Chapter 658 - 658 Answer Is in Your Hand

658

Answer Is in Your Hand

Switzerland.

CERN headquarters.

Witten was inside a coffee shop. He was sitting on a sofa with his legs crossed. He read through the thesis in his hand while drinking a cup of black coffee.

Sitting next to him was Jaffe.

The old man rested his hands on the table as he quietly waited for Witten to finish reading the thesis.

As the founder and the director of the Clay Institute, the inclusion of the Yang-Mills equations as one of the Millennium Prize Problems was decided by these two, and they were the ones who actually phrased the problem.

This problem was set to be the final physics problem of the Millennium Problems, and Jaffe thought that no one in this century would be able to solve this. He didn’t expect this day to come so suddenly...

After a while, Witten finally flipped through the last page of the thesis.

Jaffe noticed this, so he asked, “You finished?”

“Almost.”

“I want to know what you think.”

“He’s even faster than I thought.” Witten put down the thesis and looked at the calendar on his phone. He smiled and said, “41 days. He’s probably the only person on this planet who can do something like this.”

Jaffe sighed and said, “Is there anything else you want to comment on, other than his speed?”

“Unfortunately, these are all my thoughts at the moment.” Witten sighed and paused for a second. He then said, “We don’t have a clear conclusion regarding his previous thesis yet.”

Witten couldn’t help but feel emotional.

The international physics community was still arguing over Lu Zhou’s previous research results.

This was the first time Witten witnessed research results being released faster than conclusions. It was as if the entire world were trying to catch up to Lu Zhou...

“There’s a meeting in the No.1 conference room in a bit, about his thesis on arXiv... I’ll mention it during the meeting. But I’m sure someone else will mention it if I don’t,” Witten said. He looked at his watch and continued, “Also, in any case, there has to be a conclusion about the Yang-Mills existence and mass gap thesis by the end of this month.”

Jaffe nodded.

“I agree.”

...

While CERN was preparing another seminar regarding the Yang-Mills existence and mass gap, it was already night time at the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study.

Most people were ready to leave work and go home, but the lights were still on inside the laboratories in the Institute of Physics.

This was especially true for the laboratory at the end of the corridor.

A dozen researchers sat in the 30 square meters sized room. Everyone’s desk was filled with a foot high of research documents. Everyone looked exhausted.

This was China’s “largest” research center for the miniaturization of controllable fusion technology. Most of the people here had worked on the original stellarator machine, and their specialties ranged from plasma physics to physics engineering.

However, this wasn’t enough.

It had been more than half a year since the project was established, yet the research project hadn’t progressed at all.

As usual, Sheng Xianfu looked at the dark sky outside the window. He walked to the coffee machine and returned to his desk with a hot steaming cup of coffee.

He found some documents from the Institute of Acoustics and was about to finish the research report for today. However, someone suddenly opened the laboratory door. A person walked straight in the laboratory.

“I have some stuff here.” Lu Zhou gently tossed the documents in his hands onto Sheng Xianfu’s desk and said, “I hope you can read it within a day... If not, try to finish reading it in less than two days.”

Sheng Xianfu was muddled. He looked at Lu Zhou, then at the documents.

“What’s this...”

“Some stuff that needs experiment verification. It’s about the miniaturization of controllable fusion.” Lu Zhou looked at the messy laboratory and said, “Also, about the question you asked me a while ago, I can finally give you a clear answer.

“High temperature isn’t the only condition for achieving a fusion reaction. There are other methods. As long as we determine the relationship between the strong interaction and the electromagnetic force, we can find this method...”

Lu Zhou grabbed a marker from the table and wrote down a string of equations on the whiteboard.

As Sheng Xianfu looked at the whiteboard, his eyebrows furrowed.

“What is this?”

Lu Zhou smiled and explained, “The formula that connects the strong interaction and electromagnetic force.

“It turns out that electromagnetic force and strong interaction force can be unified under the theoretical framework of the Quantum Yang-Mills Field. One month ago, I wasn’t sure of this, but now, I can prove it in mathematical terms.”

Sheng Xianfu was shocked.

“You... did it?!”

If he recalled correctly, Lu Zhou just solved the Yang-Mills existence and mass gap problem a month ago.

Lu Zhou thought for a second and said, “Yeah, kind of.”

Even though the theoretical physics community didn’t accept his research on the Yang-Mills existence and mass gap yet, this didn’t affect his “electrostrong interaction” research.

Not to mention, the high-tech system already accepted his research and gave him an S rating. Lu Zhou was extremely confident regarding his mathematical abilities.

Lu Zhou’s words echoed in Sheng Xianfu’s mind. It was like he was just hit by lightning.

He gulped and said, “But... how do you plan on incorporating this theory into our research?”

Applying theoretical results to practical problems was sometimes even more difficult than discovering the theory in the first place. This was especially true for theoretical physics. The application of theoretical physics often came a century later than the discovery. Even though Lu Zhou successfully unified the strong interaction and electromagnetic force, Sheng Xianfu wasn’t confident that he could apply this theory to the miniaturization of controllable fusion.

“This is why I came here.” Lu Zhou tapped on the stack of documents and said, “I need your help to verify some of my conjectures.”

Sheng Xianfu flipped through the stack of documents and glanced at the content.

“Is this...”

Lu Zhou nodded and said seriously, “Yes, the so-called sonoluminescence.”

Lu Zhou was the director of the Institute for Advanced Study, so he obviously knew what Sheng Xianfu was researching.

Lu Zhou knew about the information Sheng Xianfu got from Professor Chen Weizhong at the Institute of Acoustics as well as the several models that Sheng Xianfu abandoned.

The physics community didn’t have a clear conclusion regarding the principle of sonoluminescence. Some invented the “air implosion theory” or “chemical bond breaking theory”... However, the most attention-grabbing theory for the explanation of sonoluminescence was the “fusion reaction theory”.

Lu Zhou looked at Sheng Xianfu and said, “I know you’ve failed many times, you might have even thought about giving up... I just want to say, your research is not useless, you just didn’t find a suitable method.”

Sheng Xianfu shook his head.

“I’ve tried every method there is, what else is there to do?”

Lu Zhou looked at the pile of documents.

“The answer to your question is in these documents.”