Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
The Navier–Stokes equations was one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems; it gained popularity due to its applications in engineering and physics.
Now that a genius scholar wrote a thesis on this topic, the Navier-Stokes equations were receiving more attention than ever.
Many mathematics and physics doctoral holders in major universities and research institute were all talking about this problem.
They were curious if Lu Zhou was taking on the Navier–Stokes equations.
If he was, what stage was his research at?
Was it only the Annual Mathematics thesis?
Most people believed that this genius had already produced far better research results than the Annual Mathematics thesis.
Lunchtime, Princeton Institute for Advanced Study.
“I’ll have a bacon sandwich.”
“Another sandwich… Do you really not want to try other flavors? You’re always eating the same food, it’s not a good diet.”
The chef recognized Lu Zhou because he ordered the same food every time.
“No thanks.”
Lu Zhou took the sandwich and coffee from the chef. He then found a comfortable place to sit down.
Normally, he would cook for himself or even eat the Ivy Club, but these days he would often eat a simple sandwich before heading to the plasma laboratory.
The design of the experiment sounded simple, but it was extremely complicated to execute!
In addition to the obvious problems, there were many hidden and unclear problems that needed to be solved. This required both theoretical and engineering knowledge, which meant that Lu Zhou had to keep in touch with the engineers at the laboratory. He also had to exchange ideas and find viable solutions with the engineers.
Lu Zhou felt like his speed of comprehending engineering material was unexpectedly fast.
As for how fast…
It was similar to his speed of studying mathematics two years ago.
Lu Zhou slowly ate his sandwich while he was still studying complicated problems.
Suddenly, a blonde woman sat across from him. She took out a microphone out of nowhere before she said, “Hello, Mr. Lu Zhou, I am sorry to bother you. I’m a BBC reporter.”
Lu Zhou stopped eating his sandwich and looked at the blonde lady before he asked, “What do you want?”
He didn’t recall doing anything spectacular recently.
She obviously wasn’t here to talk about the Hoffman Prize which had happened a long time ago.
The reporter smiled and said, “The thing is, your thesis in Annual Mathematics recently has attracted worldwide attention from the academic community. I want to ask if you are attempting to find a smooth solution to the Navier–Stokes equations, to challenge one of the Millennium Prize Problems?”
A normal mathematics problem wouldn’t be worthy of an interview from BBC, but the Millennium Prize Problems were different. Its million dollar prize was worthy of a news headline.
“Oh no, you have it wrong, there’s no such thing.” Lu Zhou shook his head and said, “I only researched the Navier–Stokes equations to facilitate my own experiment. Even though I found an interesting result, it is not worth of being commended.”
The reporter looked at Lu Zhou and said, “Unbelievable… Can I ask what are you experimenting on?”
“It doesn’t matter, I don’t want you guys to report on my research and write an unrealistic headline,” Lu Zhou said as he crunched up his sandwich wrappers before he threw it in the trash can. He then added, “I can only tell you one thing before the research results come out.”
Lu Zhou was worried that if he had told BBC he was designing experiments to study the turbulence phenomenon of plasma at high temperatures, the BBC would report that he was going to solve the nuclear fusion problem. Lu Zhou’s phone would blow up again.
After all, this was a BBC reporter.
Due to their exaggerated headlines and shady reporting techniques, they were banned from Wikipedia citations.
The reporter didn’t care about Lu Zhou’s remark. Instead, she leaned forward with the microphone and asked, “What thing?”
Lu Zhou said, “No comment.”
Reporter: “…”
…
Lu Zhou went to PPPL after the short interview.
The engineers at the lab were already working.
When Professor Lazerson saw Lu Zhou, he greeted him.
“The Wendelstein 7-X accepted our request to install the target material and atomic gun for our next experiment. They will also help us collect the data.”
Lu Zhou immediately asked, “When is the next experiment?”
Professor Lazerson wasn’t sure, and he said, “In a month… We must come up with valuable results before December! Otherwise, they might consider postponing the experiment. The ITER project is running out of money, and all of the laboratories are racing against the clock.”
Lu Zhou said, “There’s not much time left.”
“Yes, not much time left. Of course, we can wait until the overhaul in June, but…” Professor Lazerson said.
“But?”
Professor Lazerson continued, “But PPPL won’t continue supporting our research without restrictions. If we don’t produce any results for half a year, they might scrap the experiment.”
This project relied heavily on PPPL. The funding was from PPPL; the talent and equipment were all from PPPL.
There were many high tech projects being developed, and nuclear fusion was only one of them. The “He3” atom probe was only a sub-project under the nuclear fusion project.
If this project took up half a year of resources and didn’t produce any results, the laboratory director might call off the project, or at least delay the project.
Unless there were multiple Nobel Prize winners endorsing the project, or the project itself was worthy of a Nobel Prize.
However, Lu Zhou obviously wasn’t a Nobel Prize winner, and neither was Professor Lazerson…
Lu Zhou said, “We can’t wait for half a year?”
Professor Lazerson said, “Normally we can, but research projects recently have been on a tight schedule, so less important projects will be delayed… no matter how interesting the project is.”
He certainly hoped the project could continue.
After all, the physics community could only “detect” plasma, not “observe”.
The two concepts were completely different, and the models built from the concepts were also completely different.
If Lu Zhou could really use his mathematics abilities to complete this experiment, the Nobel Prize committee might even consider Lazerson for a prize.
As an engineer, this was his only chance to win the Nobel Prize.
When Lu Zhou heard Lazerson’s explanation, he said, “We have to work faster! The deadline is the end of the year, so we have to finish it before the end of the year.”
Professor Lazerson asked, “Is there enough time?”
Lu Zhou looked at Professor Lazerson, and he replied, “There is definitely enough time!”
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