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

14. 420

Read Scholar's Advanced Technological System - Chapter 420 - World-Famous Event online free - Novelfull

Morning of July 31st, 2018.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Mathematicians from all over the world gathered here for the International Congress of Mathematicians.

Although the official opening ceremony of the conference was tomorrow, the parking lot outside the Barra da Tijuca Hotel was already crowded.

There was only one reason.

The upcoming report on the "Navier–Stokes equation" would be held in the main conference hall. Professor Lu Zhou from the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study would report on his latest research progress.

For many people, this report was more significant than tomorrow's opening ceremony.

It wasn't only because of the million dollars reward.

But because it was the beginning of a new era…

Although the organizers of the conference provided rooms for all of the invited scholars as well as some of the scholars that applied, the rooms were limited and not everyone had accommodation.

Most of the attendees, who came here, came at their own expense, and they would stay at a nearby hotel or motel.

Some of these people were university professors or researchers from research institutes, some were PhD students coming with their supervisors, and some were tourists that wanted to see the academic vibe.

Many universities with highly ranked mathematics programs often organized group participation activities. They might choose some strong genius students from their school who would attend the conference with their professors.

After all, this conference only happened once every four years. Even if they couldn't understand anything in the conference, they could still broaden their views of the world which could pave their future academic career path.

7 a.m.

A tourist bus stopped at the entrance of the hotel.

Several young Chinese students followed their professor's lead and walked off the bus. They then gathered in front of the hotel entrance.

These students were from Yan University, and they were all considered genius students.

The professor who led the team was even more impressive.

He was considered a leader among young Chinese scholars. Professor Xu Chenyang was a millennial and an expert in the field of algebraic geometry; he also won the Ramanujan gold award in 2016.

There were five Chinese scholars that were invited to do a 45-minute report at the International Congress of Mathematicians.

And Professor Xu was one of them.

This time, Xu Chenyang and another professor were asked by the head of the mathematics department at Yan University to take these students on a trip.

Coincidentally, since this world-famous conference was just around the corner, Xu Chengyang didn't plan on missing the conference, and therefore, he brought his students along. Even though they might not be able to enter the lecture hall, but Xu Chengyang said it would be interesting just to watch from the outside.

A boy with glasses looked at the people coming in and out of the hotel lobby. He then looked at Professor Xu and asked, "Professor, have you read Professor Lu's thesis?"

Xu Chenyang nodded and said, "I've read a bit, but I'm in the field of algebraic geometry, and I don't know much about partial differential equations."

Another girl asked, "Do you think he will succeed?"

"I don't know," Xu Chenyang replied honestly as he shook his head. He then said, "There is no universal conclusion on Professor Lu's thesis. He used a very novel approach and new things are often controversial."

The guy with glasses asked, "Is it even more novel than abstract proof?"

Xu Chenyang raised his eyebrows and looked at his student before he asked, "You know about abstract proof?"

The guy in glasses smiled and scratched his head as he replied, "I read some documents in my spare time."

"You're pretty impressive. Partial differential equations is a promising field, and it has a high potential, both in applied and pure mathematics," Professor Xu said with a smile. He was about to explain the difference to his students when he heard a familiar voice.

"Xu Chenyang, how are you?"

Xu Chenyang looked toward where the voice came from. When he saw the owner of the voice, his eyes lit up, and he reached out his right hand.

"Brother Zhang, long time no see!"

The student in glasses instantly recognized Professor Xu's friend.

"God Wei!"

The other students heard this name and looked at the man in awe.

God Wei!

Yan University only had one God Wei—Zhang Wei!

Everyone who came from Yan University knew about Zhang Wei.

29-year-old Ramanujan gold award winner, 34-year-old Columbia University tenured professor, 35-year-old Morningside Medal of Mathematics… He and God Yun were the idols of Yan University.

Zhang Wei smiled friendly and looked at Brother Zhang.

"Why are you here so early? It doesn't start for another two hours."

Xu Chenyang smiled and said, "Aren't you the same?"

Just like Xu Chenyang, Zhang Wei also had a 45-minute report at the conference.

They brought these students into the conference hall and agreed on a time and place to meet up later. The professors then walked into the main lecture hall together.

Along the way, the two didn't actually talk about the Navier Stokes equation. Instead, they talked about tomorrow's opening ceremony, and tomorrow's main event—the Fields Medal.

Xu Chenyang said, "Is there any hope this year?"

Zhang Wei sighed and said, "There are too many nutty people, it's difficult."

The youngest rank W3 German professor and the youngest Princeton professor; these two were no doubt the strongest contenders.

Everyone else was no match for them.

The other contenders were no ordinary people either. If last year's Fields Medal contenders were uncommon people, then this year's contenders were people that were uncommon among uncommon people.

Zhang Wei looked a little depressed, and Xu Chenyang didn't know what to say. He tried to comfort him and said, "You're God Wei, how can you not be confident?"

Zhang Wei stood in front of the lecture hall entrance, and as he stared at the crowd, he smiled and shook his head.

"Let's drop that name…"

Who here isn't considered a god?

…

At exactly 8 a.m…

The venue was so fully packed that even the aisles were crowded.

Although there was still an hour until the report officially began, the venue was already completely full.

In addition to the scholars that were participating in the conference, there was also a row of cameras attached to the walls of the venue.

There had been many people that tried to challenge the Navier–Stokes equation, but very few had succeeded.

If this challenger succeeded, then these cameras would capture this historic moment. The media would never miss a moment like this; several famous museums even brought their own cameras.

Vera sat in the back row of the lecture hall. As she looked at the stage, she took a deep breath in order to slow down her heart rate.

Although her report was in two days, she was more nervous than ever.

"… You got this."

Vera tightly squeezed her hand as she prayed for Lu Zhou in her heart.

Suddenly, an old man came over and sat next to her.

"You're worried about him?"

"…"

Vera looked at this old man in surprise.

Pierre Deligne!

Her supervisor's supervisor…

She met this old man a few times at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study.

Her impression of him was that he was the type that rarely laughed and barely spoke to people.

Deligne looked at the lecture stage as he said, "There's nothing to worry about. After all, he's my favorite student."

A condescending voice came from the side.

"Are you not embarrassed to say this? You only taught him for a few months."

Deligne could tell from the arrogant voice which friend it was.

He smirked and looked at the man.

"You're here as well?"

"What a strange question, how could I not come?" Faltings sat next to Deligne and said, "If someone is bullsh*tting on stage, someone has to point it out."

Vera looked at him with dissatisfaction.

However, she was too small and weak, and no one noticed her.

Deligne only smiled lightly.

"I'm afraid you'll be disappointed."

Faltings raised his eyebrows. "You're that confident?"

Deligne: "Do you want to bet?"

Faltings stared at his old friend for a while and didn't respond. He then looked at the stage and said, "… It's about to begin."

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Lu Zhou originally thought he was used to this type of feeling.

He didn't expect to feel his heart beating out of his chest.

This was different than the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study report; he wasn't only facing the number theory world but the entire world of mathematics…

Lu Zhou stood on stage and took a deep breath as he tried to calm his heart down.

He looked at his watch.

The second hand was getting closer and closer; he put a serious look on his face and gave himself some courage.

"It's about to begin!"

At exactly 9 a.m…

There was no need for anyone to maintain order; the noisy chaotic venue instantly became quiet.

A title appeared on the silver projector screen.

[Proof for the existence of a three-dimensional incompressible smooth Navier-Stokes equation solution.]

Lu Zhou looked at the crowd and began his report.

"Why doesn't a car on the highway spontaneously disintegrate, why doesn't a lake suddenly combust?

"We have been asking these questions for a long time, but the truth that we crave for is covered in disguise.

"In the 19th century, we have already invented the equations that generalize the laws of fluid emotion and made these equations succinct. However, to this day, we still don't have a deep understanding of the mathematics and physics that are behind these equations.

"Mathematics is a rigorous discipline that involves the proposition of numbers, and there is no such thing as 'maybe' in mathematics.

"Back to my original question. Why doesn't a car on the freeway disintegrate? Why doesn't a lake spontaneously combust? Is there a mysterious singularity on an infinite time scale that causes our equation to diverge?

"It's time to answer these questions."

After his brief opening remarks, Lu Zhou turned the PowerPoint to the next slide.

This was the main section of the report.

Lu Zhou spent three seconds thinking of a summary. He then faced the audience and spent a minute giving a brief overview of his proof.

The crowd was silent.

Everyone stared at the pictures and calculations on the projector screen. Everyone was listening intently; they didn't want to miss a single detail.

[μ(t)=e(t)·μ0e(t-t')B(μ(t'), μ(t'))dt']

[…]

"When we introduce a Schwarz-free divergence vector field μ0 to the equation and set the time interval I [0, ), then we can define a generalized solution H10 of the Navier-Stokes equation as an integral equation μ (Continuous mapping of t), ie μH10df(R3)…"

The PowerPoint presentation was on the projector screen.

Lu Zhou had a laser pointer in his hand, and he used it to point at the screen while explaining.

This part was nothing special.

Any Navier–Stokes equation research theses would contain similar things.

However, the crucial part was his bilinear operator B' and the L Manifold.

The next part was the key to the whole proof process!

Lu Zhou would introduce the concept of differential manifolds into partial differential equations.

This was the core idea of using topology methods to research partial differential equations!

…

Xu Chenyang was in the crowd, and he lightly tapped his notebook with the pen in his hand.

After a while, he whispered to Zhang Wei, "Do you understand?"

Zhang Wei shook his head and said, "I don't know much more about partial differential equations any more than you. If you're having a hard time, then so am I."

Zhang Wei's area of research was similar to his mentor Zhang Shouwu's; he mainly focused on representation theory, Langlands program, and Dirichlet distribution.

He wasn't knowledgeable at partial differential equations; he only briefly learned about the Navier–Stokes equation out of interest.

After all, not everyone was a genius like Tao Zhexuan. Not everyone could prove the weak Goldbach's conjecture, study the Navier–Stokes equation's abstract proof, and read all of Shinichi Mochizuki's theses…

There were people in mathematics that knew everything.

But they were extremely rare…

Xu Chenyang looked at the calculations on stage and said, "I can't believe it…"

Zhang Wei: "Can't believe what?"

Xu Chenyang: "Number theory, abstract algebra, functions analysis, topology, differential geometry, partial differential equation… Is there anything he's not good at?"

Zhang Wei said in an uncertain tone, "Maybe… algebraic geometry?"

However, he suddenly remembered Lu Zhou's mentor was Deligne. Deligne's mentor was Grothendieck, the founding father of algebraic geometry as well as the "pope of mathematics".

The core theory of modern algebraic geometry was basically derived from the few books that Grothendieck wrote.

Zhang Wei was certain that Lu Zhou was well-versed in algebraic geometry as well.

He was certain Lu Zhou would eventually come up with new algebraic geometry research results…

…

The report continued.

Lu Zhou began to speak faster and faster; his ideas were becoming clearer and smoother.

The introduction of the L Manifold played a crucial role in the Navier-Stokes equation.

It was like a hammer that was breaking the maze wall.

This confusing situation became clearer and clearer.

They finally arrived at the climax of the report.

Fefferman sat in the corner of the venue with a smile on his face.

Tao Zhexuan was sitting on the other side of the venue, and he muttered to himself, "I see."

His eyes sparkled with excitement.

Vera was sitting in the back row of the venue, and she could feel the enthusiasm in the atmosphere. Her heart rate began to increase, and she felt proud of her supervisor…

Faltings was also sitting in the back row; his rigid face finally turned into a smirk…

Deligne noticed his old friend smirking and asked, "What do you think?"

Faltings put on a poker face as he replied, "It's okay."

Deligne smiled and said, "You're really saying that?"

Faltings ignored his old friend's banter and looked at his watch. He then stood up.

Deligne asked, "It's almost over, aren't you going to stay till the end?"

"There's no need."

Faltings had understood everything already.

As for the boring questions, others could deal with it.

Faltings walked through the crowd and exited the hall.

The report ended the moment Professor Faltings left the lecture hall.

The last line of calculations was on the project screen; it was almost like Lu Zhou didn't have to do any explanation.

Because the audience could see the answer for themselves.

"… Combining all of the above inferences, the result is obvious. There exists a smooth solution to the three-dimensional incompressible Navier Stokes equation!"

His voice was crisp and confident.

It wasn't sonorous, but it was magically charming.

And the source of that magic was knowledge.

The second Lu Zhou finished speaking, the crowd stood up from their seats.

Then, a seemingly endless thunderous applause echoed throughout the lecture hall.

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Chapter 422: Not Just One Person's Miracle

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

"F*ck me, this is nuts!"

Xu Chenyang's hands were red from clapping. He usually never swore but he couldn't help himself.

Although he wasn't the person standing on stage, nor had he even met Lu Zhou before, he still couldn't help but be excited. He was genuinely cheering from the bottom of his heart.

The Millennium Prize Problem that troubled the mathematics community was solved by a Chinese scholar.

This wasn't just one person's miracle.

It was a miracle for the entire country!

Xu Chenyang was certain that after today, even people who knew nothing about mathematics would read Lu Zhou's name on television and newspapers.

This honor was even greater than the Fields Medal.

Rather, the Fields Medal would be honored to be awarded to Lu Zhou.

"…"

Zhang Wei sat next to Xu Chenyang; he stared at the man on stage and didn't say anything.

He was completely shocked.

When Zhang Wei took off his glasses to wipe his foggy lens, he saw his own reflection in his glasses.

Originally, he was invited to do a 45-minute report. He didn't expect to witness a historic moment.

CCTV had never broadcasted the Fields Medal award ceremony before. At most, they would include a snippet of the International Congress of Mathematicians.

However, tomorrow's CCTV broadcast might be an exception.

But Lu Zhou didn't really care about these things…

On stage.

The thunderous applause echoed in Lu Zhou's ears. His heart was trying to beat its way out of his chest. When he looked at the crowd, he felt somewhat dissociated.

After ten seconds, he finally came back to life.

The applause gradually ended.

The audience sat back down.

Although his report had ended, the presentation didn't.

Next up was the most crucial stage of the report.

Even though his report was stellar, even though he had successfully convinced many people, there were still doubts among people.

He would answer the questions one by one during the QA session.

His ability to successfully answer the questions would determine if his thesis would be accepted and recognized by the entire academic community…

…

The QA session was longer than Lu Zhou had thought.

Tao Zhexuan was the first to ask a question; it was about the L Manifold.

Then Fefferman, Qiu Chengtong…

Almost all of the big names in the partial differential equation field asked a question.

Lu Zhou provided detailed answers to all of these questions.

Time flew by quickly during the QA session.

By noon, the questions were still coming.

Everyone was feeling hungry, and so, the organizers had to announce intermission. They consulted Lu Zhou for advice and decided to schedule a second QA session in the afternoon.

Lu Zhou finally had some time to rest. He then sighed in relief as he walked off stage.

However, before he could go to the toilet, he was surrounded by people who were waiting outside the lecture hall.

Surrounding him were journalists, scholars, as well as his admirers. Not everyone had the opportunity to witness this historic moment, and many people were waiting outside the lecture hall.

"Professor Lu, hello, I am a reporter for Columbia TV…"

"… Please let Daily Mail interview you!"

"How is the result? Is there a general smooth solution to the three-dimensional Navier–Stokes equation? Is it smooth?"

"God Lu, can I shake your hand?"

"Let me take a photo! Just one photo, I want to post it on Twitter! Oh sh*t, don't step on my foot!"

"Can I have your contact information, I have some mathematics questions I want to ask you…"

Lu Zhou was shocked by the enthusiasm of these people. He didn't expect the crowd to be outside the lecture hall.

But after all, this was the quadrennial International Congress of Mathematicians, and so, this was understandable.

In addition to the invited participants, there were people that paid out of their own pocket to attend the conference. The International Mathematical Union didn't exclude any math enthusiasts from participating in this nine-day long event.

However, when Lu Zhou looked at the energetic crowd, he started to have a headache.

He still had a QA session in the afternoon, and he was tired and hungry. He just wanted to find a place to eat and take a nap. He didn't have the time nor energy to deal with these people's demands.

Fortunately, the conference organizers anticipated this, and Lu Zhou managed to escape the crowd with help from staff members…

…

At noon, the organizer of the conference, the International Mathematical Union, provided a free simple lunch for everyone.

The lunch was an authentic black bean on rice with mate tea and a ball of chocolate as dessert. Although it wasn't anything fancy, it was quite filling.

Lu Zhou wandered around the hotel restaurant holding a plate of food. When he found a quiet corner, he then sat down.

The second he sat down, his three students came over.

"Professor, I just saw your report, you're so cool!"

Hardy sat across from Lu Zhou as he waved his fist excitedly. It was almost like he had just witnessed a football match.

Qin Yue, who sat next to him, nodded excitedly as well; he looked unusually energized.

However, he didn't like to talk as much as Hardy as he wasn't good at expressing his feelings. He could only come up with one word.

"Epic!"

Lu Zhou smiled and responded.

"Jealous?"

Hardy: "Of course!"

Qin Yue and Vera didn't say anything, but they all nodded.

A one-hour report was already nutty.

A special report session that was organized just for him? That was beyond nutty!

Lu Zhou looked at his students and smiled. He then said in an encouraging tone, "If you're jealous, then go work hard! There will be a day where you will stand on stage, sharing your knowledge with the world. The future is yours."

Hardy: "… Professor."

Lu Zhou: "What?"

Hardy scratched his head and said, "Nothing… I just wanted to say that I'm 25 years old, one year older than you. If you're old, then we're going to be old as well…"

Lu Zhou: "…"

Shut up!

…

Lu Zhou finished his lunch and returned his empty plate. He then quickly left the hotel restaurant.

There was still half an hour until the second QA session. He planned to go back to his hotel room to take a nap. He wanted to recharge before the afternoon session.

Suddenly, Vera, who didn't say a word, caught up to Lu Zhou's footsteps and stopped him at the corridor outside the restaurant.

"… Professor."

When Lu Zhou heard her voice, he stopped walking. He then turned around and looked at the little girl.

"What?"

Vera was embarrassed to express her feelings. However, the two other students already sent their congratulations. Therefore, Vera made up her mind and blushed while congratulating Lu Zhou.

"You looked… handsome on stage."

Lu Zhou was embarrassed.

With a smile, he said, "Of course."

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Chapter 423: System Easter Egg?

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

After an afternoon of fighting, the report was finally over at 5 p.m.

Normally speaking, for a major conjecture like this, in order to remember the moment, the organizers of the conference would arrange a dinner party to celebrate.

However, everyone was very tired. Not to mention, there was an opening ceremony tomorrow. They could only wait until tomorrow to taste the champagne of victory.

After Lu Zhou ate his dinner, he finally returned to his hotel room. He went straight to bed.

The report was finally over.

From the reaction of the audience, it seemed like the academic community accepted his thesis.

As for the Clay Institute, they were probably still researching his thesis, but it wouldn't take long for them to accept the thesis as well.

In any case, the Navier–Stokes equation research project finally came to an end. The knot in Lu Zhou's heart was finally untied.

Although Lu Zhou was completely exhausted, when he thought about his report, he couldn't help but smile.

Lu Zhou suddenly remembered he hadn't posted on Weibo in a while.

"… I can't do this to my fans."

Lu Zhou smiled and rolled over. He then took out his phone from his pocket.

Joyful things should be shared with others.

Lu Zhou opened his phone and typed out a post. He then clicked "Send" and shared his happiness with his fans.

[After half a year of hard work, it's finally done!]

Replies immediately came in.

[Wow, why is God Lu up so early?]

[Dumbass, it's night time for him.]

[I wonder what God Lu is doing at night? (smirk) (smirk)]

[Wow, this time God Lu didn't humblebrag!!!]

Lu Zhou: "…"

What are you talking about!

What do you mean humblebrag?

Am I that kind of person?!

Lu Zhou read a few comments in the comments section. He then turned off his phone and placed his phone on the bedside table.

It was just after sunset here in Rio de Janeiro, which meant it was probably quite early in the morning back in China. Not a lot of people would see his Weibo post.

Lu Zhou lay in bed and closed his eyes.

Before going to sleep, he had an important thing to do.

He whispered, "System".

Soon, his consciousness entered the pure white space…

…

[Congratulations user for mission completion!

[Mission completion details are as follows: Give a logically consistent answer to the existence of a smooth Navier-Stokes equation.

[Mission final evaluation: S

[Mission reward: 400,000 mathematics experience points. 100,000 physics experience points. 500 general points. One lucky draw ticket.]

After all, it is a Millennium Prize Problem.

The 400,000 mathematics experience points is double the experience points for Goldbach's conjecture.

The 100,000 physics experience points also surprised Lu Zhou.

Lu Zhou didn't waste a second, and he immediately said, "System, open my characteristic panel!"

A blue light swept across the translucent holographic screen; Lu Zhou's updated characteristic panel quickly appeared in front of him.

[

A. Mathematics: Level 7 (44,000/1.2 million)

B. Physics: Level 4 (133,215/200,000)

C. Biochemistry: Level 3 (24,000/100,000)

D. Engineering: Level 2 (0/50,000)

E. Materials science: Level 4 (13,000/200,000)

F. Energy science: Level 2( 0/50,000)

G. Information science: Level 1 (3,000/10,000)

General points: 3,975 (one lucky draw ticket)

]

I leveled up in mathematics!

Lu Zhou looked at the 44,000 mathematics experience points and felt ecstatic. Thank god he allocated all of the last mission's free experience points into mathematics.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have leveled up.

However, his joyfulness didn't last long.

Lu Zhou looked at the experience limit and couldn't help but feel despair.

1.2 million experience points!

What kind of mission would give me that many points…

Lu Zhou took a deep breath and decided to think about this problem later.

He then reached out a finger and selected the lucky draw.

The probability rates weren't known, so Lu Zhou had no idea what he could get.

The second he touched the translucent screen, a circular roulette wheel began to spin.

Lu Zhou closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He then suddenly opened them.

"Stop!"

He pressed his index finger on the stop button.

The wheel's inertia caused it to spin a couple more rounds before it finally stopped.

A line of words appeared on the center of the translucent information screen.

[Congratulations, User, for winning the "special" prize.

[Received, "Easter egg".]

Lu Zhou: ?!

What the hell is an Easter egg?

Lu Zhou couldn't wait to receive the prize. He was wondering what exactly a system's Easter egg was. Suddenly, a rainbow-colored egg appeared in his hand.

He fiddled with the egg for a long time and couldn't find out what it was.

The only thing he knew was that it was an Easter egg.

Lu Zhou: "…"

F*ck sake!

Is it really just a colorful egg!

Does this thing not have special features?

Lu Zhou remembered the first time he got the "special" prize and it turned out to be a "Patronage Appreciated". Lu Zhou was so over this system's jokes.

If he didn't receive the "inspiration hours", he would have suspected that the special rewards were the exact same as "garbage" and that the system was just playing a cruel joke on him.

Lu Zhou put the egg back into his inventory. He then saw that he had a lot of items in his inventory which were collecting dust.

Like that nitrogen shield, or that Debris No.2 that looked like a Rubik's cube. He hadn't had time to study the Debris yet, so he had no idea what it was.

If only he had a scanner gun.

Lu Zhou sighed and closed his inventory tab.

He had passed the mission and received the mission reward, and now, it was time to receive his new mission.

Lu Zhou looked at the shiny S mission panel evaluation and clicked his mission panel.

Soon, the updated mission panel appeared in front of his eyes.

[Reward mission is activated (Give up at any time without spending general points)

[Explanation: Due to user's deep understanding of the Navier–Stokes equation and user's ability to solve partial differential equations by using differential geometry methods, new ideas paths have been opened for the field of fluid mechanics. The L Manifold and topology tools will also revolutionize the research in hydrodynamic turbulence phenomenon!

[Requirements: Establish a mathematical model for the plasma turbulence phenomenon in the stellarator.

[Reward: 1~??? subject experience. One lucky draw ticket. (100% special).]

Lu Zhou had high expectations for this mission.

If this reward mission was like last time where all he had to do was to receive a national reward, then it would be amazing.

Unfortunately, the system didn't let him off the hook so easily.

Not just that, but this reward mission was actually quite difficult.

The turbulence phenomenon was the most difficult part of fluid mechanics, and so far, physicists had only created approximate models on this phenomenon.

And the turbulence phenomenon of plasma was even more complicated than other fluids.

However, although this was a difficult task, Lu Zhou was confident he could solve this problem.

He had already defeated the Navier–Stokes equation, is there anything else that he couldn't do in the field of fluid mechanics?

Not to mention, applied mathematics was his forte.

He exited the system space and returned to reality.

Lu Zhou felt a gentle twitch in his cerebral cortex before his entire consciousness felt numb.

Lu Zhou secretly enjoyed this feeling of being upgraded, and soon, he yawned and fell asleep.

Lu Zhou didn't know that the news of him solving the Navier–Stokes equation had already hit China and that many CCTV mathematics reporters stayed up all night because of his report…

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Chapter 424: International Congress of Mathematicians!

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Morning, 1st of August, 2018.

The crowd gathered inside the conference venue.

This was the largest, most important mathematics conference. The International Congress of Mathematicians was known as the Olympics of mathematics. Except for when the two world wars were happening, it had been held every four years since 1897.

This was an international conference that provided a place for mathematicians to exchange ideas, discuss academic issues, meet old friends, and make new friends. Every conference played a pivotal role in the history of mathematics.

This year's conference was particularly special.

Not just because this was the first International Congress of Mathematicians held in the southern hemisphere, but it was also because of the Millennium Prize Problem. This conference had received worldwide attention.

Lu Zhou was walking outside the venue while wearing a suit. He bumped into Professor Fefferman, and the two then entered the venue together.

Lu Zhou stood in an uncrowded area as he looked at his watch.

It was 8 a.m, an hour until the opening ceremony.

Fefferman: "I heard the CCTV in your country applied for a live broadcast permit for the conference."

Lu Zhou looked at the corner of the venue where he saw a CCTV logo on one of the cameras.

The guy holding the camera noticed Lu Zhou as well, and he pointed the camera toward him.

Lu Zhou looked away and asked, "Does this rarely happen?"

"Rarely. At least, this is the first time I've ever seen it happening," Professor Fefferman said. He then smiled and patted Lu Zhou's shoulder as he asked, "How do you feel? Nervous?"

Lu Zhou thought for a moment before he replied, "… I'm feeling ok."

His report was already over. Since today was just the opening ceremony, it wasn't like he had to do anything.

As for the CCTV cameras…

It wasn't as if this was his first time on national TV.

Professor Fefferman looked at Lu Zhou in surprise and said, "Unbelievable… That's a TV channel with 1.4 billion viewers, are you not nervous?"

Lu Zhou said, "It's not that big of a deal…"

"… Actually, there's one more thing that might be important to you, but I'm not sure if I want to tell you." Fefferman looked a little hesitant; he wasn't sure if he should tell him.

Lu Zhou asked, "What?"

Fefferman looked around. Once he confirmed that no one was staring at them, he coughed and said in a hushed tone, "At a party yesterday, I was talking about this year's Fields Medal with an old friend, and he told me the list of winners…"

Lu Zhou was shocked by this news.

After a while, he said, "… This isn't appropriate, right?"

Professor Fefferman said seriously, "It isn't, but I hope you can keep it a secret."

Lu Zhou looked around.

Although he knew he shouldn't ask, he couldn't control his curiosity.

"… Can I ask who is on the list?"

Professor Fefferman asked, "You really want to know?"

Lu Zhou nodded and said, "Yes."

Professor Fefferman lowered his voice and said, "Unfortunately, your name is not on there… However, we all think you deserve this year's Fields Medal award."

Lu Zhou: ? ? ?

The f*ck?

No way?

This is still not enough for a Fields Medal?!

Lu Zhou was shocked.

He suddenly heard someone saying something.

"Don't listen to his bullsh*t. No one knows the winner's list prior to the announcement. Not even Fefferman," Professor Deligne said with a blank expression. He then looked at Professor Fefferman and asked mercilessly, "Tell me, who is your friend?"

Fefferman coughed and tried to look away as he said, "Oh, my dear Deligne… I'm just joking, don't take it so seriously! Life is a lot less fun when you take everything seriously."

Lu Zhou was speechless. "… You nearly fooled me."

Fefferman laughed and patted Lu Zhou's shoulder as he said, "Don't be so serious. See, don't you feel relaxed now?"

Lu Zhou said, "I was relaxed before you made this joke."

Professor Fefferman sighed and said, "Okay, my apologies…"

…

At exactly 9 a.m…

The scholars were seated inside the venue, and the 28th International Congress of Mathematicians officially began.

Professor Viana, the head of the conference committee, and Professor Viana, the director of the International Mathematical Union, gave an opening speech on stage. She thanked the local organizers of the conference and the people attending the conference before she announced the official opening of the mathematics conference.

After the opening was the prize-giving session.

This was the climax of the conference.

Carl Friedrich Gauss Prize was the first prize to be announced. This award was given to achievements in the field of applied mathematics.

David Donoho from Stanford University received this year's Carl Friedrich Gauss Prize. This was due to his contribution to mathematical statistics and computing analysis in the field of signal processing.

Next was the Shiing-Shen Chern Award. This was a type of lifetime achievement award that wasn't specific to any field. This year's Shiing-Shen Chern Award winner was given to Masaki Kashiwara for his 50-year-old contribution to algebra analysis and representation theory.

Next was the Leelavati Award, and the winner was a Turkish mathematician named Ali Nesin…

Finally, it was the main part of the award ceremony and the highlight of the entire International Congress of Mathematicians—the announcement of the Fields Medal winners.

Most mathematical achievements were done by mathematicians younger than 40 years old. The Fields Medal was the highest honor that a young mathematician could receive. It was known as the Nobel Prize of mathematics.

Although a medal wouldn't determine the greatness of a mathematician, the scholar that won this medal would earn the respect and recognition of the entire academic community.

Moments before the winner list was announced…

People held their breaths and watched the stage with great enthusiasm.

Especially those that had hopes of winning the Fields Medal.

Zhang Wei sat in the crowd nervously; he began to squeeze his fists.

Molina sat next to Sophie as she nervously rubbed her knees with her fingers.

James Maynard from the UK was also here, and he sat in the corner of the venue with his arms crossed. This young number theory expert was also a Fields Medal candidate even though he did once lose to someone on the twin prime conjecture…

Professor Mori could feel the enthusiasm of the crowd.

He gave a friendly smile before he cleared his throat and spoke in a steady tone.

"He has a high understanding of applied mathematical ideas coupled with extraordinary ambitious and ever-lasting curiosity.

"… From the Zhou-Lu theorem to the twin prime number theorem, from the Polignac-Lu theorem to the Goldbach-Lu theorem, he has added new and novel research to the great ancient discipline of additive number theory.

"Not just number theory, but functional analysis, group theory, topology, differential geometry, partial differential equations… His work spans multiple disciplines, his contribution cannot be described in just a few words.

"I believe that his results didn't just come from his talent, but it also came from the countless blood, sweat, and tears."

Director Mori then declared in a solemn tone.

"The first winner is… Lu Zhou!"

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The venue exploded the moment the winner was announced.

A 24-year-old Fields Medal winner!

The thunderous applause was like nothing else.

The conference venue wasn't the only place that exploded.

The second Director Mori read the name "Lu Zhou", the comments section of the CCTV broadcast exploded.

[Amazing!]

[God Lu is nutty!]

[Congratulations!]

[The third Chinese Fields Medal winner! The first Chinese citizen to win the Fields Medal!]

[Powerful youth, powerful country! Thank you, Professor Lu! (flag) (flag) (flag)]

[I'm from Jin Ling University as well, I guess I went to a fake university, haha.]

[The difference between some people is bigger than the difference between people and pigs.]

[Genius student, please give me some luck, don't let me fail any subjects this semester…]

Although the total amount of theses output in China had continued to grow, the Chinese mathematics community was never at the cutting-edge.

Maybe a Fields Medal didn't represent anything or mean anything.

But this medal gave countless people hope and confidence in the new generation of Chinese scholars…

CCTV's live broadcast wasn't the only place that exploded…

Yesterday, the Shuimu University forums were filled with posts on the Navier–Stokes equation, and today, it was conquered by the Fields Medal.

At least half of the new posts on the forum were about the Fields Medal. Most of the posts weren't talking about the Fields Medal itself, but rather, the Fields Medal winner…

[Amazing, a 24-year-old Fields Medal winner! I remember the 230IQ Tao Zhexuan won it when he was 31, right?]

[The youngest Fields Medal winner was Jean-Pierre Serre, and he was 27 years old when he won it. Lu Zhou bet the record by three years…]

[This is scary… When did Jin Ling University's mathematics department become this strong?]

[God knows, I only know they're strong at physics. They don't even have a mathematics academician!]

[The International Mathematical Union is taking a big risk here! Many 39-year-olds are waiting for the prize. Giving the Fields Medal to a 24-year-old, isn't that a bit impulsive?]

[Why not? He's solved both the Goldbach's conjecture and the Millennium Prize Problem, Navier–Stokes equation. You really think he's honored to have the Fields Medal? And not the other way around?]

…

The applause inside the venue gradually subsided.

Lu Zhou didn't know what was happening online when the International Mathematical Union announced his name.

He wasn't sure how excited the people were.

He walked on stage while being watched by the crowd and cameras. He then received the Fields Medal medal from Director Mori.

This old professor shook hands with Lu Zhou and congratulated him on behalf of the International Mathematical Union.

"Congratulations, scholar from China."

Lu Zhou smiled and nodded. "Thank you."

The awards ceremony continued.

To no one's surprise, the second winner was Peter Schultz from Germany.

Schultz's PhD thesis created a new field of "complete geometry". He had, on average, received one award for every two theses he had ever written. His outstanding contributions to the arithmetic geometry field was recognized by the entire mathematics community.

He didn't win the Fields Medal last time because everyone didn't understand his "p-class perfect space theory (PS theory)". However, after he made a series of breakthroughs in the Langlands program using his PS theory, no one had any more doubts about his theoretical tool.

The third and fourth winners were a bit inferior to the first two winners, but they were undoubtedly still top scholars of mathematics.

One of them was Caucher Birkar, an Iranian scholar from the University of Cambridge, and the other was Akshay Venkatesh, an Australian scholar from Stanford.

The former was a legendary Kurdish refugee while the latter was an Australian who had won both the International Physics Olympiad and the International Mathematical Olympiad… when he was only 12 years old.

After these four scholars' names were announced, a round of thunderous applause was heard again in the venue.

Sophie Morel looked at the four people on stage, and she looked a little depressed. She bit her lip and didn't say anything.

Molina, who was sitting next to her, sighed and tried to comfort her supervisor. "… You still have a chance."

Zhang Wei was on the other side of the hall. He stared at the stage, and after a while, he suddenly sighed.

Xu Chenyang tried to comfort his old friend. "This is unfortunate…"

Zhang Wei shook his head and said, "It's not that bad."

This was his last chance. By the time the next mathematics conference came around, he would have passed the age limit of forty.

Although it was a pity that he could never win the Fields Medal, he couldn't help but feel a little comfort in his heart.

Because a Chinese scholar finally won the Fields Medal.

However, it was unfortunate that he wasn't the one to bring this honor to his country…

Zhang Wei looked at the four Fields Medal winners on stage and suddenly said, "What were you doing when you were 24 years old?"

Xu Chenyang replied, "I was studying my PhD at Princeton, what else?"

"I was at Columbia University that year…" Zhang Wei suddenly shook his head and said, "We lose fair and square."

…

After the award ceremony, the four winners sat together.

Peter Schultz was sitting next to Lu Zhou. As he stared into the camera, he poked Lu Zhou's arm.

"Ah, we meet again."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Yeah, long time no see."

These two first met at the 2015 American Mathematics Conference. Coincidentally, they both won an award at that conference as well.

However, one won the Cole Number Theory Prize while the other won the Cole Algebra Prize.

Ever since then, the two had been communicating through email.

The last time Lu Zhou went to Germany, he originally planned to visit Schultz at the University of Bonn. Unfortunately, he was caught up with work and didn't get to go.

Schultz smiled and said, "Congratulations, youngest Fields Medal winner. You beat Jean-Pierre's record by three years."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Thank you, congratulations to you as well!"

When he was 22 years old, Schultz had the chance to break this record when he created his "perfect space" theory as the following year happened to be the International Congress of Mathematicians.

However, his "perfect space" theory didn't receive recognition from the algebraic geometry community. It only helped him get his PhD.

Schultz said, "You've already defeated the Navier–Stokes equation, so what's next? What do you plan on researching?"

Lu Zhou gave a simple answer. "The application of the L Manifold on plasma physics."

"Still partial differential equations?" Schultz sighed and said, "Do you really not want to dabble in algebraic geometry?"

Algebraic geometry was one of the main fields of pure mathematics; some would say it is the most mainstream mathematics branch. However, many people were disappointed that Professor Lu wasn't interested in algebraic geometry.

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "There are already so many geniuses in that field, there's no need for me to join in."

Schultz smiled and said, "Have you heard this joke about you before?"

Lu Zhou said, "What joke?"

Schultz said jokingly, "If you encounter a research problem you cannot solve, one of the methods to solve it is to make Professor Lu be interested in it."

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Chapter 426: Professor Lu's Fields Medal

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

While Lu Zhou and Schultz were talking about the Langlands program, the other two Fields Medal winners were also talking about their award-winning thoughts.

Birkar looked at his medal and began to reminisce about his flee from Iran to UK. "… When I escaped Kurdistan, I never thought this day would come. I didn't even know any English when I enrolled at the University of Nottingham."

From overcoming his cultural and language barriers, from becoming the main contributor to the field of double rational geometry, from proving the finiteness of the Fano plane, as well as solving many problems of the minimal model program, all of these reasons were why Birkar was able to win the Fields Medal.

"It's not easy," Venkatesh said, "I've never experienced such tragic things in Australia. We are really lucky."

During the Iran-Iraq war in the '80s, being a mathematician wasn't an easy thing.

"It's fine, that's the past," Birkar said as he placed his medal in his briefcase. He smiled and said, "Kurdistan isn't a place that ignites children's interest in mathematics. I hope that by winning this award, I can put a smile on the faces of the 40 million people in Kurdistan."

After that, the International Mathematical Union also awarded the Nevanlinna Prize, the highest award in the field of mathematical computing. The winner was Professor Daskalakis.

After all of the award ceremonies, the opening ceremony of the conference came to an end.

A local Rio de Janeiro culture dance group gave a unique Brazilian performance to the conference participants.

Lu Zhou looked at the people who were dressed as Inca Native Americans and thought that their crowns looked like a peacock's feathers. Compared to dancing, Lu Zhou felt that it looked more like a piece of performance art.

He didn't know what was so interesting about the so-called dance.

Maybe, this was the difference between cultures.

…

After the performance, Director Mori announced the end of the opening ceremony.

Most of the participants left the venue in a happy mood.

Lu Zhou stood up and was about to leave as well. However, when he went to the venue restaurant to grab some lunch, he was surrounded by reporters.

A CTV reporter asked the first question.

A young female reporter with professional makeup asked, "Hello, Professor Lu, may I ask how does it feel to be the first Chinese scholar to win this medal?"

This question was a little difficult.

Excited? Delighted? Fulfilled?

They all didn't seem appropriate.

Lu Zhou didn't know how to describe his feelings.

He looked at the camera that was being pointed toward him and smiled as he replied, "It's okay."

The cameraman nearly dropped the camera.

It's okay…

The Fields Medal is okay… Professor Lu!

If we broadcast this interview, people will think it's a joke.

The female reporter's hand trembled a little. However, she quickly composed herself and asked a different question.

"I heard you're very famous at Jin Ling University and that many young students aspire to be like you. Since you're standing on this international stage right now, do you have anything to say to them?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Remember your roots; fight for your success!"

Lu Zhou wasn't the only one surrounded by reporters; the other three winners were also receiving attention.

Especially Birkar.

Although his academic achievements were slightly inferior to the other three winners, Birkar's unique background made him extra sought after by western media.

But this kind of attention wasn't necessarily a good thing.

Birkar was annoyed by the reporters, and he was about to leave when something awkward happened.

"Wait a minute, where's my medal?"

All of the cameras began to point at Birkar.

Birkar anxiously looked around for his medal.

Professor Viana, the head of the conference committee, noticed the commotion and quickly came over.

"What happened?"

"My medal; it was just in my briefcase…" Birkar said in disbelief. He was about to look in his briefcase.

He quickly found out that not only did his gold medal disappear, but his briefcase that contained his phone and wallet also disappeared.

Professor Viana quickly realized the seriousness of the problem. He then looked at his assistant and sighed.

"Call the police."

The assistant nodded and took out his cellphone.

The organizer of the conference didn't want to make things worse, but they didn't have a better solution other than to call the police.

The news of the disappearance of the Fields Medal quickly spread around; it caused a lot of commotion in the venue.

Not long after, the briefcase was found near the hotel, but the phone, wallet, and medal inside were gone.

Due to the principle of shared knowledge, the mathematics conference didn't restrict anyone from attending. Anyone could freely present their academic opinions and discuss academic topics with other attendees.

However, no one expected that a thief was able to attend the conference.

The spokesperson of the International Mathematical Union expressed his disappointment with the security and safety standards in Rio de Janeiro to the media. He also said that if the medal was found, a special ceremony would be held for the unfortunate award winner.

Lu Zhou, who just escaped the reporter, heard about Birkar's troubles from Hardy.

He felt deeply sympathetic for his Kurdistan friend as he subconsciously touched his own medal.

Thankfully, his medal was still there.

Hardy listened to the argument happening around him and had an uncomfortable look on his face.

"Professor, I don't want to say this, but the public security situation in Rio de Janeiro isn't that good. If you want to go outside, please remember to keep your wallet and medal safe."

Hardy didn't look like he was joking, so Lu Zhou nodded silently.

"… I will."

When Lu Zhou left the conference venue, he decided to wander around the conference site.

The reports at the International Congress of Mathematicians were all of the highest quality, and other than the 45 and 60-minute reports, there were also 10-minute reports for normal scholars where any participant interested in reporting could apply.

The conference reports were divided into more than 20 different mathematical fields, each of which could be further subdivided.

This was an opportunity to understand the latest research trends in the academic community, and Lu Zhou obviously wanted to take advantage of this opportunity.

Just as Lu Zhou was wandering around the hallways while contemplating on which report he should listen to, he suddenly heard a familiar voice.

"Professor Lu, long time no see!"

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Chapter 427: Nutty Supervisor, Nutty Students

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Lu Zhou looked at the person who spoke, and his eyes lit up the instant he recognized who it was.

Academician Wang Shicheng, chairman of the China Mathematics Society!

He met Academician Wang at the 2015 Chinese Mathematicians Conference.

Lu Zhou remembered that it was at Beijing Normal University. He was still doing his master's degree when he attended the conference with Academician Lu. He also won a Shiing-Shen Chern Mathematics Award at the conference.

Unlike the international Shiing-Shen Chern Mathematics Award, the domestic Shiing-Shen Chern Mathematics Award wasn't a lifetime achievement award; it was similar to the Fields Medal which focused on young scholars. However, the age limit was different; it was up to 50- year-old scholars.

"Long time no see!" Lu Zhou shook Academician Wang Shicheng's hand and looked at the three people standing next to him. He then asked, "This is?"

Academician Wang smiled and introduced the person closest to him. "This is the secretary-general of the China Mathematics Society, Cheng Dayue."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Professor Cheng, nice to meet you!"

Cheng Dayue smiled. "Who said I was a professor? Professor Zhang and Professor Xu are professors, just call me Secretary Cheng."

Lu Zhou's eyes lit up. When he heard the other two professors' names, he immediately knew who they were.

"These two are Zhang Wei and Xu Chenyang?"

Before Zhang Wei could speak, Academician Wang Shicheng said, "I was about to introduce them to you, I didn't expect you to guess it right."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "What a coincidence, I didn't expect to meet these two great mathematicians. What an honor!"

These two together with God Yun were legendary at Jin Ling University. Lu Zhou heard their names on Jin Ling University campus before, but unfortunately, he had never met them before. He didn't expect to get the opportunity today.

"No, not quite! God Wei is real, I'm not quite a god yet. Rather, I should say, nice to meet you God Lu!" Xu Chenyang said while shaking hands with Lu Zhou.

Zhang Wei was a coughed and said, "… Don't call him that, it's embarrassing."

Academician Wang Shicheng smiled at these young scholars and said, "Professor Lu, are you available later?"

Lu Zhou said, "Is there anything?"

Academician Wang Shicheng smiled and said, "Nothing, but if you weren't busy, I thought we could grab some food or something. I know a good restaurant nearby, and it's much better than the hotel food."

The "Brazilian-style" lunch provided by the hotel was pretty average; Lu Zhou didn't plan on eating there anyway. Therefore, he smiled and nodded.

"Sure thing, let's go!"

…

On the other side of the planet, the Institute of Mathematics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Xiang Huanan was sitting in the corner of the office, watching the CCTV report on TV. He sighed and spoke with emotion.

"Before this, I thought that kid was talented, but I didn't expect him to be this insane! He even won the Fields Medal."

The Fields Medal was the highest honor for mathematicians under the age of 40. No one had ever won the Fields Medal at the tender age of 24.

The Shiing-Shen Chern Mathematics Award, Wolf Prize, etc., were all lifetime achievement awards; they weren't given to scholars under the age of 40.

After all, to reward a young mathematician for his "lifetime" of achievements almost seemed like a curse…

Academician Wang Yuping sat on the office sofa. He was also watching the TV, and he was sincerely happy for Lu Zhou.

After a while, he suddenly thought of a few students from Yan University. With a sigh, he said, "Unfortunate."

Xiang Huanan looked at his old friend and asked, "What's so unfortunate?"

Wang Yuping shook his head; he almost looked depressed.

"The scholars born in the '80s and graduated in the year 2000 are the most outstanding. Zhang Wei and Yun Zhihui are classic examples. Then there's also Xu Chenyang, who returned to China… We thought these young talents could win the Fields Medal; I didn't expect all of them to be defeated."

Especially Zhang Wei who studied the Kudala Conjecture for his PhD under his supervisor, Zhang Shouwu. He discovered the answer within three months, and when he only took two years to receive his PhD, he shocked the Chinese mathematics community. When he won the Ramanujan gold award, it further boosted his reputation among the academic community.

Professor Wang Yuping was a professor at Yan University; he had heard about the rumors circulating around Yan University campus.

Many young mathematics students greatly worshipped Zhang Wei; they called him "God Wei".

It was obvious that both the older and younger scholars highly respected Zhang Wei.

However, no one expected Zhang Wei to lose out on the Fields Medal.

Xiang Huanan looked at his sad old friend and smiled.

"It's not a big deal. From what I can tell, you guys are giving him pressure, disturbing his mental. You're torturing him!"

"Old Xiang, I'm going to have to disagree with you," Wang Yuping said as he wasn't happy to hear this. "Yan University is one of the top mathematics institutions in the country, so what's wrong with having expectations? How is it torture?"

"You're a Yan University professor, do you not know?" Xiang Huanan smiled and said, "Who cares if he doesn't win it? Is the sky going to collapse? Is winning the Fields Medal the goal of mathematics research?"

Wang Yuping shook his head and said, "I know, researching isn't for awards. I'm just sad that he lost."

Xiang Huanan looked at his depressed friend and said, "There's nothing to be sad about. This might not be a bad thing. At least he can let go of his baggage, and focus on mathematics. He might achieve greater success in the future."

"Don't give me that sh*t," Professor Wang Yuping said. He looked at the TV as he continued, "But then again, this Professor Lu guy really is brilliant. I heard his Ukrainian student will do the 45-minute number theory report."

"You're talking about the Collatz conjecture, right? I've read that thesis; it's well written." Academician Xiang said before he picked up his vacuum flask and took a sip of tea. He said, "He has a very good understanding of applied mathematics, so it's not surprising that his students are geniuses as well. However, I don't know if the Ukrainian, Brazilian, or Qin Yue is stronger. But I am sure of one thing. In ten years, one of these three will win the Fields Medal."

Wang Yuping said, "The Qin Yue student has a chance as well?"

Xiang Huanan was surprised, and he asked, "What? Do you want him to study at Yan University?"

Professor Wang Yuping smiled and said, "I can't convince Professor Lu to come, but surely I can convince his students."

Xiang Huanan shook his head as he said, "You guys are too late. From what I know, the Shiing-Shen Chern Mathematics Research Institute already sent him the Thousand People Initiative."

Wang Yuping was shocked by the news. He asked, "How are they so fast?"

"They're not fast, you guys are too slow!" Xiang Huanan put down his vacuum flask and said, "Nutty professor, nutty students."

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Chapter 428: Give Me Some Inspiration

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Although this was the first time the International Congress of Mathematicians was held in Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro had hosted various other international math conferences before.

According to Wang Shicheng, this was his seventh time visiting this city. Therefore, he was quite familiar with the city.

Wang Shicheng called his other Chinese mathematician friends, who came here to do a 45-minute report. The original squad of four became a squad of ten. Academician Wang led the way, and the squad went to a Sichuan restaurant near the hotel.

The owner of the restaurant was a Chinese person, and apparently, he used to work for China National Petroleum. He then found out it was more profitable to run a restaurant here; therefore, he resigned and started his own restaurant. Once his business started to take off, he migrated and started a family here.

The boss obviously knew Academician Wang. When he heard they were mathematicians who were attending the International Congress of Mathematicians, he immediately gave them a 10% discount.

When the owner heard that Lu Zhou was here as well, he removed the discount and said it was on the house.

Lu Zhou insisted on paying but the owner pushed his hand away.

The owner smiled as he said, "The entire Chinese community in South America is talking about Professor Lu from Princeton that won the first Fields Medal for our country. I'm honored for you to eat here; there's no way I'm letting you pay! If you win the Nobel Prize, I'll let you eat here with all of your friends!"

Secretary Cheng was standing next to them, and he said, "That might be a little difficult as there's no mathematics Nobel Prize."

Professor Zhang said, "Wait, no, Professor Lu might have a chance…"

Xu Chenyang nodded. "True."

Although there was no mathematics Nobel Prize, Lu Zhou had a chance to win the Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Last year, Lu Zhou won the Adams Chemistry Prize and the Hoffman Prize. This was a well-known fact among the Chinese mathematics community.

Secretary Cheng: "…?"

The owner was persistent, so Lu Zhou didn't insist and accepted his kindness.

Everyone got to know each other at the dinner table. Wang Shicheng, the Chairman of the China Mathematics Society, raised his glass and gave Lu Zhou a toast.

"On behalf of the China Mathematics Society, I would like to congratulate you on winning the Fields Medal. Thank you for bringing this glory and honor to the Chinese mathematics community."

Lu Zhou downed the glass of beer with Academician Wang and humbly said, "I'm just doing what I'm supposed to do."

Academician Wang smiled and said, "I know, research is the number one thing for us scholars. As for the awards, those are just the icing on the cake. Regardless, cheers."

"God Lu, cheers. On behalf of myself," Xu Chenyang said as he smiled and raised the glass in his hand. "Come to our Yan University International Mathematical Research Center some time. It's the only research institute built in a Siheyuan style. It's a good place to visit."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Thank you, I will definitely go there when I can!"

Originally Lu Zhou didn't plan on drinking too much, but this was a day worth celebrating; everyone was enthusiastic and Lu Zhou was having a great time.

Even though his alcohol tolerance was pretty good, but after a couple of rounds of beers, he was feeling a little dizzy.

But on the other hand, this was a chance for Lu Zhou to meet some of the big names in the Chinese mathematics community.

Like Xu Chenyang, God Wei, God Yun, Zhang Yuping, etc…

Although they didn't win a Fields Medal, the Fields Medal wasn't the only metric for measuring a mathematician's achievements. These were respected scholars, and their work was essential.

They ate for a long time; Lu Zhou finally stumbled back to his hotel by 2 pm.

Lu Zhou was standing in front of the hotel lobby when he saw Schultz.

"The party is tonight, are you drunk?"

Lu Zhou shook his head and said, "I'm not."

Schultz said, "That's what a drunk person would say. Is your medal still there?"

Lu Zhou touched his pocket.

"It's still here… I told you I'm not drunk."

Schultz raised his eyebrows and said, "Okay then, let me test you."

Lu Zhou said, "What question?"

Schultz smiled and said, "Let an elliptic curve E be defined on the finite field, a general case of the Hasse-Weil-L function should be the self-contained L function of GLn in the algebraic number field. These self-contained L functions can uniquely be decomposed into the product of the 'standard' L function."

After Lu Zhou leveled up to mathematics Level 7, his mathematics-based memory had gotten immensely better.

The knowledge he had to read again to remember, whether it was from theses or textbooks, he could now remember clearly.

Lu Zhou felt like he had heard this problem before.

Lu Zhou thought for a bit and burped.

"Very interesting, I think it's an algebraic geometry problem… And then what?"

Schultz said in a serious tone, "No more and then, I just want to know why is this true?"

"My dear Schultz, I'm not Mr. Google, I don't know why…"

Lu Zhou frowned and tried to concentrate. After a while, he shook his head and said, "Don't know, this is too difficult. I have a feeling that solving this question might take me three months… or even half a year."

Schultz's eyebrows twitched when he heard this problem.

Half a year…

This guy really is drunk.

The question Schultz described was one of the many conjectures about the Artin-L function in the Langlands program; a classic algebraic geometry proposition.

Over the past year, Schultz had tried countless methods to try and solve this problem, albeit none of them had worked.

He didn't think Lu Zhou could solve this problem either. He only wanted to hear Lu Zhou's opinion on it as it might give him some inspiration.

Schultz took a deep breath and said, "Okay then, do you have any good ideas for this question? Any idea is fine."

Lu Zhou frowned and thought for a while. Suddenly, he smiled and said, "You'll have to prove that the self-defense L-function can be decomposed into the product of the 'standard' L-function. First, you have to prove that the decomposition of the L-function is unique… In this case, why not try to prove it using group representation or mathematical analysis? I think it's worth a shot."

Actually, Lu Zhou didn't understand algebraic geometry very well; his knowledge of algebraic geometry was limited to what Deligne had taught him. He had never studied any of the more difficult algebraic geometry conjectures.

Because of this, Lu Zhou had always felt a little guilty. Even though he had Grothendieck's manuscript, he never thought of going to France and taking on Grothendieck's mathematical legacy.

Normally, Lu Zhou wouldn't talk about things that he was not fluent in.

But when he was drunk…

It was a different story.

He would say anything that came to his mind.

When Schultz heard Lu Zhou's gibberish, he sighed. He then shrugged and said, "I'll get you some hangover medicine from the organizer…"

Group theory representation, analytic methods, that's child's play…

Wait a minute…

Schultz remembered his research bottleneck; he frowned and crossed his arms.

Lu Zhou saw that Schultz wasn't speaking.

"… I'm just casually thinking, don't take it seriously."

"No… maybe it makes sense." Schultz twirled his long hair around his finger and said, "Why not try a group theory method or an analytics method? You're right, how did I not think of it…"

Lu Zhou: "…?"

The long-haired German bloke totally forgot about Lu Zhou's hangover medicine as he walked away while muttering to himself…

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Chapter 429: Collatz Conjecture Report

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Although Lu Zhou was wasted in the afternoon, but due to his powerful metabolic function, he was able to attend the evening party.

He was one of the main attendees of this conference; if he didn't attend, then the party wouldn't be interesting…

The banquet went from 6 pm until 8 pm. Professor Fefferman didn't have enough fun; therefore, he came up with the idea to use the Brazilian chocolate balls the Princeton professors got at the conference as chips for playing contract bridge.

This sounded like an interesting idea. Therefore, Lu Zhou joined in on the fun. In the beginning, he lost some of his chips because he wasn't familiar with the rules, but after a while, he began to dominate the playing table.

Mathematicians gambling with cards was a very interesting thing.

Lu Zhou heard Fefferman said that everyone on the table except Lu Zhou was part of the contract bridge club at Princeton Institute for Advanced Study.

Prior to this, Lu Zhou, who had worked at the Institute for Advanced Study for years, never knew about this interesting club.

Professor Fefferman shuffled the cards and said, "If you're interested in playing contract bridge, you can join our club. Unless there's a special occasion, we play every day from 2 pm until 3 pm at the activity room of the Institute for Advanced Study. You're welcome to join us if you like."

Lu Zhou said, "But I'm already a consultant for the drone club at Princeton."

"That's fine, you can join as many clubs as you like," Professor Fefferman said with a smile. Fefferman was a well-liked person on Princeton campus, and he said, "If I recall correctly, I'm an honorary member of more than 20 clubs."

Lu Zhou suddenly felt like he was missing out…

They played bridge until midnight. At the end of the day, Lu Zhou had his pockets full of chocolate balls. He suddenly remembered that there was a 45-minute report tomorrow that he had to attend; therefore, he bade farewell.

Lu Zhou spent the night sleeping in his hotel room.

The next morning, Lu Zhou woke up with dark circles around his eyes. He took a shower and yawned as he walked out of his hotel room.

He took the elevator downstairs and walked into the restaurant. When he happened to see Molina, Lu Zhou immediately greeted her.

"Morning."

"Morning." Molina noticed Lu Zhou's dark circles, and she teased him by saying, "Stayed up late?"

Lu Zhou yawned and said, "Nope, just a bit tired…"

Vera, who just finished her breakfast, walked out of the restaurant and bumped into Lu Zhou.

When the little girl saw Lu Zhou, she greeted him politely.

"Morning, Professor Lu."

"Morning." Lu Zhou smiled and encouraged her, "You got this!"

"Yes!" Vera nodded energetically. In the end, she couldn't help but yawn as well.

Although she went to bed early last night, the thought of her reporting at the International Congress of Mathematicians caused her to stay wide awake.

She rolled around in bed and finally fell asleep around 3 am.

Her entire body felt dizzy; it was almost like she could fall asleep while standing.

Molina looked at this scene in front of her. She then looked weirdly at Lu Zhou.

"… Be honest, what did you do last night?"

When Lu Zhou heard this weird question, he asked, "What do you mean?"

Molina was about to say something, but she suddenly shook her head and said, "… Never mind, I didn't see anything, I didn't ask anything."

Lu Zhou: "…?"

Molina looked like she just made a choice between ethics and her friendship with Lu Zhou. Lu Zhou felt like she had misunderstood something…

…

Vera's report was at 10 am; she was part of the number theory division.

There was still two hours until Vera's report, and Lu Zhou didn't want to waste any time. Therefore, he began wandering around the conference.

Without knowing it, he arrived at the algebraic geometry division.

When he walked into the lecture hall, the person doing a one-hour report happened to be his acquaintance, Professor Schultz.

Lu Zhou was interested in the report topic written on the whiteboard. He sat down in the back row and began listening.

Simply put, Schultz's report was based on the perfect space theory that he created which solved some of the problems in the Langlands program; many of which were closely related to the BSD conjecture.

Lu Zhou had a basic understanding of his perfect space theory; therefore, it wasn't difficult for him to listen to Schultz's report.

After Lu Zhou finished listening to Schultz's report, he went to the partial differential equation lecture hall, but he didn't see any interesting reports happening.

Apparently, some people had applied to report on the three-dimensional Navier–Stokes equation, but since Lu Zhou had defeated the Millennium Prize Problem, they had to abandon their reports…

It was soon at 10 am.

The number theory lecture hall was packed.

Lu Zhou found a seat in the back row and sat down as he quietly waited for the report to begin.

Vera's palms were sweating as she nervously walked on stage.

Many people in the lecture hall were surprised at the presenter's age, but since mathematics is a young scholar's subject, they didn't overreact.

Vera took a deep breath and remembered her professor's encouraging words. She then patted herself on the cheeks as she tried to calm herself down.

"You got this… Vera Pulyuy, you can do it!"

She gave herself some encouragement and had a self-assuring look in her eyes.

The Collatz conjecture soon began.

Although her report was a little unsteady at first, she got the hang of it and began to smoothly articulate herself.

Lu Zhou had to admit that she was a very talented girl, both in mathematics and in public speaking.

Her only flaw was her introverted shy character.

Lu Zhou watched Vera and nodded with approval.

No wonder she's my student, she reminds me of my presenting style.

Half an hour had gone by, the report gradually came to an end. However, Vera didn't relax at all.

Because next up was the QA session; the main part of the report session.

The first question was asked by Professor Helfgott from the École Normale Supérieure. Helfgott was an analytic number theory master who proved the weak Goldbach's conjecture; he was also one of the six peer reviewers for Lu Zhou's Goldbach's conjecture thesis.

Maybe Helfgott didn't want to put Vera under too much pressure because he spoke in a non-aggressive way. He looked at the printed thesis in his hand and spoke.

"On page 9, line 7, I noticed something interesting. Φ(g) is the open subset of the complex plane f, and each of the largest connected sub-regions of Φ(g) is a branch of Φ(g)… How did you conclude this expression?"

Vera quickly turned the thesis to page nine and answered clearly.

"Φ(g) is the set of ordinary points z0 beyond the integer function g(z). On page 7, line 15, inference 1.4, I proved that the function column {gk(z)}/k=1 has sub-columns in the local neighborhood of point z0, which converges to the analytic function S(z)…"

When Helfgott heard Vera's explanation, he nodded with approval.

"Thank you."

The QA session continued.

After all, this was the International Congress of Mathematicians; the skill level of attendees was very high, and the questions were all sophisticated.

Of course, there were some less sophisticated questions.

A doctoral holder from the University of Montreal stood up and spoke.

"Excuse me, on page 11, line 13, any whole function h(z) gives g(z)=z/2(1cosπz)(z1/2)/21/π(1/2cosπz ) sinπzh(z)sin2πz, which satisfies NΦ(g). What is the derivation of this inference?"

Some people in the lecture hall chuckled.

Vera sighed and said, "For this part, please refer to the textbook by Letherman-S, Schleiche-D, Wood-R. The '3n1' problem-and-holomorphic-dynamics…, Professor Letherman has already given a complete proof, I won't repeat it here…"

Anyone that asked this type of question obviously didn't read Vera's thesis at all.

When the guy realized he asked a stupid question, he blushed and sat back down.

Generally speaking, the report went quite well.

After the report finished, Vera ran to Lu Zhou excitedly.

"Professor! I did it… I did it!"

She clenched her fists tightly; her face was full of excitement.

As Lu Zhou looked at the excited little girl, he was happy that she could overcome her introverted personality.

There was nothing better than watching one's students grow and develop.

This was one of Lu Zhou's most rewarding days in his life.

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Chapter 430: Conference Ending

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Not only did the crowd respond well to Vera's report, but her report attracted the attention of various media outlets that attended the International Congress of Mathematicians.

For a long time, mathematics had always been viewed as a male-dominated field. Very few women were able to make outstanding mathematics achievements. This meant that any mathematics achievements by a woman were amplified.

Not to mention, the Collatz conjecture was a difficult conjecture in and of itself.

However, unfortunately for the media, this female mathematician didn't like to be interviewed, and she was almost scared of the camera.

But even though the media wasn't able to interview Vera, they were able to get ahold of Vera's supervisor.

The fourth day of the International Congress of Mathematicians.

A reporter from BBC science arranged a time to interview Lu Zhou at a coffee shop near the Barra Da Tijuca Hotel.

BBC reporter: "… We all know you had a hand in both of the reports. The proof of the Collatz conjecture was completed by your student, Vera Pulyuy. What do you think of your student?"

Lu Zhou said, "Vera is a stellar student. Whether it was her, Qin Yue, or Hardy, they are all extremely talented in number theory. I don't think we should pay attention to gender as I've met many outstanding female scholars."

BBC reporter: "I heard Vera received guidance from you when researching the Collatz conjecture, and many people think that you were the one who solved this conjecture. What do you think about those rumors?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "I only provided an idea to the solution, the entire proof process was done by them. There is no doubt about that. Also, as you can see, the Group Structure Method is an excellent additive number theory tool which I believe can be used to solve a variety of problems."

Reporter: "Which problem do you think the Group Structure Method can solve? Or rather, which field?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Do you really want me to say it? Actually, even if I don't say it, I'm sure my peers could've guessed it by now."

The reporter smiled and said, "Just say it, say it for the people outside of the mathematics field."

Lu Zhou gave a simple answer—"Waring's Conjecture."

Waring's Conjecture was a classic additive number theory conjecture.

This conjecture originated from the "Depths of Algebra" published by Waring in 1770. Edward Waring guessed that for every natural number k, k had an associated positive integer g(k) such that every natural number was the sum of at most g(k) natural numbers to the power of k.

As a classic additive number theory problem, there were many people who were conducting research on this problem.

The existence of g(k) had been proved by Hilbert in a rather complicated way where the case of g(2) = 4 was the quadratic sum theorem, which was proved by Larter in the eighteenth century.

Wieferich, Chandrasekhar, and Chen Jingrun proved the cases for g(3), g(4), and g(5).

If Lu Zhou had to answer which conjecture he was the most optimistic he could solve, then it undoubtedly would be the Waring's Conjecture.

"That's surprising…" the reporter said as she looked at Lu Zhou with surprise. Although she wasn't an academic scholar, she was still a science journalist, and she had a good understanding of mathematics conjectures.

The BBC reporter continued to ask, "Then, regarding your other report, we all know you have proved a solution to the Navier–Stokes equations, and the academic community also validates your proof… But, hypothetically speaking, if this proposition isn't proved, but rather disproved, how will that impact our lives?"

Lu Zhou rested his hands on his knees. He smiled and said in a relaxed tone, "If this proposition is falsified, then its meaning would be more significant. Take the smooth solution as an example, if we find that in one particular point in time, the equations are no longer smooth, then it would mean that no only have we solved an unanswered mathematics problem, but we also have discovered a new physics theorem."

The reporter said, "Then… are you disappointed?"

Lu Zhou sighed and said, "Kind of disappointed… Actually, when I worked with Professor Fefferman on this project, we always thought we found this special point in time. Unfortunately, it was just an illusion."

"How did you discover it was an illusion?"

"When I was running around the lake… As for the specific thought process…" Lu Zhou looked around and asked, "Is there a blackboard? If there is, I can explain it in detail."

The reporter said, "There's… no need."

The media reports were released the day after the interview. Some fragments of the report were edited out by BBC science, but it kept most of the original interview content.

Lu Zhou watched the news on Youtube and looked at the comment section.

Unfortunately, foreign people didn't seem to be interested in mathematics and learning, and the attention was all on Vera.

The most liked comments were basically "This chick is hot!", "I want to visit Ukraine", "Does she have a boyfriend?", etc.

Lu Zhou admitted that Vera, who stood on stage despite her fears and completed her report bravely, was an attractive sight. However, Vera's physical appearance shouldn't be the center of attention.

They're so superficial!

Lu Zhou shook his head and closed the video tab. He wasn't happy that the foreign netizens completely ignored his part of the video…

…

The main part of the International Congress of Mathematicians was the exchange of academic ideas; many wonderful theses and reports had also emerged due to this conference. Lu Zhou gained a lot through this conference.

After spending each day at the conference meaningfully, the nine-day International Congress of Mathematicians finally came to a close. The closing ceremony was of a type of dance by South Americans.

After the closing ceremony, the conference logo was taken down from the Barra Da Tijuca Hotel, and the scholars from all over the world flew back home.

It was worth mentioning that Birkar didn't find his medal.

However, the conference organizer generously held a special ceremony and made up for the lost medal.

Professor Fefferman was sitting on the plane when he said, "… Rio's public safety is disappointing. There are even participants who have been robbed on the beach. There is no doubt that this is the worst ICM in history as there has never been a theft of the Fields Medal medal before. Not to mention, the theft happened half an hour after the prize ceremony."

South America, particularly Brazil, was strong in the field of dynamical systems. This was one of the reasons why the conference was held in Rio de Janeiro.

Although the International Mathematical Union team had some security concerns about Rio de Janeiro, they didn't expect the situation to be this bad and for something unfortunate like this to happen.

The local police of Rio de Janeiro was even more disappointing.

If it weren't for the excellent conference reports, this conference would have been a complete failure…

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Why don't they hold it in Beijing? I can guarantee the medal would have been found."

Of course, Lu Zhou felt like before the thief could even reach for the medal, the thief's hand would have been chopped off.

After being overseas for so long, other than his friends and family, Lu Zhou missed China's safety the most.

Professor Fefferman smiled.

"This is a good idea, I'm sure it will happen one day!"

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Chapter 431: Wire Transfer Me

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

After Lu Zhou got back from Brazil, he began his research on the plasma turbulence phenomenon.

Although he didn't go on another retreat, his lifestyle was very regular. He would either be in his bedroom, Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, or the PPPL.

Researching the plasma turbulence phenomenon wasn't much easier than solving the Navier–Stokes equation.

They were at a different kind of difficulty.

The latter was equivalent to using abstract mathematical tools to prove whether a smooth solution existed. The latter was equivalent to finding a special case and solution of the Navier–Stokes equation.

Until now, there had only been a hundred special Navier–Stokes equation solutions discovered in the mathematics world; most of them did not include the time dimension or were limited to two spatial dimensions.

For the people that did computational fluid dynamics or applied mathematics, most of their special solutions were done using observational models with empirical formulas and parameters; it didn't provide much reference value for Lu Zhou.

This meant that Lu Zhou had to do this daunting task entirely by himself as he didn't even have any literature to research.

Of course, he still had some tools.

For example, his L Manifold Navier–Stokes equation topology object was a very useful theoretical tool.

Not just that, but after coming back from the conference, his mathematics level went from Level 6 to Level 7, and he was only three levels away from the maximum Level 10. His intuition and talent in mathematics had grown exponentially over the past few weeks.

Lu Zhou wasn't 100% certain, but he was 90% certain he could solve this problem.

All he needed was time…

Three weeks after returning to Princeton and near the end of August, Lu Zhou finally received an email from the Clay Institute.

[Dear Professor Lu Zhou, I am James Carlson, the chairman of the scientific advisory board for the Clay Mathematics Institute.

[Based on the anonymous evaluation of 12 reviewers and the comments from the International Mathematical Union, we believe you have proved the existence of a smooth Navier–Stokes equation.

[The solution to this problem will greatly enhance the development and application of mathematical theory. We sincerely thank you for your contribution to the mathematics and scientific world.

[Based on the recommendation from your partner, Professor Fefferman, we are confident that your project work was crucial. After a vote by the Clay Institute board of directors, we have decided to grant you the one million dollar prize money in advance…]

Normally, solving a Millennium Prize Problem didn't mean one could immediately receive the price money.

According to the official rules, any solution had to be published in a reputable journal for at least two years and recognized by the mathematics community. Only then, could the Clay Mathematics Institute decide on whether or not to issue the million-dollar prize money.

However, this rule was malleable.

For example, Perelman's thesis had never been published in a reputable journal, and Carlson, the president of the Clay Mathematics Institute, didn't wait two years before heading over to St Petersberg to visit this hermit…

However, Carlson wasn't able to meet Perelman.

Because Lu Zhou's report was held in the form of a special report at the International Congress of Mathematicians, and that Lu Zhou had answered all of the questions at the report sessions, there was no need to wait for the academic community to reach a consensus.

Therefore, the Clay Institute made this decision.

In the email, the Clay Institute also attached the conditions for receiving the award.

As an age-old proposition announced at the Millennium Conference, Carlson hoped that this award ceremony would be grandiose.

The award ceremony location was at the Collège de France, which was also where the Clay Mathematics Institute first announced the Millennium Prize Problems. The million-dollar special award ceremony would be held by the Clay Mathematics Institute and European Mathematical Society.

No one knew what kind of ceremony it would be.

This was because Perelman, the mathematician that proved the Poincaré conjecture, was a peculiar person that didn't enjoy public attention. Even though he proved the conjecture over a decade ago, an award ceremony was never held.

If Carlson sent the invitation a month ago, Lu Zhou would be happy to buy a plane ticket and attend the award ceremony. After all, a million dollars was a million dollars.

But now that his research on plasma turbulence phenomenon had entered a critical stage, he was neither willing nor interested in traveling long distances.

Lu Zhou thought for a moment before he responded politely to the invitation. He said that his research was in a critical stage, and he couldn't find the time to fly to Paris. In addition, he said he didn't want to refuse the million dollars and even attached his bank account details in the email.

Which meant that Lu Zhou just wanted a wire transfer.

As for the medals or certificates, Lu Zhou didn't mind if they sent it to him by postage…

When Carlson read this email, he nearly spat on the computer screen.

This was almost more irritating than when Perelman refused to accept the award.

If that weirdo doesn't want the award, then it's fine! But what the hell is this bank transfer!

Why are all of these Millennium Prize Problem solvers so eccentric?!

Carlson wrote a response and told Lu Zhou it would be impossible to wire the money to him.

The reason was simple!

Two Millennium Prize Problems had already been solved, but the Clay Institute had never even hosted an award ceremony. If Lu Zhou wanted the prize, he had to come to Paris.

Of course, in Carlson's reply, he also wrote in a respectful manner where he stated that he understood the importance of a scholar's research.

If Lu Zhou really wasn't available, Carlson was willing to arrange a suitable award ceremony date with him.

When Lu Zhou read Professor Carlson's reply, he felt annoyed by the formalism of this guy.

The Clay Institute was located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and it wasn't too far from where Lu Zhou lived. Lu Zhou could even get there without flying. He could do so just by driving in his Ford Explorer.

However, these people weren't happy to hold the award ceremony in their own country; they had to hold it across the pond at the Collège de France.

Attending the award ceremony would waste at least a week of Lu Zhou's time.

Lu Zhou had an interesting research project going on right now; therefore, this was unacceptable.

Lu Zhou thought for a bit before he wrote a reply.

[… I can't give you an accurate date. Maybe only after my research results on the plasma turbulence phenomenon is out that I might be able to take the time to accept the prize.]

After writing the email, Lu Zhou hit "Send". He closed his email tab and continued to study his half a year old experimental data that was sitting in his computer.

Professor Carlson, who was at the Clay Institute in Massachusetts, read Lu Zhou's email. He didn't say a word. Instead, he looked at his secretary, Daft.

Daft sighed and patted Professor Carlson's back as he said, "… That was probably the most euphemistic rejection we could've gotten."

Daft didn't study fluid mechanics; he wasn't even in academia. However, working at the Clay Institute had exposed him to many cutting edge research advances.

The turbulent flow was a well-known type of a chaotic system; it was also a problem that many mathematicians and physicists struggled with.

Not to mention, Lu Zhou's research object was on plasma…

In Daft's opinion, Lu Zhou's letter might as well have been a direct rejection.

Carlson took off his glasses and rested his arms on the table. He then pinched his glabella.

"I don't understand… Why? It's free money, why is it so hard to give?"

He was tired from the inside out.

He had experienced this feeling when he was the institute director, and now that he was the chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board, this feeling hadn't changed a bit.

All he wanted to do before retirement was to grant a million-dollar prize bonus and medal to the solver of the Millennium Prize Problem at the grand hall of the Institut de France.

But why was this wish so difficult to achieve even though two Millennium Prize Problems had already been solved…

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Chapter 432: Supercomputing Application

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

After receiving Lu Zhou's reply, Carlson basically didn't have any hope. The Millennium Prize Problem ceremony was put to a hold.

However, someone might have leaked the news of the Clay Institute's original award ceremony plans.

Then the rumors ended up being that Lu Zhou had rejected the award.

Ever since the Navier–Stokes equation was solved, the media had been paying attention to the million-dollar Millennium Prize Problem award. After all, for people that didn't study mathematics, a million-dollar award was much more shocking than the solution to the Navier–Stokes equation…

The New York Times reporter's comments.

[… After Perelman, a Russian mathematician, refused the million-dollar award, Chinese mathematician Lu Zhou also refused the award. There seems to be a magical curse attached to the Millennium Prize Problems as everyone that solves the problems seems to lose interest in money?]

Hardy handed the newspaper article to Lu Zhou, and after Lu Zhou finished reading it, he threw it in the garbage bin and shook his head.

"It's absolute nonsense! When did I refuse the award? I only told Clay Institute to wait for a bit as I've been very busy recently. I don't have time to fly to Paris."

Hardy: "Professor, did you dismiss the Clay Institute's prize money because you don't have time to go there?"

Lu Zhou corrected him. "I postponed it, not dismissed."

Hardy shrugged and said, "Okay, postponed… Professor, actually I have a suggestion, I don't know if I should say it."

Lu Zhou looked at Hardy and asked, "What suggestion?"

Hardy scratched his head and smiled as he said, "What I'm saying is, if you don't have the time, I can go to Paris and accept the prize for you. You're busy with research, but I don't mind traveling…"

Lu Zhou: "…"

This dude… has too much free time!

…

The rumors about Lu Zhou was only a minor disturbance.

Lu Zhou was busy with plasma turbulence research, and he didn't have time to go do some press conference and clear this boring matter.

Solving the Navier–Stokes equation didn't only cause Lu Zhou to receive excessive media and award ceremony attention, but it also gave him other troubles.

For example, ever since he returned to America with the Fields Medal, his email had been filled with invitations from various places.

Some of which were from domestic and foreign research institutes, some were from the top 100 mathematics universities, and some weren't even from the academic field; there were invitations for a TV show and a talk show…

Once Lu Zhou left Xiao Ai to sort through these emails, he felt a lot more relaxed.

In addition to rejecting people and dealing with the spams, Xiao Ai was basically his personal assistant. As demonstrated, Xiao Ai had become more and more intelligent.

After solving these trivial matters, Lu Zhou returned to his research on the plasma turbulence problem.

It was worth mentioning that the difficulty of the turbulence problem was divided into two parts.

The first part mainly came from the complexity of the system itself and the environment around the system as well as the difficulty that arose from the diversity of the turbulent motion system as a whole.

Take a spacecraft as an example. As the altitude, speed, or even location and material surface temperature changed, the gas and macromechanical environment around the spacecraft was also constantly changing.

The second part came from the methodology of classical physics.

Traditional reductionism started from the most basic components of the material dynamics and established the equations of motion from the basic interaction laws. This sounded simple. After all, most classical physics formulas didn't even require advanced physics.

However, in the world of physics, "more is complex".

Take an aircraft as an example, the flow field around the aircraft contains 1015~1024 microfluids, and each microfluid had to be individually mechanically analyzed. The interaction forces between the microfluids also had to be considered, and this problem couldn't be solved even with the entire world's computing resources.

Due to its complexity, most models made by computational fluid dynamics researchers were phenomenon-based. Therefore, different scholars using the same computational fluid dynamics modeling method could get different results.

Because of this, turbulence computational fluid dynamics modeling based on a closed model was often considered an art rather than hard science.

The reason why people were so obsessed with a smooth solution to the Navier–Stokes equation was not only because they wanted to find out if such a solution existed, but they also wanted to know what mathematicians would find out while researching this problem.

The mathematicians might find out a structural quantity between the subsonic zone and sonic zone, or an approximate weak form in a limited range. Or in the case of L Manifold, the L Manifold differential geometry method that could be used on partial differential equations.

For the plasma inside the stellarator, the first complexity part was relatively easy to deal with. Although plasma wasn't stable under high temperatures and pressures, at least the macro-plasma circulation was relatively uniform.

The second type of complexity problem was much more cumbersome.

However, this was only difficult for normal people.

After Lu Zhou applied the L Manifold into the Navier–Stokes equation and built a mathematical model based on differential geometry experimental data, he found out that although the process was difficult, the end result wasn't as complex as he had imagined.

Time quickly flew by.

Early September.

Lu Zhou sat in his office at Princeton Institute for Advanced Study while he stared at his computer screen. From time to time, he would write on a draft paper with the pen in his hand.

After he entered the final line of calculations on the computer, he finally let out a sigh of relief and put down his ballpoint pen.

"Done!"

When Hardy heard his professor's voice, he looked up with a confused expression. He made eye contact with Qin Yue before he looked back down again.

Jerick and Vera also looked at Lu Zhou with worship. Especially Vera, her eyes were almost twinkling with stars.

Although she didn't know what her professor was doing, she felt like her professor was doing something amazing.

As for Wei Wen, he was writing his master's thesis while completely ignoring the commotion around him. He wanted to finish his master's this year and start his PhD next year, so he wasn't concerned with Lu Zhou's work.

All he knew was that his professor was researching something nutty again…

Lu Zhou didn't notice his students' reaction; he quickly double-checked his mathematical model and then copied the data onto a USB. He took the USB and quickly left the office.

Equation derivation could be done by a human brain, but whenever a numerical solution was concerned, the calculations were beyond the capabilities of a human.

In order to verify his mathematical model and to collect some firsthand simulation data, Lu Zhou needed a supercomputer.

The faster the computer, the better!

…

As one of the richest universities in North America, Princeton's wealth wasn't only reflected in its willingness to poach talented people, but also its campus hardware facilities.

Although Princeton was a small town, there was everything from plasma laboratories to supercomputers centers.

This showed how important having a financially strong alumni association was for a university.

Princeton's supercomputer was at the John von Neumann Center; it was mainly used for simulations in condensed matter physics, plasma physics, and cosmic mechanics.

Lu Zhou was acquainted with a big name in the parallel computing field—David Shaw.

However, Anton's supercomputing powers only excelled in the computational chemistry field; it wasn't ideal for general computing.

Not to mention, David Shaw might not be interested in plasma physics or fluid dynamics simulation. Therefore, Lu Zhou didn't want to bother him.

Lu Zhou didn't have to wait long after he filled in the application form in Nassau Hall. He quickly received approval from the school.

Any research project linked to the PPPL had the highest priority.

Not to mention, the researcher was a Fields Medal winner.

Lu Zhou took the relevant documents to the John von Neumann Center and the director of the center, Amer Green. He told Amer Green about his intentions.

After hearing Lu Zhou's request, Green was full of surprise.

"Unbelievable… Are you sure you're not kidding? You successfully built a mathematical model for plasma turbulence in a stellarator?"

Although Green wasn't a physicist, he still knew how amazing this achievement was.

Lu Zhou sighed and waved the application approval document in his hand as he said, "It's still six months until April Fool's, I'm not joking."

Professor Green didn't waste a second. He switched on his work computer and said, "Did you bring the model?"

Lu Zhou put the USB on the table and said, "Of course."

Green plugged the USB into the computer and opened the files inside. He looked at the data and images on the computer screen and rubbed his beard. He thought for a bit before he said, "To put it bluntly, this is difficult. I'm not sure John Neumann has the capabilities to withstand computing on this magnitude. You might need something like the Summit supercomputer at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory… Are you sure you can't simplify the model?"

Lu Zhou shook his head and said, "That's the most I can simplify it."

"Okay then, you have given us a difficult problem on behalf of PPPL." Professor Green spun the pen in his hand and said, "I can solve the algorithm part, but don't expect results anytime soon."

Lu Zhou nodded and said, "I know, I will also help you guys."

Professor Green smiled and said, "Of course! After all, we do massively parallel computing; we're no plasma physicists."

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Chapter 433: Professor Lazerson's Decision

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

While Lu Zhou and Professor Green were reaching an agreement, a strange person appeared outside his office at Princeton Institute for Advanced Study.

The person hesitated before knocking and walking into the office.

"Is this Professor Lu Zhou's office?"

Vera stopped writing and said, "Yes, why do you want to find Professor Lu?"

The old man looked around the office as he said, "I need to talk to him… Is he taking time off today?"

"Nope," Vera shook her head and said, "but he left in the morning."

The old man asked, "Then can you tell me where I can find him?"

"He's been doing research at the John von Neumann Center these days, so you can go there if you want to find him."

The old man nodded and said, "The supercomputer center? Okay… Thank you." He turned around and was about to leave the office.

However, suddenly, the office door was pushed open.

Lu Zhou came back from the John von Neumann Center with the new data.

When he saw Lazerson, he was stunned.

At first, he thought he had misrecognized him.

Ever since the end of last year, Professor Lazerson had been visiting the Germany Wendelstein 7-X laboratory, and the two had been communicating through email.

Lu Zhou didn't know Lazerson was coming back.

"Lazerson? My dear friend, you came back from Germany? When did you come back?"

Lazerson looked at his watch.

"I got off the plane five hours ago…"

Lu Zhou laughed and said, "In any case, welcome back! Actually, I was about to email you a piece of good news. Come, I'll show you a piece of treasure."

When Professor Lazerson saw how excited Lu Zhou was, he hesitated for a moment. However, he still followed Lu Zhou to his computer.

Lu Zhou switched on his laptop and plugged in his USB. He then quickly opened the simulation software.

When Professor Lazerson saw the intersecting green, red, and yellow lines on the computer screen, he had a surprised look on his face.

"Unbelievable… You actually did it?"

"There's still one more step I need to do. I need to use a supercomputer and test the model, and it might take a few days. But the mathematical model is basically finished," Lu Zhou said with a smirk. "Isn't it magical?"

"Yeah…" Lazerson was hesitant. He coughed and said, "Congratulations! This mathematical model alone is worthy of a physics award. Also, the main reason I came back was to tell you something. I hope you won't be too surprised."

Lu Zhou looked at Professor Lazerson's serious demeanor and asked, "What's up?"

Lazerson: "I plan on resigning."

Actually, Lazerson could have said something worse. Still, Lu Zhou didn't expect to hear this.

Lu Zhou looked at Lazerson in disbelief and said, "Resign?"

"Yes." Professor Lazerson nodded and said, "The He3 atom probe is a fantastic plasma diagnostic technology. I have a feeling that it might become a staple of every plasma research institute. If every He3 atom probe has to be designed and constructed by my group of engineers, it would be way too cumbersome. So I want to design a standardized device that can be disassembled or installed; the kind that works by plugging it into an electric outlet."

Lu Zhou didn't know how to react.

He went silent for around five seconds before he said, "You're already the head of the project team, and you might become the PPPL director in a few years… Is this really the right choice?"

"There's nothing right or wrong about this. In my opinion, distributing the He3 probe technology is more important than any position at the PPPL. Not to mention, why would I want to be the PPPL director? I would rather have a few million in funds to do my own research than to manage hundreds of millions and have none of the money."

Lu Zhou: "But… My dear Professor Lazerson, how many plasma research institutes can afford your equipment? Or how many are willing to order it?"

"That's not a problem, and I'm not worried about sales." Professor Lazerson smiled and said in a relaxed tone, "I know you don't think this is much money. After all, you rejected a million-dollar Millennium Award prize."

Lu Zhou said, "I didn't reject it, I only postponed it!"

"Fine, you postponed it, but that's not the main point." Professor Lazerson said, "Back to what we just said, although my company is still in its early stages, we've already signed two 8-figure contracts."

Whether it was in China or America, jumping from academia to business was not an unusual thing.

Especially for technical engineers like Professor Lazerson, they were much better at transforming a piece of technology into a product than normal scientists.

Not just that, but with his academia connections, Lazerson could easily sign contracts with major plasma physics research institutes. As for the people in the plasma physics community, as long as Lazerson's prices were reasonable, they were happy to do business with him.

But this wasn't good news for Lu Zhou.

Not because Lu Zhou wouldn't receive any profits.

He never intended to make money on the He3 probe technology, nor did he want to register a patent. The probe's main purpose was to facilitate his own research. In fact, he was happy to see other people commercialized the product as it would save him a lot of trouble.

However, he didn't expect Lazerson to be the one to do this.

If Professor Lazerson resigned, Lu Zhou would undoubtedly lose an excellent research partner.

Lu Zhou tried to convince him, "You're already fifty years old, I suggest you think carefully before making decisions."

Professor Lazerson shook his head and said, "Fifty years old isn't that old. Plus I've thought about this for a long time. The reason I came here was to bid you farewell."

Lu Zhou looked at how determined Professor Lazerson was, and he knew he couldn't persuade him.

After a while, Lu Zhou sighed and said, "I wish you the best… If there's anything I can help, feel free to contact me."

Although this was unfortunate, everyone had to make their own choices.

Professor Lazerson was his research partner, not his employee. He didn't have a right to interfere with Lazerson's choices.

Professor Lazerson's eyes lit up when he heard Lu Zhou.

"Really? You're willing to help me?"

When Lu Zhou saw how delighted Professor Lazerson was, he said, "Of course… But It depends on what it is."

"Oh, here's the deal… Although I've already raised some money, we're still lacking in the financing department. Of course, I've thought about borrowing from the banks, but it's not easy for a start-up to secure funding, you know?" Professor Lazerson coughed and seemed embarrassed as he said, "Are you interested in investing?"

Lu Zhou: "…"

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Chapter 434: I'm Afraid You Don't Need Supercomputers…

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

In the end, Lu Zhou still spent the money.

The reason wasn't that he thought Professor Lazerson could make a lot of money. He did it as a favor for a friend.

Not to mention, since he took part in creating the He3 atom probe technology, he hoped that this technology would make an impact on the plasma physics field.

Lu Zhou told his manager at Star Sky Technology, White Sheridan, to sort out the specific financing plan and relevant contracts.

A few million dollars worth of investment wasn't a big deal for Lu Zhou…

As the numbers of electric or hybrid cars that were on the roads increased, so would the size of Star Sky Technology's bank account.

It was a wise decision to license the patent to Umicore. Other than the one-time payment that Lu Zhou received, according to White Sheridan's battery market evaluation, Lu Zhou would also receive at least US$90 million in dividends from Umicore.

So far, he hadn't thought of how to spend this money…

After an agreement was reached, Professor Lazerson thanked Lu Zhou again before he bade farewell.

"Goodbye, my friend, whether it is the past or present, it has always been a pleasure to work with you. You've contributed a lot to the He3 atom probe technology. We are certain this will be a great product. Maybe you don't care how people think of the atom probe, but I will make sure this product will impact the field."

Lu Zhou said, "Goodbye… If you go bankrupt someday, feel free to find me. Although I might not be able to make you a PPPL project supervisor again, I can at least provide you a place to do experiments."

"My friend, are you really going to say goodbye like this?" Professor Lazerson patted Lu Zhou on the shoulder and laughed. He walked two steps backward toward the office door and said, "Rest assured, that day will never come. Then… Take care!"

Like this, Professor Lazerson left.

Before leaving, he told the PPPL research institute not to disband the He3 project team; the project team would continue as usual.

Fern Boucher, Professor Lazerson's assistant, would be the new person in charge.

Fern had a PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and although he was only thirty years old, he had proven himself to be quite talented in the fields of engineering and plasma physics.

However, since this newly appointed engineer supervisor was currently doing an academic exchange at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Germany, Lu Zhou would have to wait a while before he could see him.

Speaking of which, a minor disturbance happened because of this.

At first, PPPL director Terrence Brog proposed to let Lu Zhou take on the role of the project supervisor.

Lu Zhou had to admit that it was an attractive proposal.

The PPPL was well known in the field of international plasma physics. If it was any other research institute, Lu Zhou wouldn't have created the He3 atom probe technology in such a short amount of time.

The reason why Lu Zhou and Professor Lazerson could achieve success was that the PPPL was full of geniuses. If Lu Zhou could become the project supervisor, he would receive a huge amount of opportunities and resources. In fact, it would be much more than he could possibly imagine.

Lu Zhou thought about Professor Brog's offer for a long time, but in the end, he euphemistically rejected Brog.

Although the PPPL was co-owned by Princeton University, most of its projects were conducted by the United States Department of Energy. Therefore, it wasn't as "safe" as a private institute like Princeton.

If a foreign scholar became the leader of a government lead research project, it would inevitably lead to some unnecessary misunderstandings.

Regardless of why Professor Brog made the offer, Lu Zhou felt like he should only be a consultant for the project team, not the person in charge. This was to avoid potential political conflicts.

Although Lu Zhou might be overthinking, this was something he always paid great attention to…

…

It had been a week since Professor Lazerson resigned.

John von Neumann Center.

A group of staff members wearing white anti-static clothes were inside the supercomputer control room, working in front of their computers.

When Professor Green saw that Lu Zhou was standing there silently, he said, "I don't know why, but I feel like you're not feeling that good?"

Lu Zhou looked a little depressed as he sighed and said, "A week ago, one of my friends went away."

Professor Green went silent for a while and sighed.

"Sorry."

Lu Zhou coughed and said, "Don't be sorry, I didn't mean 'went away', I only meant he resigned."

Professor Green: "…"

Why the fuck would you tell me that then?

Wasting my emotions…

A staff member wearing a white coat came over and reported the situation to Professor Green.

"The supercomputer is in good condition, we can start the experiment at any time."

Green looked at Lu Zhou and asked, "Are you ready?"

Lu Zhou took a deep breath and tried to cheer up, "I am ready."

Green nodded and looked at the staff member.

"… Let's begin."

The supercomputer began to operate.

John von Neumann was running on full performance; it was like a furnace that was slowly melting the mathematical model.

The stellarator's circular orbit was simulated in the virtual world of 0s and 1s, hundreds of billions of plasma microfluids were being calculated.

Professor Green stared at the data on the screen and spoke in a serious tone.

"No offense, but your mathematical model is way too complicated! Even if we succeed, it would be difficult to implement this model into the stellarator's control computer. The simulation alone is so difficult, don't even think about inputting other variables into the system. Unless…"

Lu Zhou looked at Green and said, "Unless?"

"Unless it's a quantum computer that can quickly process discrete logarithm operations." Professor Green said in a joking manner, "Theoretically, the result you want isn't something a massively parallel computer can handle. Only quantum computers can effectively process each superimposed component."

However, quantum computers…

Honestly, they were just a concept.

Even the most advanced quantum computers had a computing power of ancient classical computers.

What exactly are ancient classical computers?

Middle school or high school information technology textbooks might have some pictures for reference. Those pictures would show thousands of vacuum tubes that occupied a room the size of a house.

Yep, that guy was called ENIAC.

The computer science field was still at least half a century away from commercializing quantum computing. As for the quantum computers that blew traditional computers out of the water… that was all science fiction.

Therefore, Professor Green said this in a joking tone.

Lu Zhou didn't say anything; he only nodded his head and began to think.

"Okay."

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Chapter 435: Magical Key

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

It turned out that supercomputers were not invincible. When the calculations were complex enough, it would also get a "headache".

Although the laws of motion involved in microfluid dynamics were under the framework of classical mechanics, when the number of microfluids reached a certain limit, it transformed into a non-classical chaotic state.

As per what Professor Green said, classical computers might not be fit for this kind of work. Controlled nuclear fusion simulation required a quantum computer. In addition, all precise numerical fluid simulations required sophisticated quantum computing technology.

Fortunately, with the help of Fields Medal winner Lu Zhou and countless hours of hard work, Professor Green's team finally completed the numerical simulation of the model.

The moment the calculations were completed, the people inside the supercomputer control room began to cheer. People were giving out high fives to celebrate this hard-won victory.

Half a minute ago, they used the von Neumann computer to confirm a plasma physicist's hypothesis of a chaotic system. Whether from the perspective of massive parallel computing or from the perspective of physics, this was undoubtedly a great achievement.

They were the only ones that knew how difficult this was.

Of course, most of the work was accomplished by the person who was able to create a mathematical model of this chaotic system…

Lu Zhou stood next to Professor Green as he asked in an uncertain tone, "We did it?"

"Seems like it… although I don't know if this is the result you're looking for," Green said as he placed the USB into Lu Zhou's palm and smiled. He said, "Honestly, I didn't think we could succeed."

"Thank you."

Lu Zhou looked at the USB in his hand and smirked.

"You're welcome." Green patted Lu Zhou's arm and said, "Remember to add the John von Neumann Center in the list of research centers. We haven't produced a result like this in a long time."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "I will, definitely."

…

After receiving the experimental data, Lu Zhou began to write his thesis.

Actually two weeks ago, before the John Neumann project began, Lu Zhou had been writing the main part of the thesis. Right now, he only had to add the data and images generated from the supercomputer into the thesis.

Once Lu Zhou finished writing the thesis, he leaned back against his chair as he looked at the thesis on the computer screen. He then felt a sense of accomplishment.

Suddenly, his eyebrows twitched.

In the midst of happiness, he couldn't help but feel a little anxious.

If I continue researching… will it become a little dangerous?

Nuclear fusion is undoubtedly a dangerous piece of technology.

Especially when it becomes "controllable".

Lu Zhou stared at the screen while thinking.

"Should I think of adding a backup plan?"

However, they were still a long way from implementing this technology. Countries didn't want to spend money on funding while ITER's budget requirements grew every year.

But what if one day the technology was implemented?

In other words, if the world's nuclear fusion scientific researchers finally created a controllable nuclear fusion technology, then ITER would have fulfilled its mission statement. They could finally show the governments all across the world some results.

Lu Zhou didn't know if this was a good thing or a bad thing.

Lu Zhou suddenly felt like he had the key to all this.

It could lead to a better future, or it could open a box of curses that would completely destroy humanity…

He frowned and switched off his computer. He then stood up from his chair.

Vera noticed that Lu Zhou looked a bit weird, so she tilted her head and asked, "What's wrong, Professor?"

Lu Zhou shook his head and said, "Nothing, I'm going out for a bit."

The sun was setting outside the research center.

Lu Zhou ran two laps around Lake Carnegie and felt a lot better.

As a scholar, he didn't have to worry about the impact a piece of technology would bring.

As civilizations got more and more advanced, no matter how complicated the process might be, history would push humanity forward and build a better future.

Whatever was in the box…

Lu Zhou would open it.

This was the mission of a scholar.

When Lu Zhou went back to his house, he went upstairs into his study room and switched on his laptop.

As he looked at his thesis, he tapped his finger on the desk and began to think.

Where should I submit it?

Nature?

Science?

These two journals don't seem to be suitable for this type of heavy academic, data-driven thesis. After all, the application of L Manifold and various differential geometry methods in the thesis greatly increases the reading difficulty.

Lu Zhou's eyes suddenly lit up; he thought of a suitable journal.

PRX!

You're the chosen one!

…

PRL and PRX were journals of the American Physical Society; the former had a 4-page, 3,750-word limit. After all, the PRL's full name is Physical Review Letters. The latter didn't have a word limit, nor did it limit the number of submissions per journal issue.

The only unfortunate thing was that a thesis publication had a base fee of US$1,500 with additional fees based on the number of pages in the thesis. For most theoretical physicists, this was a huge expense.

However, for scholars that were slightly well-known, this fee could be waived.

Because of this rule, PRX's first issue in 2011 published 38 theses; all of them were long papers.

That was until 2013 when the American Physical Society's meeting in March decided to strictly control the number of theses published in PRX. Each month's issue was restricted to between 6 to 8 theses. Each thesis was also required to solve a certain type of problem conclusively, thus eliminating sub-par theses.

After all, inconclusive in-progress results produced too many sub-par theses…

Therefore, all theses published in PRX were screened and filtered.

PRL had a bigger influence in the China academic community than PRL, but in the international stage, PRX's influence was way beyond that of PRL's…

The thesis was submitted and arrived at the editorial department of PRX.

PRX editor Frank opened his work email and saw this thesis.

"Plasma turbulence?" Frank raised his eyebrows. He finished reading the abstract of the theses and continued to read the thesis body.

But soon, he began to frown.

It wasn't because the thesis was badly written, but because he couldn't understand the mathematical formulas at all…

Frank double-checked the author's name and research institute of the thesis and began to start teasing.

"The author is a mathematics professor from Princeton… Interesting, he might have intended to submit to a mathematics journal instead?"

Normally, other than really nutty journal editors-in-chief, most journal editors didn't have the ability to review journals. They might have a little research experience in the relevant fields, but most of the time, they only had basic academic qualifications.

Therefore, not being able to understand the thesis was normal.

Lancent was standing next to Frank by the coffee machine. He took a sip of coffee and looked at the thesis contributor's name on the screen. Suddenly, he had a surprised look on his face.

"Lu Zhou? I know this guy. He's this year's Fields Medal winner."

Frank looked at his co-worker and said, "You follow mathematics?"

Lancent smiled and said, "Why not? Physics and mathematics are closely related. Not to mention, he solved the Navier–Stokes equation at the International Congress of Mathematicians."

Frank had heard of the Navier–Stokes equation. He had even read the New York Times report. He heard the lucky guy rejected million-dollar prize money… Even though the scholar was famous, Frank still had to treat the thesis with caution.

Frank thought for a long time before he finally decided to let a reviewer determine the content and quality of the thesis.

"Which reviewer do you think is appropriate?"

Lancent rubbed his chin and spoke.

"Experts in plasma physics… Let me think… I know! Professor Keriber from Germany should be a good choice. I remember he was the head of the Wendelstein 7-X laboratory at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics.

"I think he has the most amount of say in this field!"

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Chapter 436: Dilemma Of Wendelstein

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The thesis was sent across the Pacific Ocean and right into Professor Keriber's mailbox. At the same time, a very serious meeting was taking place in the conference room at the Wendelstein 7-X laboratory.

The big names sitting here were Professor Ganser Hesinger, a director of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, a representative sent from the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, and various visiting scholars from the PPPL, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Plasma Physics.

If Professor Lazerson didn't retire, he would be at this meeting as well. The He3 atom probe technology played an important role in plasma observation, and the reputation of the He3 project team had also grown.

But now, Lazerson wasn't sitting here. Rather, his assistant, the thirty-year-old doctoral holder Fern Boucher was here. When he sat next to the group of big names, he almost felt embarrassed to speak.

As for why the conference was so serious…

That was because of something that happened last month.

Last month, the Wendelstein 7-X finally completed the installation of a water-cooled divertor.

According to the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics plan, the water-cooled divertor would completely solve the temperature problem that was present in the reaction chamber.

However, the results weren't as ideal as expected.

When the 100 million degrees plasma was confined within the electromagnetic field, the water-cooled divertor did indeed come in handy. However, the speed of the temperature rising of the first wall exceeded the researchers' expectations.

Due to the large amount of heat energy, the temperature of the first wall material kept rising, and it slowly began to affect the safety of the stellarator's orbit path.

In order to prevent an accident from happening, the staff members had to turn off the equipment and pause the experiment.

At last, the stellarator with the water-cooled divertor could only maintain a high-temperature plasma for six minutes.

Compared to the tokamak's 100 seconds record, this result was quite excellent.

However, this wasn't particularly amazing for a stellarator.

Keriber looked at the research report in his hand and made a brief report to the scholars and experts sitting around the conference table.

"… The water-cooled divertor has been installed. However, it wasn't as good at controlling the plasma as we had expected.

"… According to the data recorded, starting from second 227, a small amount of unbounded plasma made contact with the first wall; this was the main cause of the heat accumulation. This eventually led to the first wall temperature rising faster than the cooling capabilities of the water-cooled divertor."

After hearing Keriber's report, Professor Edor from the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres suddenly spoke.

"So what you're saying is that the problem isn't the water-cooled divertor, but rather the uncontrollable plasma from the stellarator?"

Although the Wendelstein 7-X Laboratory was owned by the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, the stellarator's internal design was co-built by the Max Planck Institute and the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres.

The Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres was the second largest institute in Germany, behind the Max Planck Institute; it had a high amount of respect within the fusion energy community.

Keriber answered the question from the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, "Not uncontrollable. It's the natural divergence of plasma. Even a star couldn't make every single plasma particle orbit around the track. There will always be a few plasma hitting the wall; this is within the bounds of acceptable errors."

Professor Edor raised his eyebrows. "Only a few particles?"

Keriber: "… That is only an example. I obviously can't give you the exact number. I can only tell you, compared to the mainstream tokamak device, we are doing extremely well in terms of magnetic confinement fusion."

Professor Hesinger saw that the two were about to get into an argument, so he coughed and interrupted the conversation.

"The problem is clear. Now, we have to solve the problem, not argue about meaningless things."

Professor Hesinger paused for a second before he continued, "We have two choices. One is to change the existing control plan, and the other is to change our cooling system."

They could either reduce the number of plasma particles hitting the first wall by improving the electromagnetic field's control or upgrade the water-cooled divertor to improve cooling performance.

"Improving the fusion control is very difficult." Professor Keriber shook his head and said, "If there's a better control solution, we would've used it by now."

Boucher, who didn't get a chance to speak, finally said, "What about changing the water-cooled divertor?"

"It's not realistic, and modifying the existing divertor is also impossible." Professor Hesinger shook his head and said, "The main problem is, we need to achieve our 30 minutes by 2020 promise… That means we have a maximum of two years."

The atmosphere in the conference room was a little tense; no one was speaking.

Like what Professor Hesinger said, time was the key.

The water-cooled divertor was no refrigerator; even a millimeter or micrometer change was an enormous project. Reassembling the device was difficult, but redesigning the device was almost impossible.

Over the past 15 years, they spent three years installing the water-cooled divertor onto the Wendelstein 7-X.

Now that they only had two years until 2020, there was no way they could spend another three years redesigning and assembling the water-cooled divertor.

Honestly, setting a time limit for scientific research was an asinine thing.

Even the leading expert of a field couldn't be certain on when a new piece of technology would be created.

It could be created tomorrow, or it could never be created.

However, if they didn't set a time limit, no one would give them funding.

…

It was noon. The meeting was temporarily dismissed and scheduled to continue at 2 pm.

Keriber was in the laboratory restaurant, and he ordered himself a cup of coffee before he sat down next to the window. He then opened his work laptop and checked his unread emails.

"Thesis review invitation?"

Keriber looked at the email in his mailbox and became interested.

Strictly speaking, he wasn't a plasma physicist. Instead, he was a plasma and fusion energy engineer.

Also, the stellarator was less popular than the tokamak, and there weren't many international research institutes that engaged in this field.

The last time he received a thesis review invitation from the American Physical Society was five years ago.

He didn't want to waste his meeting break time reading a thesis. However, Keriber was too curious and opened the thesis.

Although he wasn't a plasma physicist, he had been working at the Institute for Plasma Physics for a long time. He was familiar with the theory, and he was also experienced in reading research theses.

A mathematical model for plasma turbulence?

Professor Keriber read the thesis abstract and raised his eyebrows.

Phenomenological model?

Kind of? I'm not sure.

After reading the thesis abstract, Professor Keriber began to read the thesis body. When he saw the big formula in the thesis, his eyebrows twitched.

As an engineer, he was well-versed with mathematics. However, the equation in the thesis was beyond his scope of knowledge. Just looking at it gave him a headache.

It's just a phenomenological model, is it really necessary to use such complex mathematics?

Professor Keriber was confused; this style of compact writing reminded him of someone.

When he looked at the author's name, he suddenly smirked.

It's this guy…

He smiled and shook his head. Keriber gave up and skipped the complex formulas; he looked at the conclusion of the mathematical model instead.

At first, he didn't agree with the thesis.

But the more he read, the more serious he became.

Suddenly, his face turned red. He immediately took out his phone.

"Iger, I'll send a thesis to your email address, print out the thesis for me!"

Iger was his office assistant who was responsible for most of the daily miscellaneous tasks such as scheduling and documents.

Normally, theses that hadn't been published shouldn't be open to the public. However, exposing the thesis privately was within the rules.

After all, many reviewers that came across a particularly excellent thesis in a field they weren't familiar with would often exchange opinions with their peers.

Iger: "Okay sir, how many copies do you need?"

"However many people that are attending the afternoon meeting!"

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Chapter 437: Coach, I Want To Sell Drones

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The meeting started again.

Professor Keriber stepped foot into the conference room and placed a stack of paper on the desk. He made a gesture to his assistant, who was also holding a stack of papers, telling him to pass the theses around the table.

The professors and engineers sitting around the table didn't know what Professor Keriber was doing.

Edor took a copy of the thesis and frowned.

"What is this?"

Professor Keriber placed his hands on the table before he spoke with a twinkle in his eye.

"This is what we've been waiting for!"

Edor was somewhat uncomfortable at how excited Keriber was, and he hesitated for a second before asking, "Are you sure this thing is reliable?"

Professor Keriber spoke in a confident manner, "The author of the thesis is Professor Lu from Princeton; this year's Fields Medal winner. If his mathematical model isn't reliable, then I'm afraid no mathematical model in the world is reliable."

A plasma physicist threw the thesis on the conference table and said, "Plasma turbulence… turbulence… the word turbulence gives me a headache." He pinched his glabella and said, "I'm a plasma physicist; I'm not here to discuss fluid mechanics with you."

Some professors didn't say a word as they were concentrating on the thesis in their hands, trying to comprehend the complicated calculations in the thesis. There were a lot of big names in the Max Planck Institute; there were also visiting scholars from all over the world.

There were bound to be some people who were proficient in mathematics.

However, it didn't matter if someone wasn't proficient.

They were just like Keriber.

Even though Keriber couldn't understand the body of the thesis, but like most people, he could still understand the mathematical model results and conclusion of the thesis.

Keriber stared at Hesinger and said in a serious manner, "I know this sounds outrageous since it is well known within the physics community that the turbulence problem is unsolvable. However, if this model is reliable, we can use it to change our fusion control scheme, and reduce the amount of plasma collision on the first wall material."

Professor Hesinger went silent for a long time before he finally made a decision.

"Then let's give it a go."

The best way to test the truth was through experiments.

Just like how their phenomenological model was built using the cumulative experience from countless experiments.

Edor looked at Hesinger in disbelief. "Are you sure you want to change the control scheme? Just because of this unpublished thesis?"

Professor Hesinger looked at him.

"Do we have another choice?"

Changing the control scheme wasn't an easy task.

However, this type of procedural modification was much easier than a large systematic modification…

…

Once Lu Zhou submitted the thesis, he left it alone.

Interestingly, he posted the thesis onto arXiv's website, sharing it with his peers. However, it didn't trigger the system mission completion.

It seemed like the rules for this type of application-based thesis was different than mathematics proof theses. Making the thesis available to the public wasn't the only criteria for mission completion.

Lu Zhou remembered the mission description said he had to "establish a mathematical model for the plasma turbulence phenomenon in a stellarator".

Maybe the mission also required at least one stellarator to apply his model?

If that was the case, this mission would be a little more difficult…

Even top journals like PRX were unlikely to be adopted by research institutes.

More importantly, there were only a few stellarators in the world…

Of course, there could also be a problem with Lu Zhou's thesis.

But Lu Zhou felt like the probability of that was very low…

After confirming the thesis had entered into the peer review stage, Lu Zhou's work had slowed down a little.

From the Navier–Stokes equation to plasma turbulence, apart from the few days he went to the Brazil conference, he basically hadn't taken a break.

After all, he wasn't a machine; he still needed to rest…

A group of undergraduate boys was testing their drone near Lake Carnegie.

The annual autumn competition was about to begin, so this was the most important time for practice.

As their consultant, Lu Zhou would occasionally join them when he wasn't busy.

On the one hand, he would give the boys advice on technical problems. On the other hand, he would also use this opportunity to hang out around the lake and get some sunshine.

The club leader, Jimmy, sat next to Lu Zhou. He grabbed the grass on the ground and suddenly said, "Professor, I'm graduating next year."

"Oh? Maybe I can give you some good advice, like some reliable professors you can study under."

Lu Zhou had a good impression of the boy with freckles.

Although Lu Zhou didn't know a lot of engineering professors, he could still consult some of his professor friends for suggestions.

However, to Lu Zhou's surprise, Jimmy shook his head.

"I don't want to study anymore, I want to graduate."

Lu Zhou looked at him in surprise.

"Graduate? Have you thought of what you want to do?"

"Drones!" Jimmy stared at the little guy flying in the sky and said, "I want to open a drone company. That's my dream."

Lu Zhou said, "This sounds… interesting. But Jimmy, what do you plan on using drones to do?"

Jimmy smiled and said, "There's a lot of things it can do…. like delivering packages or pizza."

Package delivery drone?

This word makes me nostalgic…

Lu Zhou looked at the drone hovering in the sky and thought back to the first few theses he published in his university days.

He also remembered his Shunfeng offer.

Lu Zhou couldn't help but think. What if he didn't refuse the offer, chose to give up on academia, and went to research drone logistics in a laboratory instead? What would his life be like?

Life really is amazing…

Jimmy: "Professor?"

Lu Zhou said, "What?"

Jimmy looked at Lu Zhou seriously and said, "What do you think of the drone delivery idea?"

"A good idea. I'm optimistic about this project, but I don't have any plans to invest…"

Jimmy smiled and said, "No, you're misunderstanding me, I don't need your investment. My father agreed to lend me five million dollars in venture capital; it should be enough."

Lu Zhou: "…"

Okay, I guess I was over-thinking.

But speaking of which, how come other than my own students, all the students I'm friends with are filthy rich…

"In this case, good luck with your venture. I can't help you with anything else, but I can recommend you some good theses to read… However, it only outlines a general framework. It is far from complete." Lu Zhou paused for a second before he said, "However, they're in the General Journal, and I'm not sure if the database of Firestone Library has them, so you might have to be a little patient when you're looking for them…"

That was how the General Journal worked. Even if someone produced a top tier result, it would be treated poorly.

Lu Zhou spent general points in order to complete the mission. Therefore, it was actually the system that wrote the theses.

Objectively speaking, Lu Zhou felt like the quality of those theses were pretty good. Although they were somewhat sub-par, using it as a framework would be pretty decent.

However, Jimmy was keen. His eyes lit up as he immediately said, "Please recommend them to me!"

Lu Zhou took out a small notebook from his pocket.

He couldn't remember which academic conference he got this notebook from. He mainly used it to record inspirational thoughts. He was the only one that could understand the symbols and calculations written within.

Lu Zhou tore off a blank sheet of paper and wrote down the name of the journal and approximate publication date before he gave it to Jimmy.

"Take it."

"Thank you!"

Jimmy took the piece of paper from Lu Zhou and shoved it in his pocket like it was a piece of treasure.

Although the theses were useless for Lu Zhou, he hoped Jimmy would find them useful.

Suddenly, the phone in his pocket vibrated.

Lu Zhou stood up and patted the grass off his pants. He then walked next to the lake and took out his phone.

Xiao Ai: [Master, you have mail!]

Lu Zhou looked at the notification on his screen and clicked on the link. He instantly logged into his email.

Coincidentally, there were two unread emails in his inbox.

One was from PRX, informing him that the peer review had ended and that the thesis would be published in the latest PRX issue.

The other was from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics…

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Chapter 438: Thank You Letter From Max Planck Institute?

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

[Hello, dear Professor Lu, I am Professor Keriber from the Wendelstein 7-X laboratory. We met around this time last year, I don't know if you remember our encounter.

[There is only one reason why I am writing you this letter. On behalf of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, the entire controllable nuclear fusion field, and ITER, I would like to thank you.

[Actually, last month, we completed the installation of a water-cooled divertor. However, the results were not as optimal as we had hoped.

[Coincidentally, we received a thesis review letter from PRX. Using the mathematical model you provided, we redesigned the control computer's design and scheme. Then, a miracle happened!

[You have no idea how shocked we were. The amount of stable plasma orbiting the track increased by 50%!

[I am sure, that if we continue to change the control scheme and change the orbit electric control sensitivity, this number will grow even larger. There is still a lot of potential in your mathematical model. However, due to technological constraints, we are not able to realize that potential.

[As for the calculations for the changes, we will do a report in the next IAEA-Demo meeting. If you are interested, I can get you an invitation. Of course, if you are not able to attend, you can still look at the thesis on the IAEA website.

[All in all, I have to thank you. Also, I'm sure a lot of people also have to thank you…]

Lu Zhou had a weird expression on his face after reading the letter.

What a coincidence.

The reviewer happened to be Professor Keriber?

But I guess this makes sense, the controllable nuclear fusion field is small. Plus the Wendelstein 7-X laboratory is one of the few laboratories that have a stellarator. I can't think of a better reviewer than Keriber.

I heard running the stellarator isn't cheap, it's burning money on the millisecond scale.

Then I guess this might be the most expensive thesis review in PRX history…

Suddenly, Jimmy walked over.

"What's wrong, Professor?"

"Nothing," Lu Zhou said as he shook his head and put away his phone. He said, "I have to go, I have some matters to attend to. This is your last university competition, make sure you do your best."

"That's for sure!" Jimmy smiled brightly and said in a joking tone, "I plan on getting a trophy before I graduate."

The drone club continued to practice. After Lu Zhou said goodbye to the club members, he returned to his office at the Institute for Advanced Study.

When he arrived at his office, Vera walked in holding a stack of documents.

The little girl's eyes lit up when she saw Lu Zhou. She began to report to him.

"Professor, this is the CV for next year's spring cohort. I've printed them for you."

Lu Zhou nodded and said, "Thanks, put them on my table."

Speaking of which, there were only a couple of months left in the year.

Normally, he would be drinking coffee while carefully picking out a few excellent CVs from the pile. Then he'd find an afternoon to conduct some interviews before he finally decided on which "lucky" students would receive his precious offer.

However, he didn't plan on recruiting any new students this year.

First of all, he was too busy.

Second of all, after he finished with his current students, it would be time for him to return to China.

Vera asked awkwardly, "Do you want me to sort them out for you?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "No need, I'll do it myself."

"Okay then."

Vera nodded and walked to her desk. She returned back to minding her own business.

Wei Wen was sitting nearby. When he saw Lu Zhou didn't even touch the pile of CVs, he suddenly asked, "You're not recruiting new students?"

Lu Zhou said, "Nope, I'm too busy."

Wei Wen nodded thoughtfully and didn't say anything.

I guess I have to hurry up and finish my graduation thesis…

Wei Wen shook away these thoughts and focused his attention on work.

…

The new thesis on PRX caused a sensation in the plasma physics world.

Actually, it wasn't just the plasma physics field. Due to the content of the thesis, it also caused a sensation in applied mathematics, fluid mechanics, and even weather fields.

Before this thesis, turbulence was a well known unsolvable chaotic system.

And plasma turbulence was one of the most complicated turbulence problems.

Many scholars in the related fields were surprised by Lu Zhou's thesis.

Because this was too unexpected.

If Lu Zhou didn't solve the Navier–Stokes equation of the Millennium Prize Problem, or if he wasn't a famous scholar with a good reputation, most people would've thought this was an April Fool's joke.

The thesis contained a large amount of complicated mathematical methods. For people that didn't have a background in differential geometry and partial differential equation, understanding Lu Zhou's thesis would be extremely difficult. Even for people that did have a background in mathematics, they would have to read Lu Zhou's L Manifold thesis that was published in Annual Mathematics first.

For the people that did bother to read and understand the thesis, they were immediately shocked by the mathematical methods used.

This was just like half a century ago when Robert Kraichnan used the quantum field theory to research a turbulence pulsating energy that satisfied the Navier-Stokes equations. This was the only self-consistent momentum-based conversation theory to date, the DIA theory, thus inventing the modern "turbulence analysis theory".

Lu Zhou's work was in some sense, similar to his, or even a level above his.

Because no one had ever thought one could tackle turbulence in this way!

Two weeks after the thesis publication, the thesis caused a commotion in the academic community.

In the latest Physical Review Letters, well-known plasma physicist Professor Dieter Hoffman, former dean of the nuclear physics department at the Darmstadt University of Technology, was invited to write a commentary on Lu Zhou's thesis. He portrayed his shocking views on the industry.

"… His mathematical model idea is very unique, but his theoretical tools used are nothing new. After all, the L Manifold tool was already published a couple of months ago in Annual Mathematics, which was later used to solve the Navier–Stokes equations.

"Normally, applying mathematics into physics is a physicist's job. After a reliable tool is born, testing its reliability is only a matter of time.

"If this thesis didn't exist, a similar thesis would have come out in five to ten years time. Everything that followed would have also happened in five to ten years.

"He alone made ten years worth of progress in this field."

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Chapter 439: Physics Level 5 and Special Mission Reward Mission?

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Lu Zhou didn't care about the academic community's reaction; he only cared about the completion of this reward mission.

Compared to the existence of a smooth Navier–Stokes equation solution, this type of mission was basically "free marks".

As Lu Zhou stood in the pure white system space, a light blue line of text appeared in the translucent information screen in front of him.

[Congratulations, User, for completing the reward mission!

[Mission completion details are as follows: Build a mathematical model for the plasma turbulence phenomenon in a stellarator.

[Final mission evaluation: None (Reward missions have no evaluation)

[Mission reward: 100,000 mathematics experience points. 100,000 physics experience points. One lucky draw ticket. (100% special)]

200,000 experience points in total, plus a lucky draw. Although there weren't any general points, it was still a decent reward mission.

After looking at the mission rewards, Lu Zhou began to command the system.

"System, open my characteristic panel!"

A blue light swept across the screen.

Soon, Lu Zhou's characteristic panel appeared in front of his eyes.

[

A. Mathematics: Level 7 (144,000/1.2 million)

B. Physics: Level 4 (33,215/300,000)

C. Biochemistry: Level 3 (24,000/100,000)

D. Engineering: Level 2 (0/50,000)

E. Materials science: Level 4 (13,000/200,000)

F. Energy science: Level 2 (0/50,000)

G. Information science: Level 1 (3,000/10,000)

General points: 3,975 (one lucky draw ticket)

]

Having finally reached Level 5, physics was right behind mathematics.

As for the 1.2 million experience points requirement…

Lu Zhou didn't want to deal with it.

He closed his characteristic panel. Next up was the exciting prize draw.

100% special…

Please don't give me an "Easter egg" again…

Lu Zhou took a deep breath. He then prayed to the gods and hoped that he wouldn't get the Easter egg before he clicked the screen.

However, he suddenly realized a problem.

Wait a minute…

Other than the Easter egg, there's also a "Patronage Appreciated" prize?!

However, it was too late to pray again as the second his fingertips touched the screen, a wheel began to spin.

Lu Zhou pressed the button.

The system announced the prize in midst of Lu Zhou's nervousness.

[Congratulations, User, for winning the "special" prize!

[Received special mission card!]

Mission card?

Lu Zhou looked at this gadget and paused for a second. Suddenly, he looked worried.

How do we say this…

This isn't as useless as an Easter egg, right?

It's not just a plastic card, right?

Lu Zhou had been screwed over many times by the lucky draw; he didn't trust the system anymore.

I swear if this card is really just a plastic card…

Lu Zhou felt a little suspicious, so he opened the mission panel.

Fortunately, the thing he was worried about didn't happen.

[Special mission card: Able to activate before accepting a normal mission. Activate to begin a special mission chain which replaces the normal mission. Special mission chain cannot be stopped unless the user fails the mission.]

Can't be stopped? Does this mean I can't use general points to stop the mission?

Lu Zhou read the description and hesitated for a bit before clicking the golden card icon in his inventory.

[Special mission chain: Fusion Light

[Mission description: The moment the first two nuclei collided, the small fire of civilization was ignited in the sea of stars. However, it is important to know how to maintain this fire…

[Objective: Complete the design and construction of the DEMO fusion reactor before 2025.

[Mission rewards: Depends on mission evaluation. Rewards include experience points, general points, samples, blueprints, special items…

The mission description was kind of weird, but it was fine. However, when Lu Zhou saw the mission objective, he nearly puked his eyes out.

Before 2025?

Does this sh*tty high tech system use a different calendar?

The DEMO fusion reactor was one of ITER's "fifty-year plan" projects.

Lu Zhou wasn't familiar with the specific plan. After all, plasma physics wasn't a popular field, and most of his physicist friends were theoretical physicists.

The last time he went to Germany, he remembered Professor Klitzing mentioned something like this to him.

According to the EU Fusion Alliance, around 70% of the funds went to ITER and 30% went to DEMO… Something along those lines.

There wasn't a clash between the DEMO and ITER project; they were being conducted at the same time. But anyone with a brain cell knew that if the "controllable nuclear fusion" problem wasn't solved, there would be no way to build a demonstration nuclear fusion reactor.

Therefore, in order to complete the DEMO project, ITER had to be completed first.

It'd be great if the ITER project could be smoothly completed by 2025.

Of course, for this type of seemingly impossible mission, the system gave Lu Zhou a choice.

There were two buttons below the mission requirements.

[Accept/Reject]

Rejecting it means my mission card will be useless, right?

After that, he could choose the best mission from the three randomly generated ones.

Lu Zhou stared at the two buttons and thought for a long time.

Although the number of options decreased from three to two, Lu Zhou felt like the difficulty of the choice had doubled.

He shook his head and tried to clear his mind. He made a decision and placed his hand on the "Accept" button.

Although it was pretty difficult to complete the mission by 2025, he was never one to step down from a difficult challenge.

Controllable nuclear fusion was a very interesting field; it was also one of the obstacles humanity would have to eventually overcome.

Lu Zhou would continue to do research in this area even without the mission.

It was like the system was celebrating his correct decision. The moment he clicked "Accept", a blue wave swept across the holographic information screen.

["Fusion Light" mission chain begin!]

The mission panel was refreshed, and the options of choosing three normal missions disappeared and replaced by the Fusion Light mission.

There was a list of mission below the "Fusion Light" mission chain.

The precursors or subtasks for implementing controllable nuclear fusion were listed below.

There were "superconducting material" and "quantum computers or computers stronger than traditional computers" which were part of the main mission. There were also weird side missions like "convince China to invest 10 billion", "convince a company to invest 10 billion", "build a nuclear fusion research center", and "score 100 goals in an international football match".

In addition to completing the entire mission chain, he could also get rewards from completing main missions and side missions.

Lu Zhou looked at the long list of missions and felt overwhelmed. However, he still sighed with relief.

He could still receive mission rewards by producing in-progress results.

This way, he didn't have to worry about not receiving anything after years of hard work…

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Chapter 440: Thirty Minutes

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

While Lu Zhou was making a difficult choice, a plane landed on the other side of the planet in Lu Yang, China.

Sheng Xianfu returned from his academic exchange at the Germany Wendelstein 7-X laboratory. He immediately got on a car and went to the Institutes of Physical Science on Science Island.

When Ren Yong saw Professor Sheng walking briskly in the research institute, he looked at him and asked, "Why are you in such a hurry?"

Professor Sheng only said two words.

"Thirty minutes."

Ren Yong paused for a second. He didn't know what Sheng Xianfu was talking about. However, he quickly realized what was going on.

He said in disbelief, "Thirty minutes? They… really did it?"

Professor Sheng nodded and spoke in a serious manner.

"Actually, in the beginning, they nearly failed. The water-cooled divertor didn't meet expectations. However, the recent thesis published on PRX helped them changed the control scheme and reduced the heat load on the first wall. It's only a few seconds off from thirty minutes."

The stellarator was a very novel research idea; there was still controversy among the academic community on whether or not it could achieve the theoretical expectations.

Although the stellarator could restrain plasma much more easily compared to the tokamak, the excessive heat caused by long term pulsing discharge was still a major problem in the nuclear fusion field.

However, if the Wendelstein 7-X could achieve a discharge time of thirty minutes, it would impact the international nuclear fusion field.

After all, the more research that was put into the tokamak, the closer the researchers could get to the theoretical limit. More and more people began to have doubts about this research project.

"Just because of one thesis?"

Professor Ren looked at Professor Sheng in disbelief.

Professor Ren wasn't disrespecting theoretical work.

He was just surprised at how fast the theory was applied!

After a while, he spoke in a more serious manner, "Which thesis? Let me look at it."

"Newest PRX issue, Lu Zhou's thesis. As for the Max Planck Institute's thesis, it should already be on the IAEA-Demo website. Just look for it."

Professor Sheng didn't wait any longer; he continued to walk up the stairs.

He had things to do right now.

One was to report his academic exchange results to the higher-ups.

The second was to tell the higher-ups the importance of this person.

He was willing to pay anything for Lu Zhou to come work here.

Perhaps other people might not know the importance of that thesis, but he knew.

Ren Yong looked at Professor Sheng leaving. He then walked down the stairs and went into his office.

He switched on his laptop and found the theses that Professor Sheng was talking about. He downloaded all of them and began to read from the beginning.

Although he didn't understand everything, he understood the gist of it.

Simply put, Professor Lu established a theoretical model for the plasma turbulence phenomenon in a stellarator. Then the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics rewrote their control algorithm and control scheme by using Lu Zhou's theoretical model. This reduced the number of plasma particles colliding with the first wall, which also reduced the temperature of the first wall…

Ren Yong briefly read the theses on his computer. He then laid back in his office chair as he stared at the screen.

He then said in a thoughtful manner, "… Is he more optimistic about the stellarator?"

Actually, China conducted some research on stellarators.

They were influenced by the Americans in the early '70s. The Southwestern Institute of Physics tried to design a stellarator called "Ling Yun". However, due to time constraints, the project was canceled.

After all, even Americans couldn't handle the research. They changed the Stellarator C to the Tokamak ST and began working on the T3 device by learning from the Russians.

After that, the tokamak became the mainstream choice for various international research institutes. In order to concentrate resources, and due to Obama's influence, various Chinese research institutes also chose the tokamak device as their research project.

However, research was always changing. It was one way fifty years ago, another way fifty years later. Although the tokamak device achieved good results, the critical pulse discharged time had fallen into a bottleneck.

China had gradually realized the importance of this problem. Recently, they had been restarting stellarator projects such as the H1-Heliac Stellarator, which was sent from The Australian National University to Yuhua University. The Xinan University also collaborated with the Japanese National Institute for fusion science and built the first Chinese quasi-symmetric stellarator…

However, even though China had restarted research on the stellarator, the mainstream nuclear fusion research center which was the Chinese Academy of Sciences was still focusing on the tokamak.

After all, there was no such thing as a perfect scientific research project. A healthy research environment consisted of conducting various different research projects.

For a scholar, there was nothing more important than persistently researching one's idea.

As for who was right or who was wrong?

History would be the judge of that.

Liu Zhangle was sitting at a desk next to him, drinking tea. He looked at the screen and said, "What thesis is this? I've never seen this many equations before."

"Professor Lu wrote it." Ren Yong smiled and said, "It's normal if you don't understand it… Even I can only understand the abstract."

"Professor Lu?" Liu Zhangle paused for a second. He frowned and began to think, but he couldn't think of a person named Lu in the Chinese plasma physics field.

Ren Yong said, "Lu Zhou at Princeton, who else could it be?"

Liu Zhangle was stunned when he heard this name.

He knew Lu Zhou… obviously.

But…

"Isn't he in mathematics? He knows nuclear fusion as well?"

Ren Yong was amused when he heard this.

"He's a technical consultant for the PPPL He3 team, and there are even rumors that he's the actual person in charge of the project. He's built a mathematical model for the plasma turbulence problem. There's not a single person in this field that has more influence than him… other than maybe the particles inside the plasma reactors."

Liu Zhangle's facial expression changed.

"The He3 atom probe technology?"

He didn't understand Lu Zhou's other work, but given that the He3 atom probe technology caused a huge commotion in the industry, he had definitely heard of it.

Recently, the Science Island had been designing a technology similar to the He3 atom launcher in hopes of observing the macro and microscopic parameter of the high-temperature plasma inside the reactor.

Not only could the He3 atom probe be used in nuclear fusion projects such as the tokamak and stellarator, but it could also be applied in many projects that dealt with plasma.

The relevant theses could be downloaded from the ITER database; it was all public information.

Contrary to popular belief, the only secret part of the nuclear fusion project was the laser ignition technology used in nuclear tests…

Ren Yong looked at his colleague and asked, "When was the last time you paid attention to the latest academic news?"

Liu Zhangle coughed and diverted the conversation.

"Imagine if the Chinese Academy of Sciences hired this genius, we'd probably be forced to work on the stellarator under him."

Ren Yong said, "Forget about it! He's a genius; he won't want to work at a place like this. Even if he wants to come, he wouldn't come to us."

Liu Zhangle frowned and said, "Where else is he going to go?"

After all, nuclear fusion was a "futuristic" field. There were only a few institutes in China that were involved in nuclear fusion, and one of them was the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

There was also Xi Nanjiao University, but they were less attractive than the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Ren Yong smiled and said, "A research institute will be built for him, obviously."

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Chapter 441: Trouble From The Royal Swedish Academy Of Sciences

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

If Lu Zhou could solve the controllable nuclear fusion problem, having his own research institute would be a given. In fact, Lu Zhou would receive even better benefits.

After all, China was a country good at adapting and attracting international talents was one of the highest priorities.

Furthermore, China didn't care about the domestic academic community's reactions to attracting outside talent.

It was getting closer and closer to October. The physics field weren't the only ones that paid attention to Lu Zhou. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry committee in Stockholm was also paying attention to him.

Inside a research building at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Olof Ramstrom had just finished a Nobel Prize in Chemistry committee meeting. He sat in front of his desk, reading the thesis in his hand.

Peter Brzezinski also attended the meeting. He looked at the thesis in his colleague's hand and said, "Physics? You really are involved in everything."

"I'm not researching physics. It's just that this paper seems to have caused quite a commotion in the physics field. I heard several professors talking about it. Therefore, I went to find a friend to get me a copy."

Olof definitely couldn't understand the mathematical formulas in the thesis. After all, he wasn't in the field of mathematics.

However, this didn't prevent him from reading Physical Review Letters, consulting the experts' comments, understanding why the thesis was brilliant, and finding out which age-old physics problem was solved.

Peter stared at the thesis for a while before he said in an uncertain tone, "Lu Zhou?"

"That's right. The guy that's a pain in the a*s." Olof paused for a second and said in a joking tone, "Maybe we'll see his name on the nominations for the Nobel Prize for Physics next year."

Olof Ramstrom was an organic chemistry professor at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, an academician at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and also a 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry committee member.

Standing next to him was Peter Brzezinski, a biochemistry expert from the University of Stockholm. He was also an academician from the Royal Academy of Sciences, and this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry committee member.

Over the past month, the Nobel Prize Committee had spent countless hours debating about Lu Zhou. They had had several meetings about Lu Zhou but hadn't arrived at an agreement.

Interestingly, the debates weren't centered around Lu Zhou's achievements. After all, whether it was the "shuttle effect" of lithium-sulfur batteries or the problem of lithium dendrites, they were all brilliant research results.

Also, Lu Zhou's achievements went beyond the applied fields.

Last year, he established his "Theoretical Model of the Electrochemical Interface Structure" which caused a sensation in the fields of computational chemistry, surface chemistry, and even condensed matter physics. This also won him the Hoffman Prize.

However, the Nobel Prize wasn't an ordinary prize. The committee had to consider other aspects.

Even though Lu Zhou had made brilliant achievements, there were plenty of other people that made equally amazing achievements.

Many people had waited for decades to win this prize; some had even waited for their entire lives…

The opinions among the Nobel Prize in Chemistry committee members varied greatly. Some people believed Lu Zhou and his research results were too young while other people believed that age was just a number and that Lu Zhou's age didn't hinder the significance of his research results.

For example, Professor Olof believed that age was just a number.

In his opinion, the modified PDMS material and HCS-1 was debatable. After all, these two results had to be proven through industry application, and they hadn't made outstanding contributions to the chemistry field yet. However, in his opinion, the "Theoretical Model of the Electrochemical Interface Structure" undoubtedly made an enormous contribution.

Over the past year, many scholars had produced valuable research results by using Lu Zhou's theoretical model.

It was not an exaggeration to say that Lu Zhou's theoretical model had completely redefined the surface chemistry field and opened up new research ideas for the computational chemistry field.

"The 2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was given to the cryogenic electron microscopy. The DNA repair research that won the 2015 prize should have been the Karolinska Institute's job. I'm serious, if we don't think about what counts as true chemistry results, we might as well change the name to the Nobel Prize in Biology committee."

Professor Peter was in the field of biochemistry, and he coughed awkwardly.

"Not like this, my friend. Biochemistry is also a part of chemistry… Also, the cryogenic electron microscopy isn't totally in the field of biology. It also counts as analytical chemistry, right?"

Olof shook his head and said, "There's no point playing with words. We all know which industry is impacted."

Someone calculated an interesting statistic among the five sub-disciplines of chemistry. A third of the Nobel Prizes were given to the fields of macromolecule and biochemistry, 26 awards in biochemistry, and six awards in structural biology.

In contrast, there had only been 12 awards given to the organic synthesis field, and even less for the inorganic chemistry field…

If one considered a strand of DNA to be a macromolecule, then the Nobel Committee for Chemistry didn't make a wrong decision; it was justifiable.

However, everyone knew that this wasn't fair for chemists.

After all, the biologists should aim for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Now that even the cryogenic electron microscopy won a prize, the chemistry field was bound to revolt.

Peter looked at his old friend and sighed.

"I understand where you're coming from. His work in surface chemistry has been outstanding. Although I wasn't there for his Berlin report, I've talked with several Max Planck Institute professors about him, and they all have high opinions of him… But I have to say, this result is too young."

Olof said, "What does that have to do with anything? When we gave the award for the 'design and production of molecular machines', were we not thinking about the future potential contributions of the technology?"

"That's why that year's award caused a huge amount of controversy as people weren't expecting it. But this isn't the focus; the key problem is his age." Peter shook his head and said, "24-year-old nominee… If he wins the Nobel Prize, he would undoubtedly be the youngest Nobel Prize winner in history."

Prior to this, the youngest Nobel Prize laureate was the 25-year-old Lawrence Bragg.

There were no rules regarding a Nobel Prize winner's age. However, some people didn't like it when the record was broken by a new winner.

Unless the winner was truly brilliant.

However, this was a subjective problem that was difficult to assess unless there was a surface chemistry scholar in the Nobel Prize Committee who could objectively rate Lu Zhou's work…

But unfortunately, there weren't any surface chemistry scholars in the committee.

In fact, Olof was hesitant about whether or not he was correct.

He just felt like this year's Nobel Prize should be given to a pure chemistry result.

Or rather, they should give the award for the "Theoretical Model of the Electrochemical Interface Structure".

After all, producing such an important chemistry theory in the 21st century was extremely difficult…

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Chapter 442: The Human Mind Is Tiny Compared To The Universe

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

While the Nobel Committee for Chemistry was arguing over whether or not Lu Zhou should win the award, the PRX thesis continued to impact the physics industry.

Lu Zhou had received many calls and emails over the past few days.

Lu Zhou's physicist friends such as Professor Frank Wilczek, Klaus von Klitzing, etc., were all surprised by his work.

There were also some strangers that wanted to get to know Lu Zhou and discuss the turbulence phenomenon with him.

Additionally, there were also some invitations from academic conferences.

For example, the IAEA-Demo international conference in November. They invited him to do a one-hour report on his turbulence phenomenon research.

Normally, Lu Zhou would have gone for it.

After all, there were many excellent controllable nuclear fusion reports at the conference. If he wanted to build the first DEMO nuclear fusion reactor by 2025, he had to utilize his international academic opportunities…

However, over the past few days, he hadn't been "in the zone".

After accepting the mission, Lu Zhou didn't immediately start working on a feasible sub-mission. Instead, he gave himself a week off.

He'd walk around campus every day or take his Ford Explorer for a ride.

Although New Jersey was small, there were plenty of tourist attractions.

Like The Sussex County Park which was covered in red by the autumn leaves, or the 220-foot white war veterans monument on top of High Point mountain that overlooked the tristate area.

Lu Zhou suddenly realized that he had been missing out on what America had to offer. Unfortunately, he went on this trip alone, with only one set of picnic utensils.

The only partner that was always by his side was Xiao Ai.

Whether it was at the High Point State Park in New Jersey or on Princeton Campus, Lu Zhou was never fully relaxed; he was always thinking about a problem.

If the system contained all of the solutions to civilization or humanity's unsolved academic problems, then the most effective method would be to tell Lu Zhou the answers directly instead of getting him to do research and figure out the answers himself.

However, the system obviously didn't do this. Rather, it guided Lu Zhou to study these mysteries on his own.

Lu Zhou enjoyed studying, and he felt that his knowledge had increased exponentially under the system's guidance. Not only did he surpass people his own age, but he had also achieved what most could never hope to accomplish in their lifetimes.

However, what confused him the most was the motive behind the system's actions.

He had actually thought about this problem for a while now.

Is there a species of alien out there in the universe that is entertained by us low-level humans? Or does the system come from the future?

The possibilities were endless; it was even more complex than a chaotic physics system.

However, Lu Zhou felt like no matter what the motive was behind the system, it probably wasn't some kind of boring principle like "humans must solve their own problems".

There had to be a deeper motive behind this system that came from nowhere.

Suddenly, Lu Zhou had a strange idea.

What if the Zhou's conjecture about Mersenne primes is only a practice question, and the Goldbach's conjecture… or even the Navier–Stokes equation is the system giving me "homework"… or rather, "research projects"?

And the general points give me a way to buy the answers, almost like a supplementary exam.

In this case, when all of my subjects reach Level 10, will the system give me a "graduation letter" or maybe an "acceptance letter" for a higher academic level?

Thinking about it this way… I'm not a professor as I haven't even graduated from the system yet!

Lu Zhou's hypothesis was further affirmed when he recalled reading "the small fire of civilization" in the system's controllable nuclear fusion mission chain description.

He sat on a bench near Lake Carnegie as he stared at the body of water that was sparkling under the sunset. This lake had brought him a lot of inspiration. However, this time, it was unable to answer his question.

"For you, these questions aren't even questions, right?"

This wasn't the first time Lu Zhou felt something like this.

However, this was the first time Lu Zhou felt like humanity's mind and glory was so small compared to the universe…

Suddenly, a familiar voice brought him out of his daydream.

"What are you looking at?"

Lu Zhou looked over and saw Molina standing there.

Molina didn't know why, but she felt like Lu Zhou was ignoring her.

"What's… wrong with you?"

Lu Zhou shook his head.

"Nothing… I just bumped into a problem I don't understand."

"There's a problem that you don't understand?" Molina raised her eyebrows and said, "I thought there's nothing in this world you don't know."

Lu Zhou smiled when he heard this, and he shook his head.

"I don't know why you think that when there are so many problems in this world I don't understand."

Every night, sporty students and professors from Princeton would run around Lake Carnegie; Molina was one of them.

Lu Zhou would occasionally sit on the bench, and he would always see Molina running.

The two had a pretty good relationship. Not only were they academia friends, but they were normal friends as well.

At a place like Princeton, other than his own students, Lu Zhou had very few friends that were around the same age as him.

Molina looked at Lu Zhou, who was staring at the lake, and she said, "You're becoming more and more like those people."

Lu Zhou said, "Which people?"

"The old folks at the Institute for Advanced Study," Molina said. "I wouldn't be surprised if one day the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study offers you a tenured researcher position."

A tenured researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study was different than a tenured professor at Princeton. The title itself was one of the highest honors in academia. There were less than 30 tenured researchers among the top four universities.

For example, Einstein was one of Princeton's tenured researchers. This went to show how high the threshold was.

Also, unless there were special circumstances, a lifelong honor like this would almost never be awarded to a young scholar…

So, when Lu Zhou heard Molina's ridiculous statement, he laughed. "Tenured researcher? I'll take that as a hopeful wish?"

Molina smiled and said, "Of course you can, but you do realize I'm saying that you look like an old man when you're thinking?"

Lu Zhou shook his head and said, "Don't say that. In terms of age, you're older than me."

Molina: "…"

She didn't know why, but she suddenly felt like throwing her can of coffee at his face…

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Chapter 443: Fusion Starts With Superconductivity

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

It was getting closer and closer to the end of the month. Another huge event happened in the mathematics community, and not only did it spread across the entire academic community, but it even spread beyond academia.

Hardy was sitting in front of his computer at the Institute for Advanced Study, researching information about the conference. When he read a piece of news, he suddenly froze.

In his surprise, he nearly shouted out loud.

"Professor, the Riemann's conjecture is solved?!"

Lu Zhou: "What?"

It was like Hardy had discovered a new continent when he said excitedly, "I saw it on mathoverflow. It says that Sir Michael Atiyah from Cambridge used a very simple method to solve Riemann's conjecture, and he will do a presentation at the Heidelberg Laureate Forum."

Mathoverflow was a well-known mathematics website and many nutty mathematicians had accounts on there. For example, Tao Zhexuan was active on the site; not only did he update his blogs, but he would also frequently interact with visitors.

After hearing Hardy, Lu Zhou smiled and said in a half-joking kind of tone, "If he really completed the proof, then he undoubtedly would become this century's greatest mathematician."

Hardy asked, "Are you optimistic about his proof?"

Lu Zhou didn't answer the question directly. Instead, he only gave a simple opinion.

"Sir Atiyah is an outstanding scholar; he's also a Fields Medal and Abel Prize winner. However, the old man is 89 years old… It's hard for me to give an accurate opinion."

In fact, Atiyah wasn't the first scholar who claimed to have solved the Riemann's conjecture.

Around 2004, well-known number theory professor De Branges also claimed to have solved the Riemann's conjecture. This caused quite a sensation at the time, but unfortunately, his proof wasn't recognized by the mathematics community.

Even before that, English mathematician G. H. Hardy declared to have solved this problem.

Hardy hesitated for a bit before saying, "But… he's Sir Atiyah, Fields Medal and Abel Prize winner. Would he make a claim like this if he wasn't fully confident?"

Lu Zhou smiled as he said, "My dear friend Hardy, if you want to become a scholar, then you must remember that awards are only a type of honor, nothing more. In other words, because the mathematics community gave him the awards, he should take extra care in responding to people's legitimate questions. People that question him shouldn't be treated as fools."

Lu Zhou looked at Hardy and paused for a second.

"Rather than the Riemann's conjecture, I would like to know more about Atiyah's progress on the non-existent complex 6-sphere."

Hardy: "… the non-existent complex 6-sphere?"

Lu Zhou nodded and said: "It's a famous unsolved algebraic topology problem that is related to the K-theory. Although it's not a Millennium Prize Problem, it is still one of the most important algebraic topology problems. Around 16 years ago, Sir Atiyah gave this proposition a definitive answer. However, his thesis wasn't satisfactory. Not only was the proof only half a page long, but he even began to talk about the history of mathematics in the fourth section of the thesis…"

Lu Zhou paused for a second and shrugged. He then said, "According to mathoverflow, he hasn't responded to the doubts about his thesis. Therefore, the academic community is still skeptical about it."

The thesis on non-existent complex 6-sphere was available on arXiv.

Solving the famous K-theory problem, then within two years, solving one of the most important number theory problems…

Lu Zhou obviously hoped this was real. After all, anyone in the mathematics field had a bit of a hero syndrome.

But this was a nearly ninety-year-old man…

To be honest, he didn't have much hope.

Mathematics was a discipline for the young, and there was no such thing as old and wise in this field. Once a person got older, their memory and intelligence would decline significantly.

Therefore, there were very few mathematicians that could produce results that were superior to their younger self.

The final result didn't matter as long as the old man was happy…

…

Riemann's conjecture was a very interesting topic. However, it wasn't Lu Zhou's main concern.

He set notifications on for any updates regarding the issue and focused his attention back to Fusion Light mission chain.

Designing the stellarator required a huge amount of engineering, and quantum computing technology was still far from being applicable. After taking into account all of the factors, Lu Zhou decided to choose superconducting materials as his next research project.

Honestly, superconducting materials were no piece of cake. However, it was the best matching project in terms of Lu Zhou's skill set.

Lu Zhou went to meet Connie at the Frick Chemistry Laboratory.

Because of the cooperation project with Pablo Herrero, over the past six months, he had been doing an academic exchange at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He had just gotten back last week.

When Lu Zhou saw Connie, he asked, "How is the superconducting materials project going?"

"I can't give you an accurate answer, but generally, it's going smooth." Connie handed Lu Zhou a USB and said, "I've written a summary report on the results. It's in the USB C folder. I was going to send it to your email."

Lu Zhou took the USB and nodded.

"Understood, I'll look at it later."

Connie looked at how serious Lu Zhou was and asked with excitement, "Professor, are you planning to do something?"

Lu Zhou said in a brief manner, "Yeah… Due to various reasons, I have shifted my focus from mathematics onto superconducting materials."

He obviously wouldn't tell Connie the real reason.

Lu Zhou told Connie to start working. He then sat in front of his desk and plugged the USB into his computer before he opened the report written by Connie.

He quickly finished reading the report in half an hour and gained a general understanding of the current progress of the research project.

Basically, the Pablo Jarillo Herrero laboratory was focused on researching theory such as enthalpy energy, pseudogap, nematic liquid crystals, etc.

On the other hand, the Jinling Institute of Computational Materials was mainly focused on application-based research. Their business model was to use a large number of experiments to find a way to maintain the concentration of graphene carriers in superconducting materials.

Lu Zhou had to admit that Professor Pablo Herrero was an expert in the graphene field. After receiving the US$10 million research fund from Star Sky Technology, the progress of their research had been increasing exponentially.

With the help from their theoretical progress, the Jinling Institute of Computational Materials and the Sarrot Laboratory had also produced amazing in-progress results.

However, they were still far from the final result.

Lu Zhou looked at the images on the computer screen and thought for a bit. He quickly realized what he needed to do.

He was good at computational materials science and using mathematical methods to find patterns in materials.

Therefore, the first thing he needed to do was to build a reliable mathematical model using the year-long data collected by the three laboratories.

Also, in order to speed up the progress on this project, he needed more hands.

Professor Chirik was a good candidate…

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Chapter 444: I Just Want To Buy You Food

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Wharton student apartments, University of Pennsylvania. Chen Yushan was woken up by her cell phone ringing.

It was midnight.

She wondered who would call at such a time.

Her pale hand reached out from under her blanket and picked up her phone on the bedside table. She then answered the call and placed the phone next to her ear.

"Hello?"

When Chen Baohua heard his daughter's voice that sounded like she had just woke up, he hesitated for a bit.

"You've slept?"

Chen Yushan yawned and couldn't help but complain.

"Dad, check the time difference next time you call… It's already midnight here."

Chen Baohua coughed and said, "I thought it was night time, I didn't realize it was that late…"

"It's fine, what do you want? If it's not important, I'll sleep…" Chen Yushan couldn't help but yawn again.

She was used to her father being careless. She had no idea how he was able to marry her mother.

She had been writing her graduation thesis recently, doing a ton of work every day. Therefore, she was always very sleepy at night.

However, she was much more fortunate compared to those graduate students who were being used as free laborers.

Honestly, Ms. Michelle's persistent care made her a little worried.

There was a saying—"No good deed goes unpunished".

Although this wasn't totally accurate, there was still some truth in it.

Every time Chen Yushan looked at her, she could see something weird in her eyes. It was almost like Chen Yushan's supervisor was trying to go beyond the friendship of teacher and students…

In short, for her own integrity's sake, she made up her mind on trying to finish her graduation thesis as soon as possible and get the hell out of this place.

When Chen Baohua heard his daughter yawning, he felt distressed.

Therefore, he didn't beat around the bush and cut straight to the point.

"The reason I called is to ask you about something."

Chen Yushan: "Yeah."

Chen Baohua spoke in a serious manner, "Tell dad, what exactly is the relationship between you and Lu Zhou?"

Chen Yushan, who was still under her blanket, nearly coughed out loud.

"Just… friends, what else. Didn't I tell you that last time?"

Chen Baohua asked in disbelief, "Just friends?"

Chen Yushan said, "Dad, what is it? Just tell me."

Chen Baohua heard his daughter and felt a bit awkward.

Honestly, he didn't want to undergo the mission of "capturing" Lu Zhou. He would be worried about his daughter if someone else was conducting this mission.

However, this wasn't Old He. This was the leader of the Organization Department of the Communist Party of China.

After all, even though he understood the importance of talents like Lu Zhou to the country, this was still his daughter, and he only had one daughter.

If the two clicked, then this thing would be over. But now, it seemed that wasn't the case…

"… Nothing, I just wanted to ask."

Chen Baohua contemplated for a bit, but in the end, he decided he couldn't do that to his daughter.

He'd rather fly to America himself. As for getting Lu Zhou to return to China, he would talk to him directly.

"I'm going to America in a few days, regarding Lu… Contact Professor Lu for me. I have some things I want to talk to him."

Chen Yushan didn't think much of this. She yawned and said, "Okay then, just talk to him face to face. If that's all, I'm going to sleep…"

Chen Baohua nodded and said: "Okay, goodnight."

"Goodnight!"

Chen Yushan placed her phone on the bedside table and went under the blanket to go back to sleep.

However, she suddenly realized something. Her cheeks under the blanket began to warm up, forming two red circles.

She didn't think this through at all.

What should I say?

Should I say "My dad wants to meet you"?

Or say "I want to you to meet my dad"?

This is insane!

Chen Yushan, who was half-asleep, couldn't help but bury her head into the blanket. She almost wanted to kill herself.

Sh*t, what do I do now?

…

In the morning, Lu Zhou arrived at the laboratory on time and began the experiment.

With Connie's help, he performed N-type and P-type doping on graphene. He then filtered and labeled the small angle-twisted bilayer graphene samples. After that, they placed the samples under an SEM and observed the sample microstructure.

They needed to find two energy bands with a zero dispersion band structure.

The location of the two energy bands' position was theoretically determined; it should be at the intersection of two linear bands that was also known as the Dirac point.

However, it was actually very difficult to apply the theory.

Finding this would bring enormous benefits to the entire superconducting material industry.

Not only was Connie in the laboratory, but Professor Chirik was here as well.

In order to complete the data collection and superconducting material research as soon as possible, Lu Zhou recruited this organic chemistry expert.

Although Professor Chirik mainly studied graphene, he showed great interest after hearing about Lu Zhou's research project.

Especially when he heard the project funding was in the eight-figure USD range, he immediately suspended his own project and came here with his research team.

Professor Chirik stood next to Lu Zhou, and suddenly, he said, "It's already October."

Lu Zhou was fiddling with the electron microscope, and he murmured, "Yeah."

Chirik: "Your reaction is just 'yeah'?"

Lu Zhou stopped fiddling with the microscope and asked, "What, is there something going on in October?"

Professor Chirik was confused, and he asked, "Are you not paying attention to this year's Nobel Prize?"

Lu Zhou sighed and said, "My dear Mr. Chirik, if I pay attention to the Nobel Prizes now, I wouldn't be able to get a good night's sleep for the rest of my life."

Chirik shrugged and made a helpless expression.

"Okay then, it's boring to talk about this with you. I thought you'd be excited. After all, that theoretical model you made last year was really good."

Lu Zhou: "Time will tell. Besides, I'm not in academia just for the Nobel Prize."

While the two were speaking, Lu Zhou's phone in his pocket began to vibrate.

When Professor Chirik heard the vibration sound, he had a strange expression.

Lu Zhou immediately knew what Professor Chirik was thinking about, so he sighed and said, "I know what you're thinking about, but it's impossible… I'll take this call outside."

Professor Chirik joked, "How about you just take the call in here? What if it's from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences?"

"Wake up! It's only the 1st of October!"

It obviously wasn't the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Normally, the calls to Nobel Prize winners would happen moments before the announcement.

And the announcement of the winner's name for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry would be on the fourth.

Not to mention, Lu Zhou was well aware of the probability of him winning a Nobel Prize.

Lu Zhou picked up the call and put the phone next to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Little Brother…"

When Lu Zhou heard how unnatural her tone was, he asked, "What?"

Chen Yushan asked cautiously, "Are you free this weekend?"

Lu Zhou was confused. "I am… Why?"

"Nothing." Chen Yushan smiled awkwardly as she said, "I haven't seen you in a long time… I just want to treat you to a meal."

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It was October, and the streets of Stockholm were crowded.

Every time this year, this city that was near the Baltic Sea would attract attention from all over the world due to the Nobel Prize.

Although the awards were given out by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, most Stockholm citizens were still proud of this.

Interestingly, not all of them were like this.

Back when nationalism swept across Europe, many Swedes would publicly complain or even criticize a rich Swedish scholar—Nobel.

They would say how Nobel never donated his inheritance to the country, nor did he give the Scandinavians any advantage of winning the prize. What Nobel left behind wasn't a gift, it was years and years of trouble.

Even Hans Fischer, the then president of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, complained that Nobel should have donated the money directly to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences instead of making them go through the cumbersome award-giving process. Not to mention, Nobel refused to attend the meeting regarding the process of the awards.

Fortunately, due to the relentless efforts made by Ragnar Sohlman, Nobel's trustworthy assistant, the King of Sweden finally announced the effectiveness of Nobel's will and ended the controversy surrounding the 31 million kronor.

It turned out that most people were short-sighted. Before the Internet existed, very few people had the opportunity to see the world beyond the Baltic Sea.

But looking back, that 31 million kronor was the most cost-effective investment in the world.

There had never been a city that had received this much honor due to a prize-giving process. There had also never been a Swede, not even the King of Sweden or the Prime Minister, that had left such a huge and timeless legacy to this country.

Of course, this also came with trouble.

Especially for the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, who has upkeeping Nobel's testament for over a century.

The closer it got to the fourth of October, the more lively and exciting the atmosphere in the town of Stockholm was.

Logically, the Nobel Prize winners list was prepared three days ago.

But this time, the Nobel Committee for Chemistry didn't reach a consensus.

This had happened before. Due to the differing opinions of the members of the Nobel Prize Committee, the Nobel Prize announcement was delayed until mid-October. However, there was no reason for it to happen this year.

Under the pressure from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the members of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry held a meeting once again.

Over the past two years, the list of committee members hadn't changed. The only change was that Snogerup Linse retired from being a chairman, while Claes Gustafsson, who had been a committee member for more than 15 years, was promoted to chairman.

The other three academicians were Peter Brzezinski, who was a professor of biochemistry at the University of Stockholm, Olaf Ramstrom, who was a professor of organic chemistry at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, and Professor Johan Aqvist, who was a professor of molecular biology and computational chemistry.

Old Ms. Linse looked sharply at the members in the room and spoke in a determined tone.

"We're all that is left. The Royal Academy wants us to make a decision as soon as possible, at least before the 4th."

In fact, they've made a decision a month ago.

Chairman Professor Claes nodded.

"Like what Academician Linse just said, we have to make a decision. This will be the final meeting, I hope you all will give us your opinions."

The other three members looked at each other and nodded.

This would be the last time they discussed this issue.

The last review meeting of the year…

…

Objectively speaking, the decisions made by the Nobel Committee for Chemistry was bewildering. The 2017 cryogenic electron microscopy was fine, but the 2016 molecular machine was a completely new concept. Although the results were good enough, they were still a long way from knowing its application uses.

What made people astonished was the lithium battery. Every year, people would predict that the father of lithium batteries, Goodenough, would win. However, it was almost like the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences forgot he existed.

Other than the "Theoretical Model of the Electrochemical Interface Structure" by Lu Zhou, Professor Franz-Ulrich Hartl from the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry and Yale University professor Arthur Horwich who were on their intracellular protein folding research was also a worthy consideration.

Prior to this, the two big names had already won the Lasker Award, which was like a "mini Nobel Prize". Almost fifty percent of Lasker Award winners would eventually go on to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry or Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

In addition to this, there had been a recent strong development in optogenetics as well as motor proteins.

This showed that chemists were more likely to produce stellar biology research results.

At first glance, biology seemed to be quite attractive.

Of course, if one's goal was the Nobel Prize…

After some preliminary exchanges of opinions, the meeting began to decide on the final nomination.

As expected, the focus of the meeting was on the "Theoretical Model of the Electrochemical Interface Structure".

The atmosphere of the meeting was becoming more and more intense…

Olof: "No matter what, we have to consider a real chemistry achievement this year. If Mr. Nobel finds out that we have changed his most favorite Nobel Prize in Chemistry into a Nobel Prize in Biology, I'm sure he would be furious."

Peter said in a fierce manner, "But he is only 24 years old! Younger than Lawrence Bragg! Can't we wait until after his 25th birthday to consider him?"

Olof said, "But is there a better theoretical chemistry research result?"

Peter paused for a moment as he began to think. He then said hesitantly, "Research on molecular dynamics? Roberto Car from Princeton has made excellent progress in this field."

Olof shook his head and said, "I admit his work is excellent, but it is far from being outstanding."

Peter complained, "Then give it to the folding protein cells! Why do we have to narrow it down to theoretical chemistry?"

Ms. Linse nodded her head and said, "I agree with Peter's viewpoint."

In 2015, it was her idea to give the Nobel Prize to the DNA repair.

Now, the opinion was the same; she believed that this award should be given to biochemistry.

Olof said, "Since we're not limiting the research field, then why are we limiting the age of the winner? Nobel has never said in his will that his inheritance has to be given to old people."

Johan, who hadn't spoken yet, suddenly said, "I think Academician Olof is correct. Not only is the electrochemical interface structure an achievement in electrochemistry and theoretical chemistry, but it is also a pioneering contribution to the field of computational chemistry."

He was a researcher in computational chemistry. There wasn't anyone else at this table who had a more accurate understanding of how excellent the theoretical model was.

However, this was the biggest disagreement in the Nobel Prize selection process.

As science continued to develop, the boundaries between disciplines became more and more blurred. However, the directions of research became further and further apart. It was extremely difficult for scholars to understand research beyond their fields; it was even more difficult to accurately compare the research results.

A "fight" seemed to have begun on the conference table.

Chairman Claes, who hadn't said much, looked at Olof and Peter. He thought for a moment before he clapped his hands, interrupting the dispute on the conference table.

"Fine, gentlemen… and ladies. It doesn't make sense to argue any longer. Let us use the most democratic, fair, and most traditional way to settle this."

Everyone looked at each other.

Although there was no agreement, they didn't object to Academician Claes' suggestion.

When opinions differ, there was no better way than taking a vote.

After Academician Claes saw that the committee members didn't object, he gestured for his assistant's attention.

His assistant could tell what Cleas wanted. The assistant stepped forward and placed a piece of A4 paper in front of everyone.

Ms. Linse picked up a pen and wrote a word on the paper. She then looked at Claes with a surprised expression and asked, "You knew this was going to happen?"

"I had a feeling it would turn out like this," Academician Claes said as he smiled and folded his paper. He gently placed the paper in the middle of the conference table and said, "We rarely reach a consensus, right?"

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Chapter 446: You Said It Was Just Food…

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Although Lu Zhou was busy with his research, his current research project wasn't like Goldbach's conjecture or the Navier–Stokes equation which required his full attention. He still had time to eat a meal.

Not to mention, this was the weekend.

Lu Zhou drove down to the University of Pennsylvania student apartments and waited on the asphalt roads for a bit. However, Chen Yushan wasn't the only person there.

There was also a middle-aged man, who looked very imposing.

Chen Baohua forced a perfect smile as he reached out his hand and said, "Hello, Professor Lu, I am Chen Yushan's father. I am sorry to disturb you in the midst of your work."

Lu Zhou was muddled as he shook this man's hand.

"… Nice to meet you, Mr. Chen."

Chen Baohua nodded with satisfaction.

Not bad, this kid is pretty polite.

He quickly realized he had important matters to discuss. Therefore, he coughed gently and went straight to the main topic.

"Shan Shan[1.Shan Shan is Chen Yushan's nickname] should've told you the situation, right?" Lu Zhou: …?

What situation?

Lu Zhou was about to ask this out loud, but he saw Chen Yushan's pitiful begging eyes.

He hesitated for a bit and decided to change his answer.

"Yeah, she told me…"

Chen Baohua had a smile on his face.

"Okay then, I've booked a table at a Chinese restaurant nearby. Let's eat while we chat… Should we drive your car or Shan Shan's?"

Lu Zhou: "… Let's take mine."

Shan Shan hadn't driven an SUV before, and even though Chen Baohua knew how to drive, he didn't have a US driver's license. Therefore, Lu Zhou was the one who drove his own car.

Chen Baohua got on the car and glanced at the driver's seat.

"Good car, you like SUVs?"

Lu Zhou turned on the GPS and smiled as he said, "It's okay, it feels safer to drive… Where's the Chinese restaurant?"

After Chen Baohua set the destination location on the GPS, Lu Zhou started the car and began to drive.

Lu Zhou immediately made eye contact with Chen Yushan through the rearview mirror; it was almost like they were communicating through their eyes.

Lu Zhou: What the hell is this???

Chen Yushan: Sorry sorry! I'll explain it to you later!

Lu Zhou: …?

Chen Yushan's expression was complex and contained a lot of information, but Lu Zhou didn't understand what she meant.

He was still just as muddled as before.

You said we were going to eat together, so why am I meeting your parent now?

Chen Baohua obviously noticed Lu Zhou and Chen Yushan's exchange of expressions.

When Chen Baohua saw this jack*ss and his daughter "flirting", he had a complex expression.

Is there really…

Nothing going on between these two?

When Chen Baohua thought that his daughter was hiding something from him, his mood became as complicated as his facial expression.

If it wasn't for this mission, he definitely wouldn't give this kid an easy time.

…

The car soon arrived at the destination.

Before sitting down at the table, Chen Yushan found an opportunity and secretly pulled Lu Zhou aside.

"Sorry!" Chen Yushan put her palms together and looked down with her eyes closed. She said, "I actually didn't explain it to you. My dad is the one that wants to see you, and I really didn't know how to tell you this through the phone, so…"

Lu Zhou, "Chen Baohua does mathematics?"

Chen Yushan replied quietly, "… Nope, he's part of the Communist Party."

Communist Party?

Although this was unexpected, after her explanation, Lu Zhou nodded thoughtfully.

He recalled that the Thousand People Initiative was under the supervision of the Communist Party.

In this case, Chen Baohua is probably responsible for introducing outside talents?

Lu Zhou didn't know a lot about the Chinese government, nor was he interested in doing so.

Lu Zhou had a rough estimate of what Chen Baohua wanted to talk to him about.

They all sat down at a table. Chen Yushan sat next to her father, and Lu Zhou sat across from the two.

Chen Baohua coughed and looked at his daughter before he spoke in a demanding manner, "Shan Shan, go to the bathroom. Professor Lu and I have some things to talk about."

"Oh."

Chen Yushan obediently stood up from her chair and was about to leave.

She's probably a "good girl" at home…

Emm…

I didn't expect this at all!

Lu Zhou threw away his strange thoughts and coughed.

"Chen Baohua, do you plan on talking about something secretive with me?"

Chen Baohua paused for a second and smiled.

"Not quite, I just want you to feel secure…"

Lu Zhou smiled and shook his head as he said, "Then let's allow student… Chen Yushan to stay here. I have nothing secretive to say."

It's quite sad to leave her alone outside.

Chen Yushan looked at Lu Zhou with gratefulness and sat back down.

Obviously, she didn't want to be excluded.

Chen Baohua looked at his daughter and didn't say anything. Instead, he cleared his throat and said, "Since you put it like that, I'll cut straight to the chase."

Chen Baohua knew it was useless to brainwash intelligent scholars, and people like Lu Zhou who had read too many books often had their own political ideas and viewpoints. He didn't beat around the bush and cut to the chase.

"The motherland appreciates and needs your talent. We are eagerly looking forward to you returning to China and doing research there.

"In order to show our sincerity, we can pay you three times your Princeton salary and make it such that it is tax-exempted.

"Also, we can guarantee that your scientific research funding will also be three times your current amount. It will also be distributed from the central government in the form of a special fund. No matter what university or research institute you go to, the fund will follow you. On behalf of the Communist party, I can assure you that your research will receive the utmost attention."

Finally, Chen Baohua said with sincerity, "If you have any other requests, feel free to tell me, I will tell the higher-ups your request!"

Triple salary…

Lu Zhou looked astonished.

Right now his salary was US$400,000, and triple of that would mean US$1.2 million.

That meant it was 8 million yuan, not to mention it would be tax-exempted.

Even for a Fields Medal winner, this was ridiculous.

Although he didn't require much scientific research funding, being able to receive the funds from the government was still very attractive. It would save him from a ton of complicated application and approval procedures.

After a while, Lu Zhou smiled as he replied, "I have no other request regarding the benefits. All I want is an academic environment that isn't affected by politics…"

Chen Baohua nodded and remembered Lu Zhou's words. He was about to speak, but Lu Zhou's phone began to ring.

Lu Zhou took out his phone and put it on vibration mode. When he saw that it was from an unknown number, he didn't want to interrupt the conversation. Hence, he declined the call.

However, within two seconds, his phone began to vibrate again.

Is this call really that important?

Lu Zhou raised his eyebrows and was about to turn off his phone. Chen Baohua gently coughed and said, "Professor Lu, just take the call. What if it's something urgent? Don't delay anything because of me."

Lu Zhou shook his head and said, "If it's anything important, the call would have been made to my office, not me."

There were always people on duty at his office. If there were anything urgent, Vera would instantly tell him.

From his past experience, calls from unknown numbers were either scams or some kind of marketing calls.

However, since Chen Baohua insisted, Lu Zhou picked up the phone and placed the phone next to his ear.

"Hello?"

Two minutes passed by.

When Lu Zhou heard the voice coming from the other end of the phone, his facial expression became weird.

After a while, the phone call ended.

Lu Zhou looked at his phone screen and went silent for a while.

Chen Baohua wanted to know what had happened but didn't know if he should ask or not. All he could do was sit and stay in silence.

Chen Yushan didn't overthink it. When she saw Lu Zhou's weird expression, she thought something bad had happened. She asked softly, "What happened?"

After a while, Lu Zhou looked up at the two and hesitated for a bit.

"I think… I might have won a prize."

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Chapter 447: What Do You Think Of My Daughter?

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Won a prize?

Chen Baohua was stunned by Lu Zhou's words, and he asked immediately, "What prize?"

Lu Zhou answered truthfully, "Nobel Prize…"

Everyone went silent for half a minute.

Lu Zhou didn't look at his watch, but he estimated it was at least half a minute or so.

Chen Baohua looked at Lu Zhou with his eyes wide open. He then stuttered, "No… Nobel? That Nobel?"

Lu Zhou nodded. "Yeah."

Honestly, Lu Zhou was very surprised to receive the call.

Although Professor Ertl promised him that he would nominate his name to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, he never thought this day would come so soon.

He wasn't prepared for this at all.

Excited?

He obviously was.

The Nobel Prize was the highest honor in the academic world; any scholar that said they weren't interested in the Nobel Prize was plain jealous.

However, Lu Zhou was more confused than excited.

When he remembered that he nearly hung up on the Nobel Prize phone call twice, he felt a mixture of emotions. It seemed that he couldn't refuse unknown phone numbers in the future anymore. At the very least, he should answer the calls first…

Suddenly, Chen Yushan, who was just as confused, asked in a hushed tone, "Is there a Nobel Prize for mathematics?"

"Nope," Lu Zhou shook his head and said, "it's the Nobel Prize in Chemistry."

"Oh, chemistry."

Chen Yushan sighed in relief.

However, she instantly realized something.

Sh*t!

No matter what field it's in, this is still the Nobel Prize!

She always knew Lu Zhou's mathematics was strong, strong enough to be internationally famous. However, she didn't expect his chemistry to be just as powerful.

Chen Yushan didn't even realize that she had begun to subconsciously look at Lu Zhou in a different manner.

"Amazing… Little Brother…"

Lu Zhou wasn't good at being complimented.

Embarrassed, Lu Zhou smiled as he said, "It's okay."

Chen Baohua: "…"

…

In an inconspicuous factory complex at Jiangling, a town in China.

After transferring to the logistics department, Old Lu had been bored out of his mind every day. He'd either go fishing with his friends all day or drink tea and read the newspaper in his office.

It was a national holiday and the weather was nice. Lu Bangguo caught two humongous fish and happily invited his fisherman friends to his house.

He asked Fang Mei to grill the fish and make some appetizers. Old Lu then took out his beloved baijiu and placed everything on the dining table.

Zhou Ping was sitting across from Old Lu. He took a sip of the baijiu before he said enviously, "You're really living the good life; fishing and drinking every day. I wouldn't trade a life like this for the world."

Old Lu said, "Good my a*s. All I'm doing is gaining weight. I'd be retiring in a few years; I'll have even more free time then. I'd rather find some work at a factory." Although it seemed that he was complaining, he had a smile on his face.

Zhou Ping picked up a piece of fish and smiled. He said, "Stop it. Don't give Secretary Wu more trouble. The leadership team sends their condolences to a guy like him every so often. Do you really think a factory would put you back in the workforce?"

Old Lu shook his head and smiled, not saying anything in return.

He hadn't done anything earth-shattering in his life, but he knew how to manage relationships. He had spent his life doing manual labor in the factory, and his biggest achievement was his factory promotion.

There was really no reason for anyone to commemorate him.

Even though no one told him this, but he knew in his heart that he was riding his son's success.

Zhou Ping poured some more baijiu in his cup and said, "It's the national day today, why hasn't the big mathematician come back yet? What about your daughter at Jin Ling University?"

Old Lu smiled and said, "They're all busy minding their own business. I'm not worried about them at all. I'd be happy if they come back for Chinese New Year and call home every so often."

"How can you do this? They're forgetting their roots." Old Zhou couldn't help but show off his daughter. He said, "Look at my daughter, she will never leave home. Regardless of the length of the holiday, she'll always come home and visit."

Old Lu looked at Old Zhou and said, "Your daughter is studying in Jiangcheng; traveling here by high-speed rail is faster than going to the city from here. Is this really a good comparison?"

Old Zhou smiled and said, "The location isn't the focus; the heart is the important thing."

Old Lu said, "Okay then, brag about this to me when she has a partner."

Old Zhou's eyes widened, and his demeanor instantly changed. "No boy will steal my daughter from me!"

While the two old men were bragging, a piece of news was being broadcasted. They could hear it coming from a television nearby.

The news anchor had just finished with the news segment when she received a piece of paper off-camera.

After the news anchor read the contents of the paper, she had a surprised expression on her face.

However, she quickly adjusted her expression.

"We will now present a piece of breaking news.

"Today, 4th of October, around fifteen minutes ago, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the list of winners for Nobel Prize in Chemistry …"

Suddenly, the news anchor paused for a second.

It was almost like she had to restrain the excitement in her heart.

It was almost like she had to try and maintain the demeanor of a news anchor.

She then spoke in a steady tone.

"Because of his outstanding 'Theoretical Model of the Electrochemical Interface Structure' contribution, Professor Lu, an alumnus of Jin Ling University, will become the sole prize winner and receive nine million kronor!

"At the same time, he will become the first scholar in the world to receive both the Fields Medal and the Nobel Prize!"

The news broadcast continued, but the living room was dead silent.

Old Lu hadn't heard of the Hoffman prize or the Fields Medal, but he knew that the Nobel Prize was on another level. Even a guy like him, who had never left his hometown, had heard of it.

They remained silent for a minute or so.

Lu Bangguo's fisherman friend was the first to break that silence.

Zhou Ping: "Old Zhou…"

Lu Bangguo: "… What?"

Zhou Ping: "I heard your son hasn't married yet?"

Lu Bangguo: "Yeah."

Zhou Ping: "Are you thinking of… finding him a partner?"

Lu Bangguo looked at him and asked, "What do you mean?"

While slightly embarrassed, Zhou Ping smiled as he asked, "What do you think of my daughter?"

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Chapter 448: Nobel and Fields

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

October 4th was the national holiday in China.

Most people were either taking a break, traveling, or playing with their phones in bed.

Other than the prize giving day in December, very few people paid attention to the names of the Nobel Prize winners.

Unless…

There was a special name on the list of winners.

The moment the news was broadcasted, or rather, there was no need for the news broadcast at all.

The second the list was announced, the news of Lu Zhou winning the Nobel Prize spread across the fields of chemistry, materials science, condensed matter physics, and mathematics at an incredible speed.

After the first news article came out online, the rest followed like a tsunami, flooding Weibo and WeChat.

After the legitimacy of the news was confirmed, almost half of China was discussing this event.

[Oh my god, a mathematician won the Nobel Prize!]

[Jesus, if I recalled correctly, God Lu won the Fields Medal at the International Congress of Mathematicians, right?]

[Winning both the Nobel Prize and Fields Medal! Scary…]

[Organic chemists must be crying right now; this year's Nobel Prize wasn't stolen by biologists…]

[24-year-old Nobel Prize winner… One year younger than the youngest Nobel Prize winner in history. This might be a world record!]

[God Lu is nutty!]

[Shuimu University sent a congratulatory message!]

[Yanjing University sent a congratulatory message!]

[Jin Ling University sent a congratulatory message!]

[…]

Lu Zhou had never been number one on trending. He hadn't even had time to share his joy with his fans, but he was already bumped to number one on trending.

What did the Nobel Prize represent?

For the country, this represented confidence as it meant that China's scientific research was on par with international research standards. It meant that more students doing the college entrance examination would major in biochemical. It also meant many other things…

At the same time, it also meant that Lu Zhou's birthplace, residence, and schools would try to develop themselves into a tourist, education, and cultural attractions.

As for Lu Zhou himself, the significance of the Nobel Prize was extraordinary.

There wasn't a single international scientific research institute in the world that would refuse the participation of a Nobel Prize winner.

The same thing applied in China.

Not just that, but he would receive an insane amount of respect, special treatment, and resources. The kind that most scientific researchers couldn't even begin to imagine.

…

They spent around two hours eating.

Chen Baohua was somewhat off his game.

He never expected Lu Zhou to win the Nobel Prize. Not just that, but he was afraid that the Communist Party also didn't expect this to happen.

A Nobel-level scholar and a Nobel Prize winner was completely different…

After dinner, Chen Baohua went back to Philadelphia International Airport. He didn't spend an extra day in Philadelphia. He was on the next flight back to China.

Apparently, the Communist Party called him in for a meeting. Therefore, he didn't want to stay here for long.

Also, he said that he would convey Lu Zhou's requests to the higher-ups.

After driving Chen Baohua to the airport, Lu Zhou drove Chen Yushan back to the University of Pennsylvania.

While getting off the car, Lu Zhou suddenly remembered something.

"Are you interested in the Nobel Prize?"

"Of course I'm interested."

"Are you available in December?"

"I am! Are you taking me there?" Chen Yushan's eyes lit up, and she quickly nodded. However, she realized she might cause trouble for Lu Zhou, so she asked, "Can you bring people to the Nobel Prize award ceremony? This won't cause any trouble, right?"

If it caused trouble for Lu Zhou, she wouldn't want to go…

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "What trouble, friends and relatives can all go."

Whether it was the award venue or the world-famous Nobel Prize dinner, as a Nobel laureate, he had powers to invite any family and friends he wanted.

Also, apparently in the past, there was no upper limit on the number of friends and family he could bring to the Nobel Prize party.

That was until 1988, when Camilo José Cela, the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, brought 68 people from his village to the dinner. His action had frightened the Nobel Committee.

Therefore, a new rule was implemented—Nobel Prize laureates couldn't bring more than 14 relatives or friends.

However, 14 people were a bit too much for Lu Zhou.

He didn't have that many relatives, and he was only close to his parents and Xiao Tong.

His parents and Xiao Tong definitely had to go, so that took up three spots. Because this all happened so suddenly, Lu Zhou didn't know who else he should invite for the remaining 11 spots.

Therefore, since Chen Yushan seemed to be very interested, he decided to ask her.

Chen Yushan said in a happy tone, "Really? Then I'm going! I have never been to a Nobel Prize award ceremony before."

Lu Zhou smiled.

It's totally normal that you haven't been to one.

99.9999% will never have the chance to go…

…

It was pretty late once Lu Zhou got back to Princeton.

He didn't go to his office at the Institute for Advanced Study. Instead, he drove straight home.

After taking a shower, Lu Zhou lay in bed with his phone. When he saw the 99 notifications on Weibo, he couldn't help but smirk.

Should I do a Nobel Prize dinner lottery for my fans?

Lu Zhou thought about it for a bit and decided to give up on the idea.

Although it sounds interesting, the logistics are way too complicated…

His phone suddenly rang.

It was from Xiao Tong.

Lu Zhou picked up the phone.

An excited voice came from the other end of the telephone.

"Brother, brother! My mathematical modeling competition results are out! I receive a first-level national prize!"

When Lu Zhou heard the good news, he smiled and said, "First-level national prize… Not bad at all. You have potential!"

Lu Zhou was thinking about the time when he was in the mathematical modeling competition.

He hadn't been in contact with his two competition teammates.

He wondered how they were doing.

Xiao Tong smirked at Lu Zhou's compliment. Although Lu Zhou couldn't see her face right now, he could imagine her narcissistic smile.

In many ways, Xiao Tong was like him.

The only difference was their levels of humbleness.

Xiao Tong laughed and asked, "Then brother, is there a reward?"

Lu Zhou smiled. "There is, how about I take you on a trip?"

"Really?" Xiao Tong's eyes lit up, but suddenly, she felt suspicious of it. She said, "But brother, you're usually very busy. When did you have the time to go on a vacation?"

Lu Zhou said, "It's not just for vacationing."

Xiao Tong asked, "Not just for vacationing?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Yeah, it's also to receive a Nobel Prize."

In addition to the Nobel Prize, there was also the long-awaited Clay Institute Millennium Prize Problems.

Since he was going to Europe anyway, he might as well visit the Institut de France to receive his million-dollar reward for solving one of the Millennium Prize Problems…

Xiao Tong: "…"

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Chapter 449: Lu Zhou's Former Residence

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Lu Zhou was sleeping.

However, it was still day time in China.

Today was different from yesterday's rushed news intervention. Today, CCTV news broadcast spent nearly ten minutes preparing a special report for his Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

In this official report, not only did the news anchor talk about Lu Zhou's life, his achievements, and the problems that he had solved, but they also talked about his international honors.

They even dug up his award speech from the Crafoord Prize.

"Science changes the world; mathematics changes science."

Now it seemed that Lu Zhou's inspiring words were true after all.

He did it, and he did it in less than two years.

He used his own knowledge to create a discipline with unlimited potential, and he created a miracle for Chinese scholars as well as a miracle for the human mind.

Despite the Nobel Prize press conference and official website announcement, some people didn't know about this piece of news. However, once the propaganda machine began, almost everyone knew about this sensational piece of news.

Xiao Tong didn't like to go on Weibo, but when she was eating lunch at the cafeteria, she saw her brother on the TV inside the cafeteria.

In fact, Lu Zhou wasn't the first Chinese person to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. There was a Chinese-American before him that won the prize and a Taiwanese before the Chinese-American. However, the Chinese government obviously didn't want to help spread their news.

Lu Zhou was the first Chinese resident with a Chinese passport to win this prize. Furthermore, he broke the record by being the youngest Nobel Prize winner and became the first person to ever win both the Fields Medal and the Nobel Prize…

Either of the achievement was able to make the entire country proud of him.

When 25-year-old Lawrence Bragg won the Nobel Prize in Physics, in order to commemorate this talented scholar, Australia built a museum for him and his father. They also used the name "Bragg" as the name of the award for the best physics thesis of the year.

In honor of this scholar, Stockholm held a special celebration at the 50th anniversary of his award and invited him to make the first "Nobel lecture" in history.

Lu Zhou was the first Nobel Prize scholar born in China. Therefore, China valued him even more.

Not only did they value him because he hasn't returned to China yet, but also because rejuvenating the country through science and education was one of the country's basic strategies.

Building a museum would be too formal, plus it was a bit too early to "commemorate" him.

However, the local tourism bureau already registered his house as a cultural relic. Even if the small town was demolished in the future, that apartment building without elevators would be left alone. Not just that, but it would also be repaired by professionals to maintain its original condition.

Of course, it would be decades until the actual implementation of that.

After all, even though it was registered as a cultural relic, the people living inside the home wouldn't be kicked out.

The other place that benefited the most was probably Lu Zhou's high school.

Jiangling High was able to reap benefits when Lu Zhou won the Shiing-Shen Chern Mathematics Award and Cole Prize in Number Theory. The high school had been ranked as a second-rate high school for many years. However, due to Lu Zhou's effect, the Ministry of Education instantly made Jiangling High a first-rate high school.

Now that Lu Zhou won the Nobel Prize, everything was going to be different.

Not only did this bring a new building and stadium to Jiangling High, but the Party Committee Secretary decided to make this ordinary high school as one of Jiangling's model education projects.

Lu Zhou heard about these things from his father over the phone.

When he first heard about these things, he was astonished and rendered speechless.

Lu Zhou: "Dad…"

Old Lu was overjoyed when he talked about these things. He smiled and said, "What?"

Lu Zhou said, "Our house is a cultural relic now… It won't affect your life, right?"

"What effect can it have? They're just hanging a sign." Old Lu paused for a second and said with a smile, "Oh yeah, yesterday your high school teacher Mr. Qin, mathematics teacher Mr. Ma, and the school principal came to our house to give your mom and me some gifts. Honestly, it's been so many years, I didn't expect those teachers to still remember us.

"I didn't want to accept those gifts, but they insisted on giving them to us, and I couldn't stop them. When you come back, remember to bring some gifts to your teachers. We can't owe them anything; we have to give them something in return."

Given that he hadn't even contacted his high school teachers once ever since he graduated, Lu Zhou couldn't help but feel ashamed when he heard that his teachers actually came to his house and gave his parents some gifts.

"I understand, I'll visit them when I come back for Chinese New Year… Oh yeah, are they doing well?"

Old Lu smiled and said, "It seems like it. One became a vice-principal, and the other is a special eds teacher and dean."

Lu Zhou couldn't help but smile.

One reason was how proud his father was of him.

The other was that he didn't expect his teachers to be doing so well.

For him, this was probably the biggest surprise.

…

The Nobel Prize wasn't the ultimate goal of scientific research, but it was a type of certification and a recognition from the world of scientific research.

In this modern era where everything was becoming internationalized, every country was part of the world.

Whether it was trade, cultural exchange, or scientific research.

Jiangling High wasn't the only one happy for Lu Zhou.

There wasn't anyone else more happy than Jin Ling University.

The second day after the winner's list was announced, a banner with a magnificent headline was hung directly on the gate of the university.

[Congratulations to Lu Zhou, class of 2013 and an honorary professor of our school, for winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry this year!]

A university that could cultivate a Nobel Prize winner was indeed impressive.

Especially when compared to Shuimu and Yan University, the meaning was even more significant.

Of course, if anyone could be happier than Jin Ling University, then it would definitely be the researchers at the Jinling Institute of Computational Materials.

Liu Bo looked at the news on his computer and couldn't help but say, "Nutty… From now on, we can brag about how our boss is a Nobel Prize laureate."

Brother Qian smiled and said, "Why don't you just brag about being friends with the Nobel Prize winner and that you've co-written a thesis with him? Isn't that more brag-worthy?"

Liu Bo scratched his head with an embarrassed expression as he said, "I can do that, but I shouldn't."

If he bragged too much, his credibility would go down.

Suddenly, Yang Xu opened the door and walked in. He looked at the people in the office and asked, "What are you guys so excited about?"

Liu Bo: "Our boss won the Nobel Prize, of course we're excited!"

"You guys knew?" Yang Xu smiled and said, "I was about to give you guys a surprise."

Liu Hong, who was sitting on the other side of the office writing experiment reports, couldn't help but feel emotional.

At first, he slightly regretted not having completed his PhD. He thought that he should have just powered through the two years.

But now, it seemed that his choice was undoubtedly correct.

Most people could never do scientific research under a Nobel Prize laureate.

As for his PhD…

With his abilities and his boss' reputation at Jin Ling University, he could still easily get one.

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Chapter 450: I Heard Someone Wrote You Into The Thesis

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Won the Fields Medal.

Won the Nobel Prize.

Lu Zhou felt like his time at Princeton was worthwhile.

Honestly, if he ever decided to return to China, he would miss this place quite a bit.

Whether it was the house he spent quite a lot of effort decorating, the fireplace in his living room, his office at the Institute for Advanced Study, or Lake Carnegie.

Or the scientific research environment and the scholars…

He'd come and visit again when he had the chance.

Okay, it's settled, I'm not selling the house.

In the morning, Lu Zhou went into the office. When he opened the door, he was rained by confetti.

"Congratulations, Professor Lu! Youngest Nobel Prize winner in history," Hardy said with a party hat on his hand. He used the empty confetti cannon as a microphone and said, "May I ask, what are your thoughts right now?"

At first, Lu Zhou was bewildered by his students' actions. When he finally realized what was happening, he smiled.

"My thoughts are… Someone might have to sweep this office."

"Oh, don't be so realistic, my dear Professor Lu." Hardy made a helpless gesture and said, "I'll sweep it later, shouldn't we be celebrating right now? My suggestion is to host a party! I can do the barbecue."

Lu Zhou: "… I'll think about it."

Vera stood next to them, and she was blushing as she looked at Lu Zhou with an excited expression.

"Congratulations, Professor Lu."

Lu Zhou smiled at Vera and nodded. He then replied, "Thank you."

For him, a normal celebration was enough. He didn't need his students to do anything extra.

Qin Yue also congratulated him. He then asked, "Professor, when is the Nobel Prize award ceremony?"

Lu Zhou: "December 10th, still two months away."

Hardy immediately asked, "Professor, can you bring us to the award ceremony?"

Everyone in the entire office began to pay attention after Hardy asked this question.

Even Wei Wen, who had buried his head in research documents, began to pay attention.

There weren't many opportunities to participate in the Nobel Prize dinner, especially for mathematicians.

If one wasn't engaged in economics research, there was basically no chance at all…

Of course, their supervisor was an exception.

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "No problem. If you want, then come with me. But I do have a condition."

Jerick raised his hand and asked, "What condition?"

Lu Zhou said in a relaxed tone, "Anyone that wants to go must complete their graduation thesis by the end of the month. You guys have been studying for quite a long time under me, and it's time to think about graduating."

"Graduation thesis?" Hardy was confused, and he said, "But Professor Lu, we only received our master's this year…"

"Then try to get your PhD by next year." Lu Zhou smiled and said, "It's definitely doable since the condition is very easy. I don't need you to work under me for a long time. Just finish a thesis that I can be satisfied with."

Hardy: "…"

Qin Yue: "…"

Jerick: "…"

How is this easy?!

…

Even at a place like Princeton, winning this Nobel Prize was a very glorious thing.

Historically, Princeton had produced 25 Nobel Prize winners and most of them were in the field of physics. No matter the field, the winners of the Nobel Prize would enter the Princeton hall of fame for future scholars to admire.

However, Lu Zhou's photo was already in the hall of fame, next to the 12 Princeton Fields Medal laureates. Obviously, they couldn't hang two photos of him.

In order to celebrate all this, the Institute for Advanced Study hosted a party for him.

Originally, Lu Zhou planned on hosting this celebration party at his house. He didn't expect the Institute for Advanced Study to take care of this for him. It was arranged to be held in Report Hall Number 1.

It turned out that this report hall, which was attached to a cafe and cafeteria, was excellent for conducting serious mathematics reports and for celebrating special celebrations.

At the party, Professor Fefferman held a glass of champagne and smiled while he cheered Lu Zhou.

"Congratulations, I didn't expect you to become the first scholar to win both the Fields Medal and the Nobel Prize, as well as being the youngest record holder for both of them… I think the Guinness Book of Records can open a new sub-category just for you."

Lu Zhou took a sip of the champagne and smiled as he said, "That's ridiculous, Guinness wouldn't create a new sub-category for just two records."

Professor Fefferman said in a half-joking manner, "This isn't 'just two records'. Not to mention, you're only 25 years old. I'm sure many PhD students in history will be interested in writing about you as their thesis topic."

According to the statistics from major journals, Lu Zhou's theses had an extremely high rate of being referenced. However, this was the first time Lu Zhou heard about someone writing a thesis about him.

Can they really graduate with a thesis like that?

Lu Zhou had his doubts.

Professor Fefferman wasn't the only one congratulating Lu Zhou. Even his mentor, Professor Deligne, was also here.

The old man gave him a toast as he congratulated him. He then paused for a second before he continued to speak, "I think mathematics should be pure, but I'm sure you have your own opinions about mathematics. Regardless, I have to congratulate you. You've accomplished a historic record at the tender age of 25."

Lu Zhou replied sincerely, "Thank you."

"Don't thank me. The stuff I taught you didn't even come in handy," Professor Deligne, who was always very serious, joked. "We always thought Edward Witten would become the first person to win both the Fields Medal and Nobel Prize. We definitely didn't expect you to beat him."

Professor Witten overheard his old friend's words, and he said with a smile, "That's impossible. Unless I can live for another hundred years, otherwise, it is impossible to prove the M-theory with an experiment."

It was extremely difficult to find a trace of superstring theory in a laboratory, much less finding a proof. Proving the M-theory in the 11-dimensional superstring theory space was unthinkable.

Right now, the physics world was still testing and exploring the boundaries of the standard model. They were still far, far away from entering the one-dimensional universe.

However, some problems were not meant to be solved in this century.

As long as physics continued to develop, one day there would be someone that would prove his theory.

Just like how a century later, people were still carefully testing Einstein's theory of relativity, which was how they discovered the existence of gravitational waves. Whether it would be proven or disproven, only the people in the future would know the answers to the unsolved questions left by their predecessors…

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Chapter 451: Evasive Answer

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Winning the award made Lu Zhou excited for a while, and he was busy with various social events that came with the award. However, it didn't disturb his research schedule.

As he said, whether it was the Fields Medal or the Nobel Prize, the awards weren't the reason for research; it was only the icing on the cake.

There were greater, better things waiting for him.

Frick Chemistry Laboratory.

Lu Zhou gave Connie a USB and spoke while yawning.

"I've already completed the relevant mathematical model. I've made some predictions regarding the positions of the zero-dispersion electronic band structure. As for whether or not it is reliable, that would depend on your experiment results."

Even though this mathematical model wasn't something he was dying to complete, once he immersed himself in the interesting research, time quickly flew by.

Connie took the USB and looked at Lu Zhou with a surprised expression as he said, "You already finished it?"

"I'm just skilled…" Lu Zhou rubbed his eyebags and said, "When you're able to integrate the things I have taught you, plus once you develop an intuition toward numbers, I'm sure you can do the same."

Connie frowned and said, "But Professor Lu, your theorems are way too difficult."

What he actually wanted to say was that if he ever reached that level, he would be able to win a Fields Medal as well.

"Because it's difficult, that's why you have to learn it." Lu Zhou patted Connie's shoulder and to encourage him, he said, "If one day I'm no longer at Princeton, you'll have to be the one to pass on my theorems."

Connie was stunned. "No longer at Princeton? Are you planning on leaving?"

Lu Zhou laughed and gave an evasive answer by saying, "Just a hypothetical situation. Regardless of whether or not I'm here, science and knowledge must continue to be passed on. You and Jerick have the best understanding of my computational materials theory. Compared to Jerick, you have more experience in experiments… Of course, his mathematics might be a bit stronger. So work hard, academia prospers because of communication. I can only create the knowledge; the work of spreading it depends on you guys."

Connie nodded seriously and said, "I'll try my best, Professor Lu."

Lu Zhou nodded with satisfaction and patted his shoulder again. Without saying anything else, Lu Zhou turned around and left.

…

The research on superconducting materials was carried out step by step while Lu Zhou was still doing his other job.

The students didn't take a long time to choose their graduation thesis topic. Even Hardy successfully chose a research topic by the middle of the month.

Although Hardy was a little too playful, he was still decently skilled.

Since he was able to step into the doors of Princeton, it meant that his talent and diligence were way beyond ordinary people.

For example, the Collatz conjecture that the three of them worked on…

Although Lu Zhou was the one that set the initial framework, Vera was the one that did the majority of the work. However, like what Vera said, she couldn't have completed it as smoothly as she did without the help from the other two students.

After looking at all of the students' proposed topics, Lu Zhou spent an afternoon chatting with his students one by one. He also gave his opinion on their research topic and which field they should focus on.

Qin Yue and Hardy should focus on analytic number theory, while Vera, who was almost like Lu Zhou, was an all-rounder.

Although this path was very difficult, with her talent and love for mathematics, it was worth a try.

Once the PhD students chose their topics, it was time for the master's students to also choose their thesis topic.

Under Lu Zhou's suggestion, Jerick chose applied mathematics, or more specifically, computational materials.

This field was full of potential, especially since the Nobel Prize in Chemistry this year was given to the "Theoretical Model of Electrochemical Interface Structure" thesis.

What surprised Lu Zhou the most was Wei Wen's decision.

This genius student, who once lost to Lu Zhou at the mathematical modeling competition, not only chosen his thesis topic, but he even finished writing the thesis itself.

Lu Zhou: "Actually I wanted to chat with you after you have chosen your topic to see if I can help you with anything, but it seems like you have your own plans… If so, show me your thesis."

"Okay, Professor!"

Although Wei Wen was very proud to be the first to complete his thesis, he couldn't help but feel a little worried when he gave his thesis to Lu Zhou.

After all, he didn't consult his supervisor's opinion when he chose his thesis topic.

However, Lu Zhou wasn't a nitpicking person, and he was fine with Wei Wen making his own decisions.

Lu Zhou quickly finished reading his thesis and began to think. After a minute or so, he gave a simple evaluation.

"The study of coherent states of non-harmonic oscillators in a Hilbert space is a classic problem, both in quantum mechanics and in theoretical physics. It's not that popular, but there are many places to dive into deep research. As for your thesis, there are some problems starting from the fourth section. I suggest you modify it before thinking about publishing."

Wei Wen's research direction was functional analysis. Right now, he focused on Hilbert space related problems. Lu Zhou guessed that his future research direction was probably mathematical physics.

Lu Zhou gave the thesis back to Wei Wen and spoke with a pleasant smile.

"Other than some minor issues, your thesis is well written. You can try to streamline it and submit it to PRL."

When Wei Wen heard his suggestion, he was stunned. With a stiff expression, he looked a little distressed.

"Will PRL accept it?"

PRL was the acronym for "Physical Review Letters", a legendary top physics journal.

Publishing in PRL didn't necessarily mean that one was an expert. However, a PRL publication was worthy of being celebrated on any university's official website.

Lu Zhou raised his eyebrows and smiled as he said, "Scared?"

Wei Wen quickly calmed himself down and shook his head. "Nope."

Lu Zhou nodded with approval. He then smiled as he said, "It's not easy to produce results in the field of theoretical physics. It's even more difficult to convince others your results are important. However, one thing you should know is that you should always believe in yourself. You must believe your research is correct and good enough. Only then, can you convince others."

Wei Wen: "… I understand."

Lu Zhou looked at Wei Wen's distressed expression and knew what he was worried about.

Therefore, he spoke in a relaxed tone, "Of course, if PRL rejects your thesis, I'd suggest you try Physics Today as it's slightly easier. Whether it's PRL or PT, as long as your thesis is accepted, I'll let you graduate. I hope you can concentrate on your research and don't let the pressure of graduation get to your head."

Physics Today had a similar style to PRL, and it accepted all types of physics thesis.

Honestly, it was a bit difficult for Wei Wen to submit to PRL.

But PT was a lot more realistic.

Wei Wen sighed in relief and looked determined.

"I will try my best!"

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