules vibrated. The wavelength of the infrared light absorbed by the chemical bond vibration depended on the chemical bond dynamic constants and the atomic weight of the atoms. Therefore, each compound had its own unique infrared spectroscopy. Infrared spectroscopy was also known as "molecule fingerprints".

Using a computer, Lu Zhou quickly made an analysis of the composition of the electrolyte using the infrared spectrum absorption peak. He determined the mass of all the sulfur-containing functional groups and related compounds in the electrolyte.

The results were quite gratifying.

There was indeed polysulfide compounds in the solution, but the content was quite low. Although the material had flaws, it was still acceptable for industrial application.

What surprised Lu Zhou was not only the analysis of the electrolyte but also the observation under the scanning electron microscope.

At the nanometer scale, the porous structure of sample No. 23 allowed the electrolyte to enter the interior of the composite, thus increasing ionic conductivity. Also, the absorption capacity of the surface could effectively prevent the diffusion of polysulfide compounds into the electrolyte, thereby effectively suppressing the shuttle effect.

This proved that Lu Zhou's idea on the hollow carbon spheres had its potential.

Of course, this wasn't the main part.

The main part was that the hollow carbon spheres with a surface area of up to 3025m2g-1 and a diameter of 69nm perfectly met the predictions of Lu Zhou!

His predictions were that a hollow carbon sphere with the specific surface area in the range of [2326m2g-1, 3762m2g-1] and a diameter of [60nm-70nm] could effectively inhibit the diffusion of polysulfide compounds in the electrolyte!

"Unbelievable… We did it, we did it!" Connie waved his fist around in excitement. If it wasn't for the sensitive instrument around him, he would scream out loud.

Lu Zhou smiled in relief. The knot in his heart had unraveled.

However, he was still a long way from solving the shuttle effect.

But this was undoubtedly a good start.

"Don't get too excited, we didn't completely solve the shuttle effect," Lu Zhou said. He then paused for a second before continuing, "After a maximum of 500 revolutions, the rate of loss of the positive electrode material will increase, and the capacity will decay. This technology needs to be improved."

Connie said, "Bro, you're too hard on yourself. Not every research result can be made into a product!"

Connie was right.

Even though there was yet to be any application, this achievement was already outstanding.

Any professor would be ecstatic at this result.

However, Lu Zhou was more low-key.

He said, "Although this result needs improvement, it should be enough for an SCI thesis."

Connie asked, "What do you plan on calling this new material?"

Lu Zhou thought and said, "We can call it HCS-1."

HCS was the acronym for hollow carbon sphere. Because it was only a prototype, it was numbered -1.

Connie said, "HCS-1? Forgive me but this name is not creative at all. It doesn't convey the amazing effect. Can't you come up with a better name?"

What's the point of naming a broken material that has no application.

I'm not the one that came up with hollow carbon spheres.

Lu Zhou said, "Do you have any better ideas?"

Connie said, "How about LZ-1? It's an acronym of your name."

Lu Zhou: "…"

What is this?

Lu Zhou thought that Connie had some genius idea, but that clearly wasn't the case.

Finally, Lu Zhou dismissed Connie's suggestion and went with HCS-1.

It would feel tacky if he had named his materials LZ-1, LZ-2…

HCS-1 was a lot better.

…

Although the industrial applications of HCS-1 were limited, it could still be valuable. If a small company was interested in buying the research, then it would be worth a lot of money.

This time, Lu Zhou wouldn't have to take a year to write his thesis.

Lu Zhou was too careful when dealing with the PDMS materials that it took him over a year. Furthermore, he had no experience.

After consulting his manager, White Sheridan, he learned that although it clearly stated that the content of the patent application could not be disclosed before the "patent filing date", it was fine as long as "disclose date" was after the "patent filing date".

Which was to say that once he received his patent number, he could submit the thesis.

Lu Zhou sat in his office at the Institute for Advanced Study and wrote a letter of authorization for Star Sky Technology to handle the patent.

Lu Zhou signed his name on the document and sealed the envelope.

Suddenly, Hardy came in with a towel around his neck.

This Brazilian guy loved soccer and was a member of the Princeton soccer club. Although soccer wasn't as famous as baseball or American football, there were still many people playing it.

Lu Zhou had previously played with the Princeton soccer club. However, he realized that slow movement sports were more suitable for him, so he stopped going for soccer.

Hardy was about to sit down and rest, but when he saw Lu Zhou writing a letter, he was curious and walked over.

"Professor, what are you writing?"

Lu Zhou didn't answer and handed him the letter.

"Perfect, go to the mailroom for me and deliver this letter."

Hardy took the letter from Lu Zhou and said, "I knew I shouldn't have come here…"

Lu Zhou: "If you didn't ask me what it was about, I wouldn't have asked you."

Hardy: "…"

Hardy walked outside the office with the envelope, and Lu Zhou began writing his thesis.

Star Sky Technology had already established a patent department, so they could easily handle the patent for Lu Zhou.

There were two theses that needed to be written.

One thesis was about the effect of surface area and pore size of the hollow carbon spheres on the diffusion rate of polysulfide compounds. Another thesis was about the HCS-1 hollow carbon sphere material.

The former was purely theoretical. It would include a lot of graphs, analysis, and proofs. It would take around thirty pages to complete. The latter was more application-based, and it could be completed within fifteen pages.

Speaking of which, where should I submit the thesis?

Lu Zhou placed his hands on the keyboard and began to think.

Nature or Science?

I really don't know…

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Chapter 319: Science Should Do

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The editorial department at Science was as busy as ever.

Every day, they would receive a large number of thesis submissions from all over the world. Less than one-tenth of the submissions were actually accepted.

Instead of an editorial position, Warren felt like his job was more like a gold miner. He had to screen hundreds of theses to find the few worthy manuscripts to hand over to reviewers.

Warren's job undoubtedly impacted the entire word.

However, at the same time, it was a boring job.

As for why it was boring…

It was because Science was one of the top two journals in the world; its reputation was just too big.

In order to publish in this journal, the theses writers were often unethical. They would claim to have created "groundbreaking" results.

To be honest, the editors couldn't judge the correctness of the theses. They could only look at the thesis writer's identity and reputation to determine if the paper was eligible for peer review.

As usual, Warren made himself a cup of black coffee before starting work. He opened his work email and received a thesis from a technical editor.

He looked at the email and had a headache.

"I think the technical department should develop some new features for our office software."

Brock, who was working, asked, "Like?"

Warren sighed and said, "For example, before sending the theses to us, the theses should be ranked by the cumulative impact factor of the author's past submissions. It should also be ranked according to the reputation of the research institutes."

Brock smiled and said, "This is a good idea, but it would be unfair to those unknown authors."

"Who cares? We're Science. Shouldn't we use a more scientific method to screen theses?" Warren said as he dragged the thesis into his recycle bin. He said, "Some theses are a complete waste of time."

He soon opened the next thesis.

Warren looked at the title and couldn't help but complain in his heart.

Another lithium-sulfur battery one!

The previous thesis also claimed that it had solved the shuttle effect, but it only researched solid electrolytes. To be honest, there is nothing wrong with solid electrolytes, but some of the mistakes in the thesis were way too obvious.

He had seen too many subpar theses recently.

He subconsciously looked at the research institute and author. Just as he wondered if he should waste a few minutes reading the thesis, he was suddenly stunned by what he was looking at.

The author's name looked familiar…

It was from the Frick Chemistry Laboratory.

Then Warren discovered something surprising.

There was more than one thesis that was submitted; there were two…

Warren silently looked at the calendar sitting at the corner of his desk.

He remembered that the last time Science published "highlights" on the modified PDMS paper was half a year ago. He couldn't believe that within half a year, another "PDMS" level thesis appeared.

First Lu Zhou solved the lithium dendrites problem, now he solved the shuttle effect?

This is unbelievable!

Due to Lu Zhou's reputation, Warren read the thesis carefully and line by line.

He then made a difficult decision.

During lunchtime, Brock stood up from his desk and was about to go grab some lunch.

Suddenly, he noticed that his colleague was staring intently at the screen. He curiously walked over and stood behind Warren.

"Lu Zhou? That Princeton professor?"

Warren meticulously looked at the thesis and said, "Yes, I don't think there's another Princeton professor with such a strange name…"

Brock said, "I cannot believe it, it has only been half a year… Two theses this time?"

"And it's regarding lithium-sulfur batteries. Obviously, he has made some big progress." Warren was still staring at the computer screen when he twisted his pen and said, "Two theses; one thesis on the specific surface area of hollow carbon spheres and the effect of pore sizes on the diffusion rate of polysulfide compounds, and the other thesis is about the research of HCS-1 hollow carbon sphere materials. The two theses are related. The former focuses on theory and the latter focuses on application… What do I do?"

Brock was hesitant, and he asked, "I think Professor Lu's reputation is quite trustworthy. Wouldn't it be better to leave it to the reviewers?"

Warren said, "I know, but the question is, which reviewer?"

This was a difficult question.

Brock was also troubled by it.

"The thesis on the hollow carbon sphere material HCS-1 is easy to deal with. Many carbon nanomaterials professors can review the thesis, but this other paper…" Brock thought for a while and couldn't come up with a suitable candidate.

Not many mathematics professors were interested in organic chemistry. On the other hand, very few organic synthesis experts could understand the math behind Lu Zhou's thesis.

There were many people dealing with carbon nanomaterials in the field of materials science. However, people that did both computational materials and carbon nanomaterials… There weren't many at all.

Many computational material experts became programmers instead, as it had a much higher salary.

Because of Lu Zhou's modified PDMS material, the computational materials community basically treated him as a god. It was like David Shaw in the field of computational chemistry.

It was really difficult to find a professor qualified enough to review Lu Zhou's thesis.

Brock thought for a bit before saying, "How about we ask Professor Bawendi?"

"But is he in the field of carbon nanomaterials?" Warren said, "I heard he has been very busy recently and rejected many thesis reviews."

Brock said, "But he has served twice as a reviewer for Lu Zhou. Or do you have a better idea?"

Warren hesitated for a bit before saying, "Then write him a letter and ask him to review it."

Warren had no doubt that these two theses were worthy of publication.

If the shuttle effect was actually solved by using the HCS-1 material, then this result would be groundbreaking.

This type of groundbreaking result was a perfect match for the Science journal.

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Chapter 320: In The Academic World, Ideas Are The Least Valuable

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Lu Zhou had always been paying attention to his peers.

On the arXiv website, theses regarding hollow carbon spheres and sulfur composites started to pop up.

Although biology and chemistry were in STEM, an innovative idea did not have any value. Therefore, compared to pure mathematics, theoretical physics, or computer science, biology and chemistry scholars had far less enthusiasm for submitting papers on arXiv. However, trending topics still influenced the academic community.

At the same time, Lu Zhou could use academic search engines to find out whether there had been an uprise in hollow carbon spheres related results.

However, these results weren't as groundbreaking as HCS-1.

Of course, some large research institutes had made significant progress. However, they were more ambitious and didn't want to publish in-progress research.

After all, even though companies like Nichia and Umicore were willing to purchase patent authorizations with people like Lu Zhou, they would rather have the patent all to themselves.

Lu Zhou could see these signs from his last meeting with Grynberg. Without a doubt, their laboratory in Belgium was working non-stop trying to take the throne from Lu Zhou.

Therefore, Lu Zhou had to amp up his speed.

…

In the middle of March, after Lu Zhou received a reply from Science regarding his submission, he contacted Yang Xu, who was in Jinling, and arranged for a short video conference. He wanted to discuss the research plan with him.

Before the video call, Lu Zhou sent the related HCS-1 materials to Yang Xu's work email. The email contained both the data that had already been submitted as well as the unpublished data.

Because of this, as soon as the call began, Yang Xu immediately asked, "The thing you sent me was about?"

Lu Zhou put it concisely by saying, "The next experiment plan and related materials are in that email. The physical samples will arrive soon. Simply put, I need you to try and find a method to stabilize and synthesize the HCS-1 material."

The synthesizing method that Sarrot's laboratory produced had a high variance. Strictly speaking, HCS-1 was only a by-product of this method; it could only be obtained using centrifugation and further purification.

Using this inefficient method, it was difficult to industrially produce HCS-1.

Unless someone was willing to pay US$100,000 just for one lithium battery and spend a ton more just to deal with the waste, from a logical standpoint, this battery was currently unfeasible.

There were two methods to promote HCS-1 material. One way was to change the preparation method and reduce production cost. The other way was to improve the material itself.

Using the HCS-1 as a reference idea, it wasn't difficult to find HCS-2 or even HCS-3, which could be more suitable for mixing with sulfur.

Due to these reasons, Lu Zhou set up two research directions for the Jinling Institute of Computational Materials. One was to improve the production process of the HCS-1 material, and the other was to improve the HCS-1 material itself.

Unlike Sarrot's laboratory, Lu Zhou had different requirements for the Jinling Institute of Computational Materials. Sarrot was responsible to complete the system mission of studying the topology of the molecules.

As for the Jinling Institute, they were responsible for solving the shuttle effect.

The energy industry needed to solve the shuttle effect, so did the country's energy department. Whether it was from a personal standpoint or from a commitment to China's energy department, Lu Zhou decided to work hard on this matter.

Yang Xu said, "This problem is difficult."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "I believe you can do it."

Yang Xu: "Is there a more specific direction you can give me?"

Lu Zhou said, "I do have an idea. Write this down so that I don't have to send another email."

Yang Xu nodded and took out a piece of pen and paper.

Lu Zhou drank some water and said, "Glucose."

The two went silent for a moment.

Yang Xu then said, "… Glucose?"

Lu Zhou nodded and said, "Yes, specifically, the precursor from a copolymer of polyaniline and polypyrrole to glucose."

This was the conclusion from Lu Zhou's discussion with Sarrot. The reason they were able to reach this conclusion was due to their "scientific intuition" which was built from hundreds of experiments and calculations.

Although this "scientific intuition" might sound unreliable, it was at least better than "trial and error".

However, this idea was yet to be confirmed.

Yang Xu's eyebrow twitched.

"That's it?"

Lu Zhou waved his hand and said with a certain tone, "That's it."

No wonder you didn't want to send an email, you barely gave me anything.

Yang Xu couldn't help but complain in his heart as he put the pen and paper aside.

Lu Zhou said, "We're not the only ones researching this. I know Umicore and Nichia are also doing experiments. We are competing with international chemical giants. I know the mission is difficult, but I hope you can overcome it."

Yang Xu couldn't help but say, "If this really had potential, then you wouldn't have mentioned it during the meeting."

Lu Zhou was annoyed, and he said, "The situation at that time was special. Also, I didn't expect them to arrogantly publish the content of the meeting."

There was something else Lu Zhou didn't say.

Which was that he didn't expect so many to believe his words at the meeting…

…

The hollow carbon spheres had potential, and therefore, it had no shortage of competitors.

In the academic world, ideas were the least valuable.

Other than international chemistry giants like Nichia and Umicore, there were many other research institutes doing similar research. Some of them were partnered with a company, others received fundings from the government.

For example, Professor Wang Haifeng was one of them.

Far away at Zhi University, he was also busy working on the project.

However, he wasn't working on the experiment, he was working on the preparations for the experiment.

Around two weeks ago, the laboratory research project was finally confirmed. It was regarding using hollow carbon spheres and sulfur composites as the positive electrode in order to solve the problem of diffusion of polysulfide compounds into the electrolyte. Although he didn't like Lu Zhou, he had to admit that the hollow carbon spheres had potential.

He had already sent in his research fund application, and he should be getting a reply within a few days.

As the boss of the laboratory, right now he had to delegate work to his researchers.

Suddenly, his PhD student, Liu Hong, walked into the laboratory while holding a journal magazine.

Liu Hong looked like he had something to say but didn't want to say anything.

Wang Haifeng looked at his student and asked, "What happened?"

Liu Hong hesitated for a bit before speaking, "Professor… Someone else is also doing our research project."

Wang Haifeng, who was leaning on his office chair, nearly choked on his own saliva.

"What? Someone else is doing the same thing as us?"

What the hell is this?

How was this possible?

I haven't even received the research project grant, who copied our idea?

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Chapter 321: In-progress Results

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Wang Haifeng grabbed the Science journal magazine from Liu Hong and started to read the tiny words carefully.

Although he didn't like Lu Zhou at all, he had to admit that this kid was a genius.

There weren't many scholars that could publish on either Science or Nature and doing both was basically impossible.

The first thesis was a theory-based thesis, and Wang Haifeng couldn't understand anything other than the conclusion.

The second thesis was about the HCS-1 material, and it was more application based. Wang Haifeng carefully read through the thesis.

When he saw a scanned image, his eyebrows twitched.

His laboratory also had a scanning electron microscope, but it was the bismuth hexaboride type.

This kind of electron microscope was much more advanced than the tungsten filament kind, and the electron image resolution could reach 2nm, and the image was 5 to 10 times brighter than the tungsten filament kind. However, it was no match with the field emission electron gun.

Without a doubt, the image in the thesis was taken with a field emission electron scanning microscope.

This person is disgusting!

He must be bragging about his microscope!

Wang Haifeng had more than 20 years of experience in the chemistry field, and yet, he was being defeated by a kid. He couldn't take it anymore.

However, he continued to read the thesis and quickly calmed down.

Once Wang Haifeng finished reading, he slammed the journal on the table. He then threw it back to Liu Hong.

"This is only an in-progress result."

Wang Haifeng sighed in relief.

If this HCS-1 material was as valuable as the modified PDMS material, then Wang Haifeng would admit defeat. Other international chemistry giants would do the same.

However, it was clear that the HCS-1 material wasn't perfect.

Of course, even though it was only an in-progress result, it still showed the superior performance of the HCS-1 material. If someone could solve the production process, it might be used in industries that required high battery densities.

Like drones…

Liu Hong said, "What if they only published the in-progress result and didn't release the important results…"

Wang Haifeng said, "Nonsense, why would they do that?"

Liu Hong was stunned, and he smiled and said, "… But can't they just publish more papers?"

Wang Haifeng was amused by his student, and he laughed as he said, "Then tell me, is he doing a PhD? Or does he need the reputation? Why would he publish so many theses?"

Liu Hong realized that he had just asked a very stupid question and decided to shut his mouth.

He was right; normal researchers needed to accumulate their academic reputation.

Normal professors also needed to publish theses to show off their academic ability. This also allowed the professors to receive more academic grants.

But Lu Zhou obviously didn't need to prove his academic ability.

Patents were the most important thing in research; it was the key to earning money from large companies.

No matter how much research someone did, if they couldn't obtain the patent in the end, their work would only pave the way of success for others. If someone had a 90% chance that their research would succeed, they still wouldn't publish their in-progress result.

Unless they really needed the money and needed to publish results to make their investors happy… Or it was to bait new investors and to make them feel like they could produce more results.

Obviously, Lu Zhou didn't need investors.

Most people didn't know how valuable the PDMS material was, but Wang Haifeng was in the field of materials science, and he knew that Umicore paid US$400 million for the patent rights.

Then there was only one possibility…

Wang Haifeng's eyes lit up and said, "This kid is smart, I'm afraid he has been researching this topic before his PDMS thesis publication. Everyone during the meeting was talking nonsense, but he was the only one who was able to put out a coherent idea. I'm guessing he already has some research results."

Most people began writing theses after receiving the patent number. Almost everyone would wait for the patent authorizations to go through first and the patent authorization could take up to twelve months.

That was to say, if a thesis was published in 2016, the real research results were probably made in 2015.

Wang Haifeng suspected that a year ago, Lu Zhou had already begun researching hollow carbon spheres.

Liu Hong thought of a possibility but he wasn't sure, so he asked, "You're saying?"

"His research has probably reached a bottleneck." Wang Haifeng smiled and said, "This young man is too impatient."

When research stagnated, releasing in-progress research to prevent others from releasing the same research first was a common tactic. Although it exposed one's own research progress, it gave the researcher fame and reputation.

After all, the longer the research results stayed hidden, the larger the risk. Especially in a popular research area, someone else could come up with the same results within two months.

Since many research institutes were researching hollow carbon spheres, this was possible. If someone else posted your result first, it would hinder your research results useless.

Wang Haifeng though that Lu Zhou couldn't handle the pressure.

"We will continue the research project." Wang Haifeng looked at Liu Hong and said, "Just in case, help me find out what Jinling Institute of Computational Materials is doing, and how their research progress is going…"

Liu Hong said, "But I don't know anyone from Jin Ling University, do you think they will tell me?"

Wang Haifeng said, "Are you dumb? Come up with an idea yourself!"

Liu Hong shut his mouth and stopped talking.

After a while, Wang Haifeng calmed down and said, "Also, we have to change our project goal."

When he came up with the project goal, he described hollow carbon spheres and the carbon-sulfur composite materials in a general way. Now that Lu Zhou released an in-progress result, he had to use a more specific description.

However, changing the project goal was easy.

It wasn't a big deal.

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Chapter 322: Nothing To Be Surprised About

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Wang Haifeng guessed one thing right, which was that HCS-1 did have room for development.

However, he was wrong about something else.

The reason why Lu Zhou published the in-progress result had nothing to do with Lu Zhou's research reaching a bottleneck; it was because Lu Zhou simply didn't care.

Even though his theory played an important application role, Lu Zhou realized that his theory could only exert its full potential through communicating with others.

Most people that read the journal would think that the HCS-1 thesis was the most important part and ignore the theory-based thesis.

However, Lu Zhou paid more emphasis on the theory.

This was just like the chicken and the egg theory.

If someone could understand his mathematical theory on computational materials and innovate using that theory, he wouldn't feel there was anything wrong with it. Rather, he would feel honored.

This was also the reason why he asked his student to study the Collatz conjecture by using his methods and ideas.

He could easily solve the Collatz conjecture himself.

He was at Level 6 in mathematics, and that was a completely different level than when he was at Level 5. Although the foundations set by predecessors on the Collatz conjecture wasn't as complete as the Goldbach's conjecture, unlike the Goldbach's conjecture, the Collatz conjecture didn't trouble the mathematics world for more than two centuries.

If he put his heart into it, it would take him at least six months and at most a year to solve it.

…

On an early morning in late March, Lu Zhou arrived at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study on time.

But unlike the usual, he was holding two papers in his hand.

Lu Zhou gave the test papers to Jerick and Wei Wen and said, "There are only ten questions on the paper, go do the questions and return the test in two hours. You can use your phone if you want, but you're not going to find the answers online."

Like Qin Yue, at the beginning of the semester, Lu Zhou gave Jerick and Wei Wen a list of textbooks to study.

It had since been a month, Lu Zhou felt like it was about time to see how their progress was going.

After dividing the papers, the two immediately picked up a pen and started to write on a draft paper.

The test Lu Zhou wrote wasn't particularly difficult, but it wasn't that easy either.

Wei Wen frowned. After a long time, he finally solved question one.

Jerick saw Wei Wen struggling just like him and felt a sense of relief.

Time slowly passed by, and around 10 o'clock, Lu Zhou announced the end of the test. He took the papers and looked at the answers.

Both of them got seven correct, but their wrong answers were different.

Lu Zhou placed the test paper down and looked at the two people across his office desk.

"Wei Wen, your understanding of Hilbert space is good. I guess you should develop in the direction of mathematical physics."

Wei Wen asked, "Does mathematical physics count as applied mathematics?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "It depends on how you define it. The physics part is theory and the mathematics part is application. Of course, this is only my suggestion. You can choose any field you want."

Wei Wen went into deep thought after hearing his supervisor's advice.

Lu Zhou looked at the other student and said, "Jerick, you're good at Fourier inversion transformations, and this is a very promising direction. It has a wide range of applications in theory and in the industry. If you are interested in this field, I suggest you pay more attention to it and choose it as your topic of study."

Jerick immediately asked, "Professor, can I study computational materials?"

Lu Zhou said in a joking tone, "Of course you can, but don't expect to understand my theory. You'll have to read at least a dozen textbooks to do so."

The two students returned to their seats.

Lu Zhou stretched and was about to make a cup of coffee to wake himself up.

Suddenly, the office door opened and Connie walked in with a journal.

"Professor!"

Hardy, Qin Yue, and Vera were researching documents, and they raised their heads and looked unhappy about the disruption.

Lu Zhou could probably guess why Connie was so excited.

However, he had received a reply from the Science editorial department a long time ago. He wasn't surprised that his theses were in the journal at all.

Lu Zhou looked at him and said, "I remember I told you to stay quiet in this office. Remember to knock before you come in."

"Forgive me, I didn't do it on purpose. I'm sure when you hear this news, you would be just as excited as me." Connie lowered his voice and said, "Guess what happened? Nature quoted our thesis on their front page!"

Connie stopped talking proudly and looked at Lu Zhou as he waited for his reaction.

However…

Lu Zhou wasn't amused.

Lu Zhou was obviously a lot less excited than Connie.

The office went quiet for a bit.

Connie felt awkward and calmed down.

Lu Zhou said, "It's only a quote, there's no need to be this excited."

Vera was researching the Collatz conjecture, and she couldn't help but chuckle. Hardy was more ruthless; he slammed his fist on the table and laughed out loud.

Wei Wen couldn't help but smile as well.

Connie blushed and scratched his head as he said, "You're not excited at all? This is Nature highlights!"

Lu Zhou sighed and said, "I know it's Nature highlights, but half a year ago, I was highlighted by both Science and Nature. If you were me, you wouldn't care about this trivial honor either."

Most of the top journals had a "highlights" section where they quoted the best parts of the thesis and added a summarization.

Lu Zhou was pretty excited when he was first highlighted by the two journals.

But now, he wasn't nearly as ecstatic.

Especially since not long ago, his modified PDMS film was rated one of the Top 10 scientific research theses in 2016.

A highlight was nothing for him.

Connie's eyes were wide open; he was speechless.

Jesus, there's someone out there who thinks a Nature highlight is trivial?

A normal person would have to work for years just to publish one thesis.

Most people don't even dream of being on highlights.

If this doesn't make you excited, then what does?

A Nobel Prize?

Lu Zhou didn't care about what Connie was thinking. He took the latest issue of Nature from him and roughly flipped through the pages.

As expected, the HCS-1 thesis was the one on highlights.

As for the computational materials science thesis, it was briefly mentioned as a study on "the effect of surface area and pore size on the diffusion rate of polysulfide compounds".

Lu Zhou smiled and shook his head.

It seems that people can't recognize the real treasure.

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The days passed by quickly, and soon, it was April.

The students studying to the bone was finally able to relax for a bit. They could enjoy life for two weeks without thinking about academics.

The busy Princeton campus gradually quieted down.

Luo Wenxuan was eating at the Institute for Advanced Study with Lu Zhou when he said, "I'm going to Fort Lauderdale. If you want, you can come with me."

The beach was usually the first choice for spring break locations. Fort Lauderdale was a lot cheaper compared to Hawaii. Ever since 1934, it had become a holy place for American college students during spring breaks. There was a lot of people that came to this place during spring break, it wasn't just American college students, but many overseas students also visited.

But Lu Zhou had never heard of this place before.

Lu Zhou asked, "Where is Fort Lauderdale?"

Astonished, Luo Wenxuan looked at Lu Zhou and asked, "It's in Florida… Do you really not know Fort Lauderdale? How?"

Lu Zhou made a helpless expression.

"I only worked on my PhD for a few months, and I finished before spring break."

Suddenly, there was an awkward tension in the air.

Luo Wenxuan said, "Can we not talk about PhD stuff?"

Lu Zhou: "… Oh yeah, sorry."

Lu Zhou nearly forgot that while he was still studying his Bachelors, Luo Wenxuan was studying for his PhD under Edward Witten. Now that Lu Zhou was a PhD holder, Luo Wenxuan still hadn't received his PhD…

Lu Zhou shouldn't mention such a sad thing on a good day like this.

However, Luo Wenxuan actually had good mental health. After all, the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study was where the world's most talented people were. They had both a strong mind and a strong brain.

This was the difference between geniuses and normal people.

Luo Wenxuan adjusted his mood and continued to talk about spring break.

"Spring break is a good mating option, or do you plan on staying single for the rest of your life? If you don't know how to pick up hot chicks, I can teach you. This part is easy."

Lu Zhou looked at Luo Wenxuan and asked, "You plan on dumping your girlfriend?"

"Actually, I already did." Luo Wenxuan coughed and looked like he didn't want to discuss this topic when he said, "It's a bit complicated, don't bother asking."

Lu Zhou: "…"

If Lu Zhou recalled correctly, around February at the Adams Chemistry Prize party, this guy was still with his girlfriend.

Within two months, this guy became single.

This guy changed girlfriends faster than Lu Zhou could write theses.

"This is how life in America is, you should get used to it," Luo Wenxuan said. He then added, "If you get to know some international students, you will find out that this is a very common thing."

"This is the problem," Lu Zhou said as he folded his sandwich wrapper and threw it on the tray table. He sighed and added, "I feel out of place because I'm too conservative."

Luo Wenxuan wasn't happy to hear this.

"You're saying I'm not conservative."

Lu Zhou: "Are you not?"

Luo Wenxuan: "…"

…

Actually, Lu Zhou was curious about Luo Wenxuan's offer.

Was spring break in Fort Lauderdale really like the movies, where it was full of youth and alcohol?

If he had nothing else to do, he wouldn't mind checking it out with Luo Wenxuan.

However, the premise would be that he didn't have anything else to do…

The first Saturday in April, Lu Zhou gave his students a week-long vacation. They had been working for three months and needed some time off to adjust their minds.

However, Lu Zhou didn't get to enjoy this vacation.

The first day of spring break, he got on a plane and went to San Francisco to attend the Organic Chemistry Conference hosted by the American Chemical Society.

He would have an hour of speaking time there.

Although this conference wasn't as big as the MRS Conference, it still had a significant amount of influence. It was one of the top conferences in the field of organic synthesis.

After all, the American Chemical Society had more influence than the Materials Science Society. The former was older than the latter by a century, and it even had ties to politics.

After several hours of flight, the plane landed in San Francisco Airport.

Sarrot was the one picking Lu Zhou up at the airport. This once famous Cornell University professor was looking extra sharp today.

He was wearing a suit and had his hair waxed. His beard also looked a lot cleaner than last time.

This was without a doubt the energy that the thesis brought him.

Although one Science thesis couldn't change his status, it still somewhat restored his Cornell University reputation.

When he first sold his research institute, he would still ask himself questions like "Is it worth it?".

But now, he was sure that his decision was wise.

"Welcome, my dear friend, to San Francisco!" Sarrot greeted Lu Zhou with a smile and said, "Congratulations on the Adams Chemistry Prize, you're one step closer to Stockholm!"

Lu Zhou shook Sarrot's hand and said, "I've already been to Stockholm."

"The next time you go there will be for the Nobel Prize!" Sarrot smiled and said, "A professor I know told me the committee has been discussing whether or not the modified PDMS material deserves a nomination."

Lu Zhou smiled and didn't say anything.

Sarrot's optimism was as unreliable as his scientific intuition. It was even more difficult to tell if he was lying.

The Nobel Prize wouldn't be the crown of science if it was so easy to get.

Even the father of lithium-ion batteries, the legendary Mr. John B. Goodenough, hadn't received a Nobel Prize after waiting for thirty years. It would be difficult for Lu Zhou to receive this prize using his anode material technology.

However, Lu Zhou wasn't in a hurry.

He was still young; he still had tons of time for scientific research.

Whether it was the modified PDMS material, the HCS-1 material, or the Adams Chemistry Prize, this was only the beginning…

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