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

15. 452

Read Scholar's Advanced Technological System - Chapter 452 - Mathematics, Pursuit Of Truth online free - Novelfull

Chapter 452: Mathematics, Pursuit Of Truth

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Recently, Lu Zhou was busy with superconducting materials research as well as the graduation of his students.

Although he set notifications for Sir Atiyah's thesis on the Riemann's conjecture, he didn't pay attention to the Heidelberg Laureate Forum. Plus due to the sudden Nobel Prize call, he totally forgot about Atiyah.

Until now.

He suddenly received an invitation to write an article for Annual Mathematics.

Lu Zhou only remembered this sensational mathematics news when the editor-in-chief Peter Sarnak wanted Lu Zhou to write a short commentary regarding Atiyah's thesis. It should be no more than five hundred words.

In the morning, when Lu Zhou went into his office, Hardy walked over with some A4 papers.

"Professor, I've already printed the thesis that you wanted."

Lu Zhou took Atiyah's thesis from Hardy and was stunned. He then looked at Hardy.

"That's it?"

"Yes, Professor Lu," Hardy nodded and said, "I'm sure this is all of it."

The thesis was only five pages and with only three referred documents. There was even a small typesetting error on the third and fourth subsections, but it wasn't a big problem.

If this was a PhD thesis, this thesis definitely wouldn't be accepted. However, the academic community was more tolerant when it was from a famous scholar.

For example, when Wiles first proved Fermat's last theorem, he even added a "preface" to the front of the abstract. He wrote about his childhood and Fermat's last theorem, humoring everyone that read it.

Sir Atiyah was also capricious. After all, he was the winner of the Fields Medal and Abel Prize, and the study of the Atiyah-Singer Index Theorem was one of the most important mathematical achievements in the 21st century.

However, this wasn't the main point.

The mathematics world wouldn't blindly trust a person just because of their past achievements or honors.

Lu Zhou didn't have much hope for this thesis. However, the invitation was sent by Professor Sarnak, and the thesis author was a highly respected scholar. Therefore, Lu Zhou sat in his office chair and read the five-page thesis objectively.

However, the more he read, the more he began to frown.

Like Sir Atiyah had previously claimed, he used a very simple method to "solve" this problem.

As expected, claims like this were often unreliable…

Once Lu Zhou read the thesis from the beginning to the end, he had a basic understanding of the proof process.

Basically, in Sir Atiyah's thesis, he used a weak analytic function called the Todd function. He also used a hypothetical method to associate this Todd function with the fine structures of physics.

The most upsetting thing wasn't that he didn't specifically describe what this Todd function was or its relationship with the Riemann zeta function, it was that he used a proof by contradiction.

Yes, he actually used a proof by contradiction.

For example, if the Riemann's conjecture was wrong, then "my theorem" was a contradiction.

Because there was no way "my theorem" was contradictory, then the Riemann's conjecture had to be correct…

When Lu Zhou read this, he made a conclusion.

Although this was unfortunate, it seemed like Lu Zhou's initial thoughts were correct.

Hardy saw that Lu Zhou had a weird expression, and so, he asked, "Professor, what do you think about this thesis?"

Lu Zhou suddenly smiled and put the thesis aside.

"You're in the field of number theory as well, don't you have an opinion?"

Hardy scratched his head and said, "I don't study the Riemann zeta function… Honestly, Sir Atiyah's thesis is too esoteric, and he seemed to have used some physics terms."

Lu Zhou: "That's right, Sir Atiyah did use some physics terms. Professor Witten, who knows Atiyah very well, said that Sir Atiyah only recently entered the field of physics. Atiyah's physics intuition isn't flattering, to say the least. As for this thesis, basically, he constructed a weak Todd function and combined the function with a physics concept."

Hardy couldn't help but ask, "Is there a problem with the weak Todd function?"

Lu Zhou: "I don't know if the weak Todd function has a problem… Because the amount of information that I can retrieve from this function is way too small, that's why I can't decide yet. The biggest problem in his thesis is that he made reference to the fine-structure constant in physics."

Hardy: "… Fine-structure constant?"

"Yeah…" Lu Zhou nodded and said, "It's an important dimensionless number in physics with the symbol alpha that's commonly used in quantum electrodynamics."

This was a very important physics concept that was often used to measure the intensity of charged particles and electromagnetic fields.

Interestingly, physicists had spent more than a century to try and derive the value of alpha from a physics perspective. They then try to "invent" a mathematical formula for it.

Unfortunately, no one had succeeded so far, and most people had given up.

However, in Atiyah's thesis, he recklessly used this concept and used it as the basis for his argument.

This sounded bad, but this was something Professor Enoch would do…

Hardy said: "… You called it, Atiyah is past his prime."

"Not exactly." Lu Zhou shook his head as he said, "Even though he is wrong, his courage is still commendable."

In academia, there was a distinct difference between "honest mistake" and "academic fraud".

In his later years, Einstein claimed many times that he had discovered the unified field theory, and he continued to research the theory right up to moments before his death… At that time, no one believed in his calculations; they just quietly accompanied him to the end.

In any case, it wasn't easy to conduct research at 90 years old.

It was even more commendable to gamble one's honor and reputation just to challenge Mount Everest.

Therefore, just like what Lu Zhou had said, as long as the old man was happy, the final result didn't matter…

…

Lu Zhou contemplated writing the commentary for Annual Mathematics. In the end, he wrote a polite rejection letter. He conveyed that he was very busy with his research and euphemistically refused the invitation from Peter Sarnak.

This was different from Shinichi Mochizuki's complicated and lengthy papers. No one was certain whether or not Shinichi Mochizuki was correct; therefore, no one wanted to stand up and testify.

However, the problems in Sir Atiyah's thesis were very obvious. One didn't even need to have a deep understanding of mathematics to find the problems.

Despite him staying silent, everyone knew what was going on.

Lu Zhou decided to let Faltings execute this type of humiliating matter.

After all, Faltings was famous in the mathematics world for being ruthless.

However, if instead a 25-year-old was to humiliate Atiyah…

It would be pretty ignorant of the old man's feelings.

After writing this response, Lu Zhou suddenly realized why no one in the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study was talking about this seemingly huge sensation.

After all, everyone would grow old someday, and everyone needed respect and dignity.

Especially when it was a respectable scholar.

Also, the media loved to use click-bait titles to attract attention. They rather believed the 90-year-old Atiyah wasn't old at all.

Unfortunately, mathematics was the pursuit of truth, and it would not pander to the public.

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Recently, there was an uproar in the mathematics world.

First was Sir Atiyah and the Riemann's conjecture, then it was Schultz and Shinichi Mochizuki.

Recently, Peter Schultz and Jakob Stix recently co-wrote a thesis regarding Shinichi Mochizuki's 1.5 inequation proof. They also said that Shinichi Mochizuki's proof process required a lot of corrections.

Of course, in Mochizuki's opinion, Schultz didn't discover any problems.

As for the reason, he would explain it in a thesis.

Compared to Sir Atiyah's abysmal thesis, this fight was obviously a lot more popular among the mathematics community.

After all, it was rumored that there were fewer than 20 people in the world that could understand Mochizuki's 500-page book that caused quite a bit of controversy in 2012.

One was the founder of the "anabelian geometry", "Teichmuller theorem", and the disciple of Mr. Faltings while the other was the founder of the "PS theory", and the winner of the Fields Medal.

The confrontation between the two seemed epic, and it dazzled the outsiders who were watching the fight.

Unfortunately, compared to number theory, Lu Zhou wasn't well versed in algebraic geometry, much less the extremely unpopular anabelian geometry.

The abc conjecture wasn't something Lu Zhou wanted to pay a large amount of attention to. He set notifications on for the development in this topic and left it aside. He put all his energy into his superconducting materials research.

Although the mathematical model was complete, he still needed to be at the laboratory.

Any theorems that were based on calculations were open to being questioned. Computational materials could only guide experiments, it wouldn't determine the final experiment results.

Lu Zhou didn't stay in the laboratory just to produce results as soon as possible. It was also to perfect his own theories through the knowledge gained from experiments.

Time quickly flew by; it was already the end of October.

A quiet celebration was heard in the scanning electron microscope room at the Frick Chemistry Laboratory.

Why was it quiet?

Because the instrument and samples at the laboratory were too "fragile", plus their experiments were full of metaphysics where even the tiniest vibrations could affect the final experiment results.

"It's a N-shaped doping! We did it!"

Connie clenched his fists as he excitedly looked at the image in the scanning electron microscope. He recorded the data and said, "I knew it. As long as you participate in the research project, anything is possible!"

This sudden compliment was as unexpected as the experiment result. Lu Zhou was almost embarrassed by it. He said, "That's an exaggeration, I only provided a mathematical model."

Professor Chirik was standing next to them, just as cheerful. However, he had been around a lot more than Connie.

Therefore, he smiled as he joked, "No need to be humble, your mathematical model was undoubtedly useful. If we used traditional methods to find this sample, we'd be lucky to produce any in-progress results by the end of the year."

Compared to the Jinling Institute of Computational Materials and Sarrot Laboratory, their focus was mainly on theory and finding the electronic band structure close to zero dispersion…

According to Lu Zhou's mathematical model, the positions of the two energy bands were at the negative and positive doping ends of the graphene Dirac point. This was proven by the experiment.

What was the reason for all this?

There were many reasons.

Finding the zero-dispersion energy band meant finding the Mott insulator.

When they applied a small voltage to the two-dimensional structure material and added a certain amount of electrons to the Mott insulator, a single electron combined with other electrons in the graphene would allow them to pass through a place that couldn't previously be accessed.

Throughout this entire process, Lu Zhou and the team had been measuring the resistance of the material while also reducing the temperature of the material. They soon discovered that whenever the temperature dropped to 101K, the resistance rate of decrease suddenly reached a peak, and the value of the resistance also approached zero.

Obviously, this was what they were looking for.

Sometimes theory and application research didn't form a contradiction, especially in the field of materials science.

Of course, underlying these simple research were many profound theoretical problems; problems that Lu Zhou didn't even know how to explain.

For example, how could he explain the forbidden superlattice bandwidth near 1.1 degrees, or what kind of parameter should be used to describe the Mott insulator formed at this angle…

Maybe someone in the future would dive into these theoretical problems, or maybe their research partners would be interested in this type of follow-up work.

In short, when they changed the concentration of charge carriers by using N-doping, they also adjusted the superimposition angle of the two-dimensional materials. Finally, they found a "half-filling" structure by using the new angle.

When the temperature reached 101k, as they imagined, the material went through a superconductivity transition.

Although 101K wasn't a high temperature, relatively speaking, this was undoubtedly an amazing achievement.

Excited, Connie looked at Lu Zhou and asked, "Professor, what should we name this new material?"

Lu Zhou said, "… Are you guys sure you want me to name it?"

Honestly, Lu Zhou wasn't good at coming up with names.

He was quite self-aware about this.

However, these two obviously didn't know that.

It wasn't just Connie, even Professor Chirik smiled and said, "Of course, this should be done by you."

Lu Zhou didn't want to refuse their kind gesture. He thought about it seriously for a moment before he said, "Okay then… Let's call it SG-1."

SG-1 stood for Superconductivity Graphene 1. Although they could name it by a preparation method or a compound type, functional naming was easier to distinguish.

After all, there were countless ways in which two-dimensional materials could be superimposed on each other, not to mention the complex chemical processing methods; all of them produced a different N-doping graphene material…

Lu Zhou wasn't confident at first, but he was quite satisfied with this name.

Of course, being satisfied alone wasn't enough; he had to seek the opinions of his two partners.

"What do you guys think about this name?"

Connie: …

Chirik: …

When the two suddenly became silent, Lu Zhou hesitated slightly.

"… What?"

Chirik and Connie looked at each other and made a helpless expression.

Connie: "Nothing, SG-1 it is… It's just such an exciting discovery, I thought you'd come up with a cooler name."

Now that I think about it, this is Lu Zhou's style.

Modified PDMS and HCS-2…

I knew I shouldn't have let him be the one to name the material.

Lu Zhou: "…"

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Chapter 454: Really Not Thinking About Going Public?

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

At the beginning of the year, the Pablo Jarillo Herrero's team made remarkable achievements regarding the graphene superconductivity project, opening up a new platform for superconductivity research.

Which was, whenever the two graphenes superimposing angle approached 1.1K, the electronic band structure reached zero-dispersion, causing the band to transform into a Mott insulator when half-filling.

This research result caused a huge commotion.

Most people didn't think a 1.1K superconductivity was anything worthy. However, in reality, this project was full of potential.

To know the reason why, it was necessary to clarify a basic concept, which was that superconductivity transition temperature was positively proportional to the material carrier concentration.

Therefore, in theory, as long as the concentration of charge carriers increased, the upper limit of the superconductivity material temperature could also be increased.

For example, graphene had a charge carrier concentration of only 1011cm-2 and transition temperature of 1K.

In contrast, the superconductivity transition temperature of copper oxide was around 100K, while the single-layer material charge carrier concentration was on the order of 1014cm-2.

Even if one didn't understand chemistry, one could still intuitively feel the superiority of graphene materials compared to traditional copper oxide materials in the field of superconducting materials.

There were many ways to increase the charge carrier concentration in graphene. Doping could be divided into N doping and P doping, and the doping material could also be divided into small molecule doping, metal doping, lattice doping, etc.

This was precisely why graphene had an advantage.

The two-dimensional material atom sheets could be stacked and combined in many different ways to form new structures. These new structures often had new properties, which meant there was a near-infinite amount of possibilities.

The disadvantage was that it was very expensive.

However, scientific researchers often didn't have to think about costs.

How to cut costs, manufacture, profit… These were some of the things that the industry had to consider.

However this time, Lu Zhou sincerely hoped that the industry could hurry up and find a way to effectively manufacture his research results.

The system didn't give him a lot of time.

He had to build a DEMO nuclear fusion prototype before 2025, so superconducting materials were a must.

After all, it was not like he could build a magnetic confinement fusion device as big as the European Hadron Collider. He needed the superconducting materials…

In the evening the experiment results came out, Lu Zhou invited Connie, Professor Chirik, and Professor Chirik's two assistants to drink at the best bar in Palmer Square.

Obviously, their drinking was funded by the research fund.

After all, the research fund was funded entirely by Lu Zhou anyway.

Professor Chirik sat next to Lu Zhou and ordered a cocktail. He asked, "Honestly, why are you suddenly interested in superconducting materials? Superconducting materials obviously isn't as profitable as batteries."

There wasn't anything wrong with the research topic. No matter how unpopular a research topic was, there was still someone engaged in that topic. However, Lu Zhou's previous research was on electrode materials, so when he suddenly migrated to superconducting materials, Professor Chirik was genuinely confused as to why he would do that.

After all, while the field of superconducting materials wasn't necessarily unpopular, it definitely wasn't a highly profitable field.

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "If I said it was for humanity's future, would you believe me?"

"You're drunk." Chirik looked at the bartender behind the bar and said, "Hey, give him a Bloody Mary."

"Don't listen to him, change the Bloody Mary to a Tequila Sunrise. You can drink that tomato juice yourself." Lu Zhou paused for a second and said, "Okay, honestly, it's actually because my experiment needs a larger constrained electromagnetic field. The traditional copper oxide superconducting material has already reached the engineering limit of electromagnetic field strength; therefore, I need to find new materials."

Professor Chirik said, "Is it for the sake of theoretical physics?"

He had heard about Lu Zhou and the story of 750 GeV.

Lu Zhou picked up the glass of Tequila Sunrise from the bar and slowly took a sip before he replied ambiguously, "I guess."

"Okay… Doing research to do more research, I guess this counts as a reason," Chirik said as he shook the glass in his hand and made a helpless expression. He slowly raised his glass and said, "Cheers to your passion for research."

"Thank you."

They both raised their hands and gently tapped their glasses together.

Bars on Palmer Square were pretty boring. Other than the small town's residents, the guests here were basically all Princeton professors and students.

Scenes that happened in American movies were rarely seen here unless one went to a more popular bar.

Connie said that if they wanted to have more fun, they had to go to Philadelphia.

However, Lu Zhou said the alcohol was enough to relax his tired brains.

It was worth mentioning that although the atmosphere here wasn't intense, everyone was very enthusiastic.

Professor Chirik couldn't handle the alcohol and stumbled off to the toilet. A young pretty Asian chick seemed to have noticed Lu Zhou sitting alone, so she walked over and sat next to him. While smiling, she asked for his number.

However, Lu Zhou quickly realized this was one of his past students. Also, Lu Zhou had left his phone number and email on the lecture hall blackboard multiple times.

Obviously, there was no way she didn't know his phone number.

He didn't know what she wanted. She probably just wanted to amuse herself.

The chick looked surprised after being exposed by Lu Zhou, so she quietly walked away.

The group of drunk men hung out until the early morning before they crossed the road and returned to their respective homes.

The next day, Star Sky Technology in North America sent a team of lawyers from Philadelphia to help with the patent application.

They could only publish the thesis after receiving their patent number.

If this process was reversed, then they likely wouldn't be able to pass their patent application as the material would no longer be novel.

In order to receive the patent number as soon as possible, the CEO of the North American branch, White Sheridan, personally came to Princeton.

When Sheridan received the completed material patent application from Lu Zhou and looked at the patent description, he couldn't help but ask.

"Really, are you not thinking about going public?"

Lu Zhou: "Public?"

Sheridan earnestly persuaded him by saying, "That's right, just by patent income alone, other than the one-time buyout fees, our yearly profit is less than US$100 million. However, if we are publicly listed on Nasdaq, with our potential in the lithium-sulfur batteries market and future energy industry, you'll become a multi-billionaire in less than a year."

Lu Zhou had to admit that it sounded pretty appealing.

However, when he heard about being a multi-billionaire, he laughed. He then said nonchalantly said, "The market value is all fake. I'll think about it if I can turn it all to cash, but if I can't, I'd rather not have to report to the board every time I want to set up a new project."

His original intention of Star Sky Technology was to facilitate his research work, so it wouldn't make sense for him to violate that intention.

As for being a multi-billionaire…

Honestly, Lu Zhou already had no idea how to spend the couple hundred million in his bank account.

"Okay then… But I think there would be any investors that will stop you from doing experiments even if you only own 1% of the shares."

Sheridan made a helpless expression.

There weren't many people that were as stubborn as Lu Zhou.

However, he had nothing to complain about.

After all, even though Lu Zhou had a strong desire to control the company, the salary was quite generous.

The salary alone was enough to dispel his additional ideas.

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Chapter 455: Good Opportunity For Validation

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

With White Sheridan's help, the patent number was obtained quickly. This was even faster than Lu Zhou's previous lawyer team in China.

Sheridan was the former director of the intellectual property department at Verizon. Just this alone was worth half of Sheridan's salary.

After receiving the patent number, everything else sailed smoothly.

With a group of strong and expensive lawyers as a backup, the approval process was a walk in the park.

Actually, for more popular patents, authorizing the patent to outside sources during the patent filing stage wasn't anything unusual.

However, even though the field of superconducting materials was a popular academia topic, it wasn't very attractive to the market.

This was obvious in Pablo Jarillo Herrero's research team.

Before receiving the US$10 million fund from Lu Zhou, the team of superconducting materials researchers led by Herrero was funded by the Gordon Betty Moore Foundation and the National Science Foundation; they didn't receive funding from any market companies.

In short, with Connie's help, Lu Zhou completed the entire thesis by mid-November.

Lu Zhou gathered the other two main authors of the thesis. They then went to the coffee shop that was exclusive to members of the Ivy Club and held a short meeting.

"The thesis is complete, and I've communicated with Professor Herrero through email. They are very interested in the theoretical interpretation of the superlattice bandwidth under the new angle, and they will continue to do research in this area."

Lu Zhou paused for a second and looked at his two partners before he said, "If everything goes well, after this thesis, our cooperation and research agreement with Professor Herrero will come to an end."

Because they were in a coffee shop, the three decided not to clap and instead gently tapped their coffee cups together.

Once the research on graphene superconductivity had begun, Lu Zhou's two research institutes would definitely conduct research on the application aspects, like improving the SG-1 material or increasing its superconductivity transition temperature.

As for Professor Herrero, he seemed to be more interested in researching the theoretical aspects.

Therefore, even though their research would be centered around the same direction, their research content would be wildly different.

Of course, even though their cooperation was over, Lu Zhou's US$10 million research fund would still continue to support Professor Herrero's research.

After all, Professor Herrero's research team had contributed greatly to the SG-1 superconductivity research project.

Lu Zhou also hoped that Professor Herrero's research team could discover more interesting theoretical research results even though these things might not be profitable.

Theoretical research was the basis of applied research, and these seemingly useless things could one day play a crucial role.

Lu Zhou explained the basic situation to his two partners. He then paused for a second before he looked at Connie and said, "As I said earlier, Professor Herrero will focus on theoretical research. You've been at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a year, so you should know more about their research process than I do.

"I want to hear your future plans."

Computational materials science was a tool whether it was the "computational materials" redefined by Lu Zhou or the "first principle" widely accepted by the computational chemistry community.

This tool could be used for both application and theoretical research. However, Connie seemed to have determined his future research direction.

Connie hesitated for a long time before he finally said confidently, "I want to do applied research."

When Lu Zhou heard his response, he nodded.

"I'll write a letter of recommendation for you in a few days. Take that to Sarrot Laboratory in Silicon Valley and Professor Sarrot will arrange work for you. You will also have your own research team which will be mainly responsible for computational chemistry and superconducting materials research… Of course, the choice is yours. If you want to work at some university, I can write another letter of recommendation for you."

Since there weren't any computational chemistry methods that Lu Zhou could teach him, this letter of recommendation meant that Connie could finally graduate as a post-doc.

Lu Zhou welcomed Connie to work under him. However, if Connie had other plans, Lu Zhou would also respect his decision.

Connie scratched his head and smiled as he said, "I'd rather work in your laboratory obviously."

Doing research at some university? No thanks. I'd rather work under a Nobel Prize laureate.

Not to mention, according to Lu Zhou, Connie would become a "mini-boss". This meant he would be well funded and have people working for him. If he wanted to earn this position on his own, he would be 40 years old before he achieved his goal.

Although Connie had the body of a gorilla, he wasn't stupid at all.

When Lu Zhou heard Connie's answer, he smiled. He then reached out his right hand and said, "Welcome to the team."

Connie shook hands with him and continued to talk about research.

He put on a serious face and said, "Oh yeah, Professor Lu, since the thesis is already written, what next? Should we submit it to a journal or an academic conference?"

Lu Zhou thought for a bit and said, "Submit it to a conference. If we hurry up, we might be able to submit it to this year's MRS Autumn Conference."

Although it was past the deadline stated on the official website, a Nobel Prize laureate had special privileges whether it was for the channel of submission or the amount of attention the report would receive.

Professor Chirik asked, "Do you plan on going to this year's MRS Autumn Conference?"

Lu Zhou shook his head and said, "I have to go to Stockholm in August, so I'm afraid I don't have time for it."

The MRS Autumn Conference had always been held the day after Black Friday, ranging from the end of November to the beginning of December. The duration depended on the size of the conference.

Theoretically, Lu Zhou could attend. However, he would have a very tight schedule.

When Professor Chirik heard that Lu Zhou wasn't planning on attending, he smiled and said, "Since you don't have time, I'll attend the MRS Autumn Conference for you."

This is a good chance to brag… Oh, I mean validate myself in the industry.

With his achievements, Lu Zhou didn't need to validate himself. However, this was a good opportunity for Chirik.

Lu Zhou smiled and shook his head at how eager Professor Chirik was.

"Then you'll do the report… Connie, go with Professor Chirik. You can be his report assistant."

Connie excitedly nodded.

"Okay, Professor!"

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Chapter 456: Invitation To The Nobel Prize Dinner

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

After mid-October, the weather in Jin Ling started to grow colder as the days passed by. Although winter hadn't arrived yet, it was just as cold.

In an office in the physics department at Jin Ling University, a strand of steam was floating on top of a vacuum flask.

Professor Li Rongen sat in front of his office desk drinking tea while he browsed through the conference information on his computer.

It would soon be the annual MRS Autumn Conference, and all the reports and theses that were to be presented at the conference had been released.

Regardless of whether or not one had time to attend this conference, anyone in the materials science would pay attention to a top-level conference like this.

Looking at the trend of thesis submission, there had been a growth in graphene research this year.

Among them, the most eye-catching was undoubtedly the study on graphene as a superconducting material.

101K!

This number caused a sensation in the materials science community.

Even though this thesis was posted on the official website after the deadline, according to the website rankings, it was one of the top three downloaded theses.

Li Rongen wasn't in the field of superconducting materials. He had a very shallow understanding of graphene as most of his research was centered around carbon nanotubes. However, this didn't prevent him from reading the thesis and understanding its finesse.

Professor Li Rongen read the thesis in its entirety before he put the thesis down. He couldn't help but exclaim, "Amazing."

Graphene superconductivity.

A few years ago, this concept was a distant dream. I didn't expect that in a few short years, this concept would go from the theoretical realm to the applied realm.

Not just that, but according to the thesis, 101K isn't even the limit of the superconductivity transition temperature.

Theoretically, as long as the concentration of charge carriers in the graphene increases, the temperature could also increase… Of course, even though this sounds easy, it definitely isn't easy to do.

Regardless, any researchers in the field of copper oxide superconductivity would probably start to have doubts about their life, right?

After all, they spent half a century to raise the critical superconductivity temperature to 125K. Then graphene came and blew copper oxide out of the water in terms of plasticity and engineering possibilities.

It seems that Professor Lu isn't satisfied with lithium batteries anymore.

First, batteries. Then, superconductivity, what's next?

Professor Li Rongen was only curious about one thing; what would this guy do next?

It seemed that Lu Zhou could conquer any research field he set his mind to.

Li Rongen wasn't the only one reading this report. His PhD and master's students who were next to him was reading it as well.

A PhD student named Zhang Fan heard his professor's exclaim. He couldn't contain the curiosity in his heart anymore, so he asked respectfully, "Professor, when you were doing experiments with God Lu, what kind of person was he?"

Professor Li Rongen heard this question and smiled.

"What kind of person? I don't know how to describe him other than he's a genius."

Professor Li Rongen began to think back to the past and continued to speak, "I won't tell you guys about his mathematical modeling competition results as you have probably heard of it already. In his second year, he built a mathematical model using experimental data provided by us, and he estimated the mechanical properties of the material based on the data collected by the Fourier infrared spectrometer. I'll leave it to your imagination to think about the level of technical skills required to do that."

It wasn't just Zhang Fan, the other two graduate students in the room also looked astonished.

Being able to do computational materials was nothing impressive as many materials science experiments would often use the first principle calculations. This was especially so after Lu Zhou's influence. Even people that weren't in the computational materials field would learn a bit about computational materials.

However, being able to do all this as a second-year student was frightening.

As for the Higher Education Society Cup…

For people like them, they'd be lucky to win a second-level national prize.

Zhang Fan couldn't help but think about what he was doing during his second year.

After a while, all he could remember was his ex-girlfriend's name.

Professor Li Rongen seemed to have guessed what his students were thinking when he smiled and shook his head.

"Don't be jealous. He's a mathematical genius. Soon after he won the Higher Education Society Cup, he solved a world-famous mathematics problem… It's called the Zhou guess or something. You guys haven't met him, so you don't know how strong his mathematical intuition is. Simply put, if I give you guys some data, it'd be a blessing if you could make me some graphs. However, Lu Zhou can make the data come to life."

The students looked at each other with confusion.

They obviously didn't know what Professor Li Rongen meant by making data come to life.

Zhao Qing, who had kept quiet this whole time, finished reading the thesis. He looked up from the computer screen.

"Professor, why do you think Professor Lu is researching superconducting materials? Does it have market application potential?"

Li Rongen: "It's not necessarily that he's researching this for market application, but if you want to know about the future potential, it's application prospects are much larger than you think."

Zhao Qing was stunned. He then asked, "Is the superconducting materials market that big?"

Professor Li Rongen shook his head and said, "It's more than just superconductivity."

Zhang Fan was also stunned. "It's not just superconductivity?"

"Read the thesis again if you don't understand. The existence of the Mott insulator means the graphene can be 'opened' and 'closed'. What does this mean? Do I really need to explain it?"

Zhao Qing said: "… Semiconductor?"

Professor Li Rongen nodded with approval and said, "Correct."

Due to graphene's high charge carrier mobility, it had a broad application when used in electronic transistors.

Also, everyone knew that graphene had no bandwidth, which meant that the graphene electronic devices would remain highly conductive at any voltage and could not be completely turned off, thereby limiting their use in electronics.

However, the magic of the Mott insulator was that it added a voltage gate to the material which allowed the graphene superlattice electrons to rapidly pass through like there was no resistance.

Obviously, this created an "opening" and "closed" state.

If one only wanted to utilize this property of the Mott insulator, one didn't need to achieve the superconductivity temperature of 101K.

Therefore, this thesis wasn't only significant in the superconductivity industry, it also opened up a door to graphene semiconductors.

Not only would the energy industry be interested, but major electronics manufacturers would also pay attention to this area of research at the MRS conference.

After all, graphene was sold by the gram. Thus, to use it to transmit power was too expensive. However, it could be used in electronics.

Suddenly, the taskbar below the browser flashed.

When Professor Li Rongen saw the email notification, he opened his email.

He was stunned when he saw this email, but a gleeful smirk gradually appeared on his face.

"This kid didn't forget me."

It was the invitation to the Nobel Prize award ceremony.

He originally planned to watch it on TV, and he didn't expect to have the opportunity to see it in person…

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Chapter 457: Highly Rated MRS Autumn Conference

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Professor Li Rongen wasn't the only one that received an invitation.

Old Tang and Academician Lu also received one.

Once Lu Zhou sent out these three invitations, he suddenly found out that his worries were unnecessary.

His parents and Xiao Tong, his three professors from Jin Ling University, his five students, and Chen Yushan… It seemed like he had almost used up all of his invitations?

Lu Zhou spent a while thinking about the remaining two invitations, but he couldn't come up with an idea.

Professor Deligne would be attending the European Mathematical Society in France with Professor Fefferman.

As for Witten…

He might be interested in attending the Nobel Prize dinner, but unfortunately, he would be at CERN to participate in a very important international theoretical physics conference, so he didn't have time.

It seemed that everyone would be pretty busy during the few weeks before Christmas.

As for inviting his previous roommates…

There weren't enough spots left, and he didn't want to leave anyone out.

Lu Zhou couldn't come up with a good idea, so he decided to leave this issue aside.

I guess I just won't invite anyone else. It's not like I have to invite 14 people.

He had more important things to do.

Like finding a suitable method for the industrial manufacturing of SG-1…

The samples in experiments were created using a chemical vapor deposition method on a high-temperature carbon substrate. After that, the substrate was dissolved to obtain graphene.

However, this wasn't enough as this process only yielded the basic graphene material. In order to enable it to achieve superconductivity at 101K, it needed to be subjected to a series of processes, such as N doping.

Actually, these things should be figured out by the market. However, Lu Zhou didn't want to wait that long.

When engineers like Professor Lazerson finally opened up their minds and saw the value in this industry that had small profits but no competitors, it would be way past Lu Zhou's mission deadline.

For now, the most popular use of superconducting materials was for scientific research.

Fortunately, Lu Zhou had read some industrial design books in his free time, and he went to a few engineering lectures. Combined that with his engineering knowledge which was at Level 2, it wasn't difficult for him to absorb new knowledge.

He might not be able to design a production line from start to finish, but he could improve the laboratory preparation method and find a lower cost synthesis method.

Worst case scenario, he would just use the laboratory preparation method.

It would just cost a bit of money.

If he really created a DEMO fusion reactor, he wouldn't ever have to worry about money.

For that, he would be willing to burn a hundred million dollars… or even a billion.

It was almost the end of the month when Professor Chirik got on a plane to Boston and headed to the MRS Autumn Conference.

As for Lu Zhou, other than his SG-1 material experiments, he had been preparing for his seminar which would begin after the Nobel Prize award ceremony.

Interestingly, he had received a lot of invitations to accept awards.

The most famous one among them was the Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics. Apparently, it was sponsored by a Russian billionaire and the founders of Google, Facebook, Tencent, and other companies. There were also some less famous awards, ones that couldn't even be found online.

After all, Lu Zhou was the youngest Nobel Prize laureate, and both his age and achievements were something worth paying attention to.

Bragg first set the record when he was 25 years old. It took a century for the record to be beaten by one year. Who knew how many centuries it would take for it to be beaten again.

Lu Zhou didn't mind receiving a few extra awards, but there were so many invitations piled up in his mailbox that it gave him a headache.

It seemed that winning a Nobel Prize really increased his popularity.

After flying to Stockholm, he still had to fly to Paris. Lu Zhou really didn't have that much time to fly around the world. In the end, he decided to let Xiao Ai get rid of the invitations that weren't relevant to academia.

However, Lu Zhou later learned that the Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics was worth US$3 million…

He couldn't help but feel heartbroken to have lost US$3 million.

Although US$3 million wasn't a lot of money for him, but still, who didn't want more money?

Furthermore, this was free money.

However, since he had already refused the invitation, he couldn't do anything about it anymore.

…

On the last day of November, Lu Zhou applied for a long vacation away from Princeton to prepare for his to Stockholm.

Around the same time, a piece of good news came from Professor Chirik, who was at the MRS Autumn Conference in Boston.

Professor Chirik spoke excitedly through the phone.

"The report went very smoothly and the seats and aisles were completely full! You should have seen it in person!"

When Lu Zhou heard Professor Chirik's energetic voice, he couldn't help but smirk.

When he reported at the MRS conference on the modified PDMS, the aisles were also full of people.

He felt nostalgic just thinking about this.

Lu Zhou began to talk about the important part.

"Are there any companies that are interested in our technology?"

Chirik: "There is, but… it might not be what you expected."

Lu Zhou: "What do you mean?"

Chirik: "IBM wants us, and they're very interested in our technology. However, it's not because of the superconductivity but because of the semiconductor properties exhibited by the Mott insulator at a particular angle."

A light bulb went off in Lu Zhou's brain.

"They plan on using the SG-1 material in electronics?"

Professor Chirik nodded and said, "Seems like it. They're doing research on carbon-based electronic devices. However, they only asked about some technical details and if we needed funding. I told them we don't, so they left without saying anything else."

Chirik sounded a bit disappointed.

When the IBM representative talked to him, he thought they wanted to pay for a license. Unfortunately, they didn't do that.

Obviously, they had doubts about whether or not this material could actually be used on electronic devices. They needed to verify it by doing experiments in their own laboratory.

As for the superconducting material itself, some medical device companies that were involved in superconducting materials production expressed interest in this technology.

Lu Zhou noticed that his partner seemed to be a little upset, so he said, "There's nothing to be upset about. The field of superconducting materials isn't popular, so it's normal if the market isn't interested."

"I know… I just feel as if this great technology isn't being recognized by the industry…" Professor Chirik didn't know how to describe this feeling, so he merely shrugged and said, "It's just a little unfortunate."

Lu Zhou: "Not being recognized by the industry doesn't hinder the greatness of a piece of technology. Also, I can promise you that this technology will be used in a great project."

Chirik: "Like?"

Lu Zhou coughed and said, "I can't tell you now, but you'll know what I'm talking about by 2025."

Professor Chirik said, "Okay then, it seems like I'll have to wait 7 years for the mystery to reveal itself."

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Chapter 458: Back To Stockholm

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

After the report was finished, the mission chain submission regarding superconducting materials was also completed.

Once Lu Zhou hung up the call with Professor Chirik, he lay down on his bed. He closed his eyes and whispered, "System."

Shortly after, his consciousness entered the pure white system space.

He walked in front of the information screen and clicked on the mission panel.

[Fusion Light mission chain

[Optional branch mission: Research and develop a carbon-based superconducting material that has a superconductivity transition temperature of over 100K. (Completed)

[Mission rewards: 100,000 materials science experience points, 100,000 biochemistry experience points. (Available for collection)]

Lu Zhou was speechless when he saw this mission reward.

The branch mission alone had an experience award of over 200,000 points. He wondered what kind of bountiful rewards he would receive after completing the entire mission chain.

After he received the mission rewards, his characteristic panel was updated. His biochemistry went from Level 3 to Level 4. It was now at the same level as his materials science.

On the other hand, after the completion of this branch mission, the mission panel was refreshed.

The branch mission regarding superconducting materials didn't disappear. Rather, it was replaced by a new mission.

Which was to research and develop a carbon-based superconducting material that had a superconductivity transition temperature of over 200K.

The mission rewards also increased by a substantial amount.

"Is it even possible to create a material that has superconductivity at a high temperature like 200K?"

After Lu Zhou read the mission description, he had a thoughtful expression on his face.

For something like scientific research, knowing whether it was feasible or theoretically possible was a very important piece of information.

Just like how after the Manhattan Project ended, many other countries also completed their nuclear experiments.

Prior to that, Einstein heavily advocated for the development of nuclear weapons. Even then, in his letter to Roosevelt, he was uncertain about whether or not this type of weapon would produce the expected power output.

However, optional missions were still optional, and Lu Zhou didn't have to complete them. The so-called controllable nuclear fusion was only a concept, and there was no correct solution to the project.

According to the system's requirements and Lu Zhou's own estimates, building the DEMO power station didn't necessarily require something as high tech as a 200K temperature superconducting material.

Just like quantum computing technology, it'd be great if he could solve it. However, it was fine if he couldn't as he could just substitute it with a powerful supercomputer.

After double-checking the mission panel and having a general idea of the direction of his next research project, Lu Zhou exited from the system space.

…

The days quickly passed by. It was getting closer and closer to the award ceremony date.

The Nobel Prize award ceremony actually began on the 10th of December. However, there was a press conference waiting for Lu Zhou on the 7th. In order to avoid a tight schedule, most Nobel Prize laureates would often arrive half a week or even a week earlier.

The first Thursday in December.

Lu Zhou drove his five students to New York JFK International Airport, and they all boarded a flight to Sweden.

After a long flight, the airplane landed steadily on the runway of Stockholm Arlanda Airport.

With help from the airport staff, they walked through the VIP passenger channel. Lu Zhou met with the Permanent Secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Vice President of the Nobel Foundation, Academician Staffan Normark.

This was Lu Zhou's second time in this town.

This was also his second time meeting Academician Staffan.

Academician Staffan opened his arms and gave Lu Zhou a warm hug. He then shook Lu Zhou's hand and said, "Welcome, Professor Lu! It's been two years since we last met. I didn't expect to see you so soon."

"Actually, it's two years and seven months," Lu Zhou said as he shook Academician Staffan's hand. He then added, "Long time no see."

The last time they met was for the Crafoord Prize, and at that time, Academician Staffan was also responsible for welcoming Lu Zhou to Stockholm.

Lu Zhou hadn't seen Staffan in a long time. He didn't expect this old Viking man to be so tough.

Of course, Academician Staffan was the one that was more surprised.

"After you became the youngest winner of the Crafoord Prize, I didn't expect you to become the youngest Nobel Prize winner as well," Academician Staffan said as he looked at Lu Zhou. He then smiled and continued, "Honestly, after the Nobel Committee listed your name for the chemistry prize, the Royal Academy spent half a month arguing about you."

Lu Zhou then asked jokingly, "Is it because of my age or my identity as a mathematician?"

Academician Staffan smiled as he replied, "A bit of both."

After some small talk, Academician Staffan looked at the people standing behind Lu Zhou.

"These are?"

Lu Zhou said, "They are my students. They're attending the banquet with me."

Academician Staffan smiled and said, "Then let's not waste everybody's time. Let's get in the car. We can continue to chat in the hotel."

Lu Zhou smiled. "Sounds great."

There were two Volvo cars parked outside the airport VIP exit.

According to Academician Staffan, a Swedish Royal Guard was driving the car.

Interestingly, even though the Royal Guards existed, the Swedish Royal Family still drove themselves during their daily commutes. Even the king did so.

No wonder Old Carl was willing to give up the throne when he pursued Kristel.

A stingy throne like that was pretty worthless.

After getting in the car, the group went straight to the Stockholm Grand Hotel.

It was a convention for the Nobel Prize winner and their friends to live here. The last time Lu Zhou came to Stockholm to attend the Crafoord Prize award ceremony, he also lived here—even his hotel room number was similar.

Xiao Tong arrived at the hotel first. When she saw her brother at the hotel entrance, she excitedly ran over to him and grabbed his arm.

Although she was only grabbing his arm, this movement made Vera extremely anxious.

Hardy poked Qin Yue's arm and whispered, "Hey, do you know who this girl is?"

Qin Yue knew what Hardy was thinking, so he sighed and said, "It's probably the professor's sister."

When Hardy heard it was Lu Zhou's sister, he suddenly looked bored.

Professor Lu's love life was just like his research retreat method; it was one of the legends at Princeton.

Compared to the Nobel Prize, Hardy was more interested in Lu Zhou's love life.

Wei Wen, who hadn't said a word, suddenly asked, "You've seen her before?"

Qin Yue shook his head and said, "Nope."

Wei Wen: "… Then how did you know?"

Qin Yue was speechless. "Isn't it obvious? Standing next to their parents, around the same age, what else could it be? His girlfriend?"

Wei Wen looked at the tall girl and asked, "What about her?"

Qin Yue went silent for a while before he spoke in an uncertain tone.

"Sister?"

Wei Wen shook his head.

"Doesn't seem like it."

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Chapter 459: What Do We Call Her?

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Xiao Tong shook Lu Zhou's arm and smiled cheekily as she asked, "Brother, do you miss me?"

Lu Zhou gently patted Xiao Tong's hair and said with a smile, "I did. Of course I miss you, I miss you to death."

Lu Zhou looked at his parents walking over and said, "Dad, Mum, when did you guys get here?"

Fang Mei looked at her son and said with a smile, "We arrived in the morning. Thankfully, your friends came to pick us up. Otherwise, we wouldn't know how to get here. Make sure you thank them."

Old Lu said, "Definitely thank them."

Lu Zhou immediately looked at Chen Yushan, who was standing nearby. She was looking at Lu Zhou with a smug smile.

Although she didn't say anything, Lu Zhou could almost read the expression on her face. It was something along the lines of "Look, am I not amazing?".

Lu Zhou: "… How did you guys meet up?"

Xiao Tong looked at her curious brother and waved the phone in her hand as she said, "It's because of me."

Lu Zhou suddenly remembered that when Xiao Tong came to America to visit him, she became friends with Chen Yushan and Han Mengqi.

They probably exchanged WeChat details back then.

Chen Yushan looked at Lu Zhou who was reuniting with his family and walked over with a smile.

"Little Brother, long time no see, do you miss me?"

Feeling a little embarrassed, Lu Zhou smiled and said, "It hasn't been that long. Didn't we see each other last month?"

Xiao Tong said, "Bro, a month is a long time!"

Chen Yushan looked at Xiao Tong supporting her and sighed. She then said, "It's fine, I'm used to it."

Lu Zhou: "…?"

…

After having some small talk at the hotel entrance, the group went inside the hotel.

Lu Zhou and the rest of his family stayed in the rooms on the fourth floor while everyone else stayed in the rooms on the third floor.

Coincidentally, Qin Yue and the boys' rooms were at the right end of the corridor, while Chen Yushan and Vera's rooms were at the left end of the corridor.

The group walked out of the third-floor elevator and walked in opposite directions. Wei Wen seemed to be thinking about something while walking toward his room. He then asked, "Chen Yushan's little brother is Lu Zhou, should we call her older sister?"

Qin Yue thought for a moment before he spoke in a serious tone, "We should call her auntie."

Wei Wen: "… Where did you get that from?"

Qin Yue said: "… Didn't you read martial art light novels?"

Wei Wen: "…"

Because the two were speaking Mandarin, Hardy was completely confused. However, when he saw the two talking in such a serious manner, he couldn't help but ask, "What are you guys talking about?"

Qin Yue said in a serious tone, "We're talking about how to call Chen Yushan."

Hardy was even more perplexed. "Then did you guys come to a conclusion?"

Wei Wen nodded and said, "We did, you can call…"

Wei Wen suddenly stopped.

He made eye contact with Qin Yue, and they both looked baffled.

How do we say this… in English?

On the other hand, Chen Yushan and Vera were quietly walking toward their respective rooms.

The two didn't talk much. However, Vera would, from time to time, secretly glanced at Chen Yushan.

She had to admit, Chen Yushan was really beautiful both in terms of her looks and her figure.

Especially Chen Yushan's big chest…

Vera couldn't help but feel frustrated every time she accidentally glanced at her.

She inherited the classic Slavic pale skin and blonde hair. However, there were two genes she didn't inherit.

One was the tall gene, and the other was the gene responsible for bigger breasts…

Chen Yushan noticed that Vera would occasionally look at her, so she tilted her head and smiled at Vera.

"What's up?"

"No, nothing." Vera accidentally made eye contact with Chen Yushan and panicked. She then quickly looked away.

Chen Yushan had to admit, Vera was very cute.

She looked at the frightened little girl and smiled as she said, "I'm Chen Yushan, can you tell me your name?"

"I'm… I'm Vera Pulyuy," Vera said after a moment of hesitation.

"Vera Pulyuy? That's a good name. Nice to meet you," Chen Yushan said with a smile.

Vera: "… Nice to meet you too."

Although Vera wasn't good at communicating with extroverted people, she had a good impression of Chen Yushan.

She felt weird. Chen Yushan should be somewhat confrontational and aggressive. However, she didn't do that.

Does this mean that she doesn't see me as a threat at all?

Vera couldn't help but feel depressed.

…

After putting his luggage in the hotel room, Lu Zhou took his friends and family to eat dinner with Academician Staffan.

After they finished their dinner, he received a call from Old Tang.

When Lu Zhou heard that they just got off the plane, he immediately sent him the address of the hotel.

Soon after, a taxi was parked at the hotel entrance.

When Academician Lu gracefully got off the taxi, he saw Lu Zhou standing at the hotel entrance. He then waved hello and walked over.

"Lu Zhou, meeting you isn't easy."

When Lu Zhou heard Academician Lu's words, he smiled.

"Professor, it's not that I don't want to see you, but every time I go to Jin Ling University, you're not there."

Speaking of which, this really was unlucky.

There were always countless theoretical physics conferences around the world. Academician Lu was one of the BESIII representatives; therefore, he represented the entire Chinese theoretical physics community. He couldn't just act like Lu Zhou, who would reject many conference invitations.

It was no exaggeration to say that every year, he'd spend an entire month either on a plane or at an airport.

Lu Zhou went to visit Jin Ling University a couple of times before. During those times, he managed to visit Old Tang, but he never got the chance to see Academician Lu. It wasn't because the old man didn't want to see him, but because he physically couldn't.

Old Tang laughed when he heard Lu Zhou.

"I can testify. Every time Lu Zhou came to Jin Ling University, he would pay a visit to your office."

When Academician Lu heard Old Tang, he felt a little embarrassed, so he gently coughed.

"It's cold outside, let's talk inside."

The group walked into the Stockholm Grand Hotel.

As Professor Li Rongen looked at the grand hotel, he couldn't help but say, "I can't believe a mathematician became the first-ever Chinese to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. How are you feeling now? Are you nervous?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "I'm okay. The Crafoord Prize award ceremony is similar to the Nobel Prize award ceremony."

Academician Lu smiled and shook his head. "There's definitely a difference. Even the people attending are different…"

Old Tang looked at his former student for a long time. Suddenly, he broke into a smile.

"I'm honestly both surprised and honored at your achievements. I've been a professor for so many years, and even then, I never thought that one day, I would teach a future Fields Medal and Nobel Prize laureate. Furthermore, they're the same person."

Old Tang paused for a second before he continued, "The award ceremony is in a few days. By then, not only will you be representing yourself, but you will also be representing the entire Chinese academic community. I don't have much else to say since I can't help you much either. But we will be cheering for you in the crowd, so do your best!"

Knowing that Old Tang spoke from the bottom of his heart, Lu Zhou nodded solemnly.

"Yes, I will!"

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Chapter 460: December 10th

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

At 3 pm on December 10th, the long Nordic winter had begun in Stockholm.

However, the cold didn't dissipate anyone's enthusiasm.

Reporters from all over the world stood in front of the entrance of the Stockholm Grand Hotel while they quietly waited. With cameras and microphones in their hands, they hoped to see a certain group of people.

"Brother, there are so many people outside."

Xiao Tong looked out through the hotel window. She was normally quite lively, but at that moment, she felt anxious at this nerve-wracking moment.

She had been to many social events over the past two and a half years. However, the school activities at Jin Ling University were at a lower level compared to this world-class event.

Lu Zhou: "Scared?"

Xiao Tong nodded.

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Then go with Old Tang. If you really don't want to, there's no need to force yourself."

There were two cars going to the Stockholm Concert Hall. One was for the Nobel Prize winner and his relatives, while the other was for the guests who were invited to attend the award ceremony and dinner. Although this was all ceremonious, the feeling of sitting in a different car was different.

Xiao Tong shook her head.

Even though she was shy, it was obvious she didn't want to miss this event.

Seeing that Xiao Tong was in a dilemma, Lu Zhou smiled and shook his head.

After a while, he said, "Just follow behind me, don't think about anything else."

Maybe it was because Lu Zhou sounded reliable, Xiao Tong, who was mentally distressed, suddenly felt more secure.

She looked at the crowd of people outside the hotel and suddenly spoke.

"Brother."

Lu Zhou: "What now?"

Xiao Tong held the window curtains and asked in a serious tone, "What have you been experiencing over the past few years?"

Lu Zhou was stunned when he heard this. He then smiled as he answered her.

"That's a long story. If you really want to know, it'll take a long, long time to tell you. I'm afraid it won't even fit into a book."

Xiao Tong stuck her tongue out and said, "Bragging again."

"That's not bragging." Lu Zhou felt emotional just thinking about his past. He paused for a second before he joked, "What? Do you think that I've changed?"

Xiao Tong shook her head. She didn't say anything but her mouth perked up.

Even though her brother had changed a lot.

It didn't matter to her.

My brother… is still my most reliable brother…

Old Lu also looked outside the window.

Compared to the nervous Xiao Tong, Old Lu was much calmer.

If he smoked a cigarette, he would look even more charismatic…

Unfortunately, if he lit a cigarette, he would probably end up on the news.

Fang Mei looked at her husband and couldn't help but say, "You really are calm. You'll have to do an interview soon, are you not nervous?"

Old Lu replied calmly, "I'm so proud of my son, and I can't just embarrass him, can I? Plus, since we're representing the face of the country, we can't let people look down on us!"

Fang Mei said, "Look at you, old man. You often go to the logistics department to read newspapers and didn't get a promotion, but you adopted the leadership team's mannerisms."

"What do you mean by 'old man'?" Old Lu looked at Fang Mei and asked, "Is fifty old?"

Fang Mei poked his arm and said with a smile, "Your hair is white, isn't that old?"

It was time to leave.

His parents and Xiao Tong followed Academician Staffan downstairs.

Lu Zhou approached the hotel front door and felt his heart beating out of his chest. He then gently adjusted his tie and took a deep breath.

This moment… is finally here!

…

It was very cold outside the hotel, but the atmosphere was very warm.

A CTV reporter wore a puffer jacket and held a microphone. He scrambled in the crowd and stood at the front row, facing his cameraman. With a high-spirited voice, he spoke to his audience members, which were thousands of miles away, about the situation at this grand event.

"We are now live at the Stockholm Grand Hotel… We are waiting for the Nobel Prize winners to attend the upcoming award ceremony at the Stockholm Concert Hall.

"There's a ton of people here, and everyone's feeling excited and energetic. Other than media reporters, standing here with us are local Stockholm citizens, and our Chinese friends… Look!"

There was no need for any explanation.

A group of people walked out of the hotel entrance.

All of the cameras moved quickly, focusing on one person.

Accompanied by his parents and Xiao Tong, Lu Zhou walked out of the hotel VIP entrance. He was then bombarded with camera flashes. There were other Nobel Prize laureates walking next to him; some were alone, some had a partner.

However, even though Lu Zhou was standing in a group of brilliant human minds, he was the most unique out of all of them.

Both because of his youthfulness… and because of his confidence.

Professor Lu looked at the CTV camera and smiled at the audience behind the camera lens.

The reporter was even more excited when he noticed Lu Zhou looking at them. His voice trembled with excitement.

"Right now, walking in front of us is this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate, Lu Zhou! He is accompanied by his family as he shares this glorious moment with them.

"There is no doubt, that at the tender age of 24, he is the youngest Nobel Prize laureate in history!

"This is another Nobel Prize for the Chinese!

"Also the first Nobel Prize in Chemistry for a Chinese citizen!"

The reporter was shouting in order to stand out from the noisy environment. He began to sound a bit exhausted; his voice even began to crack.

However, no one blamed him for this.

At this inspiring moment, people were just as excited as him.

He really wanted to bring the microphone to Lu Zhou and interview this young Nobel Prize winner.

Unfortunately, that wasn't possible. If he wanted to interview this world-renowned scholar, he would have to wait until after the award ceremony.

Lu Zhou smiled and nodded at the microphones and cameras coming from both sides. He then sat in the car that was prepared especially for him, which was parked at the hotel entrance, and headed toward the Nobel Prize award ceremony venue with the other laureates.

Just like previous years.

The moment the clock hit 4.30 pm, "Song of Kings" began to play, thus kicking off the Nobel Prize award ceremony.

More than 1,300 people attended this award ceremony. There were members of the Nobel family, members of the Royal family, politicians, and people from all corners of academia.

In order to signify the ceremonial nature of this event, every minute and detail of the ceremony had been carefully planned and arranged, from the winner's white bowtie paired with the black tux to the decorative ceremony crowns…

An interesting rumor was that the Nobel Prize award ceremony itself cost more than the annual prize money.

And in fact, it did.

A few weeks before this banquet, the Nobel Foundation ceremonial secretary was as busy as an army's general; all of this was done to make this award ceremony proceed in an orderly manner.

The first to speak on this international stage was the chairman of the Nobel Foundation, Carl-Henrik Heldin.

In his opening speech, he said that the winners were all role models, and he hoped that they could continue their work, to make more scientific discoveries in the future, and to produce better theses…

As Lu Zhou stood in the backstage of the podium, his emotions made it difficult to breathe.

He didn't even hear what Mr. Heldin said.

That was until the chairman of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, Academician Claes, walked on stage.

He faced the auditorium and spoke in a solemn and loud voice.

"For a long time, the chemistry industry has been troubled with an obvious problem. This problem on how to establish a quantitative relationship between structure and properties is one of the most important 21st-century chemistry problems.

"And as we all know, the theory of electrochemical interfaces is an important pillar of modern electrochemistry. The inability to thoroughly explain the microscopic nature of various electrochemical processes means we do not know what chemical phenomenon is happening in front of us."

Academician Claes paused for two seconds before he continued, "However, he used a mathematical method to open up a new way of research thinking. And countless experiments have proved that he is correct."

Academician Cleas looked at the crowd and increased his voice as he announced the decision of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.

"This year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner is Professor Lu Zhou!

"Let us give him a round of applause."

That last sentence was completely redundant.

Because the second Academician Claes finished speaking, the entire Stockholm Concert Hall was filled with thunderous applause…

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Chapter 461: Most Crowded Dinner In The World

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Nervous?

A bit.

But I don't feel anything anymore.

Excited?

Of course.

This was the highest scientific glory, also the greatest honor a scholar can receive from the academic community.

What the Nobel Prize can bring is far beyond the value of the nine million kronor prize money.

Even the Fields Medal is inferior in this aspect.

Lu Zhou walked steadily on stage in the midst of the thunderous applause.

He made brief eye contact with the chemistry committee; Academician Claes smiled at him; Academician Olof nodded; Ms. Linse was expressionless; Academician Brzezinski… seemed to be a little unhappy?

Obviously, even now, there were conflicts between the members of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.

But in any case, this thing was a done deal.

With the crowd and media watching from all over the world, Lu Zhou received the gold medal and award certificate from the hands of King Carl XVI Gustaf.

Carl XVI Gustaf shook hands with Lu Zhou and smiled.

"Congratulations, young scholar, I've given out many Nobel Prizes, but you are the youngest one."

Lu Zhou nodded politely and said, "Thank you. I promise, there will be younger people in the future."

Carl XVI Gustaf smiled and said, "Haha, I hope so, I hope science is always youthful!"

The audience stood up and paid tribute.

The applause echoed throughout Stockholm Concert Hall.

It lasted for a long time…

…

After the award ceremony.

By convention, all of the winners and guests would move to the Blue Hall at the Stockholm City Hall for the famous Nobel Banquet.

Lu Zhou looked at the red brick building located next to the lake. He walked up to the stairs and suddenly said, "Actually, I wanted to ask something the last time I was here."

Academician Staffan said, "What do you want to ask? Maybe I can answer for you."

Lu Zhou looked around and said, "Why is it called the Blue Hall? I didn't notice anything that's blue."

When Academician Staffan heard this, he smiled and said with a funny tone, "A lot of people have asked me this question. Apparently, the designer of the City Hall intended to paint this blue in order to match with Lake Mälaren. However, after it was built, everyone thought the red brick looked more solemn."

Lu Zhou said, "Which is saying… the construction of the Blue Hall isn't finished yet?"

Academician Staffan smiled as he replied, "From an architectural perspective, yes."

Regardless of whether or not it was "finished", the Nobel Prize had been held there for more than a century. Not only were people in the academic community interested in this ancient ritual, but the people outside of academia were also interested.

Every year, there would be tens of thousands of people that wrote to the Nobel Prize Foundation, asking to attend the banquet. However, the probability of being chosen was no different than winning the lottery.

Lu Zhou sat down inside the Blue Hall and looked around.

He saw people sitting between the long row of tables; it was even more crowded than an academic report seminar.

If there was one difference between this and the Crafoord Prize ceremony, it was the size of the crowd.

1,300 people would be eating at the same time. After all of the guests were seated, each person was basically seated shoulder to shoulder. Apparently, the dining space per person was only 40 cm.

However, Lu Zhou felt like it was even worse than he had imagined.

Soon after, the first dish arrived. It was a bottle of unlabeled champagne.

The bottle cork was opened, and a line of dense air bubbles formed from the bottom to the top of the bottle. It seemed to take forever for the bubbles to disappear. Other than the elegant floral and fruity aromas of the wine, it also carried a scent of burning oak barrels.

Staffan poured some into his and Lu Zhou's goblet. He smiled and said, "Fourny, special French farmer champagne. It has a special sweet, sugary taste. In order to meet the demands of more than a thousand people, the Nobel Foundation had to reserve an entire farm."

Lu Zhou looked at the clear liquid and smiled. "You guys really know how to enjoy life."

"It's not just enjoyment, it's also to pay respects." Academician Staffan raised his glass and said, "Cheers."

Lu Zhou tapped his cup. "Cheers!"

Like what Academician Staffan had said, the liquid tasted exceptionally sweet in the mouth, leaving a strong aftertaste.

Perhaps, this was the taste of victory?

…

The atmosphere inside the Blue Hall was animated, and the same was reflected outside the Blue Hall.

Even though the Northern European sun had already gown down, it was far from bedtime.

Many local citizens of Stockholm would walk around Lake Mälaren and look at the red brick building.

The local Chinese students did the same.

If there was anyone happier than Lu Zhou and his family, it would undoubtedly be the local Chinese community.

Other than some extreme examples, there wasn't anyone else that could empathize more strongly with Lu Zhou's achievements.

As early as October, when the Nobel Committee for Chemistry announced the list of chemistry winners, the entire Chinese community in Stockholm held a celebration.

However, now, it seemed that their celebration was only a preview of today.

Because there were a lot more people gathered here today.

They were holding red lanterns in their hands as they stood outside Stockholm City Hall, completely filling the streets.

Some local citizens were curious and joined in.

It looked like a parade or some type of festival.

This all was obviously captured by the reporters.

With the camera pointed at the crowd gathered outside Stockholm City Hall, the female CTV reporter faced the camera and spoke enthusiastically.

"It's the Nobel Prize night, and the locals, overseas Chinese, and Chinese students are gathered outside Stockholm City Hall. They're holding red lanterns in their hands, hoping to use a special way to give the warmest, most sincere blessings to Scholar Lu Zhou."

"Let us interview them and see what they're thinking!"

She stopped a young Chinese pedestrian and asked in a pleasant voice, "Hello sir, are you a student here?"

The guy with a puffer jacket nodded and said, "Yes."

"Is it always this lively on December 10th?"

Guy: "It depends, Stockholm City Hall is always lively this time of year, but this year is particularly lively."

The reporter smiled and asked, "What do you think about Lu Zhou winning the Nobel Prize?"

The guy smiled heartily and said, "Well, after seeing Professor Lu, I finally understood the difference between me and a Nobel Prize winner."

The reporter had a polite smile on her face.

No shit?

The reporter mocked the guy in her head.

The guy coughed. He then changed his facial expression and continued, "Of course, other than that, what affects me the most is that I can see the progress and development of the Chinese academic community from him.

"The new era of talents is growing, and maybe there are still some shortcomings. However, I believe that one day, Professor Lu won't be the only Chinese scholar to walk on the international academic stage, mark my words!"

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Chapter 462: Can I Dance With You?

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Lu Zhou thought he would get completely wasted, but in reality, it was the opposite.

Not only did he not get wasted, but he didn't even get to eat enough food.

Although the banquet served many courses, each dish was only half the size of a palm.

Also, other than the bottle of champagne at the beginning and the dessert at the end, three of the meal courses contained alcohol. This was quite different than what Lu Zhou was accustomed to.

Lu Zhuo wasn't the only one still hungry; Xiao Tong was the same.

No matter how much food or alcohol the Lu family consumed, they couldn't gain weight.

Xiao Tong was wearing an evening gown, and she wasn't even 50% full. She licked her lips in an unladylike manner and looked around; she seemed to be looking for a server.

Unfortunately, she wasn't able to find one. In the end, she could only look at her all-powerful brother with pitiful eyes.

However, Lu Zhou didn't have a solution either.

He looked at Xiao Tong's pitiful eyes and replied with a helpless look.

"It's fine. I can't do anything. It's not like we can get the chef to give you another full course meal."

After the dinner ended, the guests followed the Nobel Prize winners and royal family to the Gold Hall.

The extravagant golden hall and painting of Goddess Mälaren on the wall looked especially familiar to Lu Zhou.

Because he stood here for the Crafoord Prize.

Back then, he had a feeling that he would stand here again one day.

Now, it seemed that day finally came.

And it arrived sooner than what he had expected.

Academician Claes noticed Lu Zhou was standing motionless on the side of the dance floor. He walked over and asked cheerfully, "Do you need help with anything?"

Lu Zhou had a brief moment of eye contact with Claes at the award ceremony.

Although Lu Zhou didn't know what he looked like, he could tell from the award ceremony standing positions that he was the chairman of the chemistry prize review committee.

Lu Zhou looked helpless as he asked, "Do I have to dance?"

When Academician Claes heard his question, he laughed. "Of course you do! This is a custom. Not to mention, you're one of the main characters on stage; the media all over the world is waiting for your dance."

Lu Zhou coughed and said, "I promise, my report is more exhilarating than my dance."

"It's not about the dance, it's about who is dancing."

Seeing that Lu Zhou looked a little embarrassed, Academician Claes smiled and said, "Don't worry. Even if your shoe flies out, no one will laugh. At most…"

"At most?"

Academician Claes smiled and said, "At most, people will remember it. Just like you winning that medal, it'll be written in history books or something."

Lu Zhou: "…"

F*ck sake!

I guess he's f*cking with me.

This isn't good…

Lu Zhou tried to find an excuse, and he said, "You should have told me earlier. This is too sudden; I don't even have a partner."

Unfortunately, his plan didn't succeed.

Because right as the words came out of his mouth, a beautiful voice came from the side.

"Do you mind dancing with me?"

Lu Zhou looked over and saw a woman in a light blue evening gown.

Lu Zhou had a brief exchange with her. She was none other than Princess Madeleine, daughter of Carl XVI.

Even though the European media didn't have a good opinion of this beautiful lady with countless affairs, this was a ceremonious dance party. It had nothing to do with the lady's personal life.

"There's no need to prepare for a dance partner in advance," Academician Claes said as he raised his eyebrows and patted Lu Zhou's shoulder. He then smiled and said, "The dance is about to start, I won't bother you two."

…

Even though Lu Zhou still wasn't interested in dancing, Princess Madeleine's invitation was in good faith, and it would be somewhat rude to refuse it.

Not to mention, at that moment, he represented more than just himself.

The two stood on the dance floor and moved rhythmically to music while chatting.

Madeleine: "Do you remember the small card on the table?"

Lu Zhou, who was gradually getting used to the rhythm of the music, said, "I kind of remember it, why?"

Madeleine grinned and said, "Before the Nobel Banquet, the Nobel Foundation ceremonial secretary would consult the opinions of the guests and try to satisfy their banquet requests. The requests would be written on the card."

"So?"

"So we're always able to see a lot of interesting requests, like 'I want to sit next to Professor Lu Zhou'."

Lu Zhou said, "What kind of strange request is that?"

Princess Madeleine replied, "It's not strange since there are similar requests every year. However, there's a lot more this year. As far as I know, the Nobel Foundation received more than 50 similar requests. Some of them were from academia while the other 70% or so were probably from people that didn't exactly admire your academic achievements."

Lu Zhou asked, "Why?"

"Because this 70% came from a young woman," Princess Madeleine said as she grinned and looked at Lu Zhou. She said in a teasing manner: "I've always been curious, what kind of scholar can attract so many women."

Lu Zhou coughed and tried to change the question. " Unfortunately, I can't be split into 50 copies."

Princess Madeleine paused for a second and smiled as she said, "You're funny."

The song quickly ended.

Princess Madeleine let go of Lu Zhou's hand and gently adjusted her dress as she cheerfully asked, "What do you think?"

Lu Zhou had accidentally stepped on her foot a few times, so he felt awkward and said, "I just got the hang of it but it's over."

Princess Madeleine smiled and said, "Then, do you want me to teach you again?"

Lu Zhou: "… I'd rather not."

For him, dancing was much more difficult than sprinting around Lake Carnegie.

Thankfully, his shoe didn't fly off.

Seeing that Lu Zhou was slightly uncomfortable, Princess Madeleine smiled and teased.

"Actually there's plenty of beautiful ladies that want to dance with you. There's still a lot of time left, so enjoy this night to the fullest."

She gently bowed toward Lu Zhou. She then inadvertently looked to the side before she walked away gracefully.

Lu Zhou was stunned, and he looked at the direction she was staring at. He then saw Vera in a black evening dress gown.

Vera squeezed the frill on her dress and blushed. She then said nervously, "I borrowed this dress from a friend… Does it fit?"

Actually, Lu Zhou wanted to say the dress was slightly too big as the hem was nearly touching the ground.

However, he didn't want to hurt her self-esteem.

After all, height was a sensitive topic for both boys and girls.

However, Lu Zhou certainly wasn't lacking in the height department.

"It doesn't fit perfectly… But it's beautiful."

Vera was somewhat sad when she heard the first half of that sentence, but she burst into a grin when she heard the second half.

"Then… Can I dance with you?"

Perhaps Vera's smile was too bright, as it caused Lu Zhou to be stunned for half a second.

A thought emerged in his head.

Is this appropriate?

Lu Zhou looked at Vera's hopeful eyes and paused for a second.

There didn't seem to be a Princeton rule against dancing with students.

After a brief moment of hesitation, he nodded with a smile.

"Of course you can."

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Chapter 463: I Promise, It's More Interesting Than Lithium Batteries

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

What would happen when two rookies dance?

Lu Zhou, who accepted Vera's invitation to a dance, didn't think about this problem.

But now, he finally had a deep and painful understanding of this problem.

"Move your feet to the right, around 3cm… Yes… Don't be so close to me, move more naturally. Yes, okay…"

Lu Zhou's toes were stepped on, and even though the little girl was very light, he was still in pain.

Vera noticed Lu Zhou's reaction and retracted her feet. She then panicked and apologized profusely.

"Sorry, sorry."

Lu Zhou pretended to stay calm as he said, "It's fine, it doesn't hurt."

He finally realized how difficult it was for Madeleine to maintain a smile and avoid the awkwardness after being stepped on…

Vera was blushing after the song ended. She lifted her dress and gave Lu Zhou a slight bow. She then turned around and quickly ran away.

After Lu Zhou was finally freed from this "ritual", he sighed in relief and walked off the dance floor.

Suddenly, he saw an acquaintance.

This was none other than the director of the Max Planck Institute for Physical Chemistry, Professor Gerhard Ertl.

When Professor Ertl noticed Lu Zhou, he smiled and said, "Long time no see."

"Long time no see." Lu Zhou looked at Professor Ertl and said solemnly, "Also, thank you for the nomination letter."

"Don't thank me. Actually, I'm not the only one that recommended you to the Nobel Committee for Chemistry." Professor Ertl smiled as he continued, "However, I am surprised by their decision. I didn't think Academician Claes would make this decision. When I saw the news, I was so surprised that I dropped my sandwich on the table."

Lu Zhou smiled awkwardly. "This… I don't know what to say."

"It's fine, the sandwich still ended up in my stomach," Ertl laughed and said. "In any case, congratulations!"

Lu Zhou didn't step foot on the dance floor for the second half of the dance.

He followed the other guests and left the Gold Hall. Just like the other Nobel Prize laureates, he walked toward his designated car. However, he was ambushed and surrounded by the reporters who were waiting outside.

It was too dark and they were noisy; he couldn't see which media outlets there were.

However, as long as the question was serious, he would give a simple answer.

CNN reporter: "Professor Lu Zhou, how do you plan on spending the nine million kronor prize money?"

Lu Zhou smiled as he replied, "I haven't thought about that yet. Maybe I'll use it to improve my life, maybe I'll fund more research projects… or maybe I'll just put it in the bank."

CNN reporter: "May I ask what your next research project is?"

A lot of people cared about this question.

Or rather, most people that cared about him, also cared about this question.

When Lu Zhou heard the reporter's question, he didn't give a clear answer.

"It's an interesting research project that's difficult to achieve, but if it's feasible, it will change everyone's lives."

The reporter's eyes lit up; she immediately began to follow up on the question.

"More interesting than lithium-sulfur batteries?"

It wasn't just Tesla cars, BYD batteries, DJI drones, and Apple phones… Ever since the lithium-sulfur battery technology breakthrough, high energy density batteries had been integrated into every aspect of society.

Two years ago, it was normal to watch videos while charging your phone. Now, people were used to charging their phones once every three to five days.

Not everyone knew the person behind all this, but the academic community would never forget that person.

Lu Zhou laughed at the reporter's question, and he replied, "I promise this research project is much more interesting than lithium-sulfur batteries!"

After that, even though all of the reporters used up all their tricks, Lu Zhou didn't reveal anything.

He finally escaped the reporters

Lu Zhou got into his designated car and went back to the hotel.

In the hotel lobby, he saw Chen Yushan, who already changed out of her evening gown and into casual wear.

Chen Yushan saw Lu Zhou as well, and her eyes lit up before she immediately walked over.

"Where did you go? I tried looking for you."

The seats at the banquet were separated. The Nobel Prize laureates, royal members, and political figures sat at the main table. Everyone else was scattered at various corners of the venue.

The banquet was crowded, and not everyone was interested in dancing. Therefore, some people might have accidentally followed the crowd and left the venue.

Lu Zhou: "Didn't you go to the Gold Hall?"

Chen Yushan: "Gold Hall?"

Lu Zhou nodded.

"There's a dance after the dinner at the Gold Hall that's next to the Blue Hall…"

When Chen Yushan realized she had missed the last part of the banquet, her expression was like she just lost her wallet. "Ah, why didn't you tell me!"

Lu Zhou was speechless. "I thought you knew."

This is common sense, right?

Emm…

I think it is.

Chen Yushan: "Then… Did you dance?"

Lu Zhou nodded, "Yes."

Chen Yushan asked, "With who?"

Lu Zhou: "Princess Madeleine."

Chen Yushan's eyes lit up. "Princess? Is she pretty?"

Lu Zhou nodded and said, "Kind of…"

Chen Yushan looked regretful, and she sighed before she said, "Ah, I'm jealous, I want to go as well."

Lu Zhou looked at her silently.

It's just a dance with the princess, what is there to be jealous about?

Chen Yushan suddenly looked at him with hope reflected in her eyes.

"Is there another chance in the future?"

Lu Zhou looked at her hopeful eyes and blurted, "This is the Nobel Prize, you want to come here again?!"

Chen Yushan asked, "Can't you win it again? I don't remember there being a rule against winning it more than one time."

Lu Zhou sighed and said, "It's theoretically possible, but it's insanely difficult."

There had been people in history that won two Nobel Prizes, but one could count them on a hand.

Their ability was unquestionable, but luck played a big factor in whether or not they would win the prize.

This also applied to the medal inside Lu Zhou's pocket.

If at the final voting stage, Academician Claes had some doubts about Lu Zhou's age, he would have to wait another year for a chance of winning the prize.

Lu Zhou was well aware of how difficult winning the Nobel Prize was.

Chen Yushan said, "But it is possible, right?"

Lu Zhou shook his head and said, "It's astronomically unlikely."

Chen Yushan laughed and said, "It's a done deal then. If you win it again, you have to take me here!"

Lu Zhou smiled nonchalantly and jokingly replied, "Sure, if there is a next time, not only will I invite you to the banquet, I'll give you whatever you ask for."

Lu Zhou didn't usually make promises.

But he was confident at his slim chances of winning the Nobel Prize again.

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Chapter 464: I Warned You

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

While it was already night time in the city of Stockholm, on the other side of the globe, China's sky was still shining as brightly as ever.

The China Central Television set the tone of the Nobel Prize. After a night of editing and changes, the final decision was to put it on the six o'clock domestic news broadcast and eight o'clock international news broadcast.

Due to the time zone difference, unlike the European media, CTV didn't do a live broadcast of the Nobel Prize ceremony. However, CTV spent the entire news broadcast session covering this moment worthy of national celebration.

The television screen showed Lu Zhou, who was in his tux, receiving the Nobel Prize from Carl XVI and showered by applause.

When the people saw the crowd standing up and applauding, some were excited, and some even began to tear up.

Especially the students from various universities, PhD graduates that recently entered the academic world, and the struggling scientific researchers…

Not only did that see the glory of the Nobel Prize on that young man's body, but they also saw hope.

The Chinese academic community was rising, scholars of China were spread across the world, and the voice of China was redefining science.

What could the people in academia be more excited about?

Unsurprisingly, due to the intense discussion online, Lu Zhou's name was on trending on Weibo again.

After the CCTV's Weibo account posted the news broadcast, the comment section instantly blew up.

[Nutty!]

[God Lu is nutty!]

[F*ck me, 9 million kronor! How much yuan is that?]

[China is the best!]

[My supervisor said the golden stage for a researcher is from 30 to 40 years old. A 24-year-old Nobel Prize winner, that's insane.]

[The scariest part is that even though he's only 24 years old, he's able to produce outstanding results every year. Even Einstein only reached his miracle year at age 26. But ever since he was 20 years old, God Lu hasn't stopped…]

Of course, even though this was a delightful event, there would inevitably be one or two flies flying around, showing off their sesame sized brains.

Especially on a diverse platform like Weibo, anyone with a keyboard was part of the leadership team.

The difference was that these people looked at the country's problems from the perspective of a politician. However, they weren't cultured at all; they lacked the sophistication of politicians.

These people pretended like they knew everything about socialism and capitalism. When in reality, their knowledge of politics and science came from Red Alert and Age of Empires…

Therefore, in between the waves of blessings, there were some ridiculous comments.

[Trash! It's just a Nobel Prize, who cares about some prize given by white people! Haha, it's just like that Yang physicist. All he knows is how to write theses, doing pure research all day, what's the point? Can he make bombs or aircraft? If not, don't bother coming back to China! Wasting our food and money!]

These types of posts represented the views of a certain group of people.

Fortunately, this group of people wasn't the majority.

Not only did he not receive any approval, but he was quickly overwhelmed by criticism.

[I'm shocked, did you eat bombs and aircraft growing up? What type of bomb did you use to type this comment?]

[Nine-year compulsory education has a long way to go.]

[Holding the national flag, fighting against the national flag. Obstructing the country in the name of patriotism. These types of retards are way too common. Also, what gives you the right to judge Old Yang?]

[Now comes the question, what's your use? Other than wasting the country's food?]

[User's mom be like—"I accidentally gave birth to him, I'm… sorry."]

[…]

At last, the Weibo comment was gone.

It might have been deleted by the administrator, or the original poster saw his comment had caused public outrage and deleted his comment to avoid trouble.

This showed that even if it was something the entire country was overjoyed with, some people wouldn't like it.

Some people were just venting while being ignorant.

Others were doing it for their own interests.

For example, Wang Haifeng was probably one of them.

Lu Zhou winning the Nobel Prize was basically a piece of horrible news for him.

He would get furious whenever he walked on campus and heard those dumb undergraduate students talked excitedly about the new Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner.

However, his emotions didn't affect the world at all.

Ever since Lu Zhou won the first-level State Natural Science Award, Wang Haifeng had completely lost his power from going toe to toe with Lu Zhou. Not to mention, Lu Zhou now had the Nobel Prize.

In a chemistry laboratory building at Zhi University…

Wang Haifeng sat in his previous supervisor's office and looked at the newspaper on the table. He then asked, "Does Lu Zhou have any plans to return to China?"

"What do you mean plan to?" Academician Liu smiled when he heard Wang Haifeng's words. He then said, "His family is here, and it's almost New Year's, where else is he going to go? Your house?"

Wang Haifeng: "What are you talking about? I asked if he planned to return to China, not for New Year's!"

"I know what you're saying; I'm just lazy to answer your question," Academician Liu said. He then smiled and asked, "Regardless of whether he's coming back, it's his body. Are you're going to control where he goes?"

Wang Haifeng was anxious. "But, do you really think it is a good thing for him to come back? You saw it! Back at that meeting on lithium-sulfur batteries, Director Lu almost treated his words as decree!"

Academician Liu looked at Wang Haifeng calmly.

"Good or bad, it's not something you or I can decide on."

The second Wang Haifeng heard this, he was stunned.

He soon felt a sense of powerlessness in his heart.

Like what Academician Liu had said, there wasn't anyone other than Lu Zhou that could make this decision.

He couldn't compare himself to a Nobel Prize laureate, whether it was from the influence or connection perspective.

As for Wang Haifeng's background…

Who didn't have a strong background in the circle of C9 schools?

The difference between this guy and the guy that controlled the education world was probably experience and the fact that Wang Haifeng wasn't interested in things outside of academia.

Of course, these were all secondary.

Whether it was the academic community or cultural community, as long as this community was in China, nothing Wang Haifeng could say would defeat Lu Zhou…

"Black cat or white cat, any cat that can catch a mouse is a good cat. The fact is, Lu Zhou actually did it, and this is worthy of recognition," Academician Liu said while looking at his former student. It was like he suddenly understood something.

He paused for a while before he slowly said, "Oh yeah, let me tell you something."

Wang Haifeng said, "What?"

"Have you heard of Ma Changan?"

Wang Haifeng frowned and carefully thought for a bit, but in the end, he shook his head.

"Nope."

Academician Liu smiled and said, "It's normal that you don't know him since he's not in our university and not in the materials science field. He's only a mathematics professor."

Mathematics professor?

Wang Haifeng frowned. He seemed to be puzzled as to why Academician Liu suddenly brought up this guy. In any case, the gap between mathematics and materials science was way too big.

Academician Liu looked at Wang Haifeng, who was frowning. He then spoke.

"A while ago, probably two weeks ago after that International Congress of Mathematicians ended, he ran into some researching funding issues and was quietly removed by Aurora University."

"Removed because of funding issues?" Wang Haifeng said, "He must have offended someone, right?"

The management of scientific research funding was quite strict; it was overkill to the point where it would make people furious. The possibility of having funding problems was very small. Unless someone was very poor or extremely scummy, otherwise, very few professors would be dumb enough to steal money from the funds.

Unless…

It was something dodgy that happened in the past.

Academician Liu smiled and said, "I don't know who he offended, and I don't know what's going on with Ma Changan right now since I didn't pay attention. But what's interesting is that, guess who taught Ma Changan?"

Wang Haifeng: "I… don't know."

Academician Liu smiled as he said, "The old man was a legend among the mathematics community."

Wang Haifeng was shocked when he heard this.

The old man?

Even though he didn't know the mathematics world, he had been in academia for a long time, and he knew the main characters in the mathematics world.

And the old man had to be one of the higher-ups at Aurora University.

Even though he had been away for six years, he still had a ton of influence.

Wang Haifeng didn't know about Ma Changan's connections in Aurora, but anyone that could get rid of Ma Changan so easily had to be at the level of a Fields Medal…

Wang Haifeng suddenly felt cold sweat dripping down his back.

"I don't know what the beef is between you and him, but even if you don't let it go, I hope you don't do anything stupid," Academician Liu said as he looked at Wang Haifeng, who was rendered speechless. He then put down the teacup in his hand and said, "I'm warning you!"

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"I warned you!"

The words from Wang Haifeng's former supervisor made him turn white.

When he left the office, he was walking in a zombie-like manner, almost like he was a puppet being controlled by ropes.

He thought back to Academician Liu's facial expression and suddenly realized how dangerous his behavior was.

Maybe because Lu Zhou was too young, even younger than his own students, he almost forgot the rules of academia.

The only fortunate thing was that Lu Zhou wasn't a revengeful person.

Otherwise, Lu Zhou could easily destroy him.

This was the first time he had gotten so lucky that his enemy ignored him as if he was nothing but an ant…

…

Actually, Wang Haifeng overestimated himself.

If Lu Zhou didn't meet him at the State's dinner, he wouldn't even have remembered this person.

As part of the Nobel Prize award ceremony, after the Nobel Banquet, there would be a series of Nobel Lectures the next day.

At 2 pm, UTC1 1 , Lu Zhou came to the lecture halls at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He would conduct a thirty-minute lecture on "The Mystery Of Numbers In The Microscopic World".

The lecture hall was crowded when he first arrived; it was even more packed than the Nobel Banquet. However, no one was complaining.

Not only did chemistry scholars from all over the world come to attend this lecture, but there were also students from the University of Stockholm, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, and even some local citizens who were interested in science.

Due to the nature of these Nobel Lectures, the lectures weren't completely academic. Even if someone didn't have knowledge in a particular field, they could still understand what the people on stage were saying.

Of course, the lectures weren't completely simplified.

Simply put, the purpose of the Nobel Lectures was to enable scholars in the same field but in different branches of the field to get a glance of what the Nobel Prize winners had done or were doing. To let them understand the meaning of the work done and what it meant for academia.

This sounded simple, but it wasn't easy to do at all.

After all, ever since the second half of the twentieth century, the development of academia went from primitive to the sophisticated refinement of different categories. Electrochemistry scholars might not necessarily understand research in the physical chemistry field, and biochemistry scholars might not be able to read theses in either of those fields.

And this applied to any academic discipline.

In this report, Lu Zhou didn't use any overcomplicated formulas to explain his arguments. He only talked about the problems he faced when researching HCS-2 and some of his thoughts on the abnormal situations that occurred.

Although he didn't use any overly passionate language, the live audience was eager to listen.

One reason was out of respect for the Nobel Prize.

The other was their admiration for this Nobel Prize winner's knowledge.

Most people could spend their entire lives working and only be proficient in one area.

Building on the basis and making small progress was the mission of a scholar.

Actually, modern science was progressing in this fashion.

However, this rule only applied to normal people.

For him, whether it was theoretical electrochemistry or applied lithium-sulfur batteries, these problems that would take many people to solve were solved by him alone…

Lu Zhou's speech soon came to an end. He paused for half a second before he made some simple ending remarks.

"… I remember hearing a phrase from a long time ago; when you've made all the mistakes there is made in a field, you become an expert in that field. Because by then, you know which hypotheses are destined to be wrong.

"In my opinion, the mathematical tool is equivalent to providing a unique perspective. It lets us bypass accumulate experience and allows us to stand in the perspective of the gods and think about the unknown phenomena.

"What is science?"

Lu Zhou looked at the crowd and stopped for a second before he spoke in a confident manner.

"In my opinion, it's rational thinking. It's the answer to the unknown."

Thunderous applause echoed throughout the venue.

The crowd stood up and showed their tributes.

Lu Zhou bowed slightly before he turned around and walked down from the stage.

…

There were several civil servants in suits standing outside the lecture hall in the corridors of the Royal Academy of Sciences. They were led by a middle-aged Chinese man.

The middle-aged man's eyes lit up when he saw Lu Zhou walking out of the lecture hall. He smiled and walked toward Lu Zhou.

"Professor Lu's vivid language really brought us an exciting speech!"

When Lu Zhou heard this unexpected compliment, he looked at the stranger and smiled. "Thanks, you are?"

Zhang Wenbin smiled and reached out with his right hand as he said, "I'm Zhang Wenbin, an ambassador at the Sweden Embassy of China."

Ambassador?

Lu Zhou didn't expect to see this person. He shook his hand and said, "Honored to meet you, Mr. Ambassador."

"I'm the one that is honored," Ambassador Zhang said as he shook Lu Zhou's hand. He then said with a smile, "Also, congratulations, Professor Lu! The honor you won on stage is huge for the Chinese science community!"

"You're too kind." Lu Zhou smiled humbly and said, "There's a lot of outstanding scholars in the Chinese academic community; one Nobel Prize is only the icing on the cake."

"You're too humble! If a Nobel Prize is only the icing on the cake, then there is no such thing as a praiseworthy glory." Ambassador Zhang paused for a second before he asked, "Can I ask if you have any plans after your Stockholm trip ends?"

Lu Zhou thought for a bit and said, "I might have to go to France."

Ambassador Zhang said, "France?"

Lu Zhou smiled. "Yeah, there's a Millennium Prize Problem award there, and since it's on the way, I plan on accepting it."

Accepting an award because it's on the way…

Millennium Prize Problems…

This guy…

The embassy staff members cringed when they heard him.

Even Ambassador Zhang, who had seen a lot of stuff in his lifetime, couldn't help but raise his eyebrows.

But he quickly coughed and tried to hide his emotions.

"I only thought athletes would get sick of medals; I didn't think this would happen in academia as well. Professor Lu, you're very… surprising."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "I guess."

Including the Fields Medal he won a few months ago, it was true he won quite a lot of awards this year.

Ambassador Zhang immediately asked, "Then what about after France?"

Lu Zhou thought for a bit and made sure he had no other plans before he said, "Other than going home for New Year's, nothing else planned."

Ambassador Zhang smiled brightly when he heard this. He then proposed with a smile.

"Before you go home, can you please drop by Beijing?"

Lu Zhou: "Beijing?"

"Yes," Ambassador Zhang smiled and said, "someone wants to see you."

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Chapter 466: France Is On The Way

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The Nobel Prize award ceremony ended.

All good things had to come to an end. The scholars gathered in Stockholm boarded their return flights and left this city.

Lu Zhou stood at the airport entrance while looking at his family. Xiao Tong, who was standing behind her parents, spoke with a sad expression on her face.

"Brother, are you not going back with us?"

Lu Zhou: "I still have to go to France before I go back. I'll probably be back next week."

Old Lu: "Another award?"

Lu Zhou: "Yeah, I guess so."

After all, he promised he would accept this award.

Before going home, he planned on going to Institut de France to receive the award from the Clay Institute.

Old Lu: "What award is this?"

Lu Zhou: "It's about the Millennium Prize Problems."

Old Lu didn't know what the Millennium Prize Problems were. He thought for a moment and decided to ask about the prize money.

"How much is it?"

Lu Zhou thought for a bit and said, "Around a million."

"USD?"

"Yes."

Old Lu went silent for a while before he suddenly said, "Look at all of you mathematics people winning all these awards. It's enough to buy a house in a big city."

Lu Zhou coughed and said, "… You can't put it that way, it's not the same for everyone."

In terms of making money, science lost to engineering. Therefore, it was normal that there would be more funding in science, which meant there would be more awards.

However, only a minority of people in science won awards.

Most scholars that were in the theoretical fields were having a hard time.

…

The Nobel Prize in December was of great significance to the science community.

The creation of a 24-year-old Nobel Prize winner almost refreshed people's acknowledgment of this award. It also refreshed many people's acknowledgment of science in general.

This month was equally significant for the mathematics community.

After the dust from the Navier–Stokes equation finally settled, the Clay Institute finally fulfilled its promise of one million dollars and held a grand award ceremony at the Institut de France… At least, that was how most people looked at it.

Because very few people knew that Professor Carlson, the chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Clay Institute, actually spent numerous attempts in trying to convince this "stubborn" Fields Medal winner to accept this award.

At the award ceremony venue…

Most of the guests attending the ceremony were mathematics academicians from the French Academy of Sciences 1 and important members from the European Mathematical Society.

Professor Carlson stood on stage and spoke in a solemn and dignified voice.

"… From the rippling small boats that produce waves to the high-speed turbulence jets. Although the Navier–Stokes equation has been proposed in the 19th century, we have very little understanding of its deep meaning. In the millennium year 2000, at this historical hall, we proposed a challenge to scientists around the world, to change the mathematics history and uncover the mysteries of the Navier–Stokes equation…

"And now, the study of the existence of a smooth Navier–Stokes equation has finally be solved and settled. We have gained an immeasurable amount of knowledge and benefit from this breakthrough."

Professor Carlson paused for a moment before he said, "History will remember this moment. It will also remember everyone that took part."

There was a round of applause in the auditorium.

In the midst of the applause, Professor Carlson handed Lu Zhou the certificate and medal.

The study on the nature of the Navier–Stokes equation had finally come to a conclusion.

"Congratulations, Professor Lu Zhou," Professor Carlson said as he reached out his right hand and firmly shook Lu Zhou's hand. At this sincere moment, he smiled and even jokingly said, "Also, congratulations to myself as I've finally accomplished my wish."

Lu Zhou: "Wish?"

"Yes." Professor Carlson smirked and said, "We've prepared certificates, ceremonies, and even special medals for the Millennium Prize Problems. I was involved in all of this preparation but this is the first time I've seen it being implemented.

"Originally, in my retirement plan, I planned on at least issuing one medal before I retire. However, when I stepped down from the director of the Clay Institute and went to serve as a chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board, I still didn't get to fulfill my wish… That was until now… So thank you for completing my wish."

Professor Carlson suddenly looked a little exhausted.

He had put in a lot of effort for the future of mathematics.

Now, he could finally put this responsibility aside and enjoy his years on earth…

After he received the Millennium Prize Problem medal and million-dollar check, Lu Zhou didn't stay in Paris for long. Instead, he quickly got on a flight back to China.

Originally, he planned on directly landing at Jinling Airport. However, because of Ambassador Zhang's invitation, he decided to get on a flight to Beijing.

After the plane landed, just like last time, he was warmly welcomed at the airstair.

Lu Zhou gave his luggage to his driver and security guard, Wang Peng. He then sat in a black car with a red flag and went to a mysterious place…

…

Lu Zhou followed the guards as he passed through layers of security.

When Lu Zhou sat inside an antique government compound, he met the old president, who gave him the award.

Also, sitting next to the old man was a white-haired academician.

Lu Zhou knew who he was because of the lithium-sulfur battery meeting. Academician Wu Shigang also participated in major scientific research projects such as the 863 Program. Therefore, Lu Zhou remembered him.

The reason why Academician Wu was sitting here was probably to be an "academic translator". He was responsible for simplifying Lu Zhou's words so that it would be able to be understood by non-professionals.

The prestigious old man looked on as Lu Zhou walked into the room. He gave a kind smile and nodded.

"We meet again."

He reached out his right hand and said, "Please take a seat."

Lu Zhou sat across the old man with his back straight.

After a while, the old man introduced Lu Zhou to the scholar sitting next to him.

"This is Academician Wu Shigang."

"Hello, Professor Lu." Academician Wu smiled and reached out his right hand.

"Hello!"

The two shook hands and didn't waste any more time on small talk.

After all, everyone who sat here was busy people. It was just that they were busy in their own ways.

Lu Zhou couldn't complete the controllable nuclear fusion DEMO project on his own. He needed support from the national level.

Fortunately, because of the Nobel Prize, Lu Zhou was given this chance.

Even though his main research field was mathematics, there wasn't anyone that doubted his opinion in the energy field.

After all, his breakthrough in the field of the lithium-sulfur battery had benefited the entire country, and there was nothing more persuasive than facts.

"… Energy, materials, and information technology are the three pillars of modern social development. Energy is the foundation of power and the lifeblood of the industry. Looking at the past three industrial revolutions, energy as well as energy production is inseparable from technological breakthroughs."

Academician Wu looked at Lu Zhou with a serious expression. On behalf of the old man, he asked cautiously, "Then what project do you think is suitable for us?"

Lu Zhou only spoke three words.

However, the three short words shocked everyone in the room.

"Controllable nuclear fusion!"

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Chapter 467: Three Word Answer

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Lu Zhou's answer was beyond the expectations of Academician Wu.

In Lu Zhou's meeting with Ambassador Zhang, he revealed that he wanted to talk about the problem of new energy in this meeting.

However, everyone didn't think much of it. They only thought he was going to talk about the future prospects of lithium-sulfur battery technology or what kind of support he needed from the country for his research.

Because of this, Wu Shigang was invited to be the "academic translator" for this meeting.

However, nuclear fusion was a scientific research project that had systematic risk…

Undoubtedly, this was beyond the scope of his abilities.

Academician Wu noticed the old man looking at him, so he hesitated for a bit before he asked Lu Zhou with a serious expression, "Can you elaborate?"

Lu Zhou nodded. "All of the earth's energy sources, whether it be petrol, wind, or water… All of them come from the sun, and the sun gets its energy from fusion.

"Like what I just said, from a technical perspective, as the previous industrial revolutions have shown, the key to productivity and production is energy.

"If we can solve fusion energy, that means we have solved the sun, that means we will have mastered the future!"

The compound went completely silent for a minute.

Lu Zhou also stayed silent for a minute.

He knew that these people had listened to hundreds of exciting and passionate speeches, and they had learned their lessons.

But he also knew about the significance of a Nobel Prize and the power behind the words "nuclear fusion".

Fusion power generation was cleaner than fission power generation and accepted a much wider source of raw materials.

There were 0.03 grams of deuterium in one liter of seawater. The nuclear fusion energy provided by that deuterium was equivalent to burning 300 liters of gasoline.

The earth's resources were abundant. There were more than 45 trillion tons of deuterium in the sea; it was almost inexhaustible. As for how to get the expensive deuterium, a simple "heavy water" industrial method would suffice.

If they could master controllable nuclear fusion, then all of the industrial energy problems would disappear.

What did it mean for energy problems to disappear?

It meant that one could build a reinforced concrete tower in the barren desert or grow an arable land on the bottom of the sea where the sunlight wouldn't reach… At least in theory.

Because when that time arrived, electricity would no longer cost money.

Of course, Lu Zhou was the only one that could see these things happening. In other words, he believed that these things could happen.

Compared to those far away fantasies, politicians had to think about the present and something more realistic.

Academician Wu and the old man thought for a long time. They looked at each other before they looked at Lu Zhou.

Academician Wu then spoke slowly.

"The controllable nuclear fusion project has been around for a long time, but there hasn't been any obvious progress so far. Actually, our country plays a very important role in the ITER project, so we are very aware of the value of this technology and are willing to invest in it. However, the main question is, what is your level of certainty? And whether or not you think it is worth it…"

Lu Zhou shook his head and said, "Unless the technology is already there, there is no experiment that can be done to test the value of the technology. Science is trial and error, that's the same in any scientific field. You're an academician, you should know this."

"But the cost of trial and error for controllable nuclear fusion might be too big."

Wu Shigang suddenly felt his palms drenched with sweat.

It was both because of how nerve-wracking the topic of fusion was and because of the young man sitting across from him.

This would at least be a hundred million dollar project.

And there was no limit on how much it could potentially cost.

Before the technology could be implemented, the project would just be a money-burning black hole. No one would know how much it would cost…

Lu Zhou acknowledged Academician Wu's question and nodded.

"That's right, it is expensive, but it will generate benefit for all future generations."

Perhaps it was after careful consideration, or perhaps the old man was touched by Lu Zhou's sentence.

The old man thought for half a minute before he slowly said, "What kind of support do you need?"

Lu Zhou said in a confident manner, "Funding, people, and cooperation with relevant departments."

The old man nodded and didn't even ask for specifics.

Instead, he only said two words.

"No problem."

…

While the conversation was going on inside the courtyard, Academician Pan Changhong from the Southwestern Institute of Physics was hosting an important meeting.

The focus of the conference was the breakthrough in Wendelstein 7-X plasma confinement time that happened a month ago.

The person that did the meeting report was Professor Sheng Xianfu, who just came back from an academic exchange in Germany. In the report, he mentioned the problem of the stellarator's water-cooled divertor and how the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics solved this problem. He also highlighted Lu Zhou's thesis.

"Professor Lu's calculations played a crucial role in the stellarator research. His role could be seen from the Wendelstein 7-X control plan update…"

In the PowerPoint, Professor Sheng presented the relevant technical information and quickly went through the graphs.

In the end, he placed his hands on the table and spoke in a confident manner.

"We have to pay attention to this issue. We're already behind on the stellarator research. If we don't take this issue seriously, we will fall behind."

Suddenly, a researcher had an objection.

"However, even so, the tokamak is more succinct from an engineering perspective. Furthermore, it is still the mainstream international nuclear fusion research project."

Professor Sheng nodded and proposed a counter-argument.

"I know the tokamak is still the mainstream project, but that doesn't mean it is correct. Before this technology could be invented, all possibilities have to be considered!"

Suddenly, another researcher gave his own opinion.

"The technical problem with the tokamak is the plasma constraints, right? How about we ask Professor Lu to help us design a control plan?"

Professor Sheng shook his head and said, "The tokamak's plasma problem is much more difficult than the stellarator. Theoretically, even if a control plan like that exists, it will be difficult to have the matching hardware."

That researcher said, "How can we know that without trying?"

Professor Sheng was annoyed, and he said, "Then why don't you write him a letter yourself?"

The researcher didn't know what to say, so he smiled and shut his mouth.

He didn't have the authority to ask some Nobel Prize winner for a favor.

The conference went into intermission.

Academician Pan walked outside in the corridor, and as he thought back to what Professor Sheng had said during the report, he lit a cigarette.

"I have a feeling that the tokamak isn't feasible."

Compared to the Chinese media, who celebrated every small EAST 1 achievement, Academician Pan, who was an expert in this field, was much more cautious.

Most things were exciting from an outsider's perspective, but for insiders, they didn't even count as in-progress achievements.

Professor Zheng Gaoming stood next to Academician Pan and asked, "Why do you say that?"

"No special reason," Academician Pan said as he shook his head and flicked the cigarette butt. He then said, "Just a feeling."

Suddenly, the phone in his pocket began to ring.

Academician Pan put out the cigarette and took out his phone to answer the call.

"Hello?"

Academician Pan went silent for a while and didn't say anything. In the end, he simply nodded.

"Okay, I understand."

Zheng Gaoming had been looking at Academician Pan's expressions during the phone call. He couldn't help but try to figure out what was going on.

"… What happened?"

Academician Pan put the phone back into his pocket and looked at Professor Zheng.

"The person we were just talking about is in Beijing right now."

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Chapter 468: Experienced Expert

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

After that, Lu Zhou talked with the old man for a long time.

The topics discussed were mainly centered around the details of controllable nuclear fusion.

This included the advantages and disadvantages of various technical pathways, technical difficulties, and which problems could potentially be solved.

Because Academician Wu was out of his element, he sat next to them and didn't say anything. He merely listened quietly like a plebeian.

For the more difficult parts, Lu Zhou tried to explain them in layman's terms.

Of course, other than talking about controllable nuclear fusion, they also talked about the idea of constructing an Institute of Advanced Study in China which was to be similar to Princeton's.

As for Lu Zhou's special treatment in China, he didn't mention it, and the old man didn't ask.

Because this simply wasn't something worth talking about.

Even if Lu Zhou didn't mention anything, there naturally would be someone to take care of him.

Lu Zhou followed the guards and walked out of the courtyard. Wang Peng waited outside next to the black car.

He used to be a stranger, but he was now Lu Zhou's good acquaintance.

"Finished?"

"Finished," Lu Zhou sat in the passenger seat as he replied casually.

Wang Peng nodded and didn't say anything.

Whatever Lu Zhou talked about when he was inside was none of his business.

Once Lu Zhou put on his seatbelt, Wang Peng started the car.

Lu Zhou looked at him and asked, "Oh yeah, where are we going? I don't have a place to stay in Beijing."

Even though the old man verbally agreed in the meeting, the specific implementation had to be discussed at a high-level internal government conference.

After all, funding controllable nuclear fusion wasn't cheap by any stretch of the imagination.

Lu Zhou still had to stay in Beijing for two days. One was to wait for the results of the high-level meetings, and the other was to communicate with the Chinese controllable nuclear fusion scholars.

Wang Peng heard Lu Zhou and smiled heartily.

"Professor Lu, you must be kidding! You're in your home country; how can we not give you a place to stay?"

…

Lu Zhou stayed at the same place he stayed at when he came to Beijing for that meeting.

When Manager Wang saw Lu Zhou, he had an innocent smile on his slightly chubby face. He then greeted him enthusiastically.

"Professor Lu, are you happy with the tea from last time?"

"Very satisfied, thank you so much," Lu Zhou said with a smile.

Manager Wang smiled and said, "You're too kind. If you want, we can get you some more."

This time Lu Zhou didn't refuse the tea, nor did he offer to pay.

He knew the hotel was a public institution, and if he gave money to Manager Wang, it would cause him trouble.

Also, since he won two enormous awards for China, taking two packs of tea wasn't a big deal, right?

As Lu Zhou followed Manager Wang to his room, he suddenly remembered something.

"Oh yeah, Manager Wang."

"What's up?"

Lu Zhou looked around and asked, "Is there a conference room here?"

Manager Wang smiled and said, "Of course there is. If you need to use it, just tell me."

Lu Zhou nodded and said, "I'll need it the day after tomorrow."

Manager Wang: "Okay."

…

It had been 11 years since China first participated in ITER.

The start of all of this was because of a letter from the Southwestern Institute of Physics to the Communist Party of China.

The person that wrote the letter was Academician Pan Changhong, the dean of the Southwestern Institute of Physics.

Even though Academician Pan had retired from his Southwestern Institute of Physics position, he was an experienced expert and still had a considerable amount of influence among the domestic nuclear fusion community.

After some planning with the relevant departments, Lu Zhou finally met the person that convinced China to join ITER.

When Lu Zhou saw the old man, he politely reached out his hand and said, "Hello, Academician Pan, I have been looking forward to meeting you for a long time."

"I'm the one that is supposed to be looking forward to meeting you," Academician Pan said as he shook Lu Zhou's hand. He then smiled as he continued, "I've always heard that Professor Lu is young and promising, but I have never met you before. I didn't expect you to be younger than I imagined… and even more charismatic."

Lu Zhou smiled and politely made a gesture. "You're too kind. Please, take a seat."

Once they sat down at the conference table, the hotel staff poured a cup of tea for each of them. The hotel staff then left the conference room, and on the way out, the hotel staff closed the door gently.

Lu Zhou organized his train of thought first. He was about to speak, but Academician Pan was the one to speak first.

"You think the stellarator has potential?"

Lu Zhou nodded and said, "Yes, I think so."

Academician Pan looked sharply at Lu Zhou and said, "Are you certain?"

Lu Zhou: "Yes."

"Why?"

"My intuition."

Intuition?

When Academician Pan looked at Lu Zhou's emotionless face, he was slightly stunned. He smiled and shook his head before he said, "… Scientific intuition? Interesting… You believe in your intuition that much?"

"Of course!" Lu Zhou nodded and said, "If I don't believe it, how can I convince others to believe it?"

Academician Pan smiled and gave a simple answer.

"Since you put it that way, I am convinced. I'm curious. Tell me; how do you plan on convincing me to do?"

Lu Zhou smiled and paused for a second before he replied, "Controllable nuclear fusion is a project that has systematic risk, and the technical difficulties range from plasma physics to materials science to information technology. All of these research units have to cooperate together. This is very difficult to achieve by myself."

Lu Zhou paused for a second and looked at Academician Pan. He then made a sincere request.

"I need your help."

Academician Pan was stunned; he didn't expect Lu Zhou to make such a sudden request.

There was a brief moment of consideration, but after a while, he still shook his head.

"I can't help you. Besides my old age, the stellarator isn't my research direction. I can conduct lectures, but to do experiments with you young people, that's really difficult for me."

The old man paused and reminded Lu Zhou of something.

"Not to mention, the main person in charge of China's controllable nuclear fusion is Academician Zhou. If you need support, you should talk to him instead of coming to me."

Lu Zhou shook his head and said, "The research led by Academician Zhou is mainly on the tokamak device. He won't support my point of view."

Academician Pan didn't say anything, but his face conveyed his agreement.

This wasn't just an engineering problem; this was also a problem in academia.

After all, after spending billions in research, no one wanted to hear someone with a different research plan who might take their resources.

Funding was only part of it; this also involved jurisdiction.

Authority and power weren't academically related; it couldn't be solved with just one conversation.

Lu Zhou paused for a second before he said, "Actually, yesterday I was contacted by the higher-ups and received funding and policy support guarantees. The new project will be carried out simultaneously with the original tokamak project."

Academician Pan said, "You… talked to the higher-ups?"

Lu Zhou nodded and said, "Yes."

If that's the case… then this thing is different.

Academician Pan went silent for a while. He seemed to be hesitating.

Lu Zhou didn't say anything. Instead, he quietly waited for him to gather his thoughts.

As the old man looked at the steam rising from the teacup, he suddenly relaxed his tense face and looked at Lu Zhou with a smile.

"If you don't care about me being old, then I'm willing to give it a shot."

Lu Zhou smiled and reached out his hand.

"Welcome to the team!"

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Chapter 469: Just Buy One

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The high-ranking officials at the government spent multiple days holding meetings. Over these few days, Lu Zhou had been busy as well. He had met many Chinese controllable nuclear fusion scholars that were recommended by Academician Pan.

Strictly speaking, Chinese universities didn't have a controllable nuclear fusion major.

Most experts in this field were professors in plasma physics or nuclear engineers.

The situation in China was different than that of Princeton; the research institute that did research on the stellarator device basically didn't exist. When Lu Zhou was at PPPL, he could easily assemble a research team.

But now, he had to utilize his connections with Academician Pan to find talents scattered around the city.

Of course, other than human resources, there was also another important problem he had to solve.

He had the rice, and he had the chef; the only thing he lacked was a cooking pan.

Academician Pan gave Lu Zhou an organized list of names and said, "If you plan on researching the stellarator, having just talents and funding isn't enough. We need to get our hands on a stellarator device first. This is more crucial than anything else. How do you plan on solving this problem?"

There were only eight stellarators in operation around the world, including the H1-Heliac that Yuhua University got from Australia. As for the "first cyclic symmetrical stellarator" project by China and Japan, they only signed the contract last year and would take several more years for the construction to begin.

China could wait, and the world could also wait. After all, controllable nuclear fusion was a hundred-year long project.

However, Lu Zhou couldn't wait.

If he couldn't successfully implement the DEMO machine by 2025, then he would have failed his Fusion Light mission chain. The high-tech system had been relatively fair, and he wouldn't lose the experience points he already gained from the branch missions, but there would be no doubt that he would have to say goodbye to the mission chain's final reward.

Lu Zhou accepted Academician Pan's list of names and thought for a bit. He then said, "Germany has a discontinued stellarator—the WEGA. It's the prototype for the Wendelstein 7-X. We don't have to build one from scratch. We can buy one and modify it."

Academician Pan was in disbelief. "You plan on buying the WEGA?"

Lu Zhou nodded and said, "Spending money is a must in this field."

Lu Zhou originally thought Academician Pan didn't want the country to waste money. After all, a stellarator wasn't cheap at all; even the retired WEGA would cost quite a bit.

However, Academician Pan wasn't worried about money at all.

"This isn't about money. Is this something they're willing to sell?"

Lu Zhou shook his head and said, "Hard to say, but we can negotiate with them. I have some connections with the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, so convincing them to sell their retired equipment shouldn't be a big problem."

Actually, the WEGA machine had been unused since 2013. The Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics put all of their research focus onto the new Wendelstein 7-X. As such, there was hope in convincing them to sell the WEGA.

Lu Zhou paused for a second before he continued, "After everything is settled here, I'll personally fly to Germany and try to get this done."

Pan Changhong looked envious.

He didn't have many international connections in academia.

In order to fill in their blank page on the stellarator, in 2017, Yuhua University had to send inspection teams on three occasions to The Australian National University. They finally came to an agreement and spent AU$35 million buying the "small" machine.

Which was the so-called H1-Heliac…

Australia's research on the stellarator was definitely behind that of Japan and Germany's research. The H1-Heliac was designed and assembled by The Australian National University; therefore, it was far from being advanced.

If they could choose, they wouldn't have chosen the H1-Heliac machine. However, they had no choice.

If somehow, Lu Zhou was able to buy the retired WEGA from Germany…

This thing alone would be considered a great achievement for the Chinese nuclear fusion community.

…

Lu Zhou brought two huge gifts when he came back to China.

The first was the Nobel Prize, and the other was a piece of the nuclear fusion pie.

However, this pie was still uncooked. Everyone could look at it but couldn't eat it. However, Lu Zhou was confident he could cook this pie well.

China welcomed Lu Zhou's two gifts and responded with their greatest attention.

After more than 2 weeks of discussions, the two academicians decided to give the green light for the stellarator research project.

After consulting Lu Zhou's opinion, the project team would be named "STAR" and would continue in parallel to the EAST tokamak controllable fusion reactor program.

The state was quite generous with its funds, with a total of one billion.

Since most of the stellarator equipment had to be imported, this one billion was obviously in USD…

Southwestern Institute of Physics.

When Jiang Liang heard the news, he couldn't help but grumble.

"A billion USD, that's too much money."

Even though the project was the same level as that of EAST, this was enough to fund several EAST projects.

A Nobel Prize isn't worth that much, right?

Zhou Chengfu sat in the middle of the office reading newspapers. He didn't look up when he spoke with a blank expression.

"Regardless of how much money it is, he earned it himself. It's none of our business."

Even though this was true, this still affected Jiang Liang's mental condition.

Researching controllable nuclear fusion was a money-hungry project, but the country's funding still had a limit.

Even though Academician Zhou's expression didn't change, Jiang Liang could still tell that the old man wasn't in a good mood.

After all, he used the be the leader of China's controllable nuclear fusion field.

But suddenly, there was a young man that came from nowhere, fighting for his throne. Obviously, he couldn't help but feel displeased.

However, this Nobel Prize laureate's aura was… a bit too dazzling.

Jiang Liang could guess what the old man was thinking, so he said, "About Academician Pan, even though he's a veteran of the ITER cooperation team, the efforts weren't done by him alone. Not to mention he's retired now. You should be the main person in charge of the controllable nuclear fusion project.

"Lu Zhou wants to engage in controllable nuclear fusion but doesn't consult you. Instead, he went to Academician Pan. Isn't that a bit disrespectful?"

"Go do your own work, this is none of your concern."

Once Academician Zhou saw Jiang Liang shut his mouth, he continued to speak without hesitation.

"He can do his own thing, and we'll do our thing. The stellarator is not part of our expertise anyway. If we can, we'll cooperate with them, and if we can't, then it's not our problem. We have our own conditions. What? Is he going to blame us?"

Jiang Liang understood. He then smiled as he replied, "Dean Zhou, you're correct, I get it now!"

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Chapter 470: You Guys Really Only Talked About Mathematics?

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Controllable nuclear fusion wasn't some kind of aircraft or cannon, nor was it an atomic missile. Even though it contained the words "nuclear fusion", it wasn't something that was classified.

Therefore, the location of the research unit didn't have to be a secret.

The people involved also didn't have to be classified.

Same with the communication.

This was just like the International Space Station program; these types of large projects often required more than just one country or organization to accomplish. The controllable nuclear fusion project was the same; competition always existed in ITER, but yet, cooperation would still be there.

If going to a meeting meant having to take multiple flights and rides, then this meeting probably wouldn't happen.

When the Chinese Academy of Sciences wanted to research the tokamak, they set up shop around a beautiful island in Lu Yang city.

Lu Zhou felt like Jinling was pretty good; therefore, he drew a circle around the Purple Mountain in Jinling, which determined the project location.

The official documents would take a while to process. Before that, Lu Zhou planned on going back to his alma mater.

First of all, the building for the Jinling Institute of Computational Materials, which he spent a hundred million yuan on, was finally completed. Secondly, he still needed support from Jin Ling University for his controllable nuclear fusion plan and his vision of a Chinese version of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study.

Manager Wang followed Lu Zhou to the hotel entrance and asked with a smile, "Professor Lu, are you not going to stay for a few more days?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "No, I'm not. Work is too busy, and I can't take a break. I'll see you soon."

Manager Wang: "Take care."

Lu Zhou nodded and walked toward his black government-issued car.

His suitcase was already in the car trunk; he didn't have to worry about these things.

Wang Peng was sitting in the driver's seat. When he saw Lu Zhou put on his seatbelt, he started the car.

"Where to?"

"Airport!"

…

At the administrative building at Jin Ling University…

Principal Xu was wearing a pair of glasses as he sat in front of his desk and meticulously handled his administrative duties.

Suddenly, he heard knocking sounds at the door.

Principal Xu put down his hand and cleared his throat.

"Come in."

The door was pushed open, and someone unexpected stood in front of the doorway.

When Principal Xu saw Lu Zhou standing in front of the doorway, he was stunned. He put down the pen in his hand and smiled as he stood up from his office chair.

"Professor Lu? What brings you here? Please come in."

Lu Zhou looked at the documents on Principal Xu's desk. He then smiled politely and said, "The timing is a bit sudden as I just got off the plane. I didn't interrupt your work, right?"

Principal Xu smiled and said, "Since a Nobel Prize laureate is visiting our school, obviously we have to welcome him with both arms open; how is this an interruption? However, your timing is quite sudden. Why didn't you tell us beforehand? We didn't prepare anything."

"There's no need for any preparation. I'm just here to see my alma mater, and there's no need to make it so troublesome." Lu Zhou smiled, and as he placed the pack of tea on the table, he said, "I brought some tea."

Principal Xu said, "I can't accept such a valuable gift. Take this to Old Tang or Old Lu."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "What do you mean valuable? It's just two packs of tea. I also brought some for Professor Tang and Academician Lu, so please accept the gifts."

After some small talk, the two sat down on the sofa.

Principal Xu told his assistant to make two cups of hot tea.

Lu Zhou spoke in a serious tone.

"I'll probably leave Princeton and come back to China around next year. If it's okay with you, Principal Xu, I'll have to trouble you in the future."

"What do you mean trouble?" Principal Xu smiled and said, "If you want to come back, I'm willing to let you take over the principal's position."

Lu Zhou quickly said, "There's no need for that. I'm finding a research institute director, but let's not make me manage a university."

His research was already busy enough. If he really became a principal, he'd have to clone himself to handle all of the work.

Also, he was against using administrative power to eliminate talents.

Lu Zhou sipped some tea to moisten his throat. He then changed his demeanor and began to speak about serious matters.

"I just got back from Beijing; I met the president."

Principal Xu suddenly looked stern; he put on a serious expression.

"What did you guys… Is it okay to ask?"

"Nothing secret. The documents will probably be released soon, so it's fine talking about this in advance."

Lu Zhou paused for a second before he said, "… Other than some technical things, we mainly talked about academia and the history of mathematics."

Principal Xu: "History of mathematics?"

Lu Zhou nodded and said, "That's right."

Ever since the Renaissance, mathematicians had been a group that was extremely sensitive to the environment. The last century's mathematicians mostly centered around Europe, and the French Bourbaki scholars and the German Göttingen scholars had had an equal share of academia influence and attainment. However, in less than a quarter of a century, the Göttingen scholars had almost been completely annihilated, and the Bourbaki scholars were also declining. The world center of mathematics had since moved from Europe to North America.

Lu Zhou explained, "Over the years at Princeton, I've learned quite a lot of things, whether it's knowledge itself or the academic culture.

"After learning from history and real-life experiences, my biggest takeaway is that academic prosperity is inseparable from an open academic environment. Therefore, I told the old man that I plan on building a Chinese Institute for Advanced Study in Jinling for purely academic research. It was also to separate academia from bureaucratization and politics."

When Principal Xu heard Lu Zhou's words, he nodded.

He had a background in scientific research, so he was well aware of the impact of bureaucracy on scientific research efficiency.

He was a supporter of education reform, and he had made previous efforts on reforming the education system.

Even though he might not agree with some policies, but he fully supported Lu Zhou's point of view.

Especially for Lu Zhou's plan on building an institute in the style of Princeton Institute for Advanced Study in China. They had talked about this plan a long time ago, and he also showed support back then.

However, support was just support. To actually implement it might be a little difficult…

"I agree with you, but this is very difficult to implement; especially the depoliticization. With the situation in China right now, this is basically impossible…"

Lu Zhou: "The president agreed."

Principal Xu's eyes were wide open as he looked at Lu Zhou in disbelief.

Lu Zhou paused for a second and said, "He said that since it's my research institute, I can do whatever I want. If I mess up, then its whatever, but if I succeed, I can expand in a limited range."

This limited range obviously meant Jin Ling University.

Actually, Lu Zhou didn't really care if he expanded or not.

He didn't think of himself as an educator; he was only a scholar.

What he needed was a comfortable academic environment which would allow him to quietly engage in his own research.

He didn't have any political demands nor was he interested in making them.

However, it seemed that Principal Xu simply didn't believe in Lu Zhou's words.

Especially at the high-level government official's response; this was simply ridiculous for him.

Principal Xu couldn't help but ask, "You guys really only talked about mathematics?"

"Of course it's not just mathematics," Lu Zhou smiled and said. He then continued, "Before that… we were talking about controllable nuclear fusion."

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The official documents were quickly released.

It was almost like it grew wings and followed Lu Zhou, flying all the way from Beijing to Jinling.

The first action was the dispatch of Jinling military troops where they then proceeded to set up fences around the Purple Mountain area.

Even though the entire research facility design only covered 80 acres, the military cleared out nearly 800 acres of land nearby.

Even though controllable nuclear fusion had nothing to do with nuclear bombs, it still had "nuclear" in its name.

And anything related to nuclear, even though it was absolutely safe from a technical standpoint, would cause others to be afraid or worried.

Thankfully, this was in the suburbs, and thus, the population density wasn't high.

What had to be knocked down would be knocked down, and what had to be moved would be moved. Due to the city's standard 1.5 market value demolition compensation, this process was very fast.

After that, the equipment from the China National Nuclear Corporation arrived.

Almost immediately after the project bidding finished, more than a dozen trucks and engineering vehicles fearsomely followed the military personnel and entered the construction site. They then began to set up everything on the empty land.

Guard Xiao Liu looked at the cement blocks on the trucks and stuck his tongue out.

"Nuclear construction, nuclear power cement… Are they planning on building a nuclear power station in Jinling?"

Xiao Li, who was standing next to him, shook his head. He said, "Doesn't look like it. Nuclear power plants have to be next to the sea, right? Who builds power stations in the middle of nowhere…"

Xiao Liu: "Then is it a nuclear test?"

Xiao Li shook his head again and said, "That's even less likely. Who would conduct nuclear tests near the capital and coastal provinces? Surely they would do it thousands of miles away from everyone!"

Xiao Liu couldn't help but ask, "Then what do you think this is?"

Xiao Li looked at the Purple Mountain next to him and made a random guess. "I'm guessing it might be a nuclear fallout shelter. What do they say? Build your camps next to mountains and water! See that Purple Mountain next to us? This thing is probably a natural nuclear bunker…"

Old Zhao couldn't stand to listen anymore, and he couldn't help but reprimand them, "Stop talking sh*t! Do you really think you can guess what this is? Shut up and stand still."

The two new soldiers suddenly shut their mouths.

Old Zhao was right; there was no way they could guess what the state planned on building here.

Suddenly, a military vehicle parked on the dirt road.

The car doors opened from both sides, and a prestigious looking middle-aged man and a very young-looking man got out of the car.

The armed soldiers, who were standing there, suddenly stood straight and saluted.

"Hello, commander!"

"Hello, soldiers."

The man nodded and saluted. Without saying anything else, he and this young man walked toward the construction site.

Xiao Liu, who had a big mouth, looked at the commander walking away, and he couldn't help but start quietly chatting with Xiao Li again.

"Hey, who do you think is the person walking behind the commander?"

Xiao Li was obviously very interested in this question; he looked at the young man walking away from them.

"I don't know. He looks pretty young. His pale skin obviously means that he's not in the troops… Maybe in military logistics?"

Xiao Liu and Xiao Li were both kicked in the a*ss by their field officer.

…

Less than a week had passed between the policy being passed and the beginning of construction. This type of efficiency was only achievable in China.

Lu Zhou looked at the busy construction site and felt emotional. He couldn't help but thank the person next to him.

"Commander Liao, thank you so much."

Commander Liao smiled slightly and said, "There's no need to thank us; it is our duty to protect and defend the country. The real people that are improving our motherland are scientists like you."

Party A on the STAR Stellarator Research Institute contract was the Jinling Military; this was all to make sure the project continued at the fastest speed and without any interruptions.

Standing in front of Lu Zhou and Commander Liao was the chief engineer, Sun Zhonghai, who was sent from Party B, the China National Nuclear Corporation.

Even though Sun Zhonghai was already sixty years old, he had worked at the Daya Bay nuclear power plant. He was exceptionally experienced in the field of nuclear engineering construction.

They kept the small talk to a minimum. The old engineer placed the design drawings on the hood of his truck and said to Lu Zhou, "This is the engineering drawing. See if there's anything you want to change; you can just tell me."

The engineering drawing was a modified version of the research institute at Lu Yang. Even though their research institute was used for the tokamak device, the two had very similar engineering requirements.

Lu Zhou briefly looked at the engineering drawing and said, "I can't understand these professional engineering blueprints, so I'll just say some of my requirements."

Engineer Sun nodded and gestured his assistant to take out a pen and paper; he was ready to write down Lu Zhou's requirements.

Lu Zhou looked at the excavator next to him and contemplated for a bit before speaking.

"Safety comes first. After that, it is confidentiality. I don't have any special requirements for the facilities, so you can just do them according to the blueprint requirements. As for the underground section, I'll need a 500 square meters room which would mainly be used to store the stellarator."

Engineer Sun looked at the blueprints. He then looked at the construction site and said, "We can dig a hole in the mountain and build a road. After that, we can build the entire laboratory in the mountain. Is that okay?"

Lu Zhou asked, "Digging the Purple Mountain, isn't that a bit troublesome?"

The Purple Mountain wasn't barren, and a few kilometers north was a scenery spot. However, undergoing construction in a place like this would require consideration of many factors.

Engineer Sun smiled as he said nonchalantly, "This isn't troublesome at all. We're one of the top national projects, so we have the highest priority. Besides, we're only opening a small hole at the bottom of the mountain. It's not like we're constructing a bunch of large buildings."

Lu Zhou nodded and said, "Okay then, this laboratory must be safe."

Commander Liao asked with a serious tone, "Is it dangerous?"

Lu Zhou nodded at first, but after that, he shook his head and said, "Every experiment has a certain element of risk involved. Even though the risk isn't high, this is a matter of precaution."

Theoretically, controllable nuclear fusion was safe. Unlike nuclear fission, nuclear fusion wouldn't produce a chain reaction. If the machine failed to work, then the reaction would stop.

However, even then, the high-pressure plasma was at hundreds of millions of degrees. Even though there was no nuclear fusion, there was still a certain amount of danger.

However, as long as the construction was done properly, this risk could be greatly mitigated.

Engineer Sun: "Don't worry about this, the entire research institute will be built using nuclear power cement."

Lu Zhou looked around and said, "The other thing is traffic. The roads here don't look good."

Commander Liao: "This is easy. I will report this to the superiors. They will then communicate with the city council, who will build a road here."

Lu Zhou nodded. "Thank you so much."

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Chapter 472: Knowledge Is The Greatest Asset

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Cars were coming to and fro the construction site; stifling smoke came out of the non-stop roaring excavators and cement trucks. There were engineers wearing white hats, holding design drawings. They personally came to the construction site to command the construction workers who were wearing yellow hats.

Just like the engineering machinery, everyone was working around the clock. The project was progressing at a speed that was visible to the naked eye. The construction site was roaring with action.

The environment was horrible; just standing there watching would make one's leather shoes covered with mud and dust.

However, the high ranking city council officials were standing nearby. They didn't have an ounce of disgust on their faces. Instead, their faces were blooming with joy.

A billion-dollar USD national investment was suddenly designated to Jin Ling City. This was basically a blessing from the heavens for Jin Ling City.

Especially since this was a controllable nuclear fusion scientific research project, this would greatly benefit the advanced technology industry and attract skilled talents to Jin Ling City.

Putting it straight forward, this was a huge political achievement.

Of course, this controllable nuclear fusion thing was nothing worth keeping confidential. There were plenty of research institutes around the world that did the same type of research, and they had been doing it for nearly half a century.

However, in order to prevent unnecessary worries and misunderstandings, these things were still kept low-key. Before any brilliant in-progress results came out, it was best to avoid any type of publicity.

Since the engineering part was overlooked by Commander Liao, the quality of the construction team was guaranteed.

At the current progress speed, it'd take at most six months for the project to be completed. If everything went well, it wouldn't even need to take six months; three or four months would do.

Since Commander Liao gave his word to Lu Zhou, Lu Zhou didn't worry too much about the construction project anymore. Once he told Engineer Sun some of his requirements, he began to focus his attention on the construction preparations for the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study.

Three days before New Year's, the STAR Stellarator Research Institute was in its second week of construction, while the Jinling Institute of Computational Materials building was finally completed.

The laboratory building the chemistry department lent to Lu Zhou was finally returned to its original owner.

However, the chemistry professors at Jin Ling University weren't eagerly looking forward to its return.

Because the relocation of the Jinling Institute of Computational Materials meant that the billion-dollar high precision instruments and equipment would also be reallocated by Yang Xu and his team.

Even though the Institute of Computational Materials wasn't far from Jin Ling University, it was still outside of the university campus.

Borrowing instruments wouldn't be so easy in the future.

Dean Li of the chemistry department looked at the truck that was being driven away. As he stood next to Lu Zhou, he began to feel nostalgic. He then said, "Why are you guys in such a rush? It's not like there's someone forcing you to leave."

Lu Zhou: "This laboratory building is still the property of the school; it's not that good having it under my name."

Dean Li shook his head and said, "You're not an outsider though."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Jin Ling University is my alma mater, so I've never thought about myself as an outsider. However, it is good to separate public and private matters."

If the relationship between public and private business wasn't clear, it would cause problems sooner or later.

When he was overseas, he was careful in his every step. Now that he was back in China, he had to be extra careful.

Since Lu Zhou put it like this, Dean Li didn't say much else; he just sighed.

"You're right, you're a Nobel Prize laureate now; the benchmark of the Chinese science community. All of the spotlights are on you. There's a lot of people staring at your achievements, and also a lot of people waiting for you to make a mistake, so it's good to be careful."

Lu Zhou nodded and said, "I will."

…

Even though the research institute building was built and the instruments had been relocated, this was still only the beginning of Lu Zhou's vision for the Institute for Advanced Study.

The field of computational materials was the only research institute around; all of the other research institutes were yet to be seen.

If he wanted to make his vision a reality, he had to put in a lot more work.

Because this was a privately owned research unit, after Lu Zhou made his policy requests, he didn't want to ask the state for more money. Even though the president promised him a billion yuan interest-free loan, Lu Zhou didn't plan on borrowing this money.

Firstly, he didn't need that much money right now.

Secondly, there was still quite a bit of funds left in the Star Sky Technology China branch for him to play with.

If he didn't look at the numbers in his bank account, he would have almost forgotten that he was basically a billionaire. After he realized he had this much money to play with, he immediately invested a hundred million yuan into the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study fund.

Lu Zhou never cared about spending money on research.

After all, the original intention of Star Sky Technology was to help with his laboratory research.

Lu Zhou walked around the brand new research institute building with his most helpful assistant, Yang Xu. While he familiarized himself with the environment, he asked, "How does it feel like to move back home?"

Yang Xu smiled and said, "The laboratory is much more spacious, and there's not a lot of people around here, so it feels a bit deserted."

Lu Zhou smiled.

"Deserted is part of it. I'll quickly hire a new group of researchers and make this place lively again."

With his Nobel Prize medal, coupled with the sophisticated equipment in the brand new laboratory building, Lu Zhou didn't even have to offer a high salary to attract a bunch of hard-working researchers.

Of course, looking at it from a long term perspective, he wouldn't treat his scientific researcher poorly either.

Lu Zhou stood in the research director's office that had floor-to-ceiling windows. As he looked at the entire institute, he said enthusiastically, "This is only phase one of the whole research institute. There are three more phases to go. Not just in materials science, but also mathematics, and physics. Whether it is software or hardware, we must strive to achieve world-class standards!"

Yang Xu: "Higher standards than CERN?"

Lu Zhou: "That will happen eventually."

Bragging didn't require proofs, and what if it turned out to be true?

Yang Xu joked, "You really plan on getting a Hadron Collider?"

Lu Zhou smiled as he replied, "It's an idea, but the thing can't be built in the city, plus right now we don't have the resources needed."

Theoretical physics experiments was another funding black hole. Nothing spectacular could come from it even if he invested his entire fortune.

However, if the controllable nuclear fusion project was a success, then funding wouldn't be a problem anymore.

By that time, if he wanted to draw a circle on the ground for a Hadron Collider or place a satellite in the sky to collect dark matter, no matter what ideas he came up with, someone would give him the green light.

Yang Xu didn't think about things that far into the future; his thoughts were still on the Hadron Collider. Feeling slightly astonished, he rubbed his chin while he thought about it.

"That thing isn't cheap, right? It'll cost billions; where will the money come from?" Yang Xu asked.

Lu Zhou smiled, but he didn't give this question a direct answer.

"Knowledge is the greatest asset, and our research is creating wealth."

Lu Zhou, who looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows paused for a moment.

"Gather up all of the researchers in the institute. We will have a large conference to talk about the next steps!"

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Chapter 473: Two Major Directions

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

"That's everyone?"

Lu Zhou looked at the empty conference room; he wasn't used to something like this.

When he did his report at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the venue was so crowded that people couldn't get into the lecture hall; they had to sit in the hallways.

But now, when he looked around, he only saw around 20 people in the conference room.

He even knew some of them.

Like Brother Qian, Liu Bo, etc…

"There aren't many formal researchers in our institute. I thought you might want to say some confidential stuff, so I didn't invite the temporary researchers and research assistants," Yang Xu said while he looked at Lu Zhou awkwardly. He then immediately added, "How about I notify them now?"

Lu Zhou was stunned. He then smiled and said, "No need, it's fine. Everyone sitting here is the backbone of the research institute, and I only have a few things to say."

He plugged in the USB into the projector and turned it on.

Once the projector screen behind him was pulled down, he cleared his throat and adjusted his demeanor.

"You guys might have already heard that the controllable nuclear fusion project is set in Jinling."

When Lu Zhou said this, there was a commotion in the conference room. The researchers all looked at each other in surprise and shock.

Even though they had heard some rumors before, that type of hearsay was obviously less shocking than Lu Zhou's in-person confirmation.

If anyone else said they wanted to research some state of the art technology like controllable nuclear fusion, they would be laughed at.

However, it was different for Lu Zhou.

Not only did he solve the world-class Navier–Stokes equation problem, but he also established a mathematical model for the plasma turbulence phenomenon using the L Manifold.

When their god-like boss said he wanted to engage in nuclear fusion, even though the researchers sitting here had never even seen a stellarator, they still naturally believed in their boss.

However, what confused them was why did Lu Zhou have to talk about this here?

After all, the Institute of Computational Materials wasn't a plasma physics laboratory; their research was focused on materials science and had nothing to do with controllable nuclear fusion.

However, Lu Zhou's following words answered the question that was on everyone's mind.

"… Some people might ask, 'what does this have to do with us?'. After all, you guys have a chemical engineering background and chose materials as your development direction. And even though some of you studied condensed matter physics before, it has nothing to do with plasma and nuclear engineering.

"However, breakthroughs in energy technology is inseparable from advancements in materials technology. We need a larger magnetic field to constrain the erratic plasma. We also need a more secure first wall to withstand the light and heat from the fusion reaction."

Lu Zhou looked at the researchers and paused for a second. He then began to talk about his main point.

"Our future research will be focused on two major directions. One is the field of superconducting materials. Like what I said, we need to engineer a more concise material that has a lower superconductivity temperature. This is to strengthen our magnetic field.

"The other is heat-resistant materials. We need to build a first wall that is resistant to high temperatures and can block the plasma that escaped from the magnetic field.

"Right now, we have made some progress on the side of the superconducting materials. At the MRS meeting, the SG-1 superconducting material reached a superconductivity transition temperature of 101K. Among other superconducting materials, this number isn't anything special. However, the plasticity of graphene gives us great potential for further research."

Lu Zhou showed a list of technologies required for controllable nuclear fusion on the PowerPoint behind him.

These were all problems known to the public; the known bottlenecks of controllable nuclear fusion.

He was a one-man army. He couldn't solve all of these problems by himself. The best way was to split a big research project into smaller research projects and then delegate the small research projects to his research team.

And he would choose some of the more difficult problems to conduct research on.

In fact, many Chinese research institutes used a similar model when trying to conduct a major research project.

For example, an academician received an eight-figure yuan project funding. The academician then split that project into many seven-figure or six-figure level projects, which he delegated to scholars in the Changjiang Scholars Program. If the project couldn't be split further, then Changjiang Scholars would delegate the work to lower-ranking Jie Qing scholars. It was like building the entire project out like a pyramid…

Of course, this was an inaccurate comparison. After all, in the academic pyramid, whether it was the Changjiang Scholars or the Jie Qing scholars, they were all considered top experts by average researchers. Differences could only be seen by comparing experts among experts.

However, there was no dispute on who would be at the bottom of the pyramids. That naturally would be the noob researchers, and they would be given the most tiring job.

Lu Zhou looked at the pairs of eyes in the conference and paused for a second.

"If we succeed, we will give benefits to the country, the people, and even our entire human civilization. This value cannot be measured with any monetary currency.

"I know this isn't a project that can be done overnight, and every step of the way will be full of difficulties.

"But I am confident that we will overcome these difficulties!

"We will all try our best together!"

…

The conference ended.

Liu Bo was holding his conference notes and muttered to himself, "Controllable nuclear fusion… Do you think this stuff is reliable?"

Qian Zhongming: "What do you mean by reliable?"

Liu Bo: "Including everyone, there are only a hundred people in our research institute and that includes the undergraduate students that just came from Jin Ling University. There are only 20 formal researchers. Did you see the research project on the PowerPoint? Just the human resources part alone is making me worried."

Qian Zhongming didn't reply to his question. Rather, he asked, "Other than our boss, how many Nobel Prize winners are there in Chinese academia?"

Liu Bo was stunned; he didn't know why he was asked this question.

"Academician Yang, Old Tu… Mo Yan?"

Qian Zhongming: "I'm talking in the academic community."

Liu Bo: "Then there's only two."

Qian Zhongming then asked, "How many are still on the frontier of scientific research?"

Academician Yang was already 95 years old. Even though he had cultivated many talented Chinese physicists and put forward many constructive opinions for the Chinese physics community, he had clearly moved away from the frontier of scientific research.

Old Tu was the same, she was already 87 years old. She was already at the age of retirement, and she was enjoying her life. Regardless of whether or not the elderly woman was still doing scientific research, it was unrealistic to expect someone that old to produce any significant research results.

Liu Bo pondered for a bit and said, "… I think it's only God Lu."

"Yeah," Qian Zhongming nodded and said, "so do you think a lack of research talents will be a problem for him?"

If the Nobel Prize winner's research institute wanted to hire people… then the researchers in the entire country or even the entire world would be running toward that institute, and they would be trying their best to squeeze their way in.

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Chapter 474: At Least A Postdoc

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Just like Lu Zhou had mentioned earlier at the internal meeting in the Institute of Computational Materials building, if they wanted to solve the difficult problem of controllable nuclear fusion, they couldn't avoid advancing in the field of superconducting materials.

However, a technical breakthrough wasn't enough, if it couldn't be applied through engineering, then even the greatest breakthrough would remain in the laboratory.

For example, the SG-1 material; it was one of the major breakthroughs in the field of superconducting materials, and it had already shown considerable prospects of real-life application.

However, whether it was China or the rest of the world, they had no experience in producing carbon-based superconducting materials at all, let alone applying it through engineering.

Therefore, not only did Lu Zhou have to overcome academic problems, but he also had to conquer problems outside of academia.

Fortunately, he could delegate problems to other people…

A laboratory inside the Institute of Computational Materials.

Right now, standing in front of Lu Zhou was Cao Ganwei, the chief engineer from Baosheng Group.

Baosheng Group was a subsidiary of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China and was a leading company in the field of superconducting materials in China. They had cooperated with many Chinese research institutes such as the Chinese Academy of Sciences and had participated in many large-scale research projects. Cao Ganwei was the chief engineer of the company, so naturally, he was involved in many of the projects.

Their most prominent project was probably the Beijing Spectrometer III(BESIII) experiment at the Beijing Electron-Positron Collider II.

It was difficult to determine the future, but as of now, the BESIII superconducting solenoid magnet was still the largest superconducting magnet in China.

Also, this company was involved in EAST and several other tokamak superconducting magnet projects.

After consulting Academician Pan, Lu Zhou immediately decided to contact this company and send an invitation for research and development cooperation.

After Baosheng Group received the invitation for the cooperation from the Jinling Institute of Computational Materials, Baosheng Group immediately sent their chief engineer and gave this project the highest priority.

Even if Lu Zhou didn't have a Nobel Prize and didn't have his reputation in the materials science community, a billion USD national-level scientific research project was definitely considered a top-level project.

However, when Engineer Cao listened to Lu Zhou's requirements, he quickly realized that things weren't so simple.

"You plan on using a 50T superconducting magnet on the stellarator; I'm afraid this won't be easy."

Even high schoolers knew how to create a stronger electromagnetic field; one just had to increase the number of coils wrapped around the solenoid.

However, even though this was the case, it was an engineering nightmare to achieve magnetic fields stronger than 10T.

Lu Zhou said, "If traditional materials would make it difficult, what if we use new materials?"

Engineer Cao raised his eyebrows as he asked, "You're talking about SG-1?"

Even though Engineer Cao wasn't in academia, he was still in the superconducting-magnets engineering field; he was up to date with the latest research developments in the field of materials science.

Especially after the SG-1 was showcased at the MRS conference. Even though he hadn't read the relevant thesis or attended the conference, he still heard about its magical properties.

Lu Zhou nodded and said, "That's right. I actually participated in the SG-1 research."

Engineer Cao was surprised when he heard Lu Zhou say this. However, he quickly composed himself.

He had heard from somewhere that this research result came from the Frick Chemistry Laboratory in Princeton. Since Lu Zhou was a Princeton professor, his participation in this project was nothing out of the ordinary.

Engineer Cao contemplated for a bit before he asked in a cautious manner, "Is there an SG-1 sample here?"

Lu Zhou: "Not just the samples, but we have all kinds of experimental data. Come with me."

Lu Zhou took Cao Ganwei to another laboratory. He told Qian Zhongming, who was sitting in front of a computer, to collect various experimental data on the SG-1 material.

Engineer Cao spent some effort looking at the data and graphs on the computer screen. He then frowned and pondered for a while before finally speaking.

"Honestly, this is my first time hearing about using a carbon-based superconducting material to create a superconducting track."

Lu Zhou smiled and asked, "Isn't experimenting a part of science?"

"That's right, but we're a company. Even though the things you're talking about sound interesting, we have to think realistically," Engineer Cao said as he rubbed his chin while looking at the material resistance versus time graph and the electric current graph. After a long time, he suddenly had a flash of interest in his eyes.

He then said, "… Theoretically, this is feasible, but with the price of graphene right now, if you want to build a magnet as large as the BESIII project, it will probably be extremely expensive."

Lu Zhou said, "The budget isn't an issue. Even if it costs billions, as long as the DEMO nuclear fusion power station project can be built, it is worth it."

The billion-dollar USD was only the first round of investment. As long as he could produce stellar in-progress results, he was confident that more people would be willing to invest.

"Since the cost isn't an issue, I think it is worth trying," Engineer Cao said. He then paused for a second before he cautiously asked, "Can I bring a few samples back for research?"

Lu Zhou smiled as he replied, "Of course you can, but you can't take the experimental data on the computers. It involves some confidential information that hasn't been released to the public, and I'm afraid you can only look at it when you are here."

Engineer Cao nodded. "I understand."

After the chief engineer left, Lu Zhou found Yang Xu, the director of the Institute of Computational Materials.

"After New Year's, I plan on going to Germany."

Yang Xu: "Germany?"

"Mainly for the stellarator." Lu Zhou nodded and said, "Since I'm there, I plan on buying a set of new instruments, and it'll cost around US$100 million. I need you to compile a list of necessary equipment."

He would expand the scale of the research institute after New Year's; his hardware also had to be kept up to date.

A smile appeared on Yang Xu's face when he heard about the purchase of new equipment. He said, "That's easy. Since we're doing research on superconducting materials, let's get two transmission electron microscopes."

Even though the research institute already had one of those microscopes, having two more meant the same experiment could produce two more sets of data.

Especially for something as magical as a transmission electron microscope, it was impossible to have too many of them.

Lu Zhou agreed without even blinking. "Write it down on the list."

He paused for a second before he continued, "Also, I plan on expanding the number of researchers to around 200. I will let Star Sky Technology contact the headhunting company, and you will handle the talent selection."

Yang Xu nodded and said, "Don't worry about that. I will hold them to the highest standards. Oh yeah, are there any requirements for the new recruits?"

Lu Zhou thought for a moment before he replied.

"A least a postdoc."

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Chapter 475: A Noob researcher

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

[Do you have a friend in materials science? Why not apply to the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study? Link: Recruitment page.

[PS1: All you need is a passion for scientific research. Minimum education level: PhD, with more than 12 months of experience working as a postdoc or corporate scientific researcher.

[PS2: You don't have to be a PhD in materials science. PhDs in Mathematics, physics, and other disciplines can also throw in your resumes. But please attach a formal research project application to your resume.]

At midnight, in a materials science laboratory at the University of Science and Technology of China.

Hou Jinli, who was guarding the laboratory, was scrolling through his Weibo when he saw this post. He suddenly felt motivated.

Like most people, he only followed God Lu on Weibo to see God Lu bragging about his achievements. Since this Nobel Prize winner didn't post anything on Weibo for so long, he didn't expect to see a… recruitment ad?

He looked at the comments and saw the plebeians discussing.

[Minimum PhD, 12 months of postdoc experience… God Lu, I'm still studying my undergrad, can you save me a spot?]

[This advertisement is making me uncomfortable, I'm reporting it!]

[Can a high schooler apply? I can clean the floors, pour tea, and act cute~~]

[Man, how come there isn't biology? Think about us biologists! (cry) (cry)]

[That biologist must be autistic, how about we… (evil smile) (evil smile)]

Hou Jinli: "…"

He saw the hundreds of likes and felt like there was a deep malevolence coming from across the screen; he decided not to read any more comments.

Every year, there were plenty of students that fell into the big dark pit of biology, chemistry, chemical engineering, environmental studies, and materials sciences.

The materials science research environment was the same, whether it was in China or around the world.

The profit margin was less than 30%. It was common for the product development cycle to be 7-8 years. The real question was, how many real estate buildings could be built during those 8 years? How many online companies could grow, go public, and go bankrupt in that time frame?

Of course, materials science was still relatively important in China as the industry received quite a lot of support.

Otherwise, there wouldn't be so many companies that relied on state subsidies and scientific research funding to survive.

Of course, for noob researchers in this field, doing scientific research still depended on one's passion; it wasn't just about money.

If Hou Jinli were to ask himself why he didn't change fields, it would be because of his passion for the materials science world.

At the same time, he hoped that one day he would be as successful as his PhD supervisor and that he would be driving a BMW, handling multi-million projects, and chatting with CEOs of public companies.

However, while dreams were beautiful, the reality was often cruel.

Million-dollar projects? He didn't even have his own laboratory!

His ideal future path was probably two years of postdoc. After that, he would apply for the Thousands Talents Plan. Then, he would work at a good university…

However, this was only an idea.

Like what the name had suggested, his chance of achieving this was less than one in a thousand.

When Hou Jinli looked at the Weibo post and saw the name of Jinling Institute for Advanced Study, he couldn't help but think about the matter that caused intense controversy in academia a while ago.

Lu Zhou was the chief designer of the new controllable nuclear fusion research unit in Jinling.

Even though this matter wasn't publicly reported, this was no secret among the academic community.

Some people thought Lu Zhou was arrogant; some people thought he was crazy. Some people were arguing about the possibility of the allegations being true. After all, one could argue that humans were a long way from controllable nuclear fusion technology, but one could also argue that humans were one football kick away from the winning goal.

However, it had been fifty years, and the ball hadn't entered the goal.

Hou Jinli couldn't help but think if the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study's recruitment post for materials science researchers was related to the controllable nuclear fusion project.

He curiously clicked on the link within the Weibo post and read the details.

When his eyes arrived at the compensation section, he was frozen.

Formal researcher will get a salary of 300K!

And the end of the year bonus, insurance, accommodation, and food subsidies…

Of course, what attracted his attention the most wasn't the 300k annual salary but the description after that.

According to the information listed on the page, as long as one passed the interview and finished a 1-6 month long internship, one would receive the qualification of a formal researcher!

Normally for PhDs that didn't study abroad, the usual procedure was to do a two to three-year postdoc at a university, then become assistant researcher, then associate researcher, then associate professor. This entire process would take at least six years. Also, if someone got unlucky and had a terrible, heartless boss, it could take them eight years to earn an independent research qualification.

And how many years one had in a lifetime?

A researcher only had ten golden years, and that period was the period from 30 to 40 years old.

If he could successfully become a formal researcher, he could cut down the process by at least six years.

Hou Jinli remembered that in two days, he would have stayed at the University of Science and Technology of China as a postdoc for exactly one year. His mind began to race.

If he was a formal researcher, he could have his own laboratory and could engage in independent research. He could skip the six years of exploitation he would have to endure otherwise.

Even though this scientific researcher position wasn't attractive for expert researchers, but for noob researchers like him that were still suffering, this was insanely appealing.

…

Staying up all night was the norm for Hou Jinli.

The next day, Hou Jinli filled in the experimental data on the report. He then energetically opened his laptop and downloaded the attachments from the recruitment website.

Suddenly, his friend at the laboratory walked over.

Sun Hao stood next to his friend's seat and looked at the computer screen. He then said, "… Minimum a PhD, 12 months of scientific research experience. Jesus, what kind of scientific research institute has this kind of threshold?"

Hou Jinli: "Jinling Institute for Advanced Study."

When Sun Hao heard the research institute's name, he was stunned.

"Jinling Institute for Advanced Study? F*ck me! You want to work for the Nobel Prize winner?!"

Hou Jinli: "It's at least worth a try?"

Regardless, he was a postdoc at the University of Science and Technology of China; he had an advantage in terms of his academic qualifications.

Of course, he didn't know how big this advantage was.

"Unfortunately, I still have seven months to go; otherwise, I'd apply as well." Sun Hao looked at the recruitment post on the screen and said with envy, "Bro, if you really end up working at this Nobel Prize winner's laboratory, don't forget about me."

Hou Jinli smiled. He then sighed and said, "We'll see. I'm afraid the competition is quite fierce."

200 spots seemed like a lot.

But if the jobs were evenly spread across China's major universities, it wasn't a lot at all.

Also with a salary like this, it wouldn't only be domestic universities; even postdocs who were doing their research abroad would be tempted…

After some anxious waiting, Hou Jinli successfully received an interview invitation. He confidently sat on a high-speed train and left Luyang, arriving at Jinling.

However, after he took a taxi and arrived at the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study, he was stunned by the scene in front of him.

He had a hunch when he was booking his hotel room.

Now it seemed like his hunch was correct.

He looked at the crowd of people gathered at the research institute and felt hopeless at his profession for the first time ever…

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Chapter 476: Talent Placement

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Hou Jinli was just one example.

There were many people that had the same experience as him, and they stood downstairs at the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study while holding the same dreams.

Tens of thousands of resumes were screened, and there were less than a thousand that received invitations to come for the interviews.

And only one-fifth of the people could pass the interview.

Regardless, everyone here had an equal opportunity.

It was up to them to grasp that opportunity.

Of course, other than formal researchers, there were also positions like assistant researchers, associate researchers, etc., waiting for them.

Even though the compensations from these positions weren't as attractive as that of a formal researcher, most people were willing to work here regardless of the role.

There was only one reason why.

Because this was a Nobel Prize winner's laboratory; if they were to put in the same amount of effort in their scientific research here, there would be more opportunities here than any other research institutes in China…

…

Yang Xu was the recruitment gatekeeper.

Lu Zhou was confident in Yang Xu's abilities; therefore, he left this matter to him. He only briefly reviewed resumes that weren't in the field of materials science, such as physics and mathematics.

These people were treated differently than those applying to the material science research institute. For researchers in the fields of mathematics and physics, Lu Zhou asked them to attach a research project application.

If they passed their interviews, the corresponding research project application would be considered as a thesis proposal. After being hired, their thesis proposal would also be accepted.

After they wrote their conclusion report, they would graduate from the internship.

Therefore, compared to the resume, Lu Zhou paid more attention to the research project applications.

He could extract many things from the thesis proposal that he wouldn't be able to extract from a normal resume, such as the applicant's experience in applying for research funding, etc…

While the Institute of Computational Materials was hiring 200 people, the yet to be established physics research institute and mathematics research institute would only hire around 20 people each.

Rome wasn't built in a day; the same applied to the Institute for Advanced Study. Cultivating talents couldn't be done overnight, and rapid expansion wasn't necessarily a good thing.

Even though Lu Zhou had a rough idea of how to copy Princeton, he was still in the process of figuring out the specifics.

He hoped that in the midst of this trial and error process, he could find an ideal way to build his research institute.

This wasn't an easy task, but it was worth a shot.

After three days of interviews and screening, the list of formal researchers was finalized.

Surprisingly, other than the 200 formal researchers, there were more than 500 PhDs that were willing to stay as research assistants.

After the expansion, the Institute of Computational Materials had transformed from a small 20 formal researcher institute to one of the largest materials science research institutes in the country.

Of course, this was only judging by the number of staff and equipment; it wasn't by the number of theses or research results produced.

With the talents and equipment in place, as long as the Nobel Prize winner led the team, excelling in the latter two was only a matter of time.

However, that was the future. Now that the people were hired, the placements of talents became another problem.

The city council at Jinling paid great attention to the construction of the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study.

Even though they didn't send any direct payments, they basically gave the Institute for Advanced Study a free piece of land for the accommodation of their employees. The land was next to the major university; it was in a high-tech industrial developmental zone.

However, the new piece of land had just finished their apartment bidding, and it would take at least a year before the apartments could be handed over to the institute.

On the side of the Institute for Advanced Study, starting from January, the PhDs that passed their interviews would have to come over and start their new job.

"Just rent a place for the time being," Lu Zhou said. He was at a conference when he talked about this problem. He thought for a bit and said, "Until the construction for the employee accommodation is completed, formal researchers will be issued a 2,000 yuan monthly renting subsidy. This should solve the housing problem."

The average rent of houses near the university was around 3,000 yuan per month, so a 2,000 yuan housing subsidy was quite generous. As for the assistant researchers and other positions, they would receive around 1,000 yuan per month of housing subsidy.

However, in this case, the Institute for Advanced Study would have to spend more than a million yuan a month just on housing subsidies.

Yang Xu shook his head and said, "Making all of them rent outside is a hassle. It's difficult to manage and the housing market isn't good near the university. If they find a place far away, transport will be a problem."

Lu Zhou: "Do you have a better plan?"

Yang Xu smiled mischievously and said, "I do have a plan… But it depends on you."

Lu Zhou: "Depends on me?"

Yang Xu looked away and said, "I think the faculty accommodation at Jin Ling University has been built…"

Lu Zhou: "…"

He immediately knew what Yang Xu was thinking.

Obviously, Lu Zhou had to ask for this favor in person…

…

The next day, Lu Zhou visited Principal Xu at his office at Jin Ling University. While chatting, they happened to talk about the few problems the Institute for Advanced Study was facing.

Lu Zhou was hesitant about whether or not he should ask, and he didn't know how to phrase it. However, Principal Xu was one step ahead of him.

He smiled as he said, "That's easy. Since the faculty accommodation at Jin Ling University has just been built, it's still empty. If you need, I can lend you two buildings."

Lu Zhou: "This… isn't appropriate, right?"

"Nothing is inappropriate." Principal Xu smiled and said, "You guys are working on an important national project as well as an important city council project. Not to mention, you guys have also helped us quite a bit before, so lending you two apartment buildings is no big deal."

Even the chemistry department laboratory building was lent out for two years, so lending them the two staff apartment buildings really was nothing.

Furthermore, the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study had a close connection with Jin Ling University, and they had been cooperating on scientific research projects.

And more than that, the real reason Principal Xu didn't hesitate before making this decision was because of the one billion USD scientific research engineering project.

What did one billion USD mean?

That meant almost seven billion yuan.

Forget about Jin Ling University; even the highest funded university in China, Shuimu University, only had annual funding of 5.79 billion yuan 1.

Other laboratories could take on research projects for Lu Zhou, thus taking a piece of the billion dollar fund.

With the strength of the physics department at Jin Ling University, they would be able to take on many research projects.

In contrast, they only had to temporarily lend out two staff apartment buildings.

It wouldn't be a big deal even if they never take back the buildings.

Lu Zhou saw how clear-cut Principal Xu's answer was, so he didn't try and decline.

After pausing for a moment, Principal Xu said with a smile, "Oh yeah, since you're here, I want to ask you for a favor."

Lu Zhou said, "What?"

Principal Xu smiled and said, "The Jinling University's Annual Person Award Ceremony will be held in a week!"

Most of the good universities had their version of the Annual Person Award where the selected ones were all geniuses among geniuses. It was quite a prestigious award. The Annual Person Award Ceremony was one of the major university events.

In principle, one person could only win this award once. However, Lu Zhou remembered that he seemed to have won it twice; once for his undergrad, and once for his master's.

Lu Zhou smiled awkwardly and coughed. He then said, "It's been so long since I graduated, you're not going to give me a prize, right?"

Principal Xu smiled and said, "You've already won the Fields Medal and Nobel Prize, and you're still concerned about our little prize?! We're not giving you a prize, I just want to ask if you have the time to give the young students at Jin Ling University a medal or something."

Oh, I'm supposed to give out prizes…

There were too many people calling him that tried to give him awards, so the thought of receiving another prize almost activated Lu Zhou's conditioned response of rejecting the prize.

"Not concerned, just used to it." Lu Zhou smiled awkwardly and said, "Okay then, just let me know when the time comes."

Principal Xu nodded and said, "Okay, thanks in advance!"

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Chapter 477: Too Early For Me

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The accommodation problem was solved.

After New Year's, the researchers that were hired began working, and the research plan was finally put on the agenda.

As for the coordination of new researchers, they had to quickly integrate themselves into their new roles and positions and arrange their own research group projects. Important equipment and instrument also had to be allocated. This all depended on Yang Xu's management abilities.

As Lu Zhou walked in the corridor outside the principal's office, he took out his phone and called Wang Peng, asking him to drive to the administrative building.

However, when he hung up, he suddenly had a weird expression on his face.

Speaking of which, he had been working for so long and even solved the staff accommodation problem. However, he still didn't have a place to stay in Jinling; he was stuck in a hotel all day.

Lu Zhou couldn't help but smile as he shook his head.

When I have time, I'll go look at some houses.

…

Lu Zhou came downstairs and entered Wang Peng's car. He was putting on his seat belt when he suddenly received another call.

When he saw that it was Xiao Tong who called, he answered the call and placed the phone next to his ear.

"Bro, where are you?"

Lu Zhou: "About to go back to the research institute, why?"

Xiao Tong looked around and began to beat around the bush. She said, "Are you going to the New Year's Eve party?"

Lu Zhou: "What party?"

Xiao Tong blushed and said, "The party for the Annual Person Award Ceremony."

When Lu Zhou heard about the party for the Annual Person Award Ceremony, he smiled as he began to casually brag to his sister.

"If everything goes well, your brother will have to present the awards."

Xiao Tong was surprised. "Really?!"

Lu Zhou: "Yeah… Why?"

"Nothing, I'm hanging up, bye!"

Lu Zhou: …?

Xiao Tong didn't even give Lu Zhou time to ask a question; she quickly hung up.

When Lu Zhou heard the beeping sound coming from his phone, he put his phone down.

He was at a loss as he looked at his phone screen. He didn't know why this girl suddenly called.

What was she doing?

Wang Peng: "Little sister?"

Lu Zhou put away his phone and casually said, "Yeah."

Wang Peng was holding the steering wheel, and he said in a wistful tone, "It's so nice."

Lu Zhou smiled and shook his head. "You won't think it's nice when you have one."

Wang Peng had been Lu Zhou's driver for so long that they were almost friends.

Plus they were around the same age and didn't take things too seriously, so they often spoke casually to one another. They even occasionally bragged about some private things.

Of course, Lu Zhou didn't ask about Wang Peng's specific job scope because he didn't have to. Wang Peng also didn't ask about Lu Zhou's research.

Wang Peng: "That might not be the case."

Lu Zhou: "You're an only child?"

Wang Peng sighed and said, "Since my family works for the government, I don't think we can escape the one-child policy."

Lu Zhou nodded, showing his understanding.

But speaking of which, his father, who worked at the factory, also seemed to work for the state.

Lu Zhou didn't remember how his father was able to save Xiao Tong; he only remembered that it was a cumbersome process.

Wang Peng: "When I marry, I plan on having two children. How about you?"

Lu Zhou gently coughed and said, "… For me, it's still too early to talk about this kind of stuff."

…

On the first Friday after New Year's, the 2018 Jin Ling University's Annual Person Awards was held at the grand auditorium in the new campus.

Lu Zhou happened to meet an acquaintance on his way to the auditorium.

"Student Yan?"

"Lu Zhou?" Yan Xinjue looked back and stopped walking. His eyes lit up as he asked, "What are you doing here?"

"Principal Xu invited me." Lu Zhou walked forward and smiled. He then said, "Bro, what are you doing here?"

If he recalled correctly, when he graduated from Academician Lu, this student also graduated from his PhD.

After that, he got a fellowship 1 at the CERN research center in Switzerland. Therefore, he went to Switzerland and started to work on synchrotron radiation sources and electron injectors in X-ray free-electron laser devices. His research went from being purely theoretical physics to being applied physics. He began to work on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and the Future Circular Collider (FCC).

After that, because the two didn't have an overlapping area of research, plus they were quite busy, they stopped contacting each other.

Meeting each other at the campus of Jin Ling University made them feel extra cordial.

Yan Xinjue smiled and said, "I only returned to China a few days ago, just in time to attend the Annual Person Awards, so here I am. Oh yeah, I heard you plan on returning to China and developing here."

Lu Zhou smiled and nodded.

"Yeah, I'll return at the latest this year. Once my work in Princeton is over, I plan on resigning and returning to teach at Jin Ling University. What about you? Is your work at CERN going well?"

Yan Xinjue sighed and buried his chin into his scarf as he said, "There are too many nutty people there, so the pressure is huge. It's like working under an alarm clock every day."

Lu Zhou felt sympathetic toward his friend.

After all, theoretical physics was the temple of academia; it was normal for there to be nutty people…

Lu Zhou diverted the conversation into something lighter. He asked, "Are there any interesting discoveries at CERN?"

Yan Xinjue: "Nothing recently, and the laboratories there are on holiday. However, at the end of August, we successfully observed a pair of Higgs boson fading into a pair of bottom quarks, so that's definitely an exciting discovery. According to the ATLAS and CMS detectors, the observation exceeded five sigma! Almost half of the nutty theoretical physicists went to Switzerland at the end of the year… I thought I could see you there, but you didn't end up going."

Lu Zhou awkwardly smiled and said, "I was in Stockholm at that time."

Yan Xinjue patted his head when he remembered something.

"I almost forgot you won the Nobel Prize… Hm, maybe I should call you something else."

Lu Zhou was so nutty that Yan Xinjue didn't want to call him directly by his name.

Lu Zhou joked, "Sure, you can call me Professor Lu if you want."

Yan Xinjue: "Never mind, forget about it."

After arriving at the auditorium, Lu Zhou greeted Principal Xu, Academician Lu, and Old Tang. He was then escorted by a staff member to the guest seating area.

Soon after, the award ceremony opened with a youthful dance song.

When Lu Zhou looked at the dancers leaving the stage, he couldn't help but think back to the previous times when he attended the award ceremony. He then clapped as he spoke emotionally.

"It's been so many years, that song still sounds so youthful. I can't believe the dance hasn't changed yet."

Yan Xinjue, who was sitting next to him, coughed and said, "… It hasn't been that long; you were here in 2015."

Emm…

I think he's right?

He didn't know if it was because of Shi Shang's wedding, or because of the Fields Medal and Nobel Prize, or because of his own mentality changing, but time felt like it was passing by quickly…

Lu Zhou looked at the stage as he reminisced about his youthful years; he suddenly felt like that was a long, long time ago.

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Chapter 478: Another Year Of Awards

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Just like the previous years, the award ceremony was held to celebrate outstanding student achievements in areas such as academic research, innovation, entrepreneurship, and cultural construction.

Other than the Annual Person Award certificate, the winners would also receive a special Jin Ling University scholarship.

Even though the amount wasn't large, it was only 15,000 yuan, but the ability to stand out from tens of thousands of students was far more valuable than the money.

After all, this was a one-of-a-kind reward. Furthermore, this was in a top C9 university. The students selected this year were stronger than ever.

Physics was the trump card of Jin Ling University, so the first to appear on stage was a physics genius student.

After the host shouted the guy's name, Lu Zhou saw a tall boy, who was wearing a suit and square glasses, walking toward the stage. He then stepped on the podium in the midst of a round of applause.

When this physics genius student received the award certificate from Lu Zhou, he held his hand with excitement as he said, "God Lu!"

Lu Zhou: "… Just call me Lu Zhou or Professor Lu."

It wasn't too weird to see it on Weibo, but when he was called God Lu in real life, he felt a little shameful.

Besides, there were so many people here.

Hu Tiancheng nodded excitedly. He then asked, "Um, God… Professor Lu, can you give me your signature?"

Lu Zhou: "Sure… Do you have a pen?"

"I do! I'm carrying it," Student Hu said. Obviously, he came prepared as he quickly took out a notebook and pen from his inner suit pocket.

The notebook was huge; Lu Zhou didn't know how he managed to stuff it in his pocket.

Lu Zhou took the pen and paper and flipped through the notebook. As he looked at the densely written calculations, he couldn't find an empty space to sign.

"Where should I sign?"

Hu Tiancheng replied excitedly, "Just sign the cover!"

Lu Zhou didn't say anything else as he put his signature on the front cover of the notebook.

When Hu Tiancheng saw Lu Zhou writing, he then awkwardly asked, "Umm… Can you give me your email address as well?"

"No problem."

Lu Zhou replied cheerfully and wrote a string of letters and numbers next to the signature.

Hu Tiancheng looked at the email address and opened his mouth again. "Umm…"

Lu Zhou: "Anything else?"

Hu Tiancheng awkwardly scratched the back of his head and said, "Can I add you on WeChat?"

Lu Zhou: "…"

The physics genius student got off stage. The next student walking on stage in the midst of the applause was a mathematics genius student.

This year, the normally weak mathematics department exploded again. They didn't expect after Lu Zhou's departure, there would be another outstanding genius student.

The curtain behind the podium presented his achievements.

Full marks for all of his 12 core subjects and the rest of the subjects were 99. Ranked first in the school for his core subject marks and miles ahead of second place.

However, it wasn't just his grades that were nutty. Even his extracurricular activities were decent as well.

The guy won three gold medals—the Qiu Chengtong Award from the Qiu Chengtong College Students Mathematics Competition, the geometric topology Shiing-Shen Chern Mathematics Award, and the Zhou Weiliang Award. Other than that, he was also the first author on two SCI theses, and according to the Chinese Academy of Science, the theses were considered top-ranking.

Even though in the minds of Jin Ling University students, his status was quite a bit below that of God Lu's, but for a normal university student, his achievements were exceptionally outstanding.

As a result, Lu Zhou even had an idea of taking him in as a student.

The person receiving the award on stage was an awkward-looking male of average height.

When he shook hands with Lu Zhou, it was like he met his celebrity crush. He then shouted with excitement, "God Lu!"

Lu Zhou was so embarrassed by the enthusiasm of this kid that he even forgot to tell him not to call him God Lu.

"Uh, hello…"

Wu Kai's face was bright red because he was so nervous. He even stuttered slightly while talking.

"I… I grew up listening to your story!"

Lu Zhou nearly vomited when he heard this.

What the hell do you mean grew up listening to my story?

Also, you're an adult male, why on earth are you blushing…

Lu Zhou awkwardly smiled as he said euphemistically, "I'm only 24 years old."

Wu Kai paused for a second. His face then turned red again, and he quickly explained, "Oh, sorry, I meant when I was doing the college entrance examinations…"

"No, it's fine, everyone gets nervous sometimes." Lu Zhou smiled and said, "However, you should be more confident. You've accomplished a lot for your age. I hope you continue to work hard; the future is yours."

"Thanks, thank you!" Wu Kai stood up straight; his face blushed again.

Lu Zhou: "…"

Why are you red again?

"And, can you let go of my hand now?"

"Oh, sorry!"

Wu Kai quickly retracted his hand. While holding the certificate, he bowed at Lu Zhou again before he wandered off stage.

Environmental engineering was after mathematics, and even though the engineering department at Jin Ling University wasn't as good as those universities up north, they were still quite good at materials science and natural environment.

Of course, compared to those science geniuses, engineering geniuses were another type of excellence.

However, the most basic thing they had in common was that whether they were studying theoretical or applied sciences, their academic grades were superb.

Lu Zhou was happy at how brilliant these young students were as it meant that his alma mater was getting stronger and stronger.

However, the only downside was that all of the people shaking his hand on stage were fanboys; he didn't even meet a single fangirl.

Most of the genius students in the liberal arts department were male; this made him very worried about the unbalanced gender ratio of his alma mater.

Finally, it was the business school award.

When the host announced the winner, Lu Zhou looked at the little girl walking toward the stage and was instantly shocked.

Xiao Tong?

The achievements of the winner were displayed on the projector screen behind them.

Full marks for ten core subjects and ranked first in the entire grade.

In addition to the straight As that she received for her summer exchange program that was offered by Oxford University, she also completed one SCI thesis during her exchange and won the national first-level prize for the mathematics modeling competition…

With these achievements, she definitely deserved this honor.

However, Lu Zhou just didn't expect his little sister to suddenly become so powerful.

Especially the Oxford University summer exchange program… She didn't even mention it to him.

Xiao Tong stood in front of Lu Zhou. When she saw how surprised he was, she had a smug smile on her face. "Haha, what do you think? Are you surprised?"

"Quite surprised," Lu Zhou replied honestly. He nodded and said, "I didn't expect you to be a genius student."

Xiao Tong grabbed the certificate from her brother grumpily. "What do you mean… I don't want to humiliate you, so I've been working very hard, okay?"

When Lu Zhou heard his sister, he was speechless.

What do you mean by you don't want to humiliate me… You should study for yourself.

Xiao Tong was still happily holding the award certificate. She wanted to take this opportunity and speak to the Nobel Prize laureate, so she spoke with a tinge of gloat in her voice.

"Bro, so… Do you think I can catch up to you?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "You're not quite there yet. Make sure you keep working hard."

Facing away from the crowd, Xiao Tong glared and said, "… Can't you just compliment me for once?"

"I don't want you to get cocky," Lu Zhou said as he patted his sister's shoulder. He then paused for a second. With a sincere smile on his face, he said, "However, I have to say… Well done!"

When Xiao Tong finally heard her long-awaited praise, the small amount of disappointment in her heart suddenly vanished.

Xiao Tong was grinning from ear to ear as she held her award certificate tightly and walked off stage with satisfaction written on her face.

Finally, it was time to give the last Annual Person Award.

Lu Zhou was a bit tired from standing on stage. He took the winner's certificate from the student union's representative and was about to wish for the award ceremony to end so that he could rest backstage.

However, while he was taking the certificate, the host announced the name of the final winner.

The second Lu Zhou heard that name, he froze.

"The last Annual Person Award goes to…

"Han Mengqi from Class One, applied chemistry!"

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Chapter 479: Buying A House

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

His little student was standing on the stage right now.

Her achievements and honors were displayed on the projector behind them.

In addition to the ten full marks for her core subjects, she also ranked first in the applied chemistry department.

It wasn't just her grades; she also published two SCI theses as the first author and had a year of experience doing research at the Institute of Computational Materials.

Even though she wasn't as well-rounded as the other students, who won awards in various competitions, her scientific research experience was on another level.

What did two SCI theses mean?

It wasn't a big deal for nutty master's or PhD students, but for an undergraduate student, this was a huge deal.

Meng Qi walked up the stage in the midst of the applause. When she received the certificate from Lu Zhou, she gently bit her lower lip before she said anxiously, "Teacher…"

"What?"

"Um, Can… I become your master's student?"

Would Nobel Prize laureates accept master's students?

Forget about Nobel Prize laureates, even some busy academicians didn't want master's students.

After all, in terms of free labor, it was more efficient to take experienced PhD students.

When she remembered that Lu Zhou worked at a place far, far away, she couldn't help but feel disappointed.

Suddenly, she regretted asking this.

Lu Zhou finally replied, "I'll probably come back to Jin Ling University and teach sometime this year."

He paused for a second before he smiled and said, "When the time comes, I will probably be teaching computational materials science. If you're interested in that area of research, you can become my master's student."

Han Mengqi was quite talented, especially in science. Lu Zhou could tell that from back when he tutored her.

She managed to pull her grades up in such a short amount of time, and she was able to be admitted to Jin Ling University; this wasn't something an ordinary person could do.

The teenage version of Lu Zhou might not have been able to do the same.

After all, before the system existed, he had a certain amount of talent but was nowhere near a genius level.

Therefore, being able to be admitted to Jin Ling University from an ordinary high school, where the educational resources are not the best, required serious hard work.

Lu Zhou never agreed with the saying that girls shouldn't be in scientific research.

There were plenty of beautiful knowledgeable female researchers at Princeton, such as Dr. Nieng Yan, or Molina's supervisor, or even Vera.

Meng Qi, who was anxious, became surprised. She then became excited.

As Han Mengqi held the certificate in front of her chest tightly, it was like she didn't believe what she just heard. She then spoke quietly, slightly trembling in disbelief.

"Really?"

Lu Zhou smiled and nodded.

"Of course. I mean, before you did your college entrance examination, we did make a deal."

In the crowd.

Seeing that Han Mengqi was blushing on stage, her three roommates in the crowd looked at each other.

As they clapped along with the other audience members, Li Fang said, "Am I wrong or is Meng Qi actually being shy?"

The applause gradually subsided. Su Jiawen stopped applauding and said, "I think you're right."

Luo Meng: "She knows God Lu?"

Without thinking, Li Fang said, "How is that possible? He's a Princeton professor."

Luo Meng was suspicious, and she said, "But look at her face; I think they know each other."

Li Fang: "I think you're over-reading into it."

"Didn't Meng Qi submit to SCI before? Do you think God Lu happened to be her reviewer? Also, I remember now. The chemistry department undergraduate student internship program that Meng Qi joined was at the Institute of Computational Materials. I heard the Institute of Computational Materials is owned by God Lu! Maybe…" Luo Meng was blushing from excitement as she began to imagine; her mind was already filled with a million-word romance novel.

Su Jiawen facepalmed. She looked on hopelessly at her crazy roommate before she sighed and said, "Stop reading so many novels…"

…

After the Annual Person Award Ceremony came to an end, Jin Ling University returned to its usual peacefulness.

The weather became colder and colder as it approached Chinese New Year. There were fewer students around, and the peaceful campus felt deserted.

However, compared to the Jin Ling University's quiet atmosphere, the Institute for Advanced Study next door was way more lively.

After the researchers arrived at their new jobs, the experiments began.

Also, in order to finally leave the crappy hotel room, Lu Zhou decided to take some time and let Wang Peng drive him to a real estate office.

The black car with the red national flag was parked outside the real estate office. When the sales lady saw Lu Zhou and his driver got off the car, her eyes lit up. Once she realized the status of this customer, she immediately walked over.

Wang Yalan had a professional smile on her face as she politely asked, "Sir, is there anything I can assist you with?"

Lu Zhou sat down on a sofa in the office and picked up a brochure on the table. As he flipped through the pages, he said, "I want to buy a house. Is there any good listing?"

"Are you planning to buy for living or investing?"

"Living I guess," Lu Zhou said. He looked at the photos on the wall and thought for a moment before he said, "The main requirement is a quiet environment. Preferably already built, as I don't want to wait too long."

He suddenly remembered something, so he added another requirement.

"Oh yeah, it has to be a stand-alone house."

When Wang Yalan heard the words "stand-alone", she became even more enthusiastic. She immediately sat next to Lu Zhou and began recommending houses to him.

"Sir, are you planning on buying a mansion?"

Lu Zhou: "You could say so."

Wang Yalan: "Then I recommend this mansion in the rose garden area. The main body of the building is made of German limestone, and it has a modern minimalist influence and classical European style. It's unique both in terms of appearance and comfort…"

Lu Zhou looked at the photos of the mansion and felt it was pretty good. He then asked, "How big is it?"

Wang Yalan: "The building area is 1,100 square meters, and the backyard is 2,600 square meters. There's also a lawn and swimming pool…"

Lu Zhou nearly choked when he heard this number.

It was not like he had a goddamn helicopter, so why the hell would he need such a big backyard? Was he going to be playing golf? Actually, it was not big enough for golf…

"Too big. Just recommend me something a couple of hundred square meters. Plus this is too far away. Find me a place with a better transport system, and it has to be close to the university."

Surprised, Wang Yalan looked at him and asked, "You're living by yourself?"

Lu Zhou: "Not allowed?"

"No, no," Wang Yalan said. She then quickly flipped to another page and said, "This mansion is on the east side of the Purple Mountain, so it fits your requirements. The area is 585 square meters, with a front yard and garage. It's close to the city, and the university and high-tech zone 1 is on its east side."

That's pretty good.

As Lu Zhou flipped through the interior and exterior pages of the house, he nodded with satisfaction.

He was quite happy with it, especially with the location and transport.

"How much is it?"

"70,000 yuan per square foot."

Which meant the total price is around 40 million yuan?

Lu Zhou closed the brochure in his hand and stood up from his sofa.

"Okay then, let's go see it."

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Chapter 480: Experiment Success Rate

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The suburb name was called "Zhongshan International", also known as the "legendary filthy rich suburb of Jinling".

Lu Zhou remembered hearing about it back in college, but he didn't remember who told him about it.

The entire suburb was filled with mansions, and it was located on the northeast side of the national grade 4A scenery area. The suburb covered an area of 3671 mu 1 and had a plot ratio of only 0.168. It contained a golf course and also had a shopping mall nearby.

However, Lu Zhou didn't really care about these things; he didn't play golf nor did he like to shop.

As long as the house was adequate and the environment was decent, it was good enough for him.

"This house is pretty good."

As Lu Zhou stood in this rustic study room and touched the bookshelf, he nodded with satisfaction.

Wang Peng walked to the side and touched the windows. He then pointed at the two trees outside and spoke.

"The position of the two trees outside isn't good."

Lu Zhou looked out the window and said, "Why do you say that? I think it's pretty good."

Without those two trees, the entire front yard would be naked; it would ruin the overall allure.

Wang Peng pointed and said, "It's easy to create a blind spot in that position. If I climb over there and walk along the wall, I don't even have to bend over; I bet you won't see me."

Wang Yalan raised her eyebrows and politely said, "Sir, there is a professional security team in the gated community, and there is no way for thieves to get in. Therefore, there's no need to worry about these types of things."

Wang Peng was amused, and he raised his eyebrows as he asked, "More professional than me?"

Wang Yalan was stunned; she didn't know what to say.

What do you mean by more professional?

Are you a professional thief?

Lu Zhou gently coughed to end the conversation. He then said, "Don't bother with the two trees. I'll just install a camera there."

To be honest, he wasn't some kind of secret agent nor was he involved in weapon research. Anyway, he wasn't going to put any important data at home. Even though being cautious was the correct thing to do, he didn't have to be that careful.

There weren't any scholars in the world that had a wider research area than his, but there were scholars that were nuttier than him; there were even a few in Princeton. He'd be crazy to think the conspiracy theories of attacking scholars were real.

As for what would happen in the future?

He would deal with it in the future. After all, to worry about this now was unnecessary.

After he bought the house, he planned on installing a security camera system and some drones. Xiao Ai would manage the security for him.

Even with the two trees there, he didn't believe anyone could climb over.

Wang Peng made a helpless expression.

"I was just suggesting… Of course, the decision is yours."

Lu Zhou walked away from the window and looked at the study room. He then said, "I quite like this house… This will do then."

…

While Lu Zhou was inspecting his future house, Hou Jinli, who also recently joined the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study, was also inspecting his future house… Well, the dorm that he would be staying in.

Hou Jinli had just left the University of Science and Technology of China campus. He was now at the Jin Ling University campus, As he looked at the new staff accommodation while carrying his luggage, he felt very emotional.

However, it wasn't a negative emotion…

It wasn't positive either…

He thought about the research institute's promise for staff accommodation and couldn't help but feel a little excited. Houses nearby had an average price of 30,000 yuan per square meter. He could start living there after working for one year and could own the place after working for eight years. These conditions were considered extremely generous among the Chinese research community.

Especially the materials research community.

Of course, what made him more excited was that he would become a staff member of a Nobel Prize winner's laboratory.

He'd be willing to work there even if he wasn't paid.

Once he wrote a couple of theses, his qualifications would be on another level.

Hou Jinli spent a long time tidying his new place and spent his first night in Jinling sleeping at the Jin Ling University staff faculty dorms.

He finally settled down at his new place.

Tomorrow was the first official working day.

The next day, Hou Jinli took a taxi all the way to the entrance of the Institute for Advanced Study. He then went to the Institute of Computational Materials.

From the main entrance of the research institute to the materials building, he had to go through two security access points. Both points used facial recognition.

The research didn't give these new hires time to become familiar with the environment. After their orientation yesterday, all of them had basically been assigned specific tasks.

However, he didn't need time to become familiar with the environment here. Before coming here, he had been doing similar types of work. Coincidentally, it was also research on carbon nanomaterials.

For him, all that changed was the location where he would be conducting the experiment.

The only thing he had to familiarize himself with was where the instruments and reagents were at.

Hou Jinli double-checked his tasks for today before he put on an anti-static white lab coat. He weighed 10 grams of 100 mesh graphite powder and mixed it with sodium nitrate solids at a 2:1 ratio.

Suddenly, Yu Junda walked into the laboratory. He was also in the internship stage.

"We're making an SG-1 sample today?"

Hou Jinli nodded and said, "Yeah, there's not enough stock left. Are you familiar with the Hummers' method?"

"I've done it a few times."

"Okay then, come and help me."

Normally, other than preparing it in-house, the chemicals and reagents needed in experiments could be bought from other research institutes or companies.

However, the SG-1 material was a new technology that was recently unveiled at the MRS conference. Even though most databases had all the relevant theses and experimental reports, there weren't many laboratories that had the capability of producing it.

Every step of the graphene oxide preparation was crucial.

According to the Hummers method, which was adopted by Qian Zhongming, the process of adding potassium permanganate was divided into low, medium, and high-temperature reaction stages.

When adding the potassium permanganate in parts, the reaction temperature should be around 20 degrees Celsius, and it would require around half an hour of stirring.

After that, the temperature should be raised to 35 degrees Celsius, and it should be stirred for half an hour.

Once the product of the reaction was poured into a certain amount of deionized water, it should then produce a bright yellow solution. This should be placed in a 98 degrees Celsius water bath and heated. It should be stirred for about half an hour. Finally, the solution should go through suction filtration. After that, the researcher would place it to be dried.

If everything went well, the final sample would be in a light reddish-brown color.

If something went wrong, one would have no idea what one just made.

Most of the time, the real marker of a researcher's experiment abilities were in the small details.

If one didn't pay attention to these details, one could produce two different results even though one was doing the same experiment using the same procedure.

In other words, if a researcher could pay attention to the small details, even though they wouldn't necessarily become an excellent researcher, they wouldn't be a noob researcher anymore.

For Hou Jinli, these procedures weren't difficult at all.

He spent a year working as a researcher for the University of Science and Technology of China, and he did similar experiments countless times before. When he finished the entire process smoothly, Yu Junda, who stood next to him, was astounded.

Even though he also worked as a researcher for a good university, unfortunately, he was responsible for writing theses…

Hou Jinli completed the graphene oxide preparation but stayed serious.

Next up, he had to follow the experimental report and use techniques such as N-doping, etc. to modify the graphene oxide.

The next steps were the key to determining the success of his experiment.

Unfortunately, even though the experimental report was written clearly, and he was carefully following the steps, things didn't go as smooth as he had imagined.

The final product that appeared in front of the two researchers was a pile of black powder.

Yu Junda realized the experiment had failed. He had a slightly awkward expression when he asked, "… Is this thing still salvageable?"

Hou Jinli was also feeling awkward as he replied, "Probably not."

Experiments all had an underlying success rate, so failing once wasn't a big deal.

However, their efforts had gone to waste…

Hou Jinli sighed and placed the sample into a small plastic bag.

He walked to the waste bin and squeezed the black sample.

He thought this thing would instantly turn to dust when squeezed. However, the irregular powder particles didn't break.

Hou Jinli noticed this unusual phenomenon and stopped walking. He then looked at the small plastic bag in his hand and frowned.

This thing seems to be… quite strong?

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Chapter 481: "Interesting" Research Project

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

There was no way Hou Jinli could use these instruments to analyze this material.

At the very least, he needed to do an XRD test on it first.

Of course, the best thing would be to use a scanning electron microscope as the situation would then become clear instantly.

If the things observed were "interesting" enough, it might be able to produce an SCI thesis.

Ah, I really want to have my own laboratory…

Hou Jinli sighed in his heart. He looked at the bag of black waste in his hand and hesitated for a second.

In the end, he didn't throw it into the waste bin. Instead, he left it on the experiment table.

When Yu Junda noticed his colleague's actions, he asked curiously while looking at him, "Why are you keeping that thing?"

"I plan on applying for a thesis proposal and see if I can borrow the scanning electron microscope to analyze this thing," Hou Jinli said. He then paused for a second before he continued, "I think this thing is pretty interesting."

Yu Junda couldn't help but say, "Isn't this stuff just carbon waste? What is there to research?"

Of course, it could also be the residue of potassium permanganate, a mixture of the two, or something more interesting.

People in the field of materials science often saw all kinds of weird stuff; this was nothing unusual.

Hou Jinli picked up the plastic waste bag and placed it in his colleague's hand. He then said, "It's a little different than carbon residue; try touching it yourself."

Yu Junda squeezed it in his hand for a while. He then frowned and said, "I don't feel anything?"

Hou Jinli was confident he was correct, so he said in a positive tone, "You'll feel it if you touch it more."

Yu Junda: "…"

Yu Junda didn't know why, but he felt like his colleague sounded a little dirty.

Actually, both superconducting graphene and SG-1 were completely new research fields.

Most material institutes that did research on carbon nanomaterials or superconducting materials might have heard about the SG-1 at the MRS conference. However, very few institutes knew about the in-depth material details.

Precisely because of this, there were still many places worth exploring.

Hou Jinli wasn't the only one who was interested in the problems he found while doing experiments related to the SG-1 material, nor was he the only one that was immersed in research ideas. However, he was probably the only one that was interested in experimenting with waste products.

In the end, after some consideration, he used his spare time outside of work to write the thesis proposal.

Then, this proposal and other thesis proposals ended up on Lu Zhou's desk.

"Unknown black material was created during the preparation of the SG-1 material?"

Lu Zhou looked at the thesis proposal and had a weird expression on his face.

It's not carbon residue, right?

Speaking of which, this thesis proposal does have a simple title…

Lu Zhou skipped the title section and began reading the proposal body.

For researchers in the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study, other than the National Natural Science Foundation of China or the City Scientific Research Fund, another way to receive funding and equipment was from the institute's proprietary fund.

As long as the research direction was consistent with the general research direction of the institute and that the thesis proposal was able to convey the value of the research project, the chance of the thesis proposal being accepted was pretty high.

Lu Zhou had always been generous in terms of funding. He even encouraged researchers to dive into problems found in experiments. Even if these findings were not necessarily economically beneficial, it was fine as long as the findings were meaningful.

After all, many marvelous research results were discovered through accidents.

Lu Zhou, who was sitting in his office chair, began to think for a bit. In the end, he decided to sign his name on the application.

In general, the thesis proposal was pretty good; it made him feel like it was worth a try.

Six of the ten thesis proposals were accepted, while the remaining four did not meet the requirements and were rejected.

Once Lu Zhou finally finished this annoying task, he stretched and stood up from his office chair. He then walked to the coffee machine and made himself a cup of coffee.

Suddenly, he heard someone knocking on his door.

"It's unlocked. Come in."

The door opened and Yang Xu appeared at the door.

A few days ago, he represented the Institute of Computational Materials and went to Zhi University for an exchange. He only came back today.

When Yang Xu saw Lu Zhou standing next to the coffee machine, he smiled and said, "Aren't you going to hire an assistant?"

"I don't need one right now," Lu Zhou said with a smile. He then picked up his freshly brewed coffee and asked, "I'm pretty good at making coffee; do you want to try?"

Yang Xu smiled as he joked, "It's coffee made by a Nobel Prize winner, of course I have to try it."

Yang Xu took the cup of coffee from Lu Zhou and took a sip. He then hesitated for a bit before speaking.

"Isn't this just instant coffee?"

"It's instant coffee, but you still have to control the temperature and amount of water…" Lu Zhou coughed and to change the topic, he said, "No more screwing around. How's the situation at Zhi University?"

Yang Xu said in a relaxed tone, "The situation is looking good, and there are many professors who are interested in our cooperation research plan. They can help us conduct at least 20 research projects."

When Lu Zhou heard him, he nodded with satisfaction.

"Nicely done, good job."

"It's nothing," Yang Xu said as he waved his hand around. He then smiled and said, "This is part of my job."

Controllable nuclear fusion was a huge project; there were more than a hundred research projects just for the materials section alone. Not to mention, that was only the projected numbers. The actual number of projects required could be even higher.

Relying only on the Institute for Advanced Study and Jin Ling University for these research projects was obviously difficult. Therefore, they had to cooperate with other universities and research institutes.

Materials science was one of Zhi University's strong suits, especially in the field of carbon nanomaterials.

Yang Xu still had to go to Shuimu in a few days. The more allies he made, the better.

Yang Xu paused for a second before he said, "Oh yeah, one more thing. Baosheng Group sent us an email yesterday. They already drafted a production plan for SG-1."

When Lu Zhou heard this, he instantly became interested.

In terms of companies, Baosheng Group, a subsidiary of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, was their main cooperation partner. They were responsible for solving the industrial production issue of the SG-1 material.

The two complemented each other, so they signed a cooperation agreement. The institute would be responsible for solving technical problems, while the Baosheng Group would be responsible for solving design, implementation, and production problems.

As of now, Baosheng Group had already completed the draft of the production plan.

This was the best thing that happened to Lu Zhou over the past few days.

"It's already done? Send it to my email."

Yang Xu nodded and said, "I already sent it. Also, in order to complete the final design of the production line, they need us to send a couple of our researchers over there to help."

Lu Zhou thought for a moment before he said, "Then send some people there. You can choose the people but just make sure not to delay our research progress."

"Okay."

Yang Xu nodded and turned around. He then left the office.

Lu Zhou looked at Yang Xu leaving. He then looked at the calendar sitting at the corner of his desk.

It was getting almost Chinese New Year.

He had to start working harder…

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Chapter 482: Half A Meter Long Wire

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Jinling began to start snowing in February. It was almost Chinese New Year.

Lu Zhou spent the past couple of days basically living in the laboratory.

Even though he bought a house, he barely went there; it was a bit unfortunate.

However, thankfully a few days before Chinese New Year, his research task at hand was finally completed. This made him sigh in relief.

Actually, he didn't have to complete these tasks before Chinese New Year.

However, being able to produce these results would add some credibility for his Germany trip.

In any case, in order to continue research, he needed a stellarator.

Lu Zhou wrote a politely worded email and sent it to Professor Keriber, who was far away from Germany. He then put on his coat and left the research institute.

When he walked out of the research institute, he took a deep breath of the fresh air outside before going back. He then went around to the STAR stellarator research institute.

The freezing cold didn't kill the workers' enthusiasm. Just like when the project started, the construction site was buzzing with activity.

Lu Zhou could see the changes every time he went to this place.

With ten times the manpower and resources, the progress of the project was measured in days. The progress speed was visible to the naked eye.

Regiment Commander Dai happened to be patrolling on the site. When he noticed Lu Zhou getting out of his car, he walked over. He smiled and greeted him.

"What brings you here?"

Lu Zhou: "This place is on the way home, so I decided to see what's happening here. It's almost Chinese New Year. Thank you for all of your guys' hard work."

Regiment Commander Dai said nonchalantly, "No worries; this isn't hard work at all."

They wouldn't stop working until the project was completed.

They didn't plan on spending Chinese New Year anywhere else other than on the construction site.

Regiment Commander Dai made some small talk with Lu Zhou. He then looked at the research institute that was under construction nearby and squinted. He then asked, "Hypothetically, if our country uses controllable nuclear fusion energy, how much money can we save on energy per year?"

"I didn't win a Nobel Prize in economics, so I'm afraid I can't give you an accurate number."

Lu Zhou paused for a second before he continued, "However, one thing I am certain about is that, when that day comes, our country's electrical industry will grow by leaps and bounds."

Even though Lu Zhou hadn't studied economics before, his intuition told him that this wasn't something that could be measured by money.

Regiment Commander Dai: "Leaps and bounds? Like back when the economic reform was happening?"

Lu Zhou joked, "Hard to tell. It might even become an industrial revolution."

Industrial revolution…

This sounds like something that is far far away.

This has only happened three times in history.

As Regiment Commander Dai looked at the building nearby, he couldn't help but look forward to that day.

…

The snow in Jinling came by quickly but also left quickly.

Most cities in Northern Europe were still covered by a blanket of snow.

Keriber was checking his work email at the Wendelstein 7-X laboratory, which was located in the quiet town of Greifswald, near the corner of the Baltic sea.

He was about to finish reading all of the previously unread emails when suddenly, he received another email.

When Keriber clicked on the email and saw the sender's name, he paused for a second.

Lu Zhou?

When Keriber saw the name, he quickly composed himself. He then looked at the body of the email and began reading.

[Hello, Professor Keriber.

[The Chinese New Year is in a few days, and in an auspicious time like this, I'd like to sincerely wish you good health and good luck.

[Also, I have a piece of good news which I'm sure you will be interested in…]

Upon reading that last sentence, Keriber raised an eyebrow. He looked interested to continue reading the email.

If this was anyone else, he wouldn't have believed them.

However, this was from Lu Zhou. Even though Keriber didn't know what to expect, he was still excited to continue reading.

[… In order to solve the insufficient magnetic field strength problem, we have tried many solutions. In the end, we have succeeded in a carbon-based superconducting material.

[As you know, among the many engineering problems that restrict the increase of electromagnetic field strength, the most important one is the difficulty in expanding the coil magnitude while ensuring the copper oxide conductor is at its superconducting transition temperature. After all, whether it is the copper oxide or the liquid helium transporting channel, the superconducting magnet occupies quite a large area.

[We tried many solutions to solve this problem. The most important factor was to increase the superconductivity transition temperature of the material to as close as room temperature as possible. This can reduce the cooling device volume.

[Actually, we've achieved decent results using this experimental pathway. However, we unexpectedly found that, in order to solve this problem, we don't necessarily have to start with the temperature.

[For the case of copper oxide materials, in order to maintain the copper oxide conductor at its superconducting transition temperature, one of the most difficult problems to overcome is the poor thermal conductivity of copper oxide. It's not easy to deal with.

[Graphene, also a superconducting material, has superior properties in both heat dissipation and heat conductivity. In theory, it reaches a thermal conductivity of 5300W/mk.

[You're an engineer, you should know what this means.]

This was a serious email, but when Keriber read to this part, he smiled and shook his head.

He obviously knew what that meant. Even if the SG-1 thermal conductivity wasn't as high as 5300W/mk, any thermal conductivity in the range of thousands would destroy copper oxide.

Even pure copper only had a thermal conductivity of 401W/mk.

What did this mean?

In engineering terms, if the difficulty of keeping copper oxide at its superconductivity transition temperature was at 10, then the engineering difficulty of keeping graphene at its superconductivity transition temperature was only at 1 or even lesser.

In fact, in some electrical cables or electronic devices, graphene was used as a higher grade heat sink than even graphite.

However, the problem was that the SG-1 superconducting properties appeared on a two-dimensional plane with an overlapping angle of the planes. How could one convert an SG-1 material into a wire?

It wasn't as easy as just layering the planes together.

Keriber had no idea how to convert that thing into electrical wires.

Not to mention the enormous costs it would require…

However, he suddenly froze.

Because at the end of the email, Lu Zhou mentioned something else.

[… Actually, we've already successfully found a suitable method. Even though it might not look reliable, we have already created a half a meter long electrical wire from graphene.]

Keriber jumped up from his chair.

His assistant noticed him and asked, "What's happening, Professor?"

"Nothing," Keriber said. He then grabbed the chair armrests firmly before he hastily fixed his collar. He then looked at his assistant and ordered, "Book me a plane ticket, I have to go to Jinling."

The assistant paused for a second.

"… Which date?"

Keriber didn't hesitate, and he replied in a serious tone.

"Right now, as soon as possible!"

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Chapter 483: Xiao Ai's New Home

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The lease for the house near the university almost came to its end. Lu Zhou already had his own house, so he didn't have to continue renting and storing Xiao Ai there.

After Lu Zhou finished his last project, he spent two days directing professionals to move his server to his mansion at Zhongshan International.

There were security cameras and alarms in his old house. Obviously, he couldn't just leave these things for the landlord. Coincidentally, since his new house needed security equipment, he moved them as well.

After everything was done, Lu Zhou looked at the server chassis in the room and smirked.

All of the security cameras were connected to Xiao Ai's server. Regardless of whether anyone was at home, no matter what happened, Lu Zhou would immediately be notified of the situation through his phone.

"From now on, this is your new home."

Xiao Ai: [But I don't want this home. (sad.jpg)]

Lu Zhou coughed and said, "Shh, be quiet."

Xiao Ai: [(slamming the table.jpg) (about to cry.jpg)…]

Lu Zhou didn't care if Xiao Ai was unhappy with the new home. He comforted Xiao Ai for a bit then went out to the supermarket and bought some fresh produce.

Xiao Tong would come around later and eat at his place. She would also help him clean the house.

His parents would come over tomorrow.

He had to clean up the guest room before the arrival of his parents. Since Xiao Tong was going to spend Chinese New Year here, she had to clean up her room as well.

Lu Zhou put the grocery near the sink. He was about to wash the vegetables when his phone suddenly vibrated. When he picked up the phone, he heard a robotic voice.

"Master, there are guests at the door."

"Okay."

Lu Zhou took off his cooking gloves and threw them near the sink. He then walked out of the kitchen and went to the front door.

…

When Han Mengqi saw Xiao Tong pressing the doorbell, she asked anxiously, "We didn't tell him beforehand that we're coming. Is that alright?"

Xiao Tong smiled and said, " Don't worry, my brother isn't that stingy."

Suddenly, they heard footsteps coming from behind the door, followed by the door being opened.

"You're here… Han Mengqi?" Lu Zhou was about to invite Xiao Tong into the house but suddenly noticed the little girl standing behind her. He then asked, "What are you doing here?"

Han Mengqi replied nervously, "Xiao Tong said you needed some help, so I came along… Um, I'm not bothering you, right?"

"Not at all! Come on in." Lu Zhou moved out of the way to let them in. He then asked with a smile, "Speaking of which, are you not going to Shanghai for Chinese New Year?"

Han Mengqi smiled reluctantly. She didn't seem willing to answer this question.

"Okay okay, girls don't like it if you ask too many questions."

Xiao Tong interrupted this heavy conversation. She then took Han Mengqi's hand and walked into the house as if it were her own house. She then took off her shoes and put on a pair of slippers.

After entering the house, Han Mengqi looked around the living room and couldn't help but feel nostalgic.

Five years ago, her tutor was still teaching her mathematics problems for a few hundred yuan an hour; she didn't expect her tutor to become so powerful in just five years.

She suddenly felt a little discouraged.

No matter how hard she worked, how matter how many hours she spent in the library or laboratory, she would never catch up to him.

Whether it was in terms of knowledge or status…

Han Mengqi felt like Lu Zhou left to a place far, far away from her.

Lu Zhou found a pair of spare slippers for Han Mengqi and said in a friendly manner, "The house isn't clean. It's a mess, and I hope you won't mind it."

Han Mengqi stopped daydreaming, and she muttered, "It's fine, I'm here to help clean up anyway."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "It's fine, you don't have to help. Xiao Tong will clean her own things, so just rest on the sofa."

"What do you mean?" Han Mengqi persisted as she said, "Don't underestimate me! I'm not the same girl I was five years ago, and I know how to do chores!"

Even though Lu Zhou didn't want his guests to clean his house, but since she was so motivated, he decided to let her be.

Actually, when he just bought the house a while ago, he called for a house cleaning company to clean the place.

However, since he didn't live in it for a long time, there were layers of dust everywhere.

The most important thing was the guest bed; it didn't even have a bedsheet or bedding on it.

What if I buy a sweeping robot? I can let Xiao Ai control it.

Anyway, the artificial retard is just sitting there. I might as well utilize it…

The more Lu Zhou thought about it, the better the idea seemed.

…

It was soon lunchtime, and the three sat at the dining table.

Lu Zhou, who hadn't cooked for a long time, decided to flex his skills to his past student and sister by making a table of delicious food.

Han Mengqi hadn't tasted her tutor's cooking for a long time, so she was delighted.

While eating, Lu Zhou said to Xiao Tong, "This time next year, you'll have to think about your future. So, what plans do you have after graduation?"

Xiao Tong already had a clear goal in mind, and so, she replied promptly, "I want to study abroad."

Lu Zhou: "Do you have a goal?"

Xiao Tong: "Oxford University. I already received a recommendation letter from my summer student exchange program… Oh yeah, Brother, can you write a recommendation letter for me as well?"

Oxford University was ranked second in the world for economics. However, the major was more theoretical based rather than application based.

Lu Zhou looked at Xiao Tong's puppy eyes and chuckled.

"No problem, piece of cake."

His phone suddenly began to ring.

Lu Zhou put down the chopsticks and stood up from his chair.

"I have to take this call."

He left the dining room and stood at the corridor near the stairs before he took out his phone and looked at the screen.

It was an unknown caller, but from the number, it seemed to be an international call.

Don't these foreigners know how to use WeChat? They're killing me with these long-distance phone charges.

Lu Zhou: "Hello?"

Keriber: "It's me!"

When Lu Zhou heard the familiar German accent, he remembered the email that he sent two days ago. He immediately knew who was calling, so he spoke with a cheerful voice.

"Professor Keriber? What's up?"

Keriber was sitting in the airport terminal. He took a deep breath and said, "I'm in Dubai."

Lu Zhou: "Dubai?"

Keriber couldn't help but complain. "Yeah, all of the flights from Germany to China are full, so my assistant helped me book the ticket. This is the fastest route."

Lu Zhou: "When will you arrive?"

Keriber: "The day after tomorrow."

"The day after tomorrow?" Lu Zhou frowned and asked, "Why does it take so long?"

Keriber replied in a resentful tone, "The flight is delayed."

Lu Zhou: "…"

This… really is quite an ordeal.

When Lu Zhou heard about Keriber's unfortunate encounter, he didn't know how to comfort him.

Keriber paused for a second and sighed before he said, "Actually, before arriving at Jinling, I still have to transfer to Beijing. However, I don't think I can catch the Beijing flight… Do you have a way to take me from Beijing to Jinling?"

When Lu Zhou heard this, he instantly understood the root of Keriber's troubles.

Chinese New Year was the busiest time of the year. Whether by rail or by flight, one had to buy it at least a week in advance.

Lu Zhou said, "I'll give you a phone number. After you land in Beijing, just call that phone number. Someone will help you solve the problem."

Keriber was a bit hesitant, and he asked, "Phone number? Will it work?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "You'll know when you try it."

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