Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Wang Haifeng guessed one thing right, which was that HCS-1 did have room for development.
However, he was wrong about something else.
The reason why Lu Zhou published the in-progress result had nothing to do with Lu Zhou’s research reaching a bottleneck; it was because Lu Zhou simply didn’t care.
Even though his theory played an important application role, Lu Zhou realized that his theory could only exert its full potential through communicating with others.
Most people that read the journal would think that the HCS-1 thesis was the most important part and ignore the theory-based thesis.
However, Lu Zhou paid more emphasis on the theory.
This was just like the chicken and the egg theory.
If someone could understand his mathematical theory on computational materials and innovate using that theory, he wouldn’t feel there was anything wrong with it. Rather, he would feel honored.
This was also the reason why he asked his student to study the Collatz conjecture by using his methods and ideas.
He could easily solve the Collatz conjecture himself.
He was at Level 6 in mathematics, and that was a completely different level than when he was at Level 5. Although the foundations set by predecessors on the Collatz conjecture wasn’t as complete as the Goldbach’s conjecture, unlike the Goldbach’s conjecture, the Collatz conjecture didn’t trouble the mathematics world for more than two centuries.
If he put his heart into it, it would take him at least six months and at most a year to solve it.
…
On an early morning in late March, Lu Zhou arrived at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study on time.
But unlike the usual, he was holding two papers in his hand.
Lu Zhou gave the test papers to Jerick and Wei Wen and said, “There are only ten questions on the paper, go do the questions and return the test in two hours. You can use your phone if you want, but you’re not going to find the answers online.”
Like Qin Yue, at the beginning of the semester, Lu Zhou gave Jerick and Wei Wen a list of textbooks to study.
It had since been a month, Lu Zhou felt like it was about time to see how their progress was going.
After dividing the papers, the two immediately picked up a pen and started to write on a draft paper.
The test Lu Zhou wrote wasn’t particularly difficult, but it wasn’t that easy either.
Wei Wen frowned. After a long time, he finally solved question one.
Jerick saw Wei Wen struggling just like him and felt a sense of relief.
Time slowly passed by, and around 10 o’clock, Lu Zhou announced the end of the test. He took the papers and looked at the answers.
Both of them got seven correct, but their wrong answers were different.
Lu Zhou placed the test paper down and looked at the two people across his office desk.
“Wei Wen, your understanding of Hilbert space is good. I guess you should develop in the direction of mathematical physics.”
Wei Wen asked, “Does mathematical physics count as applied mathematics?”
Lu Zhou smiled and said, “It depends on how you define it. The physics part is theory and the mathematics part is application. Of course, this is only my suggestion. You can choose any field you want.”
Wei Wen went into deep thought after hearing his supervisor’s advice.
Lu Zhou looked at the other student and said, “Jerick, you’re good at Fourier inversion transformations, and this is a very promising direction. It has a wide range of applications in theory and in the industry. If you are interested in this field, I suggest you pay more attention to it and choose it as your topic of study.”
Jerick immediately asked, “Professor, can I study computational materials?”
Lu Zhou said in a joking tone, “Of course you can, but don’t expect to understand my theory. You’ll have to read at least a dozen textbooks to do so.”
The two students returned to their seats.
Lu Zhou stretched and was about to make a cup of coffee to wake himself up.
Suddenly, the office door opened and Connie walked in with a journal.
“Professor!”
Hardy, Qin Yue, and Vera were researching documents, and they raised their heads and looked unhappy about the disruption.
Lu Zhou could probably guess why Connie was so excited.
However, he had received a reply from the Science editorial department a long time ago. He wasn’t surprised that his theses were in the journal at all.
Lu Zhou looked at him and said, “I remember I told you to stay quiet in this office. Remember to knock before you come in.”
“Forgive me, I didn’t do it on purpose. I’m sure when you hear this news, you would be just as excited as me.” Connie lowered his voice and said, “Guess what happened? Nature quoted our thesis on their front page!”
Connie stopped talking proudly and looked at Lu Zhou as he waited for his reaction.
However…
Lu Zhou wasn’t amused.
Lu Zhou was obviously a lot less excited than Connie.
The office went quiet for a bit.
Connie felt awkward and calmed down.
Lu Zhou said, “It’s only a quote, there’s no need to be this excited.”
Vera was researching the Collatz conjecture, and she couldn’t help but chuckle. Hardy was more ruthless; he slammed his fist on the table and laughed out loud.
Wei Wen couldn’t help but smile as well.
Connie blushed and scratched his head as he said, “You’re not excited at all? This is Nature highlights!”
Lu Zhou sighed and said, “I know it’s Nature highlights, but half a year ago, I was highlighted by both Science and Nature. If you were me, you wouldn’t care about this trivial honor either.”
Most of the top journals had a “highlights” section where they quoted the best parts of the thesis and added a summarization.
Lu Zhou was pretty excited when he was first highlighted by the two journals.
But now, he wasn’t nearly as ecstatic.
Especially since not long ago, his modified PDMS film was rated one of the Top 10 scientific research theses in 2016.
A highlight was nothing for him.
Connie’s eyes were wide open; he was speechless.
Jesus, there’s someone out there who thinks a Nature highlight is trivial?
A normal person would have to work for years just to publish one thesis.
Most people don’t even dream of being on highlights.
If this doesn’t make you excited, then what does?
A Nobel Prize?
Lu Zhou didn’t care about what Connie was thinking. He took the latest issue of Nature from him and roughly flipped through the pages.
As expected, the HCS-1 thesis was the one on highlights.
As for the computational materials science thesis, it was briefly mentioned as a study on “the effect of surface area and pore size on the diffusion rate of polysulfide compounds”.
Lu Zhou smiled and shook his head.
It seems that people can’t recognize the real treasure.
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