Chapter 194 On the Correct Posture for the Boss to Pit His Apprentice

Princeton University, a coffee shop in the corner of the campus.

The old man with a bright forehead sat in the corner, drinking coffee while looking at the paper in his hand.

Sitting opposite him was Edward Witten, who was also enjoying afternoon tea.

Looking at the paper in his old friend's hand, the old gentleman asked with a smile.

"What are you looking at?"

"An interesting paper submission," Professor Deligne turned a page and said casually, "about the Polignac conjecture."

After pausing for a moment, he couldn't help but add in an approving tone, "It's an interesting proof method."

Edward Witten: "Lu Zhou?"

"Yes." Taking a ballpoint pen to make a few marks on the paper, Deligne continued in a chatty tone, "Missing that academic report will definitely be your biggest loss this year."

Witten smiled and said: "Haha, I agree with your point of view, especially after meeting me, the regret in my heart is even stronger."

Deligne looked up at him unexpectedly: "Oh? When did you go to the other side of the Pacific Ocean?"

Witten: "It's the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, you forgot I just came back from there?"

Deligne raised his eyebrows and asked, "Did you meet that kid at CERN?"

Witten smiled and said, "Have you not watched the news recently?"

Deligne shook his head without thinking: "I haven't paid attention to it, is there anything new?"

Witten: "The LHCb International Cooperation Group announced the discovery of five gram-state particles, and discovered a characteristic peak at 750GeV that is suspected to be a signal of a supersymmetric particle."

"Oh, congratulations, you are one step closer to the Nobel Prize." Deligne said casually.

To put it simply, supersymmetry discusses a kind of symmetry between fermions and bosons, which can be regarded as a low-energy inference of superstring theory to some extent.

For superstring theory to hold, supersymmetric particles must exist.

So the converse is that, if supersymmetric particles are discovered, it can provide strong experimental evidence (not proof!) for superstring theory.

But if it cannot be found, superstring theory, which has been developed for nearly 30 years, will be deadlocked.

However, Deligne is not particularly concerned about the physics world. Although he and his late teacher have made many research achievements in the physics world, his focus is still on pure mathematics.

Especially number theory, and algebraic geometry.

"It's too early to congratulate me," Witten said with a smile in a joking tone, "I think my Nobel Prize must be ranked behind Stephen Hawking... I probably don't have much chance in this life .”

To win the Gunpowder Award, it must be a theory proven by experiments, and finding the string that makes up the universe is much more difficult than creating a black hole to prove the theory of black hole evaporation.

The latter is theoretically achievable, as long as the collision energy is large enough to create a black hole on a tiny scale, and the observation equipment is improved to observe this black hole that evaporates at the speed of light.

But the former cannot be solved by raising the energy level of the hadron collider, but requires the smallest observation scale of human civilization, and goes down to two levels - to observe things at the one-dimensional level.

With existing technical means, delusions to completely prove superstring theory are as whimsical as the ancients wanted to land on the moon by sticking firecrackers under the stool.

Hearing the old friend's self-mockery, Deligne smiled faintly, and said casually: "At that time, he was also listening to the report meeting?"

Witten smiled and said: "It's not listening to the report meeting, but giving a report on stage. Can you believe it, the clue of 750GeV was actually proposed by an intern at the report meeting. He used the method of probability to calculate The probability of a characteristic peak appearing in the 750GeV energy region, and guess what happened? The researchers at CERN conducted experiments for a month, and found this characteristic peak on the two detectors of the Hadron Collider."

Deligne, who had been staring at the paper, froze for a moment, and after a while, he said in a slightly surprised tone: "...I didn't expect him to have such a talent in physics."

"Yes," old Mr. Witten nodded approvingly, "I heard that he will come to Princeton next year, and I plan to accept him as a student."

Deligne grinned: "...that depends on his own choice. I personally think that his talent in number theory is still better."

Edward Witten smiled, but did not speak.

No one wants to bring fools.

This question is also the same in reverse.

At this moment, Professor Deligne, who had turned to the last page of the thesis, frowned suddenly.

Witten asked with interest: "What's wrong?"

Deligne shook his head, his expression returned to normal.

"nothing."

Just now he admired the ingenious use of the group theory method in the thesis, studied the "group structure method" mentioned in it, and saw the last line, but the kid mischievously left a sentence that was not enough space to write.

If it wasn't for the fact that this paper was really well written, he would definitely call back and ask this kid to rewrite it.

...

For a major conjecture, it will take a certain amount of time to prove it, and it will also take a considerable amount of time to test its correctness.

Lu Zhou didn't know how long this time would be. The only thing he hoped was that the reviewers would act faster, preferably before this year passed.

The proof of Polignac's conjecture came to an end, and in the following time, Lu Zhou focused all his energy on Mr. Frank's subject.

Mr. Frank always communicated with him about the supplementary theory of supersymmetry through emails from time to time. Although Lu Zhou had doubts about this theory, in the spirit of seeking common ground while reserving differences, he put aside the dispute for the time being.

There's no way, it's okay to ask him to pick faults from a mathematical point of view, but it's not enough for him to build a theory by himself, given his current level.

The main part of this supplementary theory of supersymmetry was mainly completed by Mr. Frank, and he was responsible for processing data, and at the same time repairing the mathematical loopholes in the theory from a mathematical point of view, making it look more mathematically beautiful.

Don't underestimate this job, it's very important.

The reason why string theory can be accepted by people is precisely because of its mathematical beauty, which is really impeccable.

Soon it was October, and Academician Lu called Lu Zhou to his office.

"Let's go to Beijing on the 20th. I've already booked a ticket for you. Please pay attention to arrange your time."

"Okay...Professor, can you tell me what we are going to do?" Lu Zhou finally couldn't hold back the curiosity in his heart and asked.

Academician Lu smiled, unexpectedly didn't give a shit, and said: "Actually, it's nothing, it's just the 12th National Congress of Huaguo Mathematical Society, which happened to be the 80th anniversary of its founding, and some old guys proposed to hold a unique To commemorate the academic conference, fortunately the two conferences were held together. It happened that old man Qiu also came to attend, so I will take you there to join in the fun."

Fuck?

This is nothing?

This is a big deal!

But what is strange to Lu Zhou is, isn't this conference usually held in November? How come it's early to the end of October? And you are a physics person, how come you have something to do with the mathematics academic conference?

But these are not the main point. The important point is that Lu Zhou remembers that an invitation letter is required to participate in this kind of meeting.

In the end, Lu Zhou still asked this doubt: "Can I go in without an invitation letter?"

"The invitation letter is here with me. You don't have to worry about it. Just follow me there. It's a good thing for you." Academician Lu waved his hand with a smile and continued, "By the way, I remember that you reported to Wanqing The topic I applied for at the time was the Polignac conjecture, do you have any new research results recently? If so, I suggest that you apply to be on stage to give a report, this is a good opportunity."

Giving a report at such a top domestic academic conference is of great help to a scholar's academic reputation in China. Although Academician Lu himself is engaged in theoretical physics, he always has to deal with people in the mathematics field. , so it is no stranger to things in the mathematical world.

But at this moment, he still doesn't know that the proof paper of Polignac's conjecture has been submitted to the "Annals of Mathematics" by this kid, and now it has even entered the peer review process.

Papers that have been submitted to journals cannot be submitted to academic conferences without making more novel research results on this basis, because this is considered as multiple submissions for one manuscript.

Lu Zhou thought about it carefully. Apart from Polignac's conjecture, he really didn't seem to have any interesting research results recently.

However, the "group construction method" he created when he was studying the Polignac conjecture seems to be able to be shown as a research result if it is pulled out alone.

Simply organize the theory of this "group structure method" into a paper, and submit it to this academic conference!

Thinking of this, Lu Zhou had an idea in his heart, looked at Academician Lu and smiled, and said seriously: "I will prepare well."

Academician Lu nodded with a smile: "Okay then, you can go back and prepare well. By the way, the submission deadline seems to be next Friday. You should hurry up, and I won't waste your time."

Lu Zhou: "...???"

Hold the grass!

So you're just telling me now? !