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

12. 356

Read Scholar's Advanced Technological System - Chapter 356 - New Chemistry? online free - Novelfull

Controllable nuclear fusion?!

This does sound interesting.

Lu Zhou was immediately interested once he heard Professor Klitzing mentioned this matter.

"Can I visit inside?"

Professor Klitzing smiled and said, "If you are interested, then sure."

Lu Zhou followed Professor Klitzing into this building.

Lu Zhou thought that this place would be highly confidential, but Professor Klitzing easily went inside with his work card.

Professor Klitzing noticed Lu Zhou's confusion and smiled as he said, "There's no secret here. You can retrieve the papers from the Firestone Library. The access restrictions are mainly to prevent troublemakers from coming in. The security in Berlin has gotten worse recently."

Lu Zhou joked, "I thought it was some highly confidential place."

Professor Klitzing smiled and said, "Don't worry, even I wouldn't be able to access a place like that."

Contrary to popular conspiracy theories about nuclear fusion technology, most countries had done research in controlled nuclear fusion but the research results were open to the public.

According to the ITER agreement signed in Paris in November 2006, the national research teams of each country would report their latest research progress at each International Fusion Energy Conference.

The reason for cooperation was simple.

It was because the difficulty of this project had far exceeded any research project. It was more difficult than the Manhattan Project, Human Genome Project, and the Apollo Project. Also, controllable nuclear fusion technology could not be achieved by one country alone.

Due to these circumstances, the benefits of closed-door research were far outweighed by the benefits of participating in the ITER program.

For example, the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), played a pivotal role in the ITER project.

As for how the benefits of the project would be distributed, that would be an issue for later. Right now, they couldn't even figure out what the problem was much less how to solve it.

Whether it was the tokamak or stellarator, there was no secret design theory. This was why Professor Klitzing could bring Lu Zhou for a visit.

The only secret part was the laser fusion that was used for "ignition".

One of the main functions of laser fusion was to simulate a hydrogen bomb explosion. Therefore, ITER didn't cooperate with countries that didn't sign the nuclear peace treaty.

However, this secret part of the research couldn't be seen. Confidential research was obviously done in a confidential place.

Lu Zhou followed Professor Klitzing all the way to the core area of the building. He looked at the strange object sitting in open space and said, "This looks like a fried dough twist."

The "dough twist" was connected seamlessly from end to end, forming a circle.

From a geometry perspective, it was a Mobius ring transformed into three dimensions.

The plasma could operate stably in the circular orbit that was wounded by a coil.

In contrast, the tokamak device relied on the magnetic field generated by the external magnetic field and the plasma current. If the plasma became unstable or disturbed due to some unknown physical phenomenon, the entire system would be at risk of collapsing.

It was also theoretically possible to control the ignition of the stellarator more easily than the tokamak.

However, although the stellarator had many advantages, it had one deadly disadvantage. That was, the technology requirements were extremely demanding, and the equipment engineering process was complicated.

The weird-looking object in front of Lu Zhou was already complicated enough, and it was only one of the parts required for nuclear fusion. Not to mention, there were only a handful of countries that possessed this part.

This was one of the reasons why China chose the tokamak route instead.

Professor Klitzing jokingly said, "Really? I think it's more like a donut with cream."

Lu Zhou looked at the old man. He clearly didn't understand what a "fried dough twist" was.

"This is the plasma orbit that was replaced by the spiral stone 7-X," Professor Klitzing said while looking at the device in front of him. He continued, "As for the complete spiral stone 7-X, it is in Greifswald. If you are interested, I can take you there after the report is over. They are doing an experiment there right now."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Really? I'll remember your words."

This was a good opportunity.

Although controlled nuclear fusion was outside of Lu Zhou's research area, he was interested in any sci-fi like technologies.

However, no matter how interesting the experiment was, it wasn't as important as his report.

After Lu Zhou's visit at the Max Planck Laboratory, he returned to the Pegnitz Hotel and began preparing for his upcoming report.

Days flew by and it was soon the report day.

The report would be held at Humboldt University.

Lu Zhou woke up early on Saturday and arrived at the venue an hour earlier.

The venue was almost full of people when he arrived.

The Max Planck Institute didn't have restrictions on participants; they only pre-allocated seats for important participants. Therefore, many scholars, students, and professors from major universities and research institutes also joined in on the fun.

It was less than half an hour until the report began; some people even sat on the corridor.

The theoretical chemistry community had been waiting for this report for two months.

They were wondering if this could mean a new generation of chemistry…

Everyone looked at the big screen behind the podium while they waited to witness this historic moment.

President Stratmann stood next to the podium and saw the people sitting on the ground. He told the venue staff members to find some chairs and place them inside the venue.

He then looked at Lu Zhou who was copying data onto the projector.

"How's the preparation going?"

Lu Zhou said in a relaxed manner, "Basically, pretty good."

"You got this," Stratmann said as he gave Lu Zhou a thumbs up. He then added, "I hope everyone will get to witness history today."

Lu Zhou smiled and adjusted his tie.

"Definitely."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

Chapter 357: New Chemistry!

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Not everyone in the audience was researching theoretical chemistry. Other than chemistry scholars, there were many people who did research on applied mathematics, condensed matter physics, and even materials science.

Professor Stanley from Binghamton University was one of them.

He wore a long trench coat and sat quietly in the corner of the venue. With his hat covering his face, it looked like he didn't want to be recognized.

But even if he didn't dress like this, few people would have recognized him.

It looked like he had aged ten years; his face was no longer full of energy.

Professor Stanley didn't know what his mood should be.

He randomly bought a ticket to Berlin and came to his venue. He wasn't sure what he should expect from this report.

"Come on…

"Let me see how you defeated me."

Professor Stanley's lips trembled as he stared at the projector screen.

He whispered to himself, "Let me see what you were really researching…"

Finally, it was ten o'clock.

The whispers that filled the venue disappeared.

It was like they were silenced by some mysterious power.

No one had to maintain the orderliness of the venue; no one had to announce the beginning of the report.

Because suddenly, the PowerPoint turned to the first page, showing the title.

[Theoretical Model of the Electrochemical Interface Structure]

Lu Zhou looked at the crowd and adjusted the microphone. He then cleared his throat and spoke.

"The theoretical model of the electrochemical interface structure has been a problem in the theoretical chemistry community for many years.

"Unless we understand the nature of the interface, we cannot thoroughly clarify the microscopic essence of various electrochemical processes.

"From a mathematical point of view, I tried to establish a theoretical model from the collected data and observed phenomena. This mathematical model has been tested on the Anton supercomputer.

"Now, I will elaborate on the theoretical model I proposed.

"If there are mistakes, I hope I can be corrected."

Lu Zhou spoke slowly.

He continued his speech.

He had been preparing for this report for two months.

When he was designing the PowerPoint, not only did he elaborate on the difficult parts of the theoretical model, but he also explained the complicated theory in a language that made it as simple as possible.

Of course, he didn't over-simplify the theory itself.

The reason for an academic conference was to spread knowledge. However, the academic report wasn't for the public. It wasn't Lu Zhou's responsibility to make other people understand his report.

There was no room for compromise.

Everyone in the venue listened intently.

Although they couldn't understand everything, no one wanted to miss any details.

Missing one detail could mean everything.

"All of the ground state properties of multi-particle systems are the only density functions. With this, we can calculate the total energy of multi-particle systems as the sum of kinetic energy, general coulomb energy, and multi-body effects…

"All of these three energy values can be calculated."

While speaking, Lu Zhou used a marker to write on a whiteboard.

Part of the theorem was derived by the Hohenberg-Kohn theorem, it wasn't particularly difficult.

The next part was the calculations, which was the main part of the theoretical model.

There were more and more equations appearing on the whiteboard. Many people were lost as they were unable to keep up with Lu Zhou's speed.

Professor Stanley stared at the whiteboard and muttered to himself, "What is he writing?"

Even though Stanley did his homework and read the thesis many times, he still couldn't understand the report.

However, he was still an outstanding scholar.

Although he was far from a Nobel Prize, he was still much stronger than the average scholar.

Professor Stanley gently tapped his pen on his laptop.

Suddenly, his brain made a connection…

What connection?

He didn't know either.

He couldn't understand the connection…

Some of the audience was becoming more and more focused on the talk.

Professor Ertl was one of them.

As a Nobel Prize winner, he had a deep understanding of computational chemistry.

Although he had many questions about Lu Zhou's theoretical model, most of the questions were from the mathematical side.

But now, Lu Zhou's detailed explanation laid out every formula and derivation.

His original doubts had disappeared.

Lu Zhou's voice echoed through the quiet venue.

Time quickly flew by.

Without knowing it, Lu Zhou had already filled five whiteboards. He turned his attention to the next one and began writing.

Lu Zhou finished writing on the sixth whiteboard and took two steps back.

"Using this theorem, the result is obvious…"

He looked at the six whiteboards and suddenly stopped talking. He started to think.

The venue was dead silent while everyone looked at him.

A minute passed.

This minute felt like an hour.

Professor Ertl looked at the lines of calculations on the whiteboard and said, "No doubt…"

President Stratmann immediately said, "No doubt what?"

Ertl suddenly smiled and put down his pen.

"There is no doubt that this is a new generation of chemistry."

Professor Stanley, who was sitting at the corner of the venue, took off his glasses and frowned.

Undoubtedly.

He had lost.

A complete defeat…

He wasn't even worthy to be his opponent.

However, Professor Stanley felt relief.

His question was finally answered…

There was a commotion in the crowd.

More and more people began to understand the theoretical model.

At last, Lu Zhou came back to life.

He smiled at the whiteboards.

He then turned around and gently placed the marker down on the podium.

Finally, he made an announcement.

"… As you can see, our conclusion is correct!"

The moment he finished his announcement, the venue was filled with thunderous applause.

Applause of approval.

Applause of celebration.

They were also applauding this historic moment…

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

Chapter 358: Nobel Prize Winner Recommendation

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

When a theory was thoroughly clarified in a report to the point that it warranted applause, a QA session wouldn't be necessary.

Of course, there were still many people that asked questions during the QA session.

Lu Zhou answered all of the questions in detail.

This was undoubtedly more exciting than the MRS Conference which didn't have a single question.

This meant that the audience was actually paying attention.

After the report, several doctoral holders from Humboldt University went on stage and asked for Lu Zhou's signature. They said it was to commemorate this chemistry historic moment.

Although Lu Zhou didn't think that history would remember such trivial matters, he still fulfilled their request and scribbled his signature on their textbooks.

At backstage, Professor Ertl walked toward Lu Zhou, and he spoke in a serious tone, "Whether the Nobel Prize committee agrees with your theory or not, I will recommend you to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences."

Lu Zhou smiled. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Professor Ertl smiled at Lu Zhou and said, "We're the ones that should be saying thank you. Thank you for bringing this report to Berlin. We haven't seen such an amazing report in a while. Although I can't guarantee that you will win the Nobel Prize, I think that you are worthy of nomination."

According to the Nobel Prize selection rules, former Nobel Prize winners were allowed to recommend candidates.

However, this was nothing to get excited about. Every year there were thousands of recommended candidates, but after two rounds of screening, there would only be one Nobel Prize winner.

Usually, the referee names couldn't be disclosed, and the nomination information was confidential for 50 years.

But the rule wasn't enforced in the initial recommendation stage.

Nobel Prize winner would often joke that they "recommended you to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences". This would cause stress on the potential nominee until the results were revealed in October.

Of course, this didn't apply to the Nobel Peace Prize and Nobel Prize in Literature.

Even gambling companies could guess the list of nominees in advance and announce the list.

Lu Zhou joked, "You shouldn't tell me, you'll ruin the surprise."

Ertl laughed and said, "Only a nomination, don't get too excited. It'll be lucky if you can win the prize by my age."

Lu Zhou made a helpless expression.

"That's… a bit sad."

It wasn't realistic to win a Nobel Prize by creating a theoretical model.

But Lu Zhou still felt like he wouldn't take that long…

…

Lu Zhou wasn't worried about the Nobel Prize, nor was he anxious about Professor Ertl's recommendation.

He felt like the medal was an endorsement of his research, but it didn't give him motivation.

He was still young.

He just had to do his own research. He'll get what he deserved sooner or later.

Regardless of how Lu Zhou thought about the medal, the entire theoretical chemistry community exploded after the report.

The response was way more intense than Lu Zhou's first JACS thesis.

Like the Millennium Prize Problems in mathematics, there were similar questions in chemistry.

However, these questions were longer than one equation. Universities were still debating about which question was more important.

However, even though there was a debate, the theoretical chemistry community had reached a general consensus.

For example, there were four major chemistry problems in the 21st century. One of them was how to establish a time-dependent quantum many-body theory.

Simplified, the problem was concerned with the calculation of the rate of chemical reactions, the route of chemical reaction, and how much catalysts were needed.

Also, how to answer similar questions using a theory.

The theoretical model of the electrochemical interface structure was one of the problems.

What this theoretical model was to the four major chemistry problems was like what the Hardy-Littlewood theorem was to Riemann's conjecture.

The Hardy-Littlewood theorem determined that the number of non-trivial zeros in a certain interval of the Riemann function was less than KT. On the other hand, the theoretical model of the electrochemical interface structure determined the "microchemistry of a certain type of reaction".

After Lu Zhou's report, the Max Plank Institute announced their support for the Theoretical Model of Electrochemical Interface Structure.

What was interesting was that after the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Plank Society stated their opinion, Professor Martin Karplus, who previously stated his optimistic opinion about the theory on Nature, immediately published a JACS thesis.

In Karplus' thesis, he cited Lu Zhou's JACS thesis and gave a clear explanation of the zero-charge potential of polycrystalline metal electrodes from a theoretical point of view.

This was a classic electrochemistry problem.

Although the existence of "zero-charge potential of polycrystalline metal electrodes" was unquestionable, there had been no conclusion on the exact formation mechanism under microscopic conditions.

However, solving this problem with the "Theoretical Model of Electrochemical Interface Structure" wasn't difficult.

Obviously, this Nobel Prize winner already knew the potential behind this theoretical model two months ago. That was why this thesis was published in such a timely manner.

It seemed that he won.

It wasn't only Martin Karplus who was interested in this new theory.

More and more theoretical chemistry researchers showed great interest in this theory.

Compared with the inferior "Kohn-Sham method" or the "density functional theory", the Theoretical Model of Electrochemical Interface Structure was almost made for electrochemistry materials. It provided a strong foundation for the study of polymer materials as well.

Especially for PhDs in computational materials science and computational chemistry, this theory was a god's gift.

At least it gave their bosses another reason for them to stay in the research team.

While the world was debating if Lu Zhou could become the youngest Nobel Prize winner due to this theory, the German Chemical Society made a quiet decision.

In recognition of this theoretical chemistry's contribution to the chemistry society, the German Chemical Society decided to award the founder a remarkable medal…

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

A week after the report at a Humboldt University auditorium.

Lu Zhou was dressed in formal attire as he stood in front of the podium just like last time. He adjusted his breathing pattern and felt as if his heart were about to jump out of his chest.

Precisely speaking, a prize-giving podium.

On the screen behind him, there was a list of his chemistry research achievements.

Klaus Mullen, the president of the German Chemical Society, started the speech in a calm voice.

"… From the modified PDMS film to the hollow carbon spheres that inhibit the diffusion of polysulfide compounds, from the imperfect HCS-1 material to the HCS-2 material that completely solved the bottleneck of the lithium-sulfur battery industry. Not to mention the Theoretical Model of the Electrochemical Interface Structure.

"He has done something meaningful for our world and civilization through his own knowledge.

"Very few scholars can achieve such great results at this age.

"Now that the Theoretical Model of the Electrochemical Interface Structure is completed, it will allow us to achieve even greater results. I believe that this will become a cornerstone for our future theories."

Professor Klaus Mullen paused for a second before he announced the German Chemical Society's decision.

"The German Chemical Society has decided to reward Lu Zhou the great Hoffman Prize to thank him for his contribution to the theoretical chemistry community.

"Please give him a round of applause."

Thunderous applause filled the venue.

Professor Ertl was sitting in the crowd, and he gave Lu Zhou a thumbs up.

Sitting next to him was Faltings; he looked bored and couldn't help but yawn.

However, the arrogant German man still clapped his hands.

The theoretical model contained a certain amount of mathematical beauty.

This was the reason for his applause.

Faltings reluctantly admitted that mathematical part in the theory was sophisticated.

On stage.

The medal and certificates were handed to Lu Zhou as the old man smiled and reach out his hand.

"Congratulations, Professor Lu Zhou."

The Hoffman Prize was established by the German Chemical Society in 1902. The rules were that any scholar who could make an outstanding contribution to the field of chemistry could win this medal regardless of nationality.

The prize money wasn't a lot; it was only 10,000.

Lu Zhou was the first Chinese scholar to receive this honor; he was also the youngest.

The meaning behind the honor was even more significant due to these two factors.

Holding the medal and certificate, Lu Zhou shook Professor Mullen's hand as he expressed his gratitude.

"Thank you."

Professor Mullen smiled and replied, "You're welcome, you deserve this honor."

The award ceremony came to an end.

However, the German Chemical Society hadn't finished celebrating yet.

It was a tradition in the academic community to host a party after an award ceremony.

At night, at The Westin Grand Berlin hotel, the German Chemical Society held a banquet for Lu Zhou; all of the members of the society were invited.

In addition to celebrating the Hoffman Prize, the purpose of this party was also to provide a place for scholars to network and communicate.

As the winner of the Hoffman Prize, Lu Zhou was undoubtedly the center of attention.

Many people gave him their congratulations.

Professor Mullen was chatting with Lu Zhou, and he said, "… China is a beautiful country, I have been there many times. I've been to Shanghai Jiao Tong University the most as the library there gave me a lasting impression. It was packed full of people from opening to close. In my opinion, a nation that loves academia and knowledge is worthy of respect."

Any outstanding scholar had many identities. Other than the president of the German Chemical Society, Professor Mullen was also the dean of the German Academy of Sciences and the director of the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research. He was also an honorary professor of Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

He spoke in a sincere manner.

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "I'm glad to hear that. If you want, you can come to visit Jin Ling University. I promise you it's a beautiful place."

"Haha, please take me there."

Professor Mullen smiled as he added, "Any place that can cultivate a scholar of your caliber is worth visiting."

Lu Zhou toasted with Mullen. "For sure."

Although he wasn't sure if Professor Mullen could find any inspiration from Jin Ling University's education model, communicating with foreign universities was always a good experience.

As a handsome alumnus, Lu Zhou felt like he should contribute something for Jin Ling University.

…

Lu Zhou drank quite a bit of alcohol at the party. Although he had a decent alcohol tolerance, he couldn't drink anymore.

Lu Zhou took a taxi and returned to the Pegnitz Hotel. The first thing he did was to take a hot bath in the bathroom.

Once he got rid of the alcohol smell on his body, he felt a lot more comfortable.

Lu Zhou threw his clothes into the laundry and lay down in bed. He looked at the blank ceiling and played with the medal in his hand.

He suddenly felt a little lonely, so he took out his phone and spoke.

"Xiao Ai, I'm a little dizzy now, I'm going to sleep soon. I feel like I forgot about something, do you know what it is?"

Xiao Ai thought for a bit.

A line of words appeared on the screen.

Xiao Ai: [Master, I know, you forgot to celebrate with your fans!]

Lu Zhou: …?

What?

I think…

It's right.

Lu Zhou smiled with a drunken look on his face.

This…

Isn't good.

Although the Hoffman Prize wasn't as popular as the Crafoord Prize, and the German Chemical Society wasn't as strong as the American Chemical Society, the Hoffman Prize was still popular in the chemistry community.

After all, this award wasn't given every year.

Due to the rarity of this medal, it had even more influence than the Adams Chemistry Prize.

Thinking about it this way, he should really share the joy with his fans.

Lu Zhou took a photo of the Hoffman Prize medal and certificate before he wrote a caption.

[Was just given a 10,000 prize bonus. Last time, I chose ten winners for a Huawei phone. This time, I'll choose ten iPhone winners.]

Lu Zhou hit "Send" before he threw his phone on the nightstand and went to sleep.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

Chapter 360: These Students Are Not Good Enough!

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

[Nutty!]

[God Lu is insane!]

[I thought that once I go into university, I would be able to touch God Lu's trophy, but now, I don't even understand what God Lu's trophy is…]

[It doesn't matter if you understand it or not, geniuses doing scientific research is different than normal people doing scientific research…]

[I'm staying up all night reading theses, so sad ]

[Can this guy humble brag any more?]

[Lu Zhou, please teach me…]

[God Lu, are you still writing other people's theses?]

[…]

Overnight, Lu Zhou's inbox had 99 notifications.

The comment section was blowing up.

Lu Zhou sat in the hotel restaurant and was eating breakfast. As he scrolled through his phone while looking at his fan messages, it made his breakfast even more delicious.

Suddenly, he received a call.

Lu Zhou picked up the phone and heard Principal Xu's voice.

"How is it, is there hope for a Nobel Prize?"

Lu Zhou nearly choked on his food.

"How would I know?"

Even Einstein didn't receive the Nobel Prize immediately after explaining the photoelectric effect.

The more original a theory was, the more time it would take to test its importance and value. After all, not everything was as simple as the "existence of gravitational waves".

Principal Xu realized that he had asked a nonsense question. He smiled as he said, "This… I don't know anything about chemistry. However, the professors from the chemistry department have a high opinion of you. They said your theory laid the foundation for computational chemistry. A few academicians agree that it is no exaggeration to say that your research deserves a Nobel Prize."

This is not a f*cking exaggeration?

Lu Zhou replied humbly, "… That's a bit optimistic."

"Haha, it's not optimistic at all, congratulations on your Hoffman Prize!" Principal Xu smiled and changed into a more serious tone as he asked, "Also, I have something to ask you, what do you think about computational chemistry?"

Lu Zhou was stunned. He thought about it for a few seconds before he replied.

"I think it is a good field, it can increase our research efficiency and decrease research costs. This is all thanks to the breakthrough in computer technology. I think that chemistry will go in the direction of physics, it will change from a purely experimental discipline to a discipline based on experiment, theory, and calculation."

Actually, this wasn't Lu Zhou's own idea. The potential of computational chemistry was mentioned at the 1998 Nobel Prize in Chemistry awards ceremony.

But now, the idea became a reality. Until now, computational chemistry hadn't received any attention.

Lu Zhou always felt like it was only a matter of time until the rise of computational chemistry.

Principal Xu smiled after hearing Lu Zhou's answer.

"I think so too."

Principal Xu was in computer science. He was an academician in the Ministry of Information Technology, and he had always valued Jin Ling University's computer science department.

Now that the international theoretical chemistry community had recognized Lu Zhou's theoretical model, the domestic debate had ended. Particularly, the success of the HCS-2 material shone a light on the future of computational chemistry. This was one of the reasons why Principal Xu wanted to develop in the area of computational chemistry.

Actually, Jin Ling University had a theoretical and computational chemistry research institute. However, it mainly did theoretical research and lacked special equipment.

Principal Xu Jian paused for a second before he said, "We plan on building a computational chemistry supercomputer center near Jin Ling University campus, what do you think?"

Lu Zhou was stunned.

"I think it's good…"

Does Jin Ling University have this much money?

A supercomputer center wouldn't be cheap.

When Principal Xu heard Lu Zhou's answer, he smiled and said, "Then, can you please help us write a letter?"

Lu Zhou: "Letter?"

Principal Xu: "Yes, just talk about the application potential of computational chemistry… After all, Jin Ling University can't afford to buy a supercomputer; we need support from the state."

Lu Zhou suddenly realized what was happening.

So, you're asking me for this favor?

"Oh, just this? Okay," Lu Zhou said. He didn't know if he would be of any use, but he still agreed quickly. "Give me a week, I'll write a letter to you."

Principal Xu smiled and said, "Thank you so much."

If Jin Ling University built a computational chemistry supercomputer, it would be helpful for Lu Zhou's computational materials research institute. He could easily borrow the equipment.

Therefore, Lu Zhou was also helping himself.

Lu Zhou finished his breakfast and returned to his room to change his outfit.

At the party yesterday, President Hendrik Olbertz of Humboldt University gave him an invitation to give a lecture to the science students at Humboldt University.

Although he said it was a lecture for undergraduate students, before the lecture even began, a few Humboldt University professors walked into the lecture hall and sat at the back of the classroom.

They were engineering professors, which was in a different field than Lu Zhou's. They didn't expect to learn any new theory from Lu Zhou; they only wanted to learn how Princeton professors lectured.

Because of this, the professors were even prepared to take notes.

Lu Zhou looked at the crowded classroom and adjusted the microphone on the podium. He made sure everything was working normally before he looked at the clock on the wall.

It was about time, so he cleared his throat and began his speech.

This was an unexpected lecture, so Lu Zhou didn't have much time to prepare. However, that was not a big deal for him.

The lecture was about general scientific knowledge, it didn't dive deep into any specific area.

His lecture was about the connections between physics, mathematics, and chemistry. He also talked about the problems he encountered in scientific research as well as some of the research experiences he acquired.

He didn't even use a PowerPoint. With just a blackboard and chalk, Lu Zhou managed to portray his thoughts vividly.

However, there was a difference between plans and reality.

The first half of the hour was fine, but when the second half of the hour came, Lu Zhou wanted to make his theory more convincing and obvious, so he couldn't help but write a few lines of equations on the blackboard.

After that, it was like a tsunami.

The entire blackboard was soon filled with equations.

The students sitting in the classroom were fascinated by the first half of the lecture, but they were soon muddled when the second half came along.

"That's the gist of it."

Lu Zhou threw the chalk on the podium and patted the dust off his arms.

"I've finished my lecture. Did you understand everything?"

Everyone, including the professors, looked at him silently; no one dared to speak.

Lu Zhou gradually lost his smile.

"…"

F*ck sake!

These students are not good enough!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

Chapter 361: A New Letter

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Lu Zhou shook his head at the muddled students before he announced the end of his lecture.

He didn't stay for a second. Instead, he just turned around and left the classroom.

However, Lu Zhou didn't go far before someone shouted at him.

"Please wait for a second, Professor Lu!"

Lu Zhou stopped walking and turned around. He saw a well-dressed lady rushing out of the classroom.

Lu Zhou looked at the girl and asked, "Who are you?"

The girl took a few breaths and brushed her hair, she smiled and spoke.

"I'm Hu Ying, a second-year student at Humboldt University!"

Lu Zhou nodded and said, "Nice to meet you, Hu Ying, what do you want?"

"Nothing." Hu Ying looked around and smiled before she said, "Um… Professor Lu sounds weird, can I call you God Lu?"

Weird?

Lu Zhou didn't understand why Professor Lu sounded weird.

However, he didn't really care what other people called him.

A name was a name. Besides, his roommates at Dorm 201 gave him countless nicknames, so he was used to it.

Therefore, Lu Zhou nodded and said, "Okay, I don't care."

Hu Ying smiled and said, "God Lu, can you please tell me how can I be as excellent as you?"

An academics problem, I see.

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "What is your major?"

Hu Ying replied immediately, "Applied mathematics and international trade!"

Double degree?

Lu Zhou raised his eyebrows.

He didn't understand much about international trade, but applied mathematics was his cup of tea.

"Do you have a pen and paper?"

Is he giving me his phone number?

"I do!" Hu Ying's eyes lit up as she grabbed a pen and notebook from her purse. She then smiled and said, "Thank you, God Lu, for mentoring me!"

"Not quite mentoring, but I can teach you a little about applied mathematics."

Lu Zhou took the pen and paper from her and immediately started writing.

Time quickly passed by.

Lu Zhou finished writing another page, and Hu Ying started to get suspicious.

Just as she was wondering what kind of contact information wouldn't fit on a page, Lu Zhou stopped writing and handed her back her notebook.

"This is a book list. I've read these books at Humboldt University when I was bored, and they should be helpful for applied mathematics."

Hu Ying: ???

Hu Ying was rooted to the spot. Lu Zhou thought that she went into deep thought and nodded with satisfaction.

"The rest is up to you, there is no technique other than hard work.

"That is all I can do for you."

Before Hu Ying could say anything, Lu Zhou turned around and left.

Lu Zhou walked outside the school gate and went to the supermarket. He then bought some letters and envelopes.

He didn't want to forget anything, so he decided to send Principal Xu the letter in the afternoon.

Lu Zhou walked out of the supermarket with a plastic bag and was about to go back to his hotel when he saw the girl running toward him again.

"Wait a minute…"

Hu Ying stopped running and panted while holding her kneecaps. Lu Zhou was stunned.

"Do you need anything else?"

"I forgot to give you something."

"… What?"

"Letter!"

Hu Ying took out a letter from her purse and shoved it into Lu Zhou's hands.

Lu Zhou took the letter and looked at her in confusion.

Why do I feel like…

She looks resentful?

Lu Zhou couldn't think of anything that might have pissed her off so he placed the thought aside.

Lu Zhou turned the letter.

He saw the address of the sender and was stunned.

The German embassy?

Lu Zhou opened the letter and read the words.

[… Hello, Professor Lu, I am Hu Mingde, the ambassador to Germany. I would like to express my congratulations for your Hoffman Prize…]

Lu Zhou skipped the political part and read the last paragraph.

[… My wife and I are very interested in your story. I am very thankful for your achievements in mathematics, theoretical chemistry, and physics. Would you like to have dinner with us?

[Ambassador Hu Mingde]

Lu Zhou looked at Hu Ying with suspicion.

This letter seemed legit, it didn't seem like a joke.

However, Lu Zhou was confused.

Why did a letter from an ambassador come from a student?

Lu Zhou asked the question.

After some explanation, he found out that this girl wasn't just a student at Humboldt University.

In addition to serving as an assistant for the embassy, she was also the president of the Humboldt University Chinese Society, and also the Director of the Berlin University Student Union…

Of course, this didn't matter that much.

What mattered was that she had a diplomat as a father…

…

He had to give some respect to the ambassador's invitation.

Lu Zhou told Hu Ying that he would accept the invitation and agreed to a time and place.

Lu Zhou had plans tomorrow.

He might not be in Berlin for long, so he wanted to complete this matter as soon as possible.

Lu Zhou returned to his hotel and placed the invitation letter aside. He took out the letter and envelope he bought from the supermarket and began writing Principal Xu's letter.

He didn't think this would be that difficult to write. However, once he began writing it, he ran into some obstacles.

He had never been good at politics, and he had never even read an official political letter before.

He found out that his letter started to look like an exposition.

Lu Zhou shook his head and leaned back against his chair.

"If I've known that it would so difficult, I would have just signed an empty letter and give it to Principal Xu."

This was a good idea, but he would never do it.

After all, he was a disciplined scholar, so he had to keep his word.

Lu Zhou finally gave up. He crunched the paper into a ball and started all over again on a blank piece of paper.

He was a scholar; he should just speak what was on his mind.

Lu Zhou wrote a new headline.

[The application prospects of computational science in research and development of chemistry and materials science.]

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

Chapter 362: Ambassador's Invitation

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Lu Zhou wrote countless words and read the letter from beginning to end. He made sure that he didn't make any mistakes before he stuffed the letter into the envelope.

Lu Zhou didn't expect that a letter could help Jin Ling University get a supercomputer.

However, he wrote down his detailed views on computational chemistry, materials science, and the practical significance of computational materials.

Anton's strengths were obvious; a supercomputer was needed for any kind of molecular dynamics simulation.

Although there weren't much short term gains, this was definitely a worthwhile long-term investment.

Lu Zhou looked at the clock on the wall; it was getting late. He changed into formal clothes and went downstairs to take a taxi.

When he got to the entrance of the hotel, he saw a black Mercedes-Benz parked there. A man in a gray suit was standing next to the car.

The moment he saw Lu Zhou, he immediately greeted him.

The guy reached out with his right hand and said, "Hello, Professor Lu, I am the driver from the embassy, here to pick you up."

Lu Zhou shook his hand and asked, "What should I call you?"

"Just call me Sun Hong."

This man definitely wasn't just a driver; he looked like a bodyguard from the embassy.

However, this had nothing to do with Lu Zhou. He looked at Sun Hong's identity document and sat in the car.

The car quickly drove to the Spree River in the heart of Berlin and stopped in front of the embassy in Germany.

Lu Zhou saw Hu Mingde and his wife waiting in front of the magnificent building.

"Welcome, Professor Lu!"

"Nice to meet you!" Lu Zhou shook hands with the ambassador and politely said, "There's no need to be so kind. Humboldt University isn't far from here, I could've taken a taxi."

"No way! This is the least we can do," Ambassador Hu said.

He then smiled and said, "This is my wife, Wang Dexin."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Dexin, what a nice name, it means simple yet elegant, right?"

Mrs. Wang smiled as she replied, "I didn't know that Professor Lu is also a man of culture."

Lu Zhou was a little embarrassed.

He actually didn't know anything about culture.

Everything he knew was from high school…

"Let's go inside," Ambassador Hu made a gesture and said, "Professor Lu, please."

…

Ambassador Hu, his wife, and Lu Zhou ate dinner together at the restaurant in the embassy.

The food was nothing special. However, it was traditional-style Chinese food that was difficult to find overseas.

Lu Zhou looked at the crystal clear pork buns and couldn't help but speak.

"… It's been so many years since I left, I miss this thing the most."

After he went to Princeton, he found out that he missed the pork buns and beef noodles the most.

He couldn't get pork buns in Princeton, but he could still find beef noodles.

However, the beef noodles were sweet!

Instead of chili peppers, they put sugar in the noodles!

There was no way Lu Zhou could accept this.

Ambassador Hu smiled as he asked, "How is the food?"

"It's delicious," Lu Zhou replied. He then smiled and said, "You must have invited great chefs, tell them I said thanks."

Ambassador Hu laughed.

"The chef is sitting right in front of you."

Lu Zhou looked at Mrs. Wang with surprise.

"Did you make this?"

Mrs. Wang smiled as she replied humbly, "I'm no great chef. I made the pork buns, but the other dishes are made by the real chefs of the embassy."

"Being an ambassador is an interesting job. However, I do miss home after being away for a long time. My wife and I love to study our traditional culture, and food is one of them." Ambassador Hu laughed and said, "I'm mainly responsible for the eating part."

The dinner wasn't serious at all; it was almost like a family dinner, relaxed and friendly.

Lu Zhou talked about his research and teaching at Princeton, while Ambassador Hu talked about his experiences working in Germany.

The three ate while chatting.

When everyone was almost finished with their meal, Ambassador Hu wiped his mouth with a paper towel before he looked at Lu Zhou with a smile.

"Professor Lu, you've been single for so many years, haven't you thought about finding a partner?"

Lu Zhou sighed. "Busy with career, I don't have time for that."

It was true.

Before this, he couldn't find a suitable one, but now, he didn't even have the time to find one.

Lu Zhou felt like with his looks and career, he could easily find a partner.

"Haha, you're right, your time must be precious. However, although scientific research is important, you have to take other aspects of your life seriously. How about I introduce one to you?" Ambassador Hu said in a half-joking tone, "What do you think of Hu Ying?"

Lu Zhou coughed and said, "Um… Marriage is an important event, I won't trouble you with it."

Arranged marriage is a horrible backward tradition…

However, if the state wants to solve my marriage situation…

I can consider it!

Ambassador Hu saw that Lu Zhou wasn't interested in his daughter, but he didn't seem to care. He merely said, "Haha, I'm just saying, don't take it seriously."

However, Ambassador Hu didn't look like he was joking at all.

Ambassador Hu coughed and spoke in a more serious tone.

"Have you been paying attention to this years' National Science and Technology Award Conference?"

Lu Zhou looked at him suspiciously. He didn't know why Ambassador Hu suddenly brought this topic up.

"I haven't… Why?"

"You can expect some great things."

Ambassador Hu laughed.

He then laid out a piece of news.

"I heard from my friend that your name might be in the January conference next year."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

Chapter 363: I Am Just A Mathematics Professor

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

A rustic study room in Beijing.

An old man sat in front of a wooden desk while he read a letter in his hand.

Although he couldn't understand most of the letter, his assistant pointed out the key points for him. He skipped the paragraphs that contained technical words.

Footstep sounds came from the corridor; a knock was heard outside his office.

The old man put the letter down and said, "Come in."

The door opened and an old man wearing a suit walked in.

"Elder, are you looking for me?"

"I have something that I'm not sure about, and I want to ask you," the old man said as he looked at Old Wu. He then asked, "It's about the young man. Do you think he should get the first-class award or the second-class award?"

Although the old man didn't say the name of the young person, Old Wu immediately knew who he was talking about.

Old Wu paused for a second before he said, "I think both the first class and second class awards are not appropriate. The State Science and Technology Progress Award is more appropriate than the State Natural Science Award."

Although the State Science and Technology Progress Award was one of the top five awards in the country, it was still one level lower than the State Natural Science Award.

To make an analogy, this would be like the difference between the city's three best students and the state's three best students.

The old man thought for a moment before he said, "In the 1980s, Mr. Chen won the first-class Natural Science Award for his contribution to Goldbach's conjecture. With this in mind, the young man should be worthy."

Old Wu knew the old man would say this, so he smiled and tried to persuade him.

"It's not the 1980s anymore; the domestic academic community was underdeveloped back then. It's different now. Goldbach's conjecture is only a mathematics conjecture."

The old man smiled and said, "Then what about the lithium-sulfur batteries? That's an applicable result."

According to the government's plan, they were going to increase the battery capacity to 350Wh/kg by 2020 and achieve a price of $1 yuan/Wh.

But now, with the breakthrough in lithium batteries, the battery capacity had more than tripled, thus fulfilling the government's plan.

The young man solved the technical problem of lithium dendrites and lithium-sulfur battery positive electrode materials. There was no doubt that the state energy department owed him one.

The old man loved young, capable people.

Old Wu was the head of the Ministry of Science and Technology, and he couldn't help but feel he was stuck in a dilemma.

He actually believed that Lu Zhou deserved this honor.

However, the state awards were different than academic institute awards. They had to think beyond academics; they had to think of the response of others.

Old Wu thought for a moment before asking, "If you give him the honor now, what will happen if he achieves something greater? Are we going to give him the Highest Science and Technology Award?"

The old man smiled and said, "If he deserves it, then why not?"

Old Wu sighed. "The average Highest Science and Technology Award winner is over eighty years old. If you give it to a young person, I'm afraid the public…"

He paused for a second before continuing, "Regardless, it might not be a good thing for him."

He was right.

This time, the old man didn't speak. Instead, he merely nodded as he began to think.

After a minute, he spoke.

"Go do your own stuff, I'll think about it."

Director Wu sighed and nodded.

He turned around and started to leave.

However, when he was at the door, he heard the old man said, "Wait a second."

Director Wu turned around and asked respectfully, "Is there anything else?"

The old man slid the letter across his desk.

"I have a letter here, take it and read it."

Director Wu immediately took the letter and opened it.

He was stunned when he saw the title of the letter.

[The Application of Computer Science in Cutting-Edge Research and The Trend Of Future Academia Development.]

…

Lu Zhou was in Germany. He didn't know that his letter to Jin Ling University was passed to the government heads.

After all, he was more interested in science than politics.

After he got back from the embassy, he and Professor Klitzing went to Greifswald in east Germany.

This small town had a population of less than 70,000. Almost all of them were members of the University of Greifswald. This was like the Princeton of Germany, quiet and rural, perfect for studying and retirement.

However, Lu Zhou and Professor Klitzing didn't come here for the University of Greifswald; they came for the Wendelstein 7-X research institute.

Professor Klitzing walked into the institute and brought Lu Zhou into a laboratory. He found the person in charge and spoke to Lu Zhou.

"This is the person I told you about, Professor Ralph Keriber. He's worked here for more than ten years, making him one of the oldest research engineers here."

"That's right, I watched this little guy grow up," Professor Keriber said as he took off his hard hat and smiled. He then offered his right hand to Lu Zhou and said, "Welcome, professor from Princeton University, I'm glad you are interested in this project."

He was talking about the stellarator. The stellarator was actually related to Princeton. Even though it was Germany that developed this technology, it was Lyman Spitzer, a physicist of Princeton University, who first proposed the idea.

However, the idea was considered too advanced at the time; it was unfeasible both from the engineering side and the materials science side.

Ten years later, the first stellarator was born. Fifty years after that, the stellarator was still a prototype. It might take another fifty years until a fully working model could be created.

Lu Zhou shook his hand and smiled as he spoke humbly.

"I'm only a mathematics professor, I haven't done any research on nuclear fusion. I'm only here to satisfy my curiosity, so I'm afraid I can't help you."

As a Nobel Prize in Physics winner, Professor Keriber disrespected physics and said, "Haha, who cares? In my opinion, Princeton mathematics professors are more remarkable than physics professors."

Professor Klitzing wanted to say something but Keriber put his hard hat on and spoke again.

"It's the perfect time for you to come, there's an experiment planned for today. Come with me, I'll show you the little guy."

He took the two people and walked out of the laboratory.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

Chapter 364: Six Seconds?

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

This laboratory was an "investment" under the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics. Obviously, many other research institutes around the globe were also researching the same device.

Lu Zhou looked at the list of cooperating research institutes; the list of names was long enough to fill an entire A4 page. If this was like CERN, where everyone involved had their name on the final thesis, then the first few pages of the thesis would be filled with just names.

The stellarator seemed small compared to the research group.

Lu Zhou and Professor Klitzing followed Professor Keriber's footsteps. They finally walked into the radiation protected room and saw the Wendelstein 7-X.

It sat quietly in the middle of the radiation protected room; it was 3.5 meters high and 16 meters wide. The stellarator looked like the "Millennium Falcon" from Star Wars.

It was like it had just been in a battle and was docked in the "Star Harbor" while it was being fixed by technicians.

Lu Zhou walked closer and could see countless electric cables connecting to various types of equipment. It was all tangled together.

"How much is this thing?"

"Apparently, it's over one billion euros," Professor Klitzing said with admiration. "If you add in the cost of research, the figure would be astronomical."

The physics community was envious of the funding that the Institute for Plasma Physics had.

On the other hand, the Max Planck Institute for Condensed Matter Physics had a lot less funding.

Klitzing was well aware of this.

After all, this multi-country collaborative project wasn't only funded by Germany, many other countries also participated.

"Is it really that expensive?"

Lu Zhou gulped.

Before this, he was wondering if he should buy one for research, but now, it seemed that it would be better if he stuck to supercomputers…

"Fine, who cares about money, we don't have to worry about that," Professor Keriber said as he patted Lu Zhou's shoulder. He then added, "The final calibrations are done, the experiment is about to start, let's go to the observation room."

…

This was different than CERN. The Hadron Collider was 100 meters underground, and unless someone was a qualified engineer, they would not be able to enter the pipeline.

The theoretical physicists could only look at data on a computer screen.

But now, the Stellarator was right in front of Lu Zhou's eyes.

The staff members were waiting inside the observation room.

"Coil tension normal!"

"Filling in protective gas!"

"Protective gas is filled, beginning pressure measurement procedure!"

"…"

"Superconducting temperature reached, the circuit is fully charged!"

"Magnetic field looks normal!"

Professor Keriber issued a command.

"Ignite!"

The moment the magnet current reached 15kA, the thyristor switches quickly switched on and the magnet current was transferred to the first stage energy-consuming resistor, generating 2,400 voltage. This caused the gas in the vacuum chamber to break down, thereby generating plasma.

Lu Zhou could see a layer of reddish membrane material through the screen; it formed a ring around the circular orbit.

He was surprised at how beautiful it was.

"… The temperature of the plasma will reach hundreds of millions of degrees at its peak. Almost equivalent to the center of a star. No material can stop this energy," Professor Klitzing said while he looked at the screen.

Lu Zhou asked, "How does the stellarator do it?"

"It twists the magnetic field." Professor Klitzing said, "We use magnetic fields to constrain the energy, and it keeps them away from the inner walls of the orbit. However, it doesn't last for long…"

The experiment entered the most critical stage.

The thyristor switched turned off, and the voltage dropped to 1000V. At the same time, the current rose to its peak value, and the entire track was filled with burning light. Lu Zhou felt that his eyes were hurting even though he was looking at it through a screen.

However, this light didn't last for long.

Within a few seconds, the light had vanished.

The stellarator stopped operating, but the people in the observation room began working.

Professor Keriber told his two researchers, "Collect the data immediately, check the condition of the equipment, hurry!"

At the same time, the door of the radiation protected room opened, and staff members wearing radiation protection suits quickly entered the room with several tools. They began to check the physical conditions of the track.

Lu Zhou looked at Professor Keriber and asked, "It's over?"

"It's over." Professor Keriber threw his hard hat on the table and said, "The discharge time was a few seconds, the longest I can remember is six seconds. The shortest is only a few picoseconds."

Lu Zhou was speechless.

"… I thought it would be more astonishing."

Professor Keriber smiled and said, "Theoretically, the discharge time can be longer, but right now, the divertor hasn't been installed. The excessive discharge might cause the head to damage the first wall of materials. Maybe in two years, once the water-cooled divertor has been installed, a 30-minute discharge might be possible."

The discharge timed referred to the time in which the magnetic field could maintain a charge, the so-called pulse time of one discharge.

30 minutes was a goal for the Wendelstein 7-X.

If it were achievable, it would have a huge impact on the nuclear fusion project. It might even change the entire world's opinion on nuclear fusion engineering.

After all, right now the mainstream choice was the tokamak, but the tokamak reached a bottleneck in terms of its discharge time.

The longest discharged time recorded was China's "EAST" tokamak, with a record of 102 seconds. This was almost at the limit of the tokamak's capabilities.

Lu Zhou looked at the device and began to think.

Suddenly, he had a thought.

How much general points would the system charge for a complete stellarator blueprint?

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

Chapter 365: Preconditions Are Not Met

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Lu Zhou found out that he was overthinking.

When he asked the system about this problem, not only did the system not give him an answer, but the system didn't even respond. He couldn't help but wonder if the system was broken…

On the tenth attempt of asking, the system finally gave him an answer.

It was only one line of words.

[Preconditions are not met.]

Lu Zhou looked at the message in front of him and started to think.

"Preconditions are not met… Does this mean the subject level or that nuclear fusion technology isn't possible yet?"

The system didn't answer his second question; it completely ignored him.

However, Lu Zhou wasn't mad at the system.

Because for him, one answer was enough…

After the experiment ended, Professor Keriber invited the two people to coffee at the Wendelstein 7-X resting lounge.

A Nobel Prize winner, a soon-to-be Fields Medal winner, and a senior nuclear fusion engineer sat on the sofa in the lounge. They drank coffee while talking about the Wendelstein 7-X cooperation problems with ITER.

ITER was the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project; their main source of funding.

However, Professor Keriber wasn't optimistic toward ITER. He felt deeply concerned about the topic.

"The potential of a controlled nuclear fusion project is huge. But the ITER project hasn't been doing well. It is losing hundreds of millions every year, and the results are not gratifying. Even the US government has lost its patience. In order to fund the Wendelstein 7-X, I even shut down the WEGA experiment group."

Professor Klitzing was sipping on his coffee, and he used the coffee mug to hide his face.

He was laughing.

Although he knew that he shouldn't gloat, but he couldn't help but laugh at the thought of these "spoiled" researchers running out of money.

Professor Keriber sighed.

"Controlled nuclear fusion is a systematic project, whether it's the inertial or magnetic constraints. Whether it's the tokamak or the stellarator, it is only when a series of problems are solved, will there be results. Right now, we haven't solved a single fundamental problem."

Lu Zhou asked, "What problems do you think need to be solved?"

Professor Keriber said, "In terms of engineering, we need a larger electromagnetic field to complete the magnetic confinement of the plasma. However, this is not a good solution. A larger magnetic field means a large current. The current will release heat when it passes through the conductor. We will have to soak the wire with liquid helium to reach the superconducting temperature and to prevent the current from heating up the wire.

"The magnetic field isn't enough. We have to find a way to control the magnetic field… Of course, fortunately, the advantage of the stellarator design is that we don't have to use an ohmic transformer. Unlike the tokamak device, we don't have to think about factors like the distortion film, the magnetic surface tear, the resistance wall film, etc."

Professor Keriber smiled and spoke in a joking tone.

"All of these engineering problems still come down to the material.

"If there is a material that can achieve superconductivity at room temperature or at least under less extreme conditions, we would be able to create a larger artificial magnetic field to constrain the plasma. Many problems would disappear."

Superconductivity is a must.

Lu Zhou wrote this down on the notebook he carried with him.

"If you want to solve a difficult problem, you have to solve many difficult problems first, is that what you mean?" Professor Klitzing said, "I think if there is a superconducting material at room temperature, not only will nuclear fusion be solved, many energy problems will also be solved."

"That's why I'm only speaking hypothetically." Keriber shrugged and said, "If we can't improve the material, we have to improve the coil design and increase the strength of the magnetic field from another perspective. Also, things are not looking good in the theoretical department either."

Lu Zhou asked, "Is there complex theoretical problems regarding the controlled nuclear fusion?"

Professor Klitzing smiled and helped Keriber to answer the question. He said, "There's a saying in physics—'more is different'. Although the plasma uses Maxwell's equations, it cannot be generalized. The more particles there are, the more different the system gets. Even quantum mechanics wouldn't be applicable. You should know this."

Lu Zhou nodded.

While he was researching the Theoretical Model of Electrochemical Interface Structure, the variables in his equations were almost three times the number of particles in the system. Even Anton had to work for a while to calculate the answer.

On the other hand, the plasma in the Stellarator was a more complex chemistry problem.

It was like fluid mechanics. Although everyone knows the basic Navier–Stokes equations, it wasn't applicable to the turbulence phenomenon which had troubled the physicists for more than 200 years.

The turbulence phenomenon was also seen in plasma. Due to the external magnetic field, the turbulent flow of the plasma was even more complicated and even more difficult to predict than general fluids.

Since it was impossible to explain theoretically, it would be impossible to build a model to explain the plasma behavior.

Therefore, when researchers do plasma experiments, they were hoping to construct a model that could explain the behavior of plasma.

Professor Keriber saw that Lu Zhou was interested and couldn't help but send out an invitation.

"If you're so interested in nuclear fusion, why don't you join the ITER project? We're always looking for talented mathematicians."

Lu Zhou thought for a moment before he replied, "Unfortunately, I can't accept your invitation. I have to go back to Princeton soon, and I also have to prepare for next year's mathematics conference."

Lu Zhou smiled as he continued, "However, I will write down these problems and study them as a hobby. I can't guarantee any results, but it might be useful one day."

Professor Keriber wasn't affected by the rejection. Instead, he smiled and said, "Really? Then I'll have to wait for your results."

However, when Keriber said this, he didn't look interested. He thought Lu Zhou was joking.

Obviously, any of these problems couldn't be solved by research hobbyists…

Professor Keriber had worked at this research institute for many years, so he was well aware of how difficult the problems were…

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

Chapter 366: Never Would Have Guessed

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Lu Zhou and Professor Klitzing didn't stay in Greifswald for long. The day after their visit to Wendelstein 7-X, they returned to Berlin.

Lu Zhou had been in Germany for a month now, and he had received a lot of gains. However, there was a bunch of stuff in Princeton that he had to do, so it was about time to go back.

Lu Zhou booked a weekend flight ticket. He went to the University of Bonn for a visit. After that, President Stratmann of the Max Planck Institute drove him to Berlin Tegel Airport.

The old man shook Lu Zhou's hand and said, "Thank you for bringing your speech to Berlin. We look forward to your next visit and watching you climb to an even higher level of academic success."

"For sure," Lu Zhou said as he shook Stratmann's hand. With a smile, he added, "I will definitely continue on this road."

Lu Zhou said goodbye to Stratmann and dragged his suitcase into the airport.

After a ten-hour flight, the plane landed at JFK airport in New York.

Lu Zhou didn't tell anyone that he was coming back. He got to experience riding a train.

The train went all the way to the familiar Princeton town where his students welcomed him back.

In order to celebrate his Hoffman Prize, Hardy suggested a party in Lu Zhou's house.

This time, the food at the party wasn't Hardy's authentic Brazilian barbecue, it was traditional Chinese food— skewers.

This was the first time Lu Zhou had Chinese kebab overseas.

Unfortunately, there was no beer in the fridge. They only had fruity champagne; it was just not the same.

As Lu Zhou sat on the lawn eating skewers, he started to think of his three buddies back in Dorm 201.

Ever since Lu Zhou graduated, they hadn't stayed in contact. He wondered how they were doing.

Hardy grinned and walked over with a bottle of champagne.

"Professor, can I interview you?"

Lu Zhou said, "As long as the question is normal."

"Don't worry, it's definitely a normal question." Hardy coughed and said, "What does it feel like to excel in both mathematics and chemistry?"

Lu Zhou said, "It's something you'll never experience."

"Professor, that's hurtful. I'm one of your good students." Hardy acted like he was hurt as he said, "Can't you be more confident in me?"

Lu Zhou was feeling sad as well.

However, he wasn't sad for the kid, he was sad for himself.

He wondered what he saw in this kid, why did he give him an offer?

Lu Zhou didn't know the answer to this question.

The party had been going on for a while. Luo Wenxuan, who just got a girlfriend, finally came.

However, this time he didn't just bring his girlfriend. He also brought a piece of good news.

After several months of hard work, with the help of Wei Wen, he finally completed his graduation thesis.

His "Research on the Coherent State of the Q-Distorted Harmonic Oscillator in a Finite-Dimensional Hilbert Space" thesis was finally accepted by Physics Today, and it would be published in six months.

Although this journal's impact factor of 4.3 wasn't high, for a PhD student, especially one in theoretical physics, this wasn't bad at all.

Also, the impact factor wasn't the only factor in measuring academic influence as even his boss, Witten, submitted to Physics Today.

If everything went well, he should be able to receive his PhD degree by early next year.

"Thank you so much, you are my savior!" Luo Wenxuan said to Lu Zhou. He patted Lu Zhou on the back and said, "I'll buy you a drink someday!"

"Don't thank me, thank Wei Wen." Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Of course, I won't refuse your drink."

"Actually, I didn't help that much." Wei Wen coughed; he didn't seem to care about recognition. Instead, he said, "I only did some computing work, but my name is on the thesis. Are you sure it's fine?"

"No, no, no, I disagree," Luo Wenxuan said as he shook his head. He then added, "Mathematical physics is studying physics using mathematical methods. You made up for my shortcomings. Without your help, I wouldn't have been able to complete my thesis until the end of the year."

Lu Zhou saw that Luo Wenxuan admitted that his mathematics skills were lacking. He then sighed and asked, "Old Tang would be hurt by your statement, did you really major in applied mathematics?"

How the hell did this guy get an offer from Princeton?

No less an offer from Witten.

Luo Wenxuan scratched his head and smiled.

"No worries, Old Tang has always criticized me."

Lu Zhou: "…"

…

The next day, Lu Zhou went back to the Institute for Advanced Study. He didn't immediately start researching. Instead, he went to find Edward Witten to ask some questions.

The designer of the stellarator, Lyman Spitzer, worked at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study for a while. The original concept of the stellarator was created by him.

Spitzer had to have left some evidence at his old workplace.

"Congratulations, the Hoffman Prize is a great honor," Edward Witten said to Lu Zhou. He then smiled and asked, "How was Germany? Did you see Faltings?"

Lu Zhou replied, "I saw him, but I feel like he doesn't like me."

Edward Witten smiled as he said, "Don't worry, that old man treats everyone that way. Even Deligne can't stand him. But I'm glad to hear you say this… At least, this means he's in good health, good enough health to dislike you."

"I don't care," Lu Zhou said as he shrugged. He then continued, "Actually, this time I didn't only stay in Berlin, I also went to Greifswald."

"Greifswald?" Witten was interested, and he asked, "Did you go to the Wendelstein 7-X laboratory?"

"Yes." Lu Zhou nodded and said, "Professor Klitzing and I took a tour of the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator. Not only that, but I was lucky enough to see a live experiment."

Professor Witten said, "You are lucky. I've been to Europe five times in the past 2 years, two of which I was in Germany. However, every time I went there, I missed out on the Wendelstein 7-X experiment. Especially the one in 2016."

Lu Zhou then coughed and revealed his true intention behind the visit.

"I want to ask you something about the stellarator."

Witten said, "What?"

Lu Zhou said, "About Lyman Spitzer's manuscript…"

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

Chapter 367: Firestone Library Is Full Of Treasures

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The documents released to the public were carefully selected.

Lu Zhou hoped to see the original idea that Lyman Spitzer had for the stellarator.

He also wanted to build a theoretical model from a physicist's perspective.

"Lyman Spitzer's manuscript?" Edward Witten rubbed his chin and said, "I haven't paid attention to his area of research. I think he donated his manuscript to the Institute for Advanced Study. Some things are kept in the Firestone Library. If you are interested, you might be able to find them in the Firestone Library."

Lu Zhou said, "Firestone Library? Thank you."

"No worries." Witten smiled and said, "Actually, if you are interested in the stellarator, why don't you consult other research institutes? No one in Princeton is researching this thing, but there are plenty of people at MIT, Stanford, and Caltech who are doing this research."

Lu Zhou said, "I'll think about it if I have to, but until then, I just want to do my own research."

The nuclear fusion topic was too large. Just the research project outline would take five pages to write.

In some sense, the reason why Lu Zhou wanted Lyman Spitzer's manuscript was to get inspiration from it.

Witten sipped his coffee and said, "I hope you find what you need."

"Thanks."

Lu Zhou said bye to Witten and walked out of the Institute for Advanced Study.

…

There was a type of people in the academic community who could maintain creativity while being involved in rigorous research work.

When they encountered a problem, instead of saying it was impossible, they would look at it from a scientific point of view.

Lyman Spitzer was this kind of person.

Other than him, Freeman Dyson, who proposed the Dyson sphere, and Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, who proposed the space elevator, were also this type of people.

Lyman Spitzer wasn't as famous compared to the other two. However, no one could ignore his influence in astrophysics.

It was him who first proposed to put a telescope in space to eliminate the shadowing effect of the atmosphere on Earth. This led to the birth of the Hubble Space Telescope.

In order to commemorate him, the last space telescope made by the Great Observatories program was named after him— the Spitzer Space Telescope.

After bidding farewell to Witten, Lu Zhou went to the Firestone Library and found a librarian.

A weird-looking old man was responsible for the library books.

Although there were weird people in Princeton, there weren't that many people like this old man, who was wearing pajamas at work.

Especially those murky eyes, it made people wonder if he had Alzheimer's.

However, what surprised Lu Zhou was that after this old man heard his request, he quickly climbed the ladder of a two-story-high bookshelf and took a thick notebook from there.

The old man then climbed back down and handed the notebook to Lu Zhou.

"This is what you want."

"Thank you."

Lu Zhou reached for the manuscript.

However, the old man instantly retrieved his hand.

Lu Zhou: ? ? ?

The old man said, "This is the wealth of civilization, please take care of it."

It seemed that he was only giving Lu Zhou a piece of advice.

However, Lu Zhou noticed that the old man's hand was shaking.

"I know… Can you give me the book now?" Lu Zhou said while looking at the old man. He didn't reach for the book this time.

He felt like the old man was toying with him.

The old man saw that Lu Zhou didn't fall for the trick a second time, so he felt disappointed. He coughed and replied, "Of course you can. But you must promise me that you will bring it back exactly the way it was."

Lu Zhou held up three fingers.

"I swear…"

"Don't swear at me," the old man suddenly took out a Bible from nowhere, and he said, "swear at this."

Lu Zhou was speechless.

Why are you asking an atheist to swear at this thing?

I'd rather swear at Newtons' "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy", or Einstein's "Unified Field Theory". That would make more sense.

However, Lu Zhou didn't want to waste time. He placed his hands on the bible before he said, "I swear that I will return this book exactly the way it was."

Although the old man wasn't satisfied with Lu Zhou's attitude, he still nodded and handed the manuscript to Lu Zhou reluctantly.

"I hope you keep your promise."

"I will."

Lu Zhou didn't waste a second; he immediately walked into the reading room next to him.

…

Lu Zhou couldn't take the manuscript out of the Firestone Library, he could only read it in the reading room.

If the manuscript was hundreds of years old, he might even have to wear gloves before reading.

However, this manuscript was relatively new; it was only sixty years old.

Lu Zhou opened the book and began reading it carefully.

Understanding the contents wasn't easy as Lyman Spitzer was extremely imaginative. There were some unrecognizable drawings.

Lu Zhou didn't know why he left this manuscript at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study.

Lu Zhou felt like if it was him, he would never let this "unreadable" text exist in the world…

Lu Zhou spent the entire afternoon reading the book from beginning to end.

Although it was difficult to understand, after reading it, Lu Zhou felt like it was helpful.

Especially since Lyman Spitzer had the same conclusion as Lu Zhou for the final vision of the stellarator.

"… I can't believe this is from sixty years ago."

Lu Zhou couldn't help but give his own review of this old manuscript.

Even now, this manuscript on the stellarator would be thesis worthy.

However, it had been sixty years. Someone would have written that thesis already.

Lu Zhou placed the manuscript aside and went into deep thought.

Controllable nuclear fusion was a huge project, but Lu Zhou was interested in both its prospects and mechanics.

The problem was that he needed an entry point.

Superconducting normal temperature material?

Or look at it from a mathematics point of view, and try to figure out the "law of motion of plasma"?

The first one was more applicable, the second one was more theory-based. Both of them are pretty difficult.

Especially the second one. It involves the study of complex plasma turbulence. It might be the most difficult part of the Navier-Stokes equations.

Also so far, the measurements that people can make on plasma are only "estimates".

However, if this problem is solved, not only will it push nuclear fusion forward, but it might also help the Navier-Stokes equations research…

Lu Zhou spent around ten minutes thinking.

Lu Zhou suddenly smirked and picked up a pen. He circled the words "The Law of Motion of Plasma in a Stellarator".

He picked up the manuscript and stood up from his chair.

As expected, he was more interested in the harder problem.

Ever since Goldbach's conjecture, he had been searching for a more challenging problem…

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

Chapter 368: Tasting The Salt

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Editor-in-chief office, Science Report editorial department.

Chief Editor Cai was sitting at his desk drinking tea while meticulously reviewing the draft article in his hand.

Although traditional media had become inferior to internet media, in the academic community, the Science Report journal still had its influence.

After all, they were directly affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Even though their newspaper wasn't read by most researchers, most research institute still mass-ordered their newspapers.

Because of this influence, Chief Editor Cai was extremely cautious when reviewing articles. Especially when it came to reports on controversial and trending figures.

After all, if he made a mistake, he would be personally responsible.

However, today's articles were all pretty good quality. That was until he came across an interview with Professor Wang Haifeng, a well-known academic scholar.

He slapped the printed article on the desk and looked at his secretary.

"Get me Li Xuesong."

"Okay."

Secretary Zhou saw that Chief Editor Cai wasn't happy, so he didn't say anything else and quickly left the office.

Chief Editor Cai was the only person left in his office, and he tried to calm down by controlling his breathing.

However, when he looked at the article on the table, he became angry again.

During the meetings, he kept emphasizing to his journalists on how important politics was. However, this idiot obviously didn't hear what he said.

If he didn't review this article and the article got published, then he would be in trouble with the leadership team.

He was furious.

Secretary Zhou found Li Xuesong in the cubicles outside.

"Chief Editor wants to see you, go now."

Li Xuesong asked nervously, "Brother Zhou, Chief Cai… What does he want?"

I didn't offend anyone recently, right?

"I don't know." Secretary Zhou frowned and looked serious as he said, "Also, this is an office, stop calling me brother."

Li Xuesong was so anxious that he began to sweat. He then nodded and said, "Yes, I was wrong."

Secretary Zhou said, "Just go."

Li Xuesong was muddled, and he didn't say anything as he walked toward the editor-in-chief office.

The people in the cubicles watched Li Xuesong while they whispered about what had happened.

Li Xuesong wanted to know the answer the most; he had no idea how he offended Chief Editor Cai.

He knocked on the door and was met with a cold reply, "Come in".

He shivered a little as he walked inside.

When Chief Editor Cai looked at Li Xuesong, Li Xuesong asked quietly, "Chief Cai, are you looking for me?"

Chief Editor Cai didn't say anything. Instead, he tapped his finger on the article.

"Did you write this thing?"

Li Xuesong immediately knew what was going on.

He guessed that the higher-ups weren't happy with his interview, so he tried to explain.

"Chief Cai, I know my report might cause controversy, but what does it have to do with us? We're in a neutral position, only objectively reporting on Professor Wang. It's Professor Wang that is in a controversy, this is the only way we can receive publicity…"

"Publicity, my a*s!" Chief Editor Cai threw the article at this idiot's head as he snapped, "When did I ask for publicity? If you understand the media so much, why don't you quit and start your own media company?"

Li Xuesong was being scolded like a dog, but he didn't complain.

He was just a normal journalist; he wrote whatever was said by the interviewee.

However, he was still responsible.

After all, the reason he interviewed Wang Haifeng was to hear about his problems with Lu Zhou.

The controversy was good content.

Everyone was more willing to watch drama than serious reports.

Li Xuesong stopped talking.

After a few more insults, Chief Editor Cai picked up his vacuum flask and drank some water to moisturize his throat. He then waved his finger and snapped, "F*ck off, change it!"

Li Xuesong said, "Change the whole thing? Including the interview part?"

Chief Editor Cai said, "No sh*t, are you dumb? The biggest problem is this part!"

Li Xuesong was a little hesitant. "But Professor Wang…"

I don't want to piss of Professor Wang, and I can't just change his words, right?

"I don't care about that," Chief Editor Cai said. He then added, "Change it. Once the interview gets published, he'll thank us."

"Yes…" Li Xuesong said quietly before he walked away holding the draft article.

After some changes, the final report finally came out.

Professor Wang's words were completely altered.

"Quite embarrassing" became "talented", "doesn't look at the whole situation" became "scientific researcher who take risks"…

All of the negative comments said by Professor Wang were changed into positive ones.

Did Professor Wang have opinions?

He didn't.

He couldn't.

Just like what Chief Editor Cai said, when Professor Wang saw this report, he wasn't pissed off. Instead, he felt relaxed as the knot in his heart could finally be untied.

In the beginning, he really thought that the caged carbon molecules by Professor Stanley would solve the lithium-sulfur batteries problem. He never would have expected the industry to reject Professor Stanley's plan and accept Lu Zhou's invention instead.

After Lu Zhou won the Hoffman Prize, his face turned blue.

China wanted to use this politically significant medal to promote friendship with Germany.

It would be suicide if he tried to criticize Lu Zhou now.

He thought about calling Science Report to ask them to remove his interview. However, he was too embarrassed.

Still, even though Wang Haifeng got lucky, he still felt a little distasteful after seeing this report.

But he couldn't do anything other than whine.

After all, he had no ground to criticize a Hoffman Prize winner.

Wang Haifeng looked at the Science Report journal, and he scoffed, "Possible Nobel Prize winner?"

He sneered and ripped the newspaper in half.

It was like he didn't learn his lesson; he started to criticize Lu Zhou again.

"Try staying in your own lane."

The PhD student sitting next to his desk shook his head.

He couldn't criticize his supervisor's opinions.

However, he could taste the salt from here…

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

Chapter 369: A Small Goal

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Lu Zhou was on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, so he didn't know that the Hoffman Prize caused so much commotion.

However, he probably wouldn't have cared even if he knew.

Right now, he was at Lake Carnegie. He was celebrating with the guys from the drone club.

"Coach, we won! I can't believe it, we beat MIT!"

Jimmy was full of excitement as he shoved the trophy into Lu Zhou's hand and said, "You should've been there. It was a magical moment."

The gold-plated trophy was as big as a watermelon; it was quite heavy as well.

Lu Zhou smiled to the guys and said, "Nicely done, your trophy is much heavier than mine."

Lu Zhou wanted to encourage these boys.

However, he didn't know why but the guys became quiet.

Lu Zhou asked, "… What happened?"

Jimmy shook his head and said, "Nothing, we knew that you would humble brag to us, but we still don't know what to say."

Lu Zhou: ? ? ?

Lu Zhou swore that he wasn't humble bragging. He only wanted to congratulate these boys and encourage them to continue on the scientific path.

Things suddenly became awkward.

Fortunately, Lu Zhou was saved by the bell when he received a phone call.

"I have to take this call."

Lu Zhou walked away to take the call. When he found a bench, he sat down as he answered the call.

"Hello?"

"Lu Zhou, it's me!"

"Principal Xu?" Lu Zhou's eyes lit up, and he smiled and said, "What's up?"

"Nothing special," Principal Xu said with a smile. He then added, "On behalf of all of the teachers and students of the chemistry department, I want to say thank you!"

Lu Zhou was a little embarrassed. "There's no need to thank me, I only wrote a letter and expressed my own opinion."

"Your letter was immensely helpful! The higher-ups valued your opinions, and the relevant funds have arrived. The project is underway, and the new supercomputer center will be next to Jin Ling University. It's not just me or the teachers that have to thank you, but everyone else would also have to thank you!"

Not only would the hundred million yuan investment help Jin Ling University, but it would also help local research institutes and other universities.

Principal Xu couldn't help but feel emotional.

If it wasn't for Lu Zhou's letter, securing this project would have been a lot more difficult.

Principal Xu paused for a second before he asked, "Oh yeah, did you pay attention to Everyone Daily?"

"Everyone Daily?" Lu Zhou said, "Not really, why?"

Principal Xu smiled and said, "You didn't? Their latest issue has a part about you, so maybe you want to check it out."

Lu Zhou tried to ask what the content was, but Principal Xu didn't tell him.

After the call ended, Lu Zhou leaned on the park bench and sent a text message to Yang Xu, asking him to mail a copy of the Everyone Daily newspaper.

After sending the text, Lu Zhou put away his phone.

Suddenly, he saw someone.

The person who was jogging along the lake seemed to have noticed him as well, and she slowed down and walked toward Lu Zhou.

Molina was wearing a blue sports outfit. She shook the sweat off her hair before she asked, "Thinking about life?"

"No, just sitting here."

Lu Zhou was distracted by the tight sports outfit, and he wasn't sure where to look. Therefore, he decided to look at the lake.

He then asked, "Speaking of which, it's been a year now, how is your research project going?"

Molina bit her lip and didn't speak.

She remembered that when Lu Zhou first came to Princeton, she recommended her supervisor Morel to him. At that time, she wanted to defeat the Riemann's conjecture together with him.

However, it had been a year since then, Lu Zhou already defeated Goldbach's conjecture and achieved success in chemistry, materials sciences, condensed matter physics, and many other fields.

But she and Morel were still desperately holding on the past.

Not long ago, Lu Zhou was also invited to give a 60-minute report by IMU. Not to mention, there was also his likelihood of winning a Fields Medal.

It was foreseeable that Lu Zhou would break the record held by Princeton mathematics professor, Charles Fefferman.

With the highly-rated contestant, "German God" Peter Schultz, the Fields Medal next year would be highly competitive.

However, Molina and her supervisor didn't make any significant progress on Riemann's conjecture.

It was without a doubt that her supervisor wouldn't be able to win the Fields Medal.

Molina was as jealous as one could get.

Although Molina didn't reply, Lu Zhou guessed what was going on.

He smiled and changed the subject.

"It seems that I shouldn't have asked the question, pretend like I didn't say anything."

Molina looked at Lu Zhou and asked, "How did you do it?"

"Before challenging a difficult goal, I often find a smaller, easier to accomplish goal first," Lu Zhou said. He looked at the drone flying over the lake as he continued, "Even I wouldn't be able to tackle the Goldbach's conjecture immediately."

Lu Zhou was right; his Group Structure Method was perfected by the Polignac's conjecture, and he used the large sieve method to solve the twin prime conjecture.

The tower of Goldbach's conjecture wasn't built in a day.

Molina started to think, and after a while, she asked, "And your small goal was?"

Lu Zhou smiled as he replied, "Twin prime conjecture."

Molina: "…"

This is a small goal?!

Suddenly, she had the urge to toss this guy into the lake.

Outrageous!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

Chapter 370: Superconducting Materials

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

It had been a week since Lu Zhou left Germany. October came and so did the cold weather.

Lu Zhou sneezed and put on his favorite trench coat.

Lu Zhou sat in his study room chair. He was drinking coffee while reading the newspaper from across the ocean.

He opened the first page and read the large headline.

[The Application of Computer Science In Cutting-Edge Research and The Trend Of Future Academia Development.]

Everyone Daily used an entire page to publish his letter content.

Of course, the newspaper simplified the content of the letter and explained how supercomputers worked.

Lu Zhou read the entire article and couldn't help but smirk.

However, he was a little worried as well.

Although he was optimistic about supercomputers, he wondered if he had over-promoted it…

After all, scientific research funding was limited.

Although computational chemistry had good prospects, it wasn't necessary. Many laboratories were able to produce results without computational chemistry.

Hopefully, the policymakers realize this.

Lu Zhou suddenly felt like it would be better if he commented less on subjects like this.

Even with the help of the system, he couldn't guarantee that he was correct. Scientific research was a process of trial and error. In fact, the number of errors he had made far exceeded the number of success.

However, all of the published articles were about his success.

Lu Zhou shook his head and put the newspaper away as he said, "I guess I have to be more cautious, a mistake might come to bite me in the future."

He took his empty coffee cup into the kitchen. When he returned, his phone suddenly rang.

It was from an international caller. However, it wasn't from Jin Ling University, it was from Yang Xu.

Lu Zhou answered the call.

"Did you receive the package?"

"I did."

"How does it feel to be on Everyone Daily?"

Lu Zhou smiled as he replied, "It feels okay."

It wasn't his first time on Everyone Daily.

He had won multiple international awards, so this was nothing special.

Lu Zhou said, "If you didn't call me, I would've called you. Speaking of which, how is the construction going at the computational materials research institute building?"

"The foundation has been laid. I've been there a couple of times but I'm not sure. Aren't you the CEO of Star Sky Technology? Can't you just ask your manager?"

Star Sky Technology had opened a branch in Shanghai, and Lu Zhou had received the construction report, but he was still worried.

"The report is only on paper, it's not as good as seeing it in person. Remember to take a few photos when you go there next time."

Yang Xu smiled as he said, "It's just a big empty construction site with dust everywhere. It'll take two to three years just for the dust to settle."

Lu Zhou replied, "Two to three years is too long, I'll move in a few months after it's built."

Yang Xu smiled. "The chemistry department said we can stay here for as long as we want."

"No, no," Lu Zhou smiled and said, "we're only borrowing it for now, we still have to move out. We're still a private research institute while they're a public research institute. It's not good to mix the two together."

It was fine staying there for a while, but people would start asking questions if they stayed there for too long.

Like who owned the building?

Could the state transfer assets to private organizations?

There were a series of complicated questions.

Lu Zhou already bought the new building. Anyway, he wasn't lacking money, so he didn't have to borrow anyone's building.

"Okay, you're right," Yang Xu said. He suddenly slapped his head and said, "I nearly forgot, do you have any new research plans this year?"

Lu Zhou said, "Not right now, but I will tell you if I do. My suggestion is that you should find some interesting research projects to do."

Researchers would get distracted if they didn't do experiments for a long time.

They didn't have a research plan themselves, so it was a good idea for them to cooperate with other research companies. This way, they could gain experience and might even generate some income.

Many companies would love to cooperate with the Jinling Institute of Computational Materials.

"Okay, I'll take note," Yang Xu said. As he twisted the pen around his fingers, he asked, "Speaking of which, what research have you been up to? Theoretical chemistry again?"

"Me?" Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Not really, the Theoretical Model of Electrochemical Interface Structure is already done, and I'm not interested in chemistry anymore."

Yang Xu said, "So you're doing nothing?"

Lu Zhou said, "Nope, I'm been studying the Navier-Stokes equations recently."

Yang Xu's pen flew out of his hand.

The pen flew onto the wall.

Yang Xu was stunned.

The f*ck?

Navier-Stokes equations?!

Although he wasn't familiar with mathematics, he still knew of the Millennium Prize Problems.

Lu Zhou didn't hear a response.

"… Is there a problem?"

"F*ck, you're insane! NS equations!" Yang Xu sat up from his chair and said, "You're finally taking on the Millennium Prize Problems?"

What do you mean finally?

Also, what does this have to do with Millennium Prize Problems?

Lu Zhou coughed and explained.

"The Millennium Prize Problem is about the smoothness and existence of the NS equations, I'm studying a specific application of the NS equations, on plasma…"

Lu Zhou suddenly remembered something.

"Oh yeah, if you're looking for a collaborative research project, my suggestion is superconducting materials."

"Superconducting materials?" Yang Xu asked. He then pointed out by saying, "But we're in the carbon nanomaterials field, we don't have any experience with metals…"

"I'm not asking you to change directions, we're still doing carbon nanomaterials."

Lu Zhou paused for a second before he continued, "It's just my opinion, but I think we don't have to find superconducting materials that are metals. Maybe we can find Cooper pairs in the π bonds."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

Chapter 371: Just Go For It

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Finding superconducting materials from carbon nanomaterials was a novel idea.

Although people had researched this topic before, no one had ever produced any significant results.

Therefore, Lu Zhou wasn't sure about this either.

However, since most scientific research started from a guess, Lu Zhou decided to just go for it.

After determining the research direction, Lu Zhou called Sarrot and told him the story.

Sarrot's eyes widened as he asked, "Superconducting materials? Why do you want to study this?"

Lu Zhou said, "I think it's interesting, is it not?"

Sarrot: "No, I mean that barely any research has been done in this area, we would have to start from zero."

Lu Zhou: "…"

"So it's very likely that we will have to take a long time before we can produce any patent-worth results." Sarrot couldn't help but say, "Why don't we continue to do batteries? The industry is looking forward to a new and improved HCS-2 material."

Lu Zhou laughed.

"The industry is definitely not looking forward to a new and improved HCS-2 material. It'll take some time for them to adjust to HCS-2.

"As for the patent, don't worry about it. I won't use patents as a standard of evaluation, just do your research."

Sarrot shrugged and said, "Okay, as long as you don't care about losing money."

Although he couldn't understand his boss' motives, as long as someone was willing to pay him to do experiments, he was fine with anything.

Sarrot then said, "Actually if you don't care about patents, we can cooperate with other research teams. This will speed up our in-progress results. I know a Massachusetts Institute of Technology research team that is also doing this. We can work with them."

Lu Zhou asked, "What is the name of the team?"

Sarrot: "Pablo Jerillo-Herrero research project team. They're well known in the graphene industry."

Lu Zhou asked, "Will someone like them want to cooperate with us?"

"Depends on who proposes for the cooperation. If it's me, they will probably reject me," Sarrot shrugged as he said. He then continued, "But if the Hoffman Prize winner, inventor of the Theoretical Model of Electrochemical Interface Structure, and leading person in computational materials science were to ask them, I'm sure they wouldn't refuse."

Emmmm…

Lu Zhou felt that even though Sarrot's argument was a bit strange, it made sense.

"Okay then, I'll contact them."

Lu Zhou hung up the call. He then turned on his laptop and searched for information on the Pablo Jarillo-Herrero research team using Princeton's database.

The academic community wasn't big, so it was easy to find out what someone was researching. Lu Zhou only had to find his recent theses.

Lu Zhou quickly found the relevant information.

Ten years ago, this research team did research on graphene's superconductivity.

In 2007, they published "Bipolar Current In Graphene" in Nature. In 2014, they also published "Graphene's Quantum Spin Hall State" in Nature again. The most recent thesis was on "The Ferromagnetic and Heterostructure of Van Der Waals Crystals"; all of them were interesting research topics.

Lu Zhou wrote down the email address of the thesis author and quickly found Pablo Herrero's blog on Google.

As per what Sarrot said, they were researching an interesting topic— the superconductivity of graphene at low temperatures.

They could provide a new idea for studying superconducting materials.

"The materials science world has a lot of nutty people."

Lu Zhou opened his email and began typing.

[… Hello, Professor Pablo Herrero,

I am Professor Lu Zhou from Princeton University. After reading your Nature thesis, I became very interested in your research direction. I want to cooperate with you on graphene superconductivity research, what do you think?]

Lu Zhou leaned back in his chair and waited for a bit.

He knew that most people checked and replied to emails in the mornings.

Professor Pablo Herrero should be sitting at his computer, reading the email.

Lu Zhou was correct.

Within five minutes, he received a reply.

There was only one line in the email.

[I'm fine with it, do you have a specific cooperation plan?]

Lu Zhou smiled and began typing.

[Of course…]

…

Lu Zhou managed to reach a cooperation agreement faster than he had imagined.

For this type of low patent probability projects, most professors were willing to cooperate with other research teams.

According to their agreement, Lu Zhou would send a consultant researcher to help them with computational materials science methods. Also, for research exchange, they would send a researcher to Lu Zhou.

Both parties would study the topic of two-dimensional carbon nano superconducting materials. The final thesis would be signed by both parties.

The next day, Lu Zhou found Connie, who was doing his postdoctoral.

Compared to Jerick, Connie, who has been working with Lu Zhou for a while, was more suitable for this task.

Lu Zhou found Connie and said, "I need you to go to Boston."

Connie was doing an experiment at that time. When he heard Lu Zhou, he stopped and asked, "Boston? Why?"

Lu Zhou said, "I've been in contact with the Pablo Jarillo-Herrero research team at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We're doing collaborative research on the superconductivity of carbon nanomaterials. I need you to visit for a while, it might take a few weeks or even a few months. Of course, I will pay for all expenses. Do you have any problems with your schedule?"

"Nope, no problems," Connie said with a smile. He then added, "I got this… When do I leave?"

Consulting exchange was a good opportunity to network, especially when one didn't have to pay for it.

Any student would be eager at such an opportunity.

Lu Zhou nodded.

"You can start preparing now, you leave in three days!"

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

Chapter 372: Requires Manpower

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Connie hit the road with the cooperative RD agreement while Professor Pablo Herrero sent a PhD student to Lu Zhou.

However, he didn't send the student to Princeton.

He sent him to the Sarrot Research Institute in California.

After the signing of the cooperative RD agreement, research on superconducting materials finally began. The two research teams joined forces and greatly increased their speed of research.

Even though the situation looked good, Lu Zhou didn't expect any short-term results.

Science was based on trial and error, there were still many "errors" that they had to make.

Superconducting materials was only a subset of the nuclear fusion project.

After the superconducting materials research began, Lu Zhou also began his theoretical research on plasma.

Both the tokamak and stellarator nuclear fusion devices faced the same problems. The problems were on the high temperature, high density, and the running-time constraints.

The high-temperature problem had some solutions. For example, laser ignition, heating of the plasma itself, the compression of plasma, or a combination of solutions.

However, the difficult problems were the latter two— the high density and running-time constraints.

Plasma was a very unstable substance. According to the plasma's Reynold's number, Re=ρvd/μ, any tiny disturbance in the high-density plasma system would result in a cascade of turbulence effects.

The stellarator had certain advantages over the tokamak. For example, it had lesser disturbance factors than a tokamak.

However, even though it had lesser disturbance factors, containing the unstable plasma in a small space was no small feat.

The theory was important.

Having a reliable and concise theoretical model would be immensely important for the nuclear fusion project.

The current research was at a bottleneck due to the lack of the theoretical model for the plasma in the nuclear fusion device.

This was exactly the thing that bothered Lu Zhou.

Whether it was the Euler–Lagrange equation or the Navier–Stokes equations, both of these simple-looking theories became astronomically difficult when applied to the nuclear fusion plasma problem.

If the Navier–Stokes equations were the mathematics problem of the century, then the viscous fluid that satisfies the Navier–Stokes equations would be the physics problem of the century.

And Lu Zhou's research of the "turbulence phenomenon of plasma" would be part of this century problem.

Lu Zhou sat in his office desk at the Institute for Advanced Study and stared at the fiber-reinforced plastic cup on his desk. It was almost like he was daydreaming.

The cup wasn't big; it similar to a vacuum flask. The liquid inside the cup was bubbling and white smoke overflowed from the edges of the cup.

Vera walked over, and she was about to report on her previous number theory lecture. However, she suddenly froze.

Lu Zhou rarely daydreamed.

"Professor, what are you doing?"

"Looking for inspiration."

Obviously, Lu Zhou wasn't daydreaming, he was in deep thought.

He stared at the bubbling liquid in the cup and tapped his pen on his notebook.

There was a short line of equations in the notebook.

[ρ{V/t(V.Δ)·V}=-ΔPρgμΔ2V]

This equation wasn't difficult; the left side was the rate of momentum change of the liquid, and the right was the various forces acting on the liquid.

However…

Vera didn't interrupt his search for inspiration. Instead, she sat next to him and looked at the cup curiously.

Gradually there was less and less smoke coming out from the cup, and the liquid level in the cup was decreasing.

After a while, the liquid completely disappeared, Vera blinked and spoke.

"It's gone."

"Yeah."

Lu Zhou didn't explain anything. Instead, he gestured Vera to walk a few steps back.

Then, he put on his insulated gloves and picked up a small bottle of liquid helium under his desk. He poured the liquid helium into the fiber-reinforced plastic cup.

The fiber-reinforced plastic was filled with the transparent liquid; white smoke overflowed the cup again.

Lu Zhou placed the liquid helium bottle down and continued to look at the boiling liquid in the cup.

Liquid helium at low-temperatures exhibited a superfluid phenomenon; the viscosity coefficient became close to zero and the Reynolds number was to infinity. The fluid became close to an ideal state fluid.

Although it looked more chaotic than other fluids, from a mathematical perspective, the amount of computation involved was much lower.

In some sense, the plasma was magnetically constrained in a vacuum chamber. It also had a large Reynolds number. However, due to its viscosity coefficient, it wasn't as "perfect" as liquid helium.

Because of this, the plasma's mathematical calculations were far more complex.

"Professor, why do I feel like the office is so cold?"

Hardy was sitting at his desk next to Lu Zhou, and he shivered as he looked at Lu Zhou.

"Because I poured a little liquid helium," Lu Zhou said. He suddenly remembered something, and he looked at Qin Yue before saying, "Qin Yue, open the window for me."

Qin Yue put down his pen and said, "Okay, professor."

The office became a lot warmer after the window was opened.

Hardy suddenly realized something. He began to clean up the things on his table and was about to leave.

Lu Zhou noticed his movements and asked, "Where are you going?"

Hardy smiled awkwardly and said, "I suddenly remember that I still have a few theses I need to read, I have to go to the library."

"Helium isn't poisonous, don't be so nervous," Lu Zhou said. He sighed and placed the fiber-reinforced plastic on the window ledge, letting it sunbathed.

Liquid helium was a lot more dangerous than helium air.

If someone accidentally touched liquid helium, they would get frostbite on their fingers.

Lu Zhou returned to his office desk and remembered something. He then asked Vera, "Have you studied partial differential equations?"

Vera thought for a bit and nodded. However, she suddenly shook her head and said, "I have, but not much. Do you need help with anything?"

Lu Zhou shook his head and said, "No, it's fine, continue on the Collatz conjecture."

There were only three people in the Collatz conjecture research group. If Vera left, Lu Zhou would have to rely on Hardy and Qin Yue. He was afraid that the conjecture would never be solved.

The little girl looked a little sad.

She wanted to help the professor.

However, her abilities weren't enough…

Lu Zhou suddenly remembered there was someone else in his office. He looked at Wei Wen and asked, "Wei Wen, have you researched partial differential equations before?"

Wei Wen pushed his glasses and smiled.

"I have, why?"

The partial differential equation was one of his many talents.

He had conducted research in partial differential equations at Yan University.

He had been at Princeton for so long, this was his chance.

He had been waiting for this day.

He would prove that he was the second strongest person in this office!

Lu Zhou said, "I want to open a research project; it's about the Navier–Stokes equations."

Wei Wen's smile disappeared; he didn't look so confident anymore.

However, Lu Zhou didn't notice his change of expression.

Right now, he needed manpower, and any manpower would be good.

Of course, Wei Wen alone wasn't enough. Even though Wei Wen was outstanding, he was still only a graduate student.

Lu Zhou tapped his finger on the desk and began to think who else could help. Suddenly, he stood up from his chair.

"Oh yeah, how did I forget about him…"

Lu Zhou sounded excited.

He should be able to help me!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

Lu Zhou remembered that Qiu Chengtong was the leading person in partial differential equations.

There was no doubt about Old Qiu's achievements in differential geometry.

Anyone who had read the book "Differential Geometry" would know that he was the founder of geometric analysis.

What was the geometric analysis?

It was the study of integrating partial differentiation into differential geometry.

Although the Chinese academic community had mixed opinions on this figure, the international academic community still respected this scholar.

This could be seen from his rewards.

There were only two mathematicians who had won the three big prizes: the Wolf Prize, the Fields Medal, and the Crafoord Prize. One of them was Lu Zhou's mentor, Deligne, and the other was Qiu Chengtong.

When Lu Zhou won the Shiing-Shen Chern Mathematics Award, he had a brief encounter with Old Qiu. However, because their research areas were different, they hadn't stayed in contact.

Navier–Stokes equations was a partial differential equation problem. Lu Zhou had no doubt that Old Qiu was the leading expert in partial differential equations.

A Ford Explorer parked itself near the department of mathematics building in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Lu Zhou got off the car and didn't know where to go.

Therefore, he used his intuition and spoke to a person that looked like they study mathematics.

"Hello, where is Professor Qiu's office?"

"You want to find Professor Qiu?" said the guy with glasses as he looked at Lu Zhou. He felt like he had seen Lu Zhou before. He then asked, "Why do you want to find Professor Qiu?"

Lu Zhou said, "I have some questions I want to ask."

Maybe Lu Zhou looked too young because the guy with glasses chuckled and said, "Professor Qiu doesn't have time for your simple questions, just ask me."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Oh yeah? Then can you explain to me if there's a backward self-similar solution for the Navier-Stokes equation?"

The guy froze.

However, he didn't want to admit defeat. He began thinking about the problem but wasn't able to come up with an answer.

It was obvious that he studied partial differential equations, and he knew about the Navier-Stokes equation.

However, it was also obvious that he hadn't done any in-depth research.

Otherwise, he would know that this problem was actually answered in 1995 by Necas.

Lu Zhou looked at his watch as he asked, "Can you take me there now?"

"Sure, bro." The guy smiled and said, "Come with me… Old Qiu is a busy person, so he might not want to meet you."

Lu Zhou smiled and didn't say anything as he followed the guy.

They started to talk. Lu Zhou found out that this guy was called Zhao Wei, a Shuimu University graduate. He was now studying mathematics at Harvard.

"You're an undergrad?"

Lu Zhou said, "Why do you say that?"

Zhao Wei smiled and said, "Because you have a full head of hair, and you look young."

Lu Zhou: …?

How…

Does this make sense?

Zhao Wei continued to say, "… You found that problem in a textbook, right? I suggest you focus on the basics first. Only then should you study more in-depth problems."

This guy was very interesting. He didn't have bad intentions; he was just a bit too nosy.

If Zhao Wei became a professor, he would be deeply loved by his students.

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Makes sense, noted."

Zhao Wei was happy to pass on his knowledge. He smiled and said, "We're all friends here, we should help each other. Come find me if you need any help. You can call me, Brother Zhao!"

Lu Zhou said, "Okay then."

Brother Zhao is an interesting name.

Zhao Wei smiled and said, "You know my name now. Little brother, what is your name?"

"Lu Zhou."

Lu… Zhou?

Zhao Wei frowned and couldn't remember where he had heard this name before.

The two finally arrived at Old Qiu's office.

Although the office door was open, out of politeness, Lu Zhou still knocked on the door.

Old Qiu was writing at his desk when he looked up.

When the old man saw who was at the door, he was stunned. He then frowned before putting on a kind smile.

"Oh, guests…" Old Qiu stood up and smiled as he asked, "What brought you here?"

Lu Zhou smiled and replied, "I ran into a bottleneck in my research, and I want to ask you some partial differential equation problems."

Zhao Wei was confused about why Old Qiu was so nice to Lu Zhou.

Finally, he remembered who Lu Zhou was…

He thought about his arrogant conversation with Lu Zhou and wanted to crawl into the ground.

When Old Qiu heard Lu Zhou's request, he looked interested.

"Partial differential equation? This is my cup of tea, what is the exact problem?"

"It's related to Navier–Stokes equations."

Old Qiu's eyes suddenly lit up; he was even more interested now.

"Navier–Stokes equations? This is interesting… Sit down, I'll find my tea set; this will take a while."

Lu Zhou nodded and sat down at the tea table.

Suddenly, Old Qiu noticed that there was someone else at the door.

"Who are you?"

Zhao Wei said, "I'm Zhao Wei, I'm a student of Professor Steve Nadis!"

"Oh, Professor Nadis' student." Professor Qiu pushed his glasses and said, "Then, sit down?"

"No, it's fine." Zhao Wei shook his head and said, "I'm just bringing Professor Lu here, I won't bother you two."

Listening to these two big names talk would be helpful for Zhao Wei's research.

However, Zhao Wei felt like it would be too much pressure for him to sit next to them…

"It's just learning, no big deal." Old Qiu smiled and said, "Come and sit down, and drink some tea before you go."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

Chapter 374: Another Grinding Session

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The tea was ready.

A fine mist floated out of the teapot.

The old man picked up his cup and had a sip of tea before he started to talk.

"Out of all of the partial differential equations, the Navier-Stokes equations is probably the most difficult one. We cannot directly apply the partial differential equation theorems on the Navier Stokes equations, we can only get an approximation.

"From what I know, the Clay Institute has been researching the turbulence phenomenon. Although they have produced some results, they were nothing impressive.

"The plasma turbulence that you want to study is even more difficult. First of all, there isn't a computer that can handle that kind of calculation. Secondly, we can't obtain accurate observation data. We can only rely on inaccurate data."

Lu Zhou asked, "Why?"

Old Qiu smiled and said, "Because we don't have a method to observe high-temperature plasma ions. For example, if we take a nano-probe and poke it into the gas to collect molecules, the movement will perturb the gas and disrupt the data.

"We can use electrostatic probes and magnetic probes for lower temperature plasma. However, for any high-temperature plasma, any slight disturbance can cause the whole system to collapse. It is impossible to constrain the plasma.

"Therefore, we can only obtain the model by using the electromagnetic waves emitted by the plasma itself. However, the spectrum of the electromagnetic waves emitted by the plasma is wide, the amount of information is large, but the information contained is quite messy. The established model would only be accurate for a certain range."

Lu Zhou said, "Is there a solution?"

"Nope." Old Qiu put down the teacup and said in a joking tone, "If you can design an experiment to observe high-temperature plasma, then your contribution to the physics world would be akin to what the contribution cryogenic electron microscopy did to the biology world."

Lu Zhou smiled; he didn't know what to say.

Although the high tech system had information on engineering, Lu Zhou's energy was limited. He had barely studied engineering.

He was fine at designing experiments.

But designing the experiment instrument was beyond his capabilities.

"My personal suggestion is that since the experiment problem can't be solved, why don't you perfect the theoretical tools first?" The old man looked at Lu Zhou and said, "Mathematics is your strength, right?"

Lu Zhou was stunned, and he suddenly had a thought.

Yeah.

Mathematics is my strong suit.

If I can't create a piece of experiment equipment, why don't I create a theoretical tool first?

For example, the Navier–Stokes equations are used as a tool to study more complex problems. Just like how I was studying additive number theory, I needed to create other tools before I could tackle the Goldbach's conjecture.

Lu Zhou thoughts gradually became clear.

The rest of their conversation was centered around mathematics.

Old Qiu was very experienced in partial differentials.

Although he had never studied Navier–Stokes equations before, his opinions were still helpful for Lu Zhou.

Just like this, two hours had passed by.

The mist on top of the teapot disappeared, and the tea gradually became cold.

Zhao Wei sat next to them as he anxiously listening to their conversation.

He was a PhD student; he had nothing to add to the conversation.

This was a painful thing for him.

It wasn't just mental pain, it was physical pain as well.

Because he drank too much tea…

After three hours, the conversation between the two finally ended.

Lu Zhou said bye to Old Qiu, and Zhao Wei was finally set free.

Zhao Wei quickly went downstairs, and he rushed to the toilet to relieve himself. When he came out, he quickly caught up to Lu Zhou.

"Hey, Lu Zhou, what did you guys talk about?"

Lu Zhou was in a good mood, and he replied, "Some interesting things."

Zhao Wei said, "I heard something about nuclear fusion, is that thing real?"

It would be amazing if it is real.

Lu Zhou didn't answer the question. Instead, he asked, "What do you mean by real?"

Zhao Wei was stunned by the question, and he said, "Like, if it is achievable."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "The basis of science is to achieve things that cannot be achieved. If the problem is already solved, what is the point of researching it? You're a PhD student, why are you asking these outsider questions?"

Zhao Wei blushed as he scratched his head and smiled.

"I want to buy you dinner, do you have time?"

Lu Zhou nodded and said, "Okay."

Anyway, it was dinner time.

He would never refuse a free meal.

…

Lu Zhou was inspired by his conversation with Old Qiu.

As per what the old man said, the most important thing was to create the tools to solve the problem.

Which meant that he had to get himself a ladder before he could climb the wall.

Before he could get a ladder, all he could do was to walk around the infinitely long wall.

Lu Zhou returned from Harvard to his Princeton house. He re-examined the problem from a different perspective and felt like every single cell in his body was bursting with inspiration.

He sat in his study room and twisted a pen in his hand while he talked to himself.

"… Building a theoretical model for the plasma requires accurate observations.

"However, since I can't create an experiment tool, I can only start with the part I can solve!"

Lu Zhou stretched his neck, picked up the pen, and wrote a line on a piece of blank paper.

[The Existence of Smooth Solutions of 3D Incompressible Navier-Stokes Equations with Specific Initial Values]

He looked at this title and felt full of motivation.

It was time to grind again!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

Chapter 375: In-progress Navier–Stokes Equations Results

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Ever since Lu Zhou arrived in Princeton, he discovered how normal grinding was.

Deligne had always criticized him for his work and lifestyle. However, Lu Zhou's desire to solve problems made him this way.

This often reminded him of his high school life.

Whenever he came across a mathematics problem that he couldn't solve, he would always become obsessed with the problem. He wouldn't even eat until he had solved the problem.

He had always had this desire to explore the unknown.

Lu Zhou finally completed his thesis at the end of October.

Lu Zhou looked at the stacks of paper on his desk and smiled.

He felt nostalgic at the feeling of solving pure mathematics problems.

Lu Zhou turned on the computer and opened a Word document. He began transferring his work into the computer.

[The Existence of Smooth Solutions of 3D Incompressible Navier-Stokes Equations with Specific Initial Values]

Lu Zhou typed the title and began writing the abstract. He made a summary of his work.

Simply put, he set the initial value of a certain condition α and used a PDE 1 method to prove the existence of a smooth solution to the three-dimensional incompressible Navier-Stokes equations, under the "α case".

Prior to this, the study of the existence of the smooth solution of the three-dimensional incompressible Navier-Stokes equations assumed that the initial value of the fluid motion region was small.

As for the existence of the smooth solution to the Navier–Stokes equations when the initial value was large, it was still a mystery.

In some sense, Lu Zhou was adding onto the foundation. He made another step forward to the Millennium Prize Problems.

Interestingly enough, Lu Zhou didn't intend to go after the Millennium Prize Problems, he only followed Old Qiu's advice to create a theoretical tool.

Now, not only did he create the theoretical tool, but he also made an in-progress result of the Navier–Stokes equations problem.

This was related to the Millennium Prize Problems. Therefore, the significance of this research wasn't small.

Lu Zhou was in a dilemma.

Should I post this in a mathematics journal or a physics journal?

This is a problem worth considering.

It's purely theoretical, I can't post it on Science or Nature, right?

…

The next day, Lu Zhou brought his laptop to his Institute for Advanced Study office.

He placed his laptop on the table and opened it. He looked at Wei Wen, who was on the other side of the office.

"Wei Wen."

"What?" Wei Wen adjusted his glasses. He was studying partial differential equations when he heard Lu Zhou.

Lu Zhou waved his hand and said, "Look at this thesis."

Wei Wen was confused. He stopped writing and walked to Lu Zhou. He looked at the thesis on the laptop screen.

He didn't react for a long time.

Wei Wen: "…"

When Lu Zhou saw that he didn't react, he said, "Just roughly look over it, what do you think?"

"I…" Wei Wen lowered his head and said, "Don't understand."

Lu Zhou coughed and said, "That's fine, just give me an opinion. Do you think it's better to post it on a mathematics journal or a physics journal?"

Wei Wen went silent for a while before he responded hesitantly, "… Mathematics should be good."

Lu Zhou asked, "Why?"

Wei Wen said, "The calculation part is longer than the discussion part."

Lu Zhou: "…"

That's straightforward.

However…

This does seem to make sense?

Mathematics does have more calculations than physics.

Lu Zhou thought for a bit and decided on a mathematics journal.

As for which journal…

Lu Zhou was a Princeton professor, he obviously was going to submit to the Princeton University Journal.

He hadn't submitted to the Princeton Annual Mathematics journal in a while.

Lu Zhou attached the thesis to his email and sent the thesis to the Annual Mathematics editorial department.

After that, he closed his laptop and went to the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory(PPPL).

The theoretical work was nearly complete, Lu Zhou now had to work on the experiment.

…

A modern minimalist-style building surrounded by grass was located in the town of Princeton. It looked ugly compared to the Oxford-style Princeton University buildings.

However, no one could undermine its influence in the nuclear fusion field.

If Lyman Spitzer was able to provide a theoretical blueprint for people to achieve controlled nuclear fusion, then this laboratory was responsible for realizing the blueprint.

Since the beginning of the century, ITER established a framework for various research institutes in the field of controlled nuclear fusion technology. PPPL had been working closely with the Max Planck Institute on research for the stellarator.

The world's largest prototype stellarator nuclear fusion device, the "Wendelstein 7-X", was built with the help of PPPL. PPPL also cooperated with several other major nuclear fusion research groups around the globe.

Most people didn't believe that in addition to controllable nuclear fusion, the researchers here also dealt with neon plasma and even helium plasma accelerators.

Imagine the rocket spacecraft thrusters in Sci-fi movies, that was what they were researching.

Lu Zhou made an appointment in advance and waited in the research institute lounge. Soon after, he saw the head of the laboratory, Sam Lazerson.

When Professor Lazerson heard Lu Zhou's request, he smiled.

"You plan on designing an experiment to observe high-temperature plasma?"

Lu Zhou nodded. "Yes."

Professor Lazerson smiled and said, "This is different than mathematics, it's not that simple."

"I know," Lu Zhou shrugged and said, "I only want to consult on some technical issues."

Lazerson didn't say anything; he wanted Lu Zhou to continue.

It was obvious that Lazerson treated Lu Zhou as a "non-expert".

After all, if this thing was that easy, someone would have solved it by now.

However, Lu Zhou wasn't fazed by the plasma expert's attitude, and he continued to speak.

"Hypothetically speaking, can we place two ports of plasma on the track and deliver an extraneous particle to the helium and neon plasma through the A port, then recycle the particles through the B port… Is this possible in theory?"

Professor Lazerson touched his chin as he replied, "This does sound interesting, but what is the use of this?"

"It's difficult to directly observe plasma at high temperatures, but it is mathematically feasible to analyze the trajectories of the plasma colliding with particles."

Professor Lazerson squinted his eyes, and he didn't look as condescending as before.

His expression gradually became more and more serious, like he was thinking about the possibility of this idea.

After a long time, Professor Lazerson finally said, "Ordinary particles won't work!"

"You're right." Lu Zhou nodded and smirked as he said, "Its mass must be the same as tritium or similar, so it can be distinguished from the reactants and products.

"Also the most important thing is that it must be stable!"

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

Chapter 376: He3 Atom Probe

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

At the cutting edge of theoretical physics, it was common to throw a particle into an unpredicted chaotic system.

Then, the system could be observed indirectly by the motion of the particle.

In fact, Lu Zhou's experiment proposal idea came from his earlier work at CERN.

The whole system of plasma could be treated like a pool table where playing a shot could tell you where the balls were.

As for the particle that would play the role of the "white ball", there wasn't a better option than helium-3.

First of all, its atomic diameter was small. It consisted of two protons and one neutron, which was close to the atomic mass of helium-2, and the nuclear structure was stabler than helium-2! Not only could it avoid indistinguishable multi-atomic collisions, but it could also pass through plasma easier.

In order to reach the temperature at which the fusion reaction occurred between helium-3 and deuterium, a temperature a hundred times of the magnetic field would be required.

Therefore, there was no better option than helium-3!

Due to a large number of particles in the plasma system, the effect of the helium 3 atom on the entire system was negligible. After all, throwing one atom into the system was much better than inserting an atom probe!

The helium-3 atom passed through the plasma and collided with the particles in the system. The electromagnetic waves generated in the collision would act as "sounds", which could be heard by the observation device. Using this data, the macro and microscopic parameters of the plasma system could be analyzed.

After that, the helium-3 atom would collide with the target material and the impact data would also be recorded.

As long as the helium-3 atom collided with the plasma system, and the electromagnetic wave data generated by the collision and the impact data on the target material could be collected, Lu Zhou was confident that he could indirectly analyze the system using mathematical methods.

This could be put into a simple analogy.

If someone were measuring the refractive index of water, studying the whole water system itself would be too complicated. However, studying one beam of light injected into the water and observing the change in the angle would be much simpler.

Lu Zhou's experiment consisted of injecting the helium-3 particle into the plasma system!

"… We only need to set up a large palm-shaped target material on the first wall of the stellarator to capture the helium-3 particle emitted from the atomic gun which can be generated by the collision of helium-3 with tritium atoms in the emission cycle. The electromagnetic wave signal and the data of the impact angular momentum when the final helium-3 hits the target can be recorded. Then, we can indirectly analyze the state of plasma under high-temperature pressure!"

"I'm not saying that it can't be done," Professor Lazerson looked at Lu Zhou and said, "but are you sure that you can process the data? If we launch N particles, then there are N variables that would be involved! We also have to consider the disturbance of the magnetic field on the plasma…"

With enough variables, even a supercomputer wouldn't be able to calculate the model.

However, Lu Zhou wasn't shocked by Lazerson's words.

Lu Zhou was confident, and he said, "I have 90% certainty that this will work."

Although building a mathematical model sounded tedious, it was nothing a supercomputer couldn't solve.

Lu Zhou believed in his ability to build theoretical models.

Professor Lazerson was slightly hesitant, and he couldn't make a decision.

In theory, the idea should work. However, the premise was that Lu Zhou could complete his theoretical model and that the helium-3 atom would produce electromagnetic waves.

Then, they would have to analyze the collected data successfully.

Data that couldn't be analyzed was no better than random noise.

"… Give me a reason to trust you."

"Is the Goldbach's conjecture enough?"

Professor Lazerson said, "Not enough! That only shows that you're an expert in number theory, it means nothing to me!"

"Then what about the 'Theoretical Model of the Electrochemical Interface Structure'?" Lu Zhou said, "I know you'll say that it only means I'm an expert in theoretical chemistry and computational chemistry, not an expert in plasma, right?"

Professor Lazerson didn't say anything.

Lu Zhou continued, "But I want to tell you that all of my research is based on data. Processing data, analyzing data… I've processed much more data than this experiment will produce!"

Professor Lazerson was speechless, and he went into deep thought.

Lu Zhou saw that he wasn't speaking so he continued, "Believe me! It sounds hard, but it isn't impossible! We only have to use an atom probe to insert the helium-3 into the plasma.

"If we succeed…"

Lu Zhou looked at him and said, "Then it would undoubtedly be an invention worthy of a Nobel Prize."

The Nobel Prize wasn't only a reward for theoretical discoveries, it would also award major inventions that revolutionized the world.

For example, in 2017 October, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to three scholars who invented the cryo-electron microscope.

As per what Old Qiu said, if someone could establish a method to observe the parameters of a high-temperature plasma system, the effect on the physics industry would be huge.

This would also undoubtedly push forward the controllable nuclear fusion project!

"This sounds…"

Professor Lazerson took off his glasses and wiped his glasses with a handkerchief.

He became more and more excited.

However, he wasn't sure.

Lu Zhou looked at his watch; ten minutes had passed.

Lu Zhou was about to give up and find someone else to cooperate, but suddenly Professor Lazerson put on his glasses.

He was no longer hesitant toward Lu Zhou.

Instead…

He was excited!

"… This sounds interesting!"

Lu Zhou sighed in relief and smiled as he reached out with his right hand.

"I'm happy to hear that."

Finally, someone didn't tell him that the "idea is unrealistic".

…

Convincing Professor Lazerson saved Lu Zhou a lot of trouble.

The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory was a world-class laboratory. They also cooperated with nuclear fusion research institutes around the world and had a tremendous amount of resources and talent.

They were one of the only research institutes to have this quality.

If Professor Lazerson was still unwilling, Lu Zhou would have to write a letter to the Max Planck Institute and consult the scholars at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics.

As for building a laboratory himself with the same capabilities of the PPPL…

It would cost a lot more than a few hundred million.

Lu Zhou reached a cooperative agreement with Professor Lazerson. He consulted other experts on this matter and decided to name this technology as "Helium-3 atom probe".

The project team name was only three letters.

"He3".

Over the next few days, Lu Zhou basically went back and forth between the Institute for Advanced Study and the Plasma Physics Laboratory. He was either reading the literature on plasma research or working with Professor Lazerson on He3. He also sat with plasma physics experts and engineers of the project team to exchange ideas on the experiment design.

Even though Lu Zhou finished his theoretical research, he was still busy.

While Lu Zhou was working on the "He3" project, his thesis was published in Annual Mathematics.

His thesis on partial differential equations was finally available to the public.

Lu Zhou didn't pay attention to the mathematics community's reaction to his thesis.

In his opinion, he didn't produce any particularly outstanding research result. It was only reinforcement to the foundation laid by predecessors.

However, fate was sometimes wonderful.

Lu Zhou didn't expect things to go in the opposite direction.

The stone he threw into the pond of mathematics didn't sink. Instead, it floated to the top…

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

Chapter 377: Playing The Long Game?

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Annual Mathematics was one of the top four journals in the mathematics world. Any mathematics research institute would subscribe to the journal.

Tao Zhexuan's office was no exception.

The latest Annual Mathematics issue was sent to his office. He opened the journal catalog and began searching for theses he might be interested in. He marked the theses with a pen for him to read later.

Suddenly, his fingers trembled, and his pen tip rested on a thesis title.

[The Existence of Smooth Solutions of 3D Incompressible Navier-Stokes Equations with Specific Initial Values]

"Navier–Stokes equations?"

Tao Zhexuan looked at the thesis title, and he looked interested.

He hadn't seen a mathematics thesis about the Navier–Stokes equations in a long time.

After all, even though the Navier–Stokes equations had a wide range of application, it was too difficult to make any pure mathematics thesis-worthy progress on the equations.

Tao Zhexuan was curious. He put down his pen and flipped to the thesis page.

When he saw the author's name, he was stunned.

Lu Zhou?

He originally planned on reading the theses when he had spare time, but when he saw this name, he couldn't wait any longer.

He took a blank piece of draft paper from his table and picked up the pen. He then began to meticulously read over the thesis.

Time quickly passed by.

Without him knowing it, it was already noon.

Professor Tao spent the entire morning reading the thesis.

When he put down the journal, he couldn't help but exclaim.

"Professor Lu really is impressive…"

Although he only briefly read the thesis, he still understood the underlying complexity and connotation of the thesis.

What impressed him the most was that Lu Zhou used a theorem that he had never seen before.

Of course, if he wanted to get a deeper understanding of the thesis, he would have to spend a lot more time reading.

Professor Tao didn't want to teach his afternoon lecture anymore. He called his assistant and told him to lecture the class instead. He, on the other hand, turned on his laptop.

Like Lu Zhou's Weibo, this big-name also liked to share his research.

He had a blog.

He blogged about trending events, thesis reviews, and talked about other academia figures.

He also blogged about his own thoughts!

[

… I think this is a very interesting discovery. Not only is the conclusion of the thesis amazing, but the creative theorems he used is also innovative.

I know that he is talented in using many different mathematics tools. I've never seen someone involved in more fields of research than him. Not only that, but his ability to understand and apply mathematics is the best I've ever seen.

Normally a scholar would be exceptional if they can understand and apply an entire branch of mathematics.

However, Lu Zhou is beyond exceptional.

He's talented at inventing an entirely new way of thinking, finding ways to apply old methods to new problems, and building completely new theorems.

In my opinion, if he continues to perfect his theorem, he might be able to solve this century-old problem.

Of course, I have to admit, it is not easy!

]

No one knew more about partial differentials than Tao Zhexuan.

In 2014, a Kazakh mathematician, Otelbayev, claimed to have proved the existence of a smooth Navier–Stokes equations solution. This event caused controversy among international mathematicians.

Otelbayev was a well-known mathematician that had a better reputation than Professor Enoch. Therefore, his seemingly outrageous claim wasn't ignored.

However, reviewing his thesis wasn't easy.

Perelman, who solved the Poincare conjecture, had an eccentric personality, but thankfully his thesis was written in English. However, Otelbayev wasn't that good at English, so he wrote his 90-page thesis entirely in Russian.

Tao Zhexuan, who could only speak Cantonese and English, didn't understand Russian. However, that didn't stop him.

According to Mr. Otelbayev's thesis, Tao Zhexuan used his idea and constructed a similar Navier–Stokes equations structure. Therefore, if Tao Zhexuan's thesis was proven to be correct, then there would be no doubt that Otelbayev's idea was also correct.

Then, something even nuttier happened.

By setting a special initial value, Otelbayev proved that a smooth solution corresponding to that value would lose its regularity across time. This was equivalent to a contradiction proof by finding a counterexample.

This meant that the idea itself was wrong.

His counterexample was recognized by many partial differential scholars.

Soon after, a Russian mathematician at the University of Oxford, Professor Gregory Selegin, finally reviewed Otelbayev's thesis. He pointed out six errors in Otelbayev's thesis and ended the controversy.

Of course, Otelbayev also acknowledged the mistakes himself.

All in all, Professor Tao was quite well-versed in the Navier–Stokes equations.

He rarely posted academic content on his blogs, and any information he posted on his blogs was verified by himself.

Actually, it wasn't just Tao Zhexuan that gave a high rating for this thesis, many other big names in the partial differential equations field also gave a similar review.

For example, Professor Fefferman, the head of the mathematics department at Princeton, basically had the same opinion as Tao Zhexuan. He believed that the method used by Lu Zhou was more important than the conclusion of the thesis itself.

It didn't matter if there really was a "smooth solution of the three-dimensional incompressible Navier-Stokes equations", what mattered was the inspiration that Lu Zhou's mathematics method could bring.

Lu Zhou was previously immersed in fields like materials science and chemistry, whereas many scholars thought that it was a mistake to concentrate on other fields in Lu Zhou's prime years.

After solving the Goldbach's conjecture, Lu Zhou went silent for more than a year. He hadn't published a mathematics thesis since then, and some people even thought that this genius was bored of mathematics.

However, it seemed that wasn't the case now.

This genius didn't give up on mathematics research.

Instead…

He was playing the long game?

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

Chapter 378: Enough time!

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The Navier–Stokes equations was one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems; it gained popularity due to its applications in engineering and physics.

Now that a genius scholar wrote a thesis on this topic, the Navier-Stokes equations were receiving more attention than ever.

Many mathematics and physics doctoral holders in major universities and research institute were all talking about this problem.

They were curious if Lu Zhou was taking on the Navier–Stokes equations.

If he was, what stage was his research at?

Was it only the Annual Mathematics thesis?

Most people believed that this genius had already produced far better research results than the Annual Mathematics thesis.

Lunchtime, Princeton Institute for Advanced Study.

"I'll have a bacon sandwich."

"Another sandwich… Do you really not want to try other flavors? You're always eating the same food, it's not a good diet."

The chef recognized Lu Zhou because he ordered the same food every time.

"No thanks."

Lu Zhou took the sandwich and coffee from the chef. He then found a comfortable place to sit down.

Normally, he would cook for himself or even eat the Ivy Club, but these days he would often eat a simple sandwich before heading to the plasma laboratory.

The design of the experiment sounded simple, but it was extremely complicated to execute!

In addition to the obvious problems, there were many hidden and unclear problems that needed to be solved. This required both theoretical and engineering knowledge, which meant that Lu Zhou had to keep in touch with the engineers at the laboratory. He also had to exchange ideas and find viable solutions with the engineers.

Lu Zhou felt like his speed of comprehending engineering material was unexpectedly fast.

As for how fast…

It was similar to his speed of studying mathematics two years ago.

Lu Zhou slowly ate his sandwich while he was still studying complicated problems.

Suddenly, a blonde woman sat across from him. She took out a microphone out of nowhere before she said, "Hello, Mr. Lu Zhou, I am sorry to bother you. I'm a BBC reporter."

Lu Zhou stopped eating his sandwich and looked at the blonde lady before he asked, "What do you want?"

He didn't recall doing anything spectacular recently.

She obviously wasn't here to talk about the Hoffman Prize which had happened a long time ago.

The reporter smiled and said, "The thing is, your thesis in Annual Mathematics recently has attracted worldwide attention from the academic community. I want to ask if you are attempting to find a smooth solution to the Navier–Stokes equations, to challenge one of the Millennium Prize Problems?"

A normal mathematics problem wouldn't be worthy of an interview from BBC, but the Millennium Prize Problems were different. Its million dollar prize was worthy of a news headline.

"Oh no, you have it wrong, there's no such thing." Lu Zhou shook his head and said, "I only researched the Navier–Stokes equations to facilitate my own experiment. Even though I found an interesting result, it is not worth of being commended."

The reporter looked at Lu Zhou and said, "Unbelievable… Can I ask what are you experimenting on?"

"It doesn't matter, I don't want you guys to report on my research and write an unrealistic headline," Lu Zhou said as he crunched up his sandwich wrappers before he threw it in the trash can. He then added, "I can only tell you one thing before the research results come out."

Lu Zhou was worried that if he had told BBC he was designing experiments to study the turbulence phenomenon of plasma at high temperatures, the BBC would report that he was going to solve the nuclear fusion problem. Lu Zhou's phone would blow up again.

After all, this was a BBC reporter.

Due to their exaggerated headlines and shady reporting techniques, they were banned from Wikipedia citations.

The reporter didn't care about Lu Zhou's remark. Instead, she leaned forward with the microphone and asked, "What thing?"

Lu Zhou said, "No comment."

Reporter: "…"

…

Lu Zhou went to PPPL after the short interview.

The engineers at the lab were already working.

When Professor Lazerson saw Lu Zhou, he greeted him.

"The Wendelstein 7-X accepted our request to install the target material and atomic gun for our next experiment. They will also help us collect the data."

Lu Zhou immediately asked, "When is the next experiment?"

Professor Lazerson wasn't sure, and he said, "In a month… We must come up with valuable results before December! Otherwise, they might consider postponing the experiment. The ITER project is running out of money, and all of the laboratories are racing against the clock."

Lu Zhou said, "There's not much time left."

"Yes, not much time left. Of course, we can wait until the overhaul in June, but…" Professor Lazerson said.

"But?"

Professor Lazerson continued, "But PPPL won't continue supporting our research without restrictions. If we don't produce any results for half a year, they might scrap the experiment."

This project relied heavily on PPPL. The funding was from PPPL; the talent and equipment were all from PPPL.

There were many high tech projects being developed, and nuclear fusion was only one of them. The "He3" atom probe was only a sub-project under the nuclear fusion project.

If this project took up half a year of resources and didn't produce any results, the laboratory director might call off the project, or at least delay the project.

Unless there were multiple Nobel Prize winners endorsing the project, or the project itself was worthy of a Nobel Prize.

However, Lu Zhou obviously wasn't a Nobel Prize winner, and neither was Professor Lazerson…

Lu Zhou said, "We can't wait for half a year?"

Professor Lazerson said, "Normally we can, but research projects recently have been on a tight schedule, so less important projects will be delayed… no matter how interesting the project is."

He certainly hoped the project could continue.

After all, the physics community could only "detect" plasma, not "observe".

The two concepts were completely different, and the models built from the concepts were also completely different.

If Lu Zhou could really use his mathematics abilities to complete this experiment, the Nobel Prize committee might even consider Lazerson for a prize.

As an engineer, this was his only chance to win the Nobel Prize.

When Lu Zhou heard Lazerson's explanation, he said, "We have to work faster! The deadline is the end of the year, so we have to finish it before the end of the year."

Professor Lazerson asked, "Is there enough time?"

Lu Zhou looked at Professor Lazerson, and he replied, "There is definitely enough time!"

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

Chapter 379: Greater Transmission Power!

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

There wasn't much time left for the "He3" project team.

Everyone was racing against the clock.

Finally, due to everyone's constant effort, a rough prototype was completed.

The prototype consisted of two parts; one part was an "atomic gun" used to accelerate and emit helium atoms, and the other was a target material installed in the vacuum chamber for receiving helium-3 atoms. There were also various computers and sensor components.

As for why this was a rough prototype…

It was because almost all of the parts were pieced together.

The acceleration track path of the atomic gun was taken from an old particle accelerator from the Argonne National Laboratory. The vacuum chamber used to hold the plasma was designed by the PPPL when they were working on the stellarator.

This entire system could heat plasma up to 7,000 degrees, which was a long way from the "high" temperature of 100 million degrees. The electromagnetic field was also an order of magnitude below the stellarator's, which was 10T.

However, it was enough.

Every experiment would start with a proof of its feasibility. They didn't have to complete nuclear fusion in the vacuum chamber, and they didn't need a high density of the plasma.

They only had to successfully collect data from the plasma and analyze the data to get an "observation".

Then, they just had to integrate this observation device on the stellarator.

In fact, Lu Zhou's original idea was to obtain the old stellarator from the WEGA experiment group.

But it was only an idea. Professor Lazerson told him that their stellarator couldn't be bought with money.

All in all, the prototype was complete!

The particle accelerator path was the atomic gun's "barrel", while the target material for the high energy helium-3 particles was a tungsten-titanium alloy. Behind the target material were the sensitive probes that would collect the data of the impact.

Although the engineering team encountered many problems, it was generally a smooth ride up to this point.

Some final adjustments were done, and Professor Lazerson eagerly announced the start of the first experiment.

The researchers in the laboratory spent countless days and nights working on this project. They needed a successful experiment to boost their morale.

However…

Not everything went as smooth as expected.

The second the helium-3 atom was injected into the plasma, the atom quickly rose to a high temperature and collided with the orbit wall. The detector connected to the other side of the target material collected electromagnetic wave data of the helium-3 atom.

God seemed to have played a joke on the researchers. The helium-3 shot from the atomic gun didn't travel through the plasma as expected.

It didn't hit the target material.

Obviously, they successfully fired the atom bullet.

However, they weren't able to recover the bullet.

The first experiment failed…

…

The 21st experiment was over.

The laboratory was silent.

The atom probe mounted behind the target material still didn't detect the signal emitted from the helium-3 impact.

The experiment was facing their biggest bottleneck yet.

If the emitted atom couldn't be collected, then the experiment would be meaningless.

The first to break the silence was a nuclear fusion engineer.

He said, "Maybe the probe isn't sensitive enough? Maybe the impact happened, and we just didn't detect it."

This was a possibility. If the collision signal was too weak, it might have been ignored by the detector.

"Impossible," a plasma theoretical physicist said. He then added, "The electromagnetic wave has a unique shape, and the only possible scenario is the helium-3 atom deviating from the orbit path… You should know this."

The plasma physicist was looking at Lu Zhou.

Lu Zhou didn't say anything; he only looked down and nodded.

Lu Zhou could tell from the electromagnetic spectrum image that the helium 3 atom didn't penetrate the plasma. Instead, it "disappeared" inside the plasma particles.

The atom might have been confined in the plasma electromagnetic field, but the orbit path was changed due to the collisions…

If a particle that entered a chaotic system could not be observed, then it would become a part of the chaotic system. Even if it still existed, it would be considered as "missing" in the physics sense.

The research seemed to reach a dead-end…

"This idea might not work at all," Professor Lazerson said as he took off his safety helmet and looked at the computer screen. He then looked at Lu Zhou and said, "The plasma used in the experiment was only 7,000 degrees, it's far from the stellarator's plasma density…"

Professor Lazerson's intentions were clear.

Even though the temperature was greatly decreased, the helium-3 particle still didn't penetrate the plasma. There was a doubt that the helium-3 particle wouldn't be able to penetrate the hundreds of millions degree plasma in the stellarator.

Lu Zhou looked at the computer screen, and suddenly, he said, "We need an atomic gun with a greater transmission power!"

"Yes, we need a larger atomic gun. It would be nice to get the Swiss Hadron Collider as an acceleration module and put our helium-3 atom on a rocket and make it pierce through all of the particles," Professor Lazerson said. He then shook his head and added, "You know that's not possible."

"Don't exaggerate so much," Lu Zhou shook his head and said, "I did the calculations, and we only need to increase the electromagnetic field strength of the atomic gun to 1T. Then, in theory, the helium-3 particles will be able to penetrate the plasma."

Lu Zhou didn't rigorously calculate this number; it was a rough estimate based on experience.

They might not need 1T, but 1T was definitely enough.

"This is ridiculous! The stellarator only has a magnetic field strength of 10T!" Professor Lazerson couldn't help but say, "Are you serious, do you mathematics people have an idea of numbers? Do you know how expensive superconducting materials are?"

This was still a problem of funding.

Although the PPPL laboratory was powerful, its annual funding was only US$40 million.

This money was split between many projects, and the "He3" project only had US$4 million of funding.

They used recycled parts and equipment to save money.

After all, every experiment they ran was burning money.

Professor Lazerson suddenly had an impulsive thought.

Maybe… working with Lu Zhou is a bad idea.

The engineers in the laboratory were silent; they didn't want to anger Professor Lazerson anymore.

Lu Zhou's request was ridiculous; it was like a rich person telling a homeless person to buy a house to solve all their problems.

Lu Zhou didn't say anything. Instead, he quietly waited for Lazerson to finish his words.

He then looked at Professor Lazerson before he coughed and said slowly, "What if… I can solve the funding problem?"

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

Chapter 380: Able To Do Anything With Money

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The laboratory went silent for a minute.

Professor Lazerson rubbed his nose and said, "Sorry, what did you just say? I didn't hear you."

Lu Zhou: "I'm saying that I can solve the funding problem."

Professor Lazerson looked at Lu Zhou like he was an alien before he spoke in disbelief.

"You sure?"

Professor Lazerson wasn't the only one in disbelief; the engineers standing next to him couldn't believe what they were hearing.

Lu Zhou: "I am sure."

Professor Lazerson smiled and shook his head as he said, "Your prize money isn't enough. Even if you win both the Fields Medal and Nobel Prize and sell the medals next year, it still won't be enough."

There had been people who sold their Nobel Prize medals in the past, but Lu Zhou would never do something like that…

At least for now, he wasn't lacking money.

Lu Zhou sighed and didn't try to explain. Instead, he asked, "How much will it cost?"

Professor Lazerson obviously didn't think Lu Zhou could afford the funding, and so, he said in a joking tone, "If you can find US$10 million, then I guarantee you our project will be funded."

Lu Zhou didn't reply. Instead, he walked outside of the laboratory and called his manager, White Sheridan.

Sheridan picked up the call; he was probably at his office.

"Hello?"

Lu Zhou said, "It's me."

Sheridan already knew who was calling from the caller ID.

He said with a respectful tone, "How can I help you?"

Lu Zhou said, "Check how much money is in the Star Sky Technology's business account."

Sheridan said, "… I'll have to consult the finance manager for the specific amount. After that, I'll send the financial report to your email."

The parent company of Star Sky Technology was registered in the Cayman Islands, while the Star Sky Technology North American branch in Philadelphia was independent of the parent company.

Sheridan was mainly responsible for managing the patents, so he had to contact the parent company finance staff for financial documents.

However, Lu Zhou didn't want to know the specific number; he only needed an estimate.

"Is there ten million?"

When Sheridan heard this number, he hesitated for a second.

"There's definitely ten million…"

My boss…

Is underestimating our capabilities.

The company's income on HCS-2 material patent license alone was more than US$10 million.

The revenue from the modified PDMS patent licensing hadn't been touched, and Umicore had been paying money quarterly to the account.

The only cost was the one where Lu Zhou spent a hundred million on a Chinese laboratory.

US$10 million was nothing for Star Sky Technology.

When Lu Zhou heard Sheridan's answer, he nodded.

"I'll send you an account in a bit. Transfer 10 million there."

Star Sky Technology's business structure was simple as Lu Zhou was the only shareholder. He had the power of a king, and he didn't have a board to answer to.

Sheridan didn't ask what Lu Zhou was planning on doing. Instead, he replied in a respectful tone, "Yes, boss."

…

Lu Zhou rarely talked about his assets with outsiders, because honestly, earning money was too easy; it almost didn't feel real.

Other than the small number of people that followed him closely, almost no one knew about the branch of Star Sky Technology at the Cayman Islands. They didn't know that the modified PDMS patent license and HCS-2 materials license had already netted US$100 million.

Even if this money were put into a bank account untouched, the interest alone would be enormous.

Lu Zhou wasn't interested in yachts or jets, and the only expenditure he had was experiments.

When the US$10 million arrived in the He3 project account, the project auditor rushed into the laboratory due to the sudden influx of cash. The auditor handed Professor Lazerson the printed wire transfer information…

The entire laboratory went dead silent.

Lu Zhou looked at Professor Lazerson and coughed before he asked, "Is US$10 million really enough?"

Lu Zhou thought this was nothing compared to the budget of the particle accelerator.

However, he didn't know that the entire PPPL's annual research funding was only US$40 million.

The amount he injected into the He3 project was worth a quarter of the entire budget of PPPL…

Professor Lazerson gulped and nodded.

"It's enough…"

Lu Zhou noticed that the researchers in the laboratory were looking at him, and he coughed softly.

"Start working, we don't have much time left."

The researchers and engineers in the laboratory glanced at each other before they went back to work.

Professor Lazerson looked at the piece of paper and then looked at Lu Zhou. He then asked, "The funding problem is solved?"

Lu Zhou: "Solved."

"Unbelievable! Where did you…" Professor Lazerson didn't know how to express his astonishment.

Lu Zhou guessed what he wanted to ask, so he said ambiguously, "Actually, I researched chemistry a while ago, and earned some money from the patent."

Lu Zhou pointed to the Apple laptop on the office desk and said, "For example, the electrode battery material inside this thing was probably invented by me."

Professor Lazerson's eyes were wide open as he said, "But still, it's ten million… Are you crazy?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "It's fine, I have more than enough."

Professor Lazerson: "…"

Engineers: "…"

Researchers: "…"

Evil capitalist!

What a punchable face!

But why am I…

So jealous!

…

The only problem the He3 project team had was insufficient energy on the helium-3 particle. This could be solved by increasing the intensity of the confined magnetic field of the atomic gun.

The strength of the confined magnetic field could be increased with money.

Yes, that was how scientific research was conducted. Anything could be solved with money. If Lu Zhou invested a billion dollars, he could make SpaceX send a rocket to collect helium-3 from the moon.

Of course, Lu Zhou didn't have a billion dollars…

In short, with the US$10 million, the He3 project team could directly purchase accelerator components from the Brookhaven National Laboratory or even from CERN. The experienced engineers of PPPL could then modify the parts.

This did cost a lot of money.

But Lu Zhou thought it was worth it…

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

Chapter 381: The Last Number Theory Lecture Before Christmas

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

After the US$10 million research fund was received, no one else had any doubts about the project or Lu Zhou's mathematical abilities.

Even the project meetings were quieter.

However, it wasn't quite because of the sudden US$10 million; it was because they didn't have anything to discuss.

The entire engineering design had been clearly outlined; all of the complex physics and engineering problems were already solved.

Right now, the most important problem was implementation.

The theoretical work was complete. Suddenly, Lu Zhou realized that in these two most crucial and intense weeks, he had somehow relaxed. There was nothing else for him to do, at least not before the equipment arrived.

However, the engineers had no time to relax.

In order to prevent the accelerator magnetic field from interfering with the magnetic field of the plasma, they had to drill a hole in the laboratory wall and place the atomic gun further away from the orbit path…

…

Princeton Institute for Advanced Study.

Hardy and Jerick dug out a two-meter tall Christmas tree and placed it next to the decoration boxes in the office.

Although Lu Zhou gave them a Christmas holiday, no one wanted to take a vacation.

Everyone agreed to Hardy's proposal of decorating the office for Christmas.

Hardy wiped the sweat off his forehead and stretched his back. He suddenly noticed Lu Zhou, who rarely came to the office, was in the office. Therefore, he greeted him.

"Professor, will you spend Christmas with us?"

Lu Zhou was writing at his desk, and he stopped writing and said, "I should."

Hardy was delighted, and he immediately asked, "Then… professor, do we get Christmas presents?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Of course, I'll prepare a special Christmas gift for all of you."

The office was suddenly intrigued.

Lu Zhou would prepare a Christmas gift for them?

Although they didn't know what the gift was, everyone was obviously looking forward to it.

Of course, some people also looked worried.

Jerick turned to Hardy and whispered, "The gift isn't a math problem, right?"

Hardy said, "Probably… not."

However, this seemed like something Professor Lu Zhou would do.

Hardy wasn't so excited anymore…

Vera stopped writing and looked at Lu Zhou as she asked, "Do I get one as well?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Of course."

Lu Zhou would never cheap out on his students.

He even prepared a gift for the troublemaker Hardy.

Vera was blushing slightly as she said, "… I also prepared a gift for you."

Hardy started to whistle but was stopped by Qin Yue.

Lu Zhou looked at them and asked, "… Is there a problem?"

Qin Yue covered Hardy's mouth and said, "Nothing!"

Emm…

Lu Zhou looked at Qin Yue suspiciously and felt like this normally honest guy was hiding something from him.

But that didn't matter; Christmas was in two weeks anyway.

All of the mysteries would be revealed.

…

On the last lecture before Christmas, Lu Zhou brought his textbook to the lecture hall.

It was almost the holidays. Therefore, the classroom was full of energy.

Just like the Chinese students, it seemed that American students felt the same way about holidays as well.

Lu Zhou walked into the classroom and when he saw the surprised looks on his students' faces, he felt a little embarrassed.

Lu Zhou was very busy this semester. After he returned from Columbia University, he had to fly to Germany.

Therefore, the students that chose this course because of him barely got to see him.

Since this was the last lecture, Lu Zhou felt like he should perform his duties as a professor.

He had some free time anyway.

"… Today's lecture is about Mersenne primes, I will mainly talk about the distribution of Mersenne primes and the derivation of the Lu Zhou theorem. This isn't the main course material, so you can just relax and listen. I'm guessing your minds are on Santa Claus right now."

The students chuckled, and Lu Zhou wrote down the title of the lecture on the whiteboard. He continued to talk with his students in a relaxing manner.

Most of the Chinese textbooks replaced Zhou's conjecture with Zhou's theorem. However, after Lu Zhou came to Princeton, he found several American textbooks that used "Lu-Zhou theorem", or "Zhou-Lu theorem".

Because these students had already studied the lecture material beforehand, and because Lu Zhou was talking about his own research, Lu Zhou spoke very quickly. It took him less than twenty minutes to finish the lecture content.

Lu Zhou looked at the time on his watch and saw that there was a lot of time left. Therefore, he looked at his students and said, "There's still a little time left, feel free to ask me any questions."

A girl with maroon hair immediately raised her hand.

Lu Zhou nodded at her, indicating that she could speak.

"Professor, are you researching the Navier–Stokes equations?"

Lu Zhou smiled at this unexpected question.

"Why do you ask this?"

"A lot of people are curious," the girl blinked and said, "and we're also curious."

Lu Zhou looked around the classroom.

"Are you guys curious?"

A third of the students in the classroom nodded.

Lu Zhou asked again, "Really?"

Perhaps it was because of Lu Zhou's mysterious smile because everyone in the classroom nodded this time.

"Okay then," Lu Zhou said as he wiped the whiteboard and wrote down a new title. He then said, "For the second half of the class, I will talk about my personal understanding of the three dimensional incompressible Navier-Stokes equation."

Revisiting fundamental concepts was a good way of finding obvious problems.

Lu Zhou was reminiscing about his research ideas, especially those abstract concepts that were difficult to express in words.

Lu Zhou lectured his heart out.

However, the students didn't have such a good time.

Princeton undergraduate students were talented, and most of them had completed all of the undergraduate content while they were in their second year. However, it was still difficult for them to understand the concepts on the whiteboard.

Even students that had a deep understanding of partial differential equations had trouble understanding them.

For those that hadn't learned about partial differential equation yet, it was as if Lu Zhou was speaking in a different language.

These students were geniuses that often went hand to hand with professors.

This really humbled them!

"… According to the above conclusion, we can calculate the global existence of the smooth solution of the three-dimensional incompressible Navier-Stokes equation in a finite case.

"As for extending this conclusion to a more general case, more research is needed.

"I hope that you can think about this problem in your spare time. It isn't difficult, but it is very interesting."

Lu Zhou picked up a marker and wrote on the whiteboard.

[B(μ,v),w〉= -1/2R3{((u·)v)w (((v·)u)·w}dx

[B(μ,v) = -1/2P{(μ·)μ(v·)μ}

[…]

Strictly speaking, this wasn't a practice question; this was a partial differential equation problem that Lu Zhou ran into when he was studying Navier–Stokes equations.

He obviously didn't expect the undergraduate students to give an answer. Instead, he wanted to listen to the students' thought process for inspiration.

Lu Zhou wrote and explained at the same time.

"Where P is the Leray projection without the divergence vector L… We now asking searching for the equation Pμi with a square-integrable solution."

[… Pμi=?]

Lu Zhou finished writing the last symbol and placed the marker on the lecture stand. He then looked at the students as he spoke in a joking tone.

"If anyone one of you can solve this problem, I will recommend them to Professor Fefferman for early graduation, or you can study a master's or even a PhD under me."

Professor Fefferman was not only a researcher at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, but he was also the head of the mathematics department at Princeton University.

Although Lu Zhou spoke as if he was joking, the students didn't take it as a joke.

Professor Lu definitely had the ability to let them graduate early.

Studying a master's degree under the legendary Professor Lu was an attractive option.

The lecture hall went dead silent; everyone was thinking.

However…

This "question" obviously wasn't easy to solve.

Lu Zhou looked at the students and wrote down his email on the whiteboard. Suddenly, in the back corner of the lecture hall, someone raised their hand.

"… Can I use the whiteboard?"

Lu Zhou looked at the raised hand and was surprised.

He wasn't surprised that someone was attempting to solve the question.

He was surprised at who this person was.

The person sitting in the back row of the lecture hall was none other than Professor Fefferman.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

Chapter 382: Clash Of The Titans

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

"Of course you can…"

Lu Zhou made a gesture to invite Professor Fefferman to the whiteboard.

Professor Fefferman picked up a marker and stared at the whiteboard for a while. He then started to write.

The lecture was technically over, but not a single person left the lecture hall.

Everyone, including Lu Zhou, stared at the whiteboard.

Lu Zhou looked at what Professor Fefferman was writing, and his eyes gradually lit up.

Amazing…

This was an interesting part of mathematics.

A method that was unfeasible would never work, no matter how many times one tried.

But once one embarked on a method that might work, one could feel the victory ahead.

Although Fefferman hadn't finished writing, Lu Zhou was 90% certain that his method was correct.

As expected, this big name didn't let him down.

Professor Fefferman swiftly filled in the rest of the calculation steps and wrote one final line.

[Pμi= μi – (Δ-1)·δi·δj·μj]

There was a commotion in the classroom. Although this content was too difficult for undergraduate students, this was still Princeton.

They couldn't think of the method, but they could understand it.

Obviously, their comprehension speed was slower than Lu Zhou's, but just like Lu Zhou, they saw the ingenuity of Professor Fefferman's workings.

Professor Fefferman placed down the marker and carefully read his calculations from beginning to the end. After that, he smiled and said, "This question isn't easy… A bit too difficult for undergraduate students."

Lu Zhou coughed and said, "Hence, it is supposed to be a thought-invoking question."

Lu Zhou only planned to lecture the students. He wouldn't have written his research problem on the whiteboard if there weren't so many students interested.

Lu Zhou definitely didn't expect this big name to sit at the back of the lecture hall.

Professor Fefferman placed his attention back to the contents on the whiteboard and rubbed his chin as he spoke in a thoughtful manner.

"(Δ-1)·δi·δj is defined as the Fourier multiplier of ξiξj/ξ2… But what I want to know is that even if you have derivation equation of Pμi, what is the point? I can't seem to grasp it… Can you explain it to me?"

"Of course," Lu Zhou smiled and said, "but I'll need a new whiteboard."

"Princeton has plenty of whiteboards, I'll find one for you."

Professor Fefferman left the lecture hall and came back with a whiteboard.

Lu Zhou erased the writing on the new whiteboard and picked up the marker. He then began to explain while writing.

"If we get Pμi: = μi-(Δ-1)·δi·δj·μj, we can find the non-diverging property of μ for conventional integration…"

Lu Zhou's research was only up to the "Pμi=?" step. Therefore, he was deriving equations on the spot.

This sounded difficult.

But actually, it was very easy.

After all, all he needed to do was to use the new conclusion to continue his train of thought.

However…

[ B(μ,v),w〉= -πiΛξ1,ξ2,ξ3(μ(ξ1),v(ξ2),w(ξ3))…]

Lu Zhou suddenly stopped writing.

Professor Fefferman suddenly looked interested.

Lu Zhou looked back at Fefferman.

"What do you think?"

Professor Fefferman rubbed his index finger on his chin as he said, "It's… interesting."

The students stared at the two men standing on the podium silently; they were afraid of interrupting the thought process of the two big names.

There was nowhere else in America that respected knowledge as much as Princeton.

Five minutes passed by before Professor Fefferman suddenly spoke up.

"It seems that this problem isn't that easy to solve."

Lu Zhou was still staring at the whiteboard, and he nodded. "You're right."

If this problem were easy to solve, the Clay Institute wouldn't have included it in the Millennium Prize Problems.

"However, I'm surprised you are able to get to this step." Professor Fefferman said, "The Navier–Stokes equations is an interesting topic; it is the basis of fluid mechanics, but it is also a partial differential equation problem. If someone can find a smooth solution of the equation, not only will it be a glory to the human spirit, it will also have a profound impact on multiple disciplines."

Dieudonne was one of the founders of the Bourbaki Group, and "Mathematics is the glory of the human spirit" was one of his famous quotes. Professor Fefferman didn't agree with the views of the Bourbaki Group but he agreed with the quote.

Professor Fefferman smiled and started to clap his hands.

"I think this has been a very fulfilling lecture… although we might not be the best judge of that… What do you think?"

He turned around and looked at the students.

Obviously, a round of applause ensued.

Lu Zhou couldn't help but smile in the midst of the thunderous applause.

Although he didn't say anything, he felt pretty proud in his heart.

The sense of accomplishment in a classroom was different than doing a serious report.

It seemed that even though he had barely seen his students, his student still quite liked him.

"Oh yeah, I solved the question," Professor Fefferman said when he suddenly remembered something. He then pointed at the calculations on the whiteboard and asked, "Do you keep your promise?"

Lu Zhou was stunned.

"Promise?"

The girl with the long maroon hair raised her hand and said, "Professor, you said that whoever solves this problem can become your PhD student."

The classroom started to jeer playfully.

Lu Zhou coughed and said, "Stop joking around."

"No, no, I'm not joking," Professor Fefferman said. He smiled and continued, "If you want, I wouldn't mind doing another PhD."

Although Professor Fefferman didn't sound like he was joking, Lu Zhou thought that he was definitely joking.

Compared with Professor Faltings who had left Princeton, Fefferman was on the other end of the spectrum in terms of arrogance. Only he would make a joke like this.

Seeing that Lu Zhou was confused, Fefferman coughed and spoke in a more serious tone.

"Okay, since you don't plan on taking in a PhD student, I hope you can do one favor for me."

Lu Zhou asked, "What favor?"

"It's about the existence of a smooth Navier-Stokes equation," Professor Fefferman said with a smile. "I want to work with you on the problem!"

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

Chapter 383: Invitation For Research Cooperation

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

There was no doubt that this was an unexpected request.

Lu Zhou went silent for a while before he said, "… Although I did do research on a smooth Navier-Stokes equations solution, I didn't intend to aim for the Millennium Prize."

Lu Zhou was telling the truth.

The reason why he researched the Navier-Stokes equations was to create a suitable theoretical model for the turbulence phenomenon in plasma.

This research was Old Qiu's suggestion.

As for finding a complete solution to the Millennium Prize Navier–Stokes equations…

Lu Zhou had honestly never thought about it.

"I know that it isn't easy, if it was, it would've been solved by now. Even I'm not confident enough to go against it," Professor Fefferman said with a smile. He then added, "However, if we join forces, I think it is worth trying."

Lu Zhou asked, "Are you sure this thing can be solved by joining forces?"

"I don't know, but my intuition tells me that it might be the right path."

Professor Fefferman looked at the equations on the whiteboard and nodded to himself.

Then, he looked at Lu Zhou before he offered his right hand.

"What do you think?"

The classroom was quiet.

Professor Fefferman wasn't the only one waiting for Lu Zhou's decision; everyone in the classroom was holding their breaths.

Lu Zhou stared at his hand and began to think.

Speaking of which, he hadn't challenged a difficult mathematics problem ever since he solved the Goldbach's conjecture and reached Level 6 in mathematics.

Lu Zhou suddenly laughed and shook Fefferman's hand.

"This will be interesting."

Millennium Prize Problems…

This does sound interesting.

Just like Professor Fefferman, Lu Zhou wasn't confident enough to challenge the problem alone.

But if they joined forces, it would be a different story altogether.

"Haha, I'm happy to reach an agreement with you!" Professor Fefferman grasped Lu Zhou's right hand firmly as he said, "It seems that the world will contain one less mystery."

Lu Zhou wasn't as optimistic, so he only smiled slightly.

"Hopefully it will work out."

The classroom was heating up like a boiling pot of water.

"Oh, god…"

A Caucasian guy with freckles took out his phone and took a photo of the two professors. He couldn't wait to record this exciting moment.

Two men joining forces to fight the Navier-Stokes equation!

There is nothing…

Nuttier than this!

If the professors succeed, then everyone sitting in this classroom will be witnessing history!

This photo will be a record of this historic moment!

…

After Lu Zhou reached an agreement with Professor Fefferman, the Institute for Advanced Study officially opened the research on "the existence of a smooth solution to the three-dimensional incompressible Navier-Stokes equations".

The name of the research project was simple; it was only two letters— "NS".

The two professors decided to adopt the traditional method of "independently researching and regularly exchanging research results".

The second day after the NS research project was created, the He3 project team finally received their small particle accelerator.

Lazerson chose a piece of used equipment from the Brookhaven National Laboratory. Although getting it from CERN was also a possibility, CERN's small accelerator needed customs clearance, which took a long time. Brookhaven National Laboratory was in New York, and they were happy to get rid of their old equipment.

Although it was considered as a "small" particle accelerator, it wasn't small at all. It occupied a decent amount of space in the laboratory.

After all, the initial velocity of the particle was determined by the strength of the magnetic field and the radius of the particle orbit.

The newly arrived accelerator had a magnetic field strength of 1T and a maximum radius of 5 meters. It took five days for the He3 project team to assemble the accelerator.

And this was with Professor Lazerson personally helping the engineers by working overtime.

Normally, this would take a team of engineers a month to assemble this thing.

Professor Lazerson was inside the PPPL laboratory wearing a safety hat. He was checking the circuit condition of the superconducting coil using some professional equipment when he asked Lu Zhou who was standing behind him.

"Why?"

Lu Zhou was caught off guard.

"What do you mean why?"

"This technology won't bring you any patents. Even if it will, the patent won't be as popular as the cryo-electron microscope. I'd be willing to bet that there will be less than ten laboratories that are willing to pay for this technology."

Professor Lazerson didn't know the answer to this question.

Even though he knew how rich the mathematics professor was, he didn't know the professor's intentions.

Was it for a Nobel Prize?

That would be too superficial.

Lu Zhou thought for a bit and suddenly smiled as he explained, "For the glory of the human spirit… Is this reason not enough?"

Professor Lazerson's eyes were wide open. He had nothing to say.

After a long time, he slowly gave him a thumbs up.

"There are only three Chinese scholars that I respect, and you are the most…"

Professor Lazerson thought for a bit; he didn't know what word to use.

Young?

Doesn't sound serious enough.

Smart?

That would be insulting to the other two Chinese scholars.

Lu Zhou spoke first.

"Most what?"

After a while, Lazerson finally found the adjective.

"The one with the most money to burn…"

Lu Zhou: "…"

What the hell do you mean by most money to burn?

Can't you find a better quality of mine?

Like the highest IQ, knowledgeable, most handsome…

Anything would be better than burning money!

…

The experiment was scheduled to take place two days after the equipment was assembled.

Which was two days before Christmas.

If the experiment was successful, everyone could enjoy a wonderful Christmas break.

If the experiment failed…

They would still go on Christmas break.

But their holiday wouldn't be as pleasant.

They didn't have time to make big changes to the experiment; this was the He3 project team's last chance.

If they couldn't succeed, they would have to wait until next year June for the Wendelstein 7-X overhaul and reschedule their experiment plan.

This meant that they would have to waste half a year.

However, Lu Zhou was optimistic.

He was full of confidence, especially now that the atomic gun was upgraded.

A 1T magnetic field was definitely enough.

Both his calculations and intuition were telling him this.

The He3 project team anxiously waited.

At last, the experiment day had arrived…

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

Chapter 384: Invisible Bullets

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

On the day of the experiment, a thick gloomy cloud covered the town of Princeton, and it looked like it was about to rain.

Lu Zhou went to PPPL, and as he walked in the laboratory corridors, he suddenly felt a little strange.

It was like he wasn't in a laboratory. Instead, it was almost like he was going to a hospital's child delivery room.

Lu Zhou thought for a bit and realized that this analogy was kind of correct.

The team of He3 engineers and researchers spent countless days and nights on this seemingly impossible project.

Lu Zhou couldn't even count how many hours he had put into the project.

It was no exaggeration to say that the He3 atom probe technology was his child.

Lu Zhou walked to the control room and went inside.

The control room was messy; there were wires tangled everywhere, bunched together using plastic ropes. The computer used to control the atomic gun electromagnetic field was in an even worse state as the mainboard and wires of the computer were exposed.

After all, this was all pieced together in a hurry.

The engineers only had to ensure that there was no faulty equipment; it wasn't their responsibility to impress every visitor.

Lu Zhou look around the control room and saw Professor Lazerson.

However, there was a stranger standing next to Professor Lazerson.

When the stranger noticed Lu Zhou, he offered his right hand.

"Hello, Mr. Lu Zhou."

When Professor Lazerson saw Lu Zhou, he introduced his boss to him with great enthusiasm.

"This is the director of the PPPL laboratory, Professor Terrence Brog."

Lu Zhou looked at this man and shook his hand.

"Hello."

Lu Zhou had heard of Terrence Brog before.

Last year, the former director of the PPPL, Stewart Prager, caused a US$438 million loss for the US Department of Energy because of the NSTX-U equipment failure. Prager decided to resign and since then, Terrence Brog had taken over the director position at PPPL, thus saving the fusion energy science industry.

After taking over as director, his first course of action was to clean up the mess done by his predecessors and increase scientific research funding.

Impractical projects were cut; if the He3 project team couldn't show enough potential, they might be cut as well…

Lu Zhou suddenly realized why this guy was here.

Professor Brog looked at Lu Zhou and cleared his throat. He then said with a blank face, "First of all, congratulations for reaching this step."

Lu Zhou: "Thank you."

"Don't thank me, I didn't do anything. Plus I'm not giving you any good news," Professor Brog said. He then paused for a second before he said emotionlessly, "If this experiment fails, I will suspend the project. The PPPL researchers are not your personal employees, we can't waste time on projects without potential."

Lu Zhou flinched, and he said, "Even though I am willing to provide funding?"

Professor Brog stared at Lu Zhou as he replied, "That's right."

There was tension in the air.

Professor Lazerson noticed this and coughed. He wanted to diffuse the tension, and so, he pulled Lu Zhou aside.

Lu Zhou looked at Professor Lazerson and asked, "What is his problem?"

"Maybe…" Professor Lazerson hesitated for a bit before he said in an uncertain tone, "he has his eyes on the US$4 million in the research funding account…"

Although he didn't want to bad mouth his boss, the situation was apparent.

"US$4 million?" Lu Zhou was stunned. However, he was focused on something else, and he asked, "Why haven't we spent the US$4 million yet?"

Professor Lazerson nearly choked on his breath.

Haven't spent the US$4 million?

Why do you sound dissatisfied?

"The US$10 million funding cost was a rough estimate. In fact, the Brookhaven National Laboratory has a good relationship with us. We are perfect buyers of their old equipment. Including the original funding that we had, we only spent an extra US$7 million…"

Professor Lazerson looked suspicious when he said, "The problem is the remaining funds in the research account. You know, although we seem well funded, this technology is difficult to commercialize in the short term. The Congress budget committee hasn't been happy with us…"

Lu Zhou asked, "What does this have to do with me?"

Professor Lazerson said with a serious tone, "Of course it does! If this project is killed, then the money can be moved onto another project with more potential."

Lu Zhou couldn't help but curse in his heart.

"They can do this?"

"Who knew that you would send the money over so quickly," Professor Lazerson said. He then looked away as he continued, "The original agreement we signed clarified the money as a donation. Therefore, we are at an advantage here… But all this doesn't matter… We just have to successfully do the experiment."

No one could touch the He3 research funding account, as long as the project wasn't killed. Although this wasn't ethical, it was part of scientific research.

However, just like what Professor Lazerson said, talking about this didn't matter.

If their project didn't produce results, even without the US$4 million in research funding, Professor Brog would still kill the project.

After all, PPPL had many projects with a higher potential; they couldn't spend all their resources on one project even if the project was fully funded.

Professor Brog was the person in charge, so he had to think of the big picture.

Therefore, the He3 research team needed a win to prove themselves!

…

After a short meeting, Professor Lazerson announced the beginning of the experiment.

Everyone was in their respective work stations as held their breath.

They were afraid that their breathing would disturb the plasma and helium-3 particle in the vacuum chamber.

Once everything was ready, Professor Lazerson didn't say anything. Instead, he merely looked at Lu Zhou.

Lu Zhou didn't speak either. He only gave him a thumbs up.

Professor Lazerson understood Lu Zhou's intention, and after taking a deep breath, he then pressed the button.

All the work was complete.

All they had to do now…

Was pray.

The liquid helium was poured into the orbit track and the ultra-low temperature conductor gradually reached its critical superconducting temperature.

The instant the orbit temperature reached superconducting critical temperature, the current in the coil began to rise. This was to prepare for the high-speed helium-3 atom.

The moment the signal 1 light lit up, the speed of the helium-3 atom reached its limit and the atomic gun was "loaded".

This was all like loading a gun— crisp and quick.

Professor Lazerson looked at Lu Zhou again.

Lu Zhou nodded without speaking.

This time, it was Lu Zhou's turn.

Lu Zhou took a deep breath and walked to the computer. He then pressed the second button, which was the final button.

It was like a trigger was pulled; the helium-3 atom orbiting in the track suddenly broke away from the acceleration orbit and launched in a tangent line into the inner track.

There were no sounds.

No effects could be seen.

However, the moment the atomic gun fired the helium-3 atom, the helium-3 atom was like a bullet that carried a huge amount of energy as it smashed into the hot plasma.

The electromagnetic wave detector showed a series of waves.

Everything happened in an instant, but it felt like it took forever.

At this moment, whether it was Lu Zhou, Professor Lazerson, Professor Brog, or other researchers in the laboratory, they all held their breath for half a second.

The helium-3 atom nucleus penetrated the plasma and quietly slammed into the target material.

A faint wave fluctuation was captured by the probe behind the target material, and the impact data was sent to the computer.

It was like time had suddenly stopped flowing.

Then, the laboratory burst into celebration.

Professor Lazerson threw his hat into the air and waved his fist in the air.

"We did it! We did it!"

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

Chapter 385: Mathematics Is Difficult

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Success!

The voice of celebration was wonderful.

At this moment, the countless blood, sweat, and tears spent on this project were all worth it. The doubts that the PPPL higher-ups had on this project vanished.

Lu Zhou looked at the flashing signal light and loosened his fists. Due to the adrenaline in his heart, he tightened his fists again.

The experiment wasn't finished.

After the first successful attempt, then came the second, and the third…

The helium-3 particles were accelerated to the limit of kinetic energy before it penetrated the plasma and crashed into the tungsten-titanium target material.

The series of data was collected, wrangled, and imported into the database in a standard format which was soon to be analyzed by theoretical researchers.

Professor Lazerson looked at the computer screen as he patted Lu Zhou's arm.

On the other hand, Director Brog was standing in the jubilant crowd. He stared blankly at the data on the screen and didn't say anything.

"What did I tell you," Professor Lazerson said as he walked to Director Brog with a smile. He patted his shoulder and said, "I told you this is feasible! You must believe us now."

Brog came back to life and coughed heavily before he said, "It's only an in-progress result, this is still too early to tell."

"Yes, yes, only in-progress result." Professor Lazerson smiled and joked, "Don't be jealous when I stand on the podium in Stockholm."

"Talk when you actually win the Nobel Prize."

Director Brog stayed silent for a while before he walked toward Lu Zhou.

He then stood next to the young scholar and sighed before he spoke in an apologetic tone.

"For the things that I said before… I have to apologize to you."

Although Lu Zhou was a bit pissed off at Director Brog's words, the moment the helium-3 particle hit the target material, all of his anger was diluted by the joy of success.

"There's nothing to apologize for, you did what you were supposed to do," Lu Zhou said as he looked at the data on the computer screen. He then said in a relaxing voice, "Just like how we're doing what we're supposed to do."

"Thanks for your understanding… I sincerely wish you all the best."

Director Brog was grateful. He then left the laboratory without mentioning anything about killing the project.

If the He3 atom probe technology was commercialized, all of the major plasma physics laboratories around the world would be able to "observe" instead of "estimate" the plasma at a high temperature.

Observing and estimating were two completely different things.

This was without a doubt a Nobel Prize-level kind of breakthrough!

If Director Brog really killed this project, although no one would blame him, he would regret it for the rest of his life…

…

On the same day, after Lu Zhou ate his dinner, he walked to Lake Carnegie for his nightly run around the lake path.

His run was euphoric, and he couldn't help but run faster.

In the end, he ran as fast as he could; it was like he was a horse in the wild.

The only thing that calmed his emotions was the cold wind blowing onto his face.

Although the system's medication improved his metabolic function, it didn't make him an athlete.

After sprinting around the walking path for less than five minutes, Lu Zhou stopped by a bench at the park. Panting, he grabbed the armrest before slowly sitting down.

His sweat was dripping down his back and stuck to his sports attire, and the cold wind was piercing through his bones.

The freezing cold made Lu Zhou sneeze, but it didn't put out the fire in his heart.

Suddenly, Molina, who was jogging around the lake, noticed Lu Zhou sitting on the bench. She slowed down and walked up to the bench.

Molina looked at him weirdly as she asked, "… Are you having a mental breakdown or something?"

"Nope, I'm feeling better than ever," Lu Zhou said while holding his kneecaps with his hands. He then forced out a smile to show that he was fine.

In fact, Lu Zhou was too happy.

Molina looked at him like he was crazy and didn't say anything. Instead, she sat down on the other end of the bench.

She took out a bottle of water from her running belt and took a sip of water elegantly. She then looked at Lu Zhou, who was still panting, and asked, "It's nearly Christmas, do you have any plans?"

"I'll probably spend it in Princeton. My students want to have a party, then…" Lu Zhou thought for a bit and couldn't think of any better plans, so he said, "Then, I'll rest at home."

Molina was speechless as she stared at Lu Zhou. She then sighed and said, "That's kind of sad… You don't plan on finding a girlfriend to spend the holiday together?"

Are you just rubbing it in my face?

However, Lu Zhou didn't care. After all, he was used to it.

"Mathematics is difficult enough, I'll deal with females some other time." Lu Zhou suddenly remembered something and he looked at Molina before he asked, "I almost forgot, aren't you single as well?"

"I'm not the same, I'm a voluntarily celibate; emotions are a burden for me." She shook her sweaty blonde hair gently and said, "As you said, mathematics is difficult enough."

Lu Zhou was amused when he heard this.

"But I haven't seen any mathematics achievements from you."

Since knowing Molina, Lu Zhou went from an undergraduate student to a professor, but Molina was still studying under her mentor who was attempting to solve the impossible Riemann's conjecture. Molina hadn't even written her PhD thesis yet.

Of course, Lu Zhou wasn't gloating. In fact, it was the contrary. He had persuaded her many times to choose an easier target.

Obviously, she had never listened to his advice.

Molina looked at him angrily.

She wanted to make a comeback but found out that she had nothing on him.

"You just wait… I'll make you regret saying that next year at the IMO conference!"

She then stood up and ran away.

"I'll wait for your good news."

Lu Zhou shook his head and smiled.

Who's having a mental breakdown?

But then again, if a mental breakdown can create achievements, then maybe it's not so bad.

Lu Zhou wiped the sweat off his forehead. He then stood up and began to slowly run along the walking path again…

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

Chapter 386: You Don't Realize Learning Is Fun

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The experiment report was due after the experiment.

On the day before Christmas, with the help of several plasma PhD students, Lu Zhou complied the He3 project team experiment report and sent it to the Wendelstein 7-X laboratory.

Mr. Keriber, the head of the Wendelstein 7-X laboratory, was responsible for reviewing this report.

He expressed great interest after he read the experiment report.

Although he still doubted if the He3 project team could really successfully use the electromagnetic wave data to analyze the plasma turbulence phenomenon, he still respected the He3 atom probe technology.

After all, this observation method had a higher sensitivity than any other observation method; it was also more accurate both on the macro and micro scale.

He was an expert in the field of controlled nuclear fusion engineering, and he immediately saw the sophistication in the technology. He even sent an invitation to the He3 project team for collaboration.

The second Professor Lazerson received the reply, he purchased a ticket to Berlin. He didn't have time to spend the holidays as he had already started to prepare for his trip to Germany.

Professor Lazerson was inside the laboratory and had finished packing for his trip. He looked at Lu Zhou, who was analyzing the data of the experiment on the computer, and he couldn't help but ask, "You sure you don't want to go with me? We plan on testing our equipment on the Wendelstein 7-X, a real controllable nuclear fusion machine!"

Lu Zhou shook his head.

"I have to attend a conference after New Year's."

Professor Lazerson said, "Conference? Academic conference? If it's not an important conference, I suggest you call it off."

This…

I don't think I can call it off.

Lu Zhou coughed and said, "It's not an academic conference, and there's no way I can call it off. Plus I've been working for an entire year, I need a break to relax. You'll have to collaborate with the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics by yourself."

Professor Lazerson said, "That's unfortunate."

"It's not unfortunate, I don't have to be there in person to witness history." Lu Zhou smiled and said in a relaxing tone, "Remember to take a few photos for me. Also, contact me by email."

Although communicating by email was slightly more cumbersome, it didn't affect Lu Zhou's work progress. With a computer and draft paper, he could do theoretical research anywhere.

The day before Christmas.

Professor Lazerson flew to Berlin with two engineers from the project team.

It was around noon when it began to snow. Soon, the town of Princeton was covered in white.

Although it wasn't dark yet, there was barely anyone to be seen on the streets. Even the popular Palmer Square street was deserted with many of the shops closed.

Everyone was more willing to stay indoors with family and friends than outside in the blistering cold. They would roast a turkey and eat an apple pie around the table as they wished everyone a happy new year.

However, Lu Zhou wasn't as immersed in the holiday spirit.

After all, Chinese New Year was his real New Year's.

Christmas Eve was just another normal day for him.

Lu Zhou sat next to the warm fireplace with his Macbook. He worked with the data collected by the He3 project team and compared it with the plasma theses he got from the Firestone Library.

Without a plasma turbulence phenomenon, analyzing the data was crucial.

Suddenly, his phone on the table began to ring.

Lu Zhou picked up the phone and leaned back on his sofa.

Before he could speak, an excited voice came from the other end of the phone.

"Bro, I've finished my exams!"

When Lu Zhou heard the energetic voice, he said, "Already?"

He thought that the mathematics majors began their holiday in late January or even February.

"This year's exams are early, so the holidays are earlier as well. Ah, I heard next semester will be more difficult," Xiao Tong said before she sighed. She then asked, "Oh yeah, bro, are you not coming back for Chinese New Year?"

Lu Zhou said, "Of course I'm coming back, why?"

"Nothing, dad told me to ask you…" Xiao Tong suddenly remembered something and smiled mischievously as she asked, "Oh yeah, bro, tomorrow is Christmas, right?"

Lu Zhou said, "Yeah."

Xiao Tong: "Merry Christmas!"

Lu Zhou: "Merry Christmas…"

Is she implying that she got me a present?

Lu Zhou was a little confused at the sudden holiday blessings; he didn't know what his sister was up to.

Xiao Tong said, "Then, it should be Christmas Eve at your place, right?"

Lu Zhou: "Yep…"

Xiao Tong immediately asked curiously, "Then, which girl are you going to celebrate it with?

Lu Zhou almost didn't realize Xiao Tong's intentions.

When he realized how dirty Xiao Tong was, he said, "… Why are you thinking about these things?"

Xiao Tong said, "Bro, you're not young anymore, you're 24 years old! You should think about your major life choices!"

Lu Zhou asked, "Is 24 years old considered old?"

The other end of the phone went silent.

Xiao Tong frowned as she replied, "… I guess not."

Lu Zhou sighed.

If only he could convince his parents this easily.

He would probably be interrogated by his parents on this matter when he went back for Chinese New Year.

"Study hard, and don't think about your brother's potential partner all day. I'm too busy these days. If I want to, I could easily find one."

Xiao Tong wasn't thrilled. "I'm already a university student, not a kid anymore, why are you still telling me to study all day…"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Who told you that you don't have to study at university? If you don't study now, all you'll get to do when you grow up is press like on other people's Weibo photos."

Xiao Tong was bored, and she asked, "Then what if I study well?

Lu Zhou said, "Then people will like your photos."

Xiao Tong said, "Who cares about likes?"

Lu Zhou was amused. "I don't care about likes, you're the one that does."

Xiao Tong: "…"

Lu Zhou had some small talk with Xiao Tong before he ended the call.

He walked up to his kitchen and made himself a cup of coffee. He then sat back down on the sofa next to the fireplace to continue reading his theses.

However, before he could begin reading, his phone rang again.

Lu Zhou was surprised at the caller's name.

"Shi Shang?"

This doesn't make sense.

Shi Shang celebrates Christmas like it's Valentines… Why is he calling me?

Lu Zhou had a weird expression on his face as he picked up the phone.

A familiar voice came from the other end of the phone.

Shi Shang: "Zhou."

Lu Zhou: "What?"

Shi Shang: "I…"

When Lu Zhou heard his voice, he could already guess roughly what had happened. He sighed.

"Stop being a beta. Just tell me your troubles, I can help you."

Shi Shang coughed and said, "No, I don't need your help."

Lu Zhou said, "I'm not good enough to help you?"

"I'm getting married next month."

Lu Zhou: "…?"

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter

Chapter 387: The Most Beautiful Snowstorm

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Things suddenly got a bit awkward.

The telephone line went silent.

In the end, it was Shi Shang who broke this silence.

"This is an international call, the fees are very expensive."

Oh…

Then let's talk a bit longer.

Lu Zhou was speechless, he decided to stay silent.

F*ck sake!

I'm spending Christmas alone, and now this asshole is shoving it in my face!

Outrageous!

Shi Shang was anxious; he spoke in a worried tone.

"Zhou, say something! Are you still here?"

Lu Zhou listened to Shi Shang screaming for a while. He then sighed and said, "I'm here, my phone lagged… Have you guys gotten the certificate?"

Shi Shang replied, "We have."

Lu Zhou asked, "With who?"

Shi Shang: "Ya Jing… No shit, who else could it be?"

Lu Zhou said, "Ya Jing? She's the same year as you, right? She's still doing her master's?"

They were the class of 2013, although many people left the school in March and April, they only officially graduate in July.

Therefore, Wang Jingya was only a first-year master's student.

"Marrying in your first year of master's study, is that good?"

When Shi Shang heard this question, he felt a bit awkward. He then coughed and said, "This… There's a bit of a situation."

The moment Lu Zhou heard his hesitant voice, he instantly knew what was going on.

I guess he wasn't being safe when doing naughty things…

Lu Zhou didn't know why but he felt like gloating.

Shi Shang didn't notice how Lu Zhou felt, and he continued, "Zhou, honestly, sometimes I think fate is a magical thing. When I was with her, I never thought we would make it to this day… But now, I found out that when the moment came, I… Sorry, I don't know how to describe this feeling."

Shi Shang, who was usually the most articulate, was at a loss for words.

Lu Zhou went silent for a while before he sighed and said, "… It seems like you really love her."

"Yes, I love her more than I love myself." Shi Shang blew his nose and suddenly had a serious demeanor as he said, "Wedding's on January 20th at the Jinling Purple Mountain Hotel. Your bro's missing a best man, are you coming?"

Lu Zhou laughed.

"No shit, I'm coming!"

There was no point in asking this question.

Lu Zhou would be back in China in January; even if he wasn't, he would fly back.

Even though he would be insanely jealous at the wedding, he would still be going.

"Good!"

Shi Shang was moved by Lu Zhou's answer.

However, Shi Shang had a problem. Whenever he was moved, he would get too philosophical.

"Oh yeah, Zhou, no offense, but hurry up and find a girlfriend. I know mathematics is your life, but you should know that there's more to the world than mathematics. Tagore once said, 'love is when the soul starts to sing' and…"

Ah…

I accidentally hung up the phone!

Lu Zhou pretended as if nothing had happened and threw his phone on the sofa. He continued to read his thesis.

Since all of his phone calls tonight were cursed, he didn't want to pick up another call!

…

The Princeton Institute for Advanced Study was jolly festive on Christmas day.

Most people here were considered geniuses, but they were still people. Professors or doctors… They were just their academic qualifications.

Actually, because they were geniuses, they knew how to party and have fun better than normal people.

Dean Goddard was usually a serious person, but today, he was wearing a red hat and a fake white beard, dressing up as Santa Claus. He stood around and handed out small booklets to people while everyone responded with a hesitant smile.

Under his orders, the chefs in the dining area on the first floor were wearing festive costumes and were serving Christmas special meals.

Not only that, but the No. 1 lecture hall was also emptied for a live-action "Star Wars" play.

Star Wars was basically American culture in a nutshell.

The script for this live-action play was adapted by the professors in the School of Social Sciences and the School of History. Therefore, it had a classic European historical influence.

However, Lu Zhou was more interested in the lecture hall than Star Wars.

Because it was in this lecture hall that he announced the Goldbach's proof to the mathematics world.

A year later, he was standing here again.

But he wasn't here as a report presenter, but rather a guest star on the live stage. He played the part of a soldier who was killed by a lightsaber; his only line was "Ah!".

And his "opponent" was Molina.

Lu Zhou highly suspected that this woman deliberately arranged the script to be this way so as to make it an opportunity for "revenge".

All of the actors were having a good time and so was the audience.

What was interesting was that the two mathematics professors sitting in the front row were having a serious discussion on the science behind Star Wars.

Professor Deligne stared at the dazzling "lightsaber" and said, "This is not realistic at all, they're clearly in the Space Age, but they're still using swords."

Professor Fefferman smiled as he retorted, "No one knows what physics is like outside of the solar system, we only know what it should look like."

Witten, who was a diehard Star Wars fan, would've loved to join in on the conversation.

However, at this moment, he was acting on stage.

After the live-action ended, people began to enjoy the festival in their own way.

For example, chess.

Or dancing to the music.

Regardless, everyone was exchanging Christmas presents.

"Oh, why is it a football again? I've already gotten five footballs," Hardy said while holding the football. He then asked, "Do you think that all Brazilians like football?"

Qin Yue smiled. "I don't know what else to give you."

"It's fine, I don't mind having another football, thank you for your gift," Hardy smiled, showing his bright teeth. He gave Qin Yue a nicely wrapped gift box and said, "This is my gift to you."

Qin Yue shook the box and couldn't guess what it is. He then asked, "What is this thing?"

Hardy smiled. "Table tennis ball."

Qin Yue: "…"

Hardy didn't care about Qin Yue's reaction. He had a box of chocolates in his hand as he looked around.

"Speaking of which, where is Vera? I haven't seen her."

Qin Yue sighed and said, "Did you forget? We planned on telling the professor about the thing."

Hardy was suddenly unhappy.

"Wait a minute, didn't we say we'd tell him together?"

Hardy was looking forward to Professor Lu's reaction. Now that his friend was the one giving the news, his victory was stolen.

Qin Yue suddenly looked a bit weird.

"… The situation has changed, I think it's best if Vera tells the professor herself."

Although Qin Yue was introverted, that didn't mean he wasn't observant. He could tell from how Vera looked at Professor Lu, and he knew that it wasn't just admiration.

"Oh, she's getting the entire spotlight then," Hardy complained. "We contributed as well, but how come she's the only one that'll get a compliment from the professor…"

Qin Yue: "…"

What the hell is a compliment?!

You're not in primary school anymore…

Qin Yue always knew that his friend was slightly brain-damaged, but now it seemed that it wasn't just his brain, his soul was also damaged.

Qin Yue coughed and explained it briefly.

"Ok, stop complaining, 70% of the work is done by her. I don't care if you like it or not, she has the right to do this."

Hardy looked dissatisfied.

"Do you support her?"

Qin Yue shrugged and said, "I always support Professor Lu."

While the two were talking, Lu Zhou, who finished his act on stage, walked out of the backstage room.

He bumped into Vera.

The little girl looked like she had something to say so Lu Zhou spoke first.

"Is there something you want to say?"

Vera nodded and said quietly, "Can… you come with me?"

Lu Zhou said, "Christmas present?"

Vera nervously nodded. "Yes!"

Lu Zhou looked at the nervous girl and smiled.

"Then please lead the way."

Lu Zhou followed Vera and walked down the corridor.

They walked for a while, and Lu Zhou couldn't help but ask curiously.

"What secret gift is this?"

Vera shook her head and didn't say anything.

Finally, the two arrived in an empty classroom.

Lu Zhou looked at the closed door and felt a bit strange.

"Can I go in?"

"Ok!"

Vera nodded.

Lu Zhou reached down for the doorknob.

However, the second he stepped into the classroom, he was shocked.

There were ten blackboards in front of him.

Lines upon lines of neatly written formula occupied the blackboard; its mathematical beauty attracted Lu Zhou's eyes.

Time slowly passed by.

The snow fluttered outside the windows, cruising in the cold, blistering wind.

It was like the white snow was landing on the blackboards.

Lu Zhou stared at the blackboards for more than half an hour.

He suddenly burst into a smile.

"Thank you.

"This is definitely the most… beautiful thing I've seen this year."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know report chapter so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report chapter