Chapter 315 Misunderstandings in Thinking

Perhaps because of age, Lu Zhou always felt that the distance between himself and the students was very small, especially Qin Yue and Hardy were one year older than him, so there was no age gap at all.

Maybe it is the same in the eyes of his students, he is also a "boss" worthy of respect, but not much majesty.

In order to convince Lu Zhou, Hardy even came up with the absurd statement that "this is the tradition of Princeton". Lu Zhou has lived here for so long, and this is the first time he heard that Princeton has a tradition of having a party to celebrate after winning an award.

Obviously, Hardy Hu made it up.

But since he is so enthusiastic and other students are also very interested, Lu Zhou will let him go.

The location of the party is naturally at Lu Zhou's hut. As for the number of participants, six people are tentatively scheduled.

However, in the end, the scale of the party was beyond Lu Zhou's expectation.

Originally, he was just planning to celebrate with his students, but someone spread the news of his award, and there were more than one or two people who came to celebrate.

First, Senior Brother Luo and his current girlfriend said they would come back. Later, Senior Brother Luo's mentor Edward Witten heard the news and followed him.

Then Deligne, although the Belgian old man didn't like to go to crowded places, came to the party with a bottle of whiskey.

Then there are the friends Lu Zhou met in the Ivy Club, as well as the professors and researchers who have a good relationship with him in the Pugao Institute...

Fortunately, Lu Zhou prepared a lot of champagne and food in advance, otherwise he might not be able to handle it.

On the day of the party, the lawn in front of the hut was filled with the aroma of barbecue and beer.

Standing beside the long table, Lu Zhou and his former mentor were chatting about calculating materials.

Unlike Lu Zhou's view, Deligne didn't think it was a very meaningful job, thinking that he was wasting his time.

"... Mathematics is pure. It is more like an art than a tool. What a mathematician should think about is how to build this building. As for how to apply it to other fields, it is up to a physicist or a chemist things."

After taking a sip of whiskey, this bright-headed old man's eyes were as sharp as ever.

"My dear Professor Deligne, I can't agree with your point of view," Witten, who is a quarter bald, suddenly interrupted the topic, and said plausibly, "Mathematics is a great tool, but it is only a field of mathematics. Only when it is applied to more practical fields can it exert its greatest value...such as physics."

"I can't see that your M-theory has any practical significance," Deligne shut him up sharply, then looked at Lu Zhou, remained silent for a while, and raised his goblet.

"Anyway, this is an honor worthy of you, congratulations."

Lu Zhou bumped into his mentor and said happily, "Thank you."

"And I, congratulations to you too." Witten grinned, clinked glasses with Lu Zhou, and said in a relaxed tone, "Perhaps the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton should open a course on computing materials—"

Deligne said with a straight face: "Impossible."

Witten shrugged: "Well, I was just joking, pretending I didn't say it."

The original intention of Pugao Institute was to establish a Platonic academy for pure theoretical research. Among the 7 full-time researchers of the Academy of Natural Sciences, except for 1 professor of biophysics, the remaining 6 are all researching theoretical physics and astrophysics.

As for the Institute of Mathematics, there are many research directions, but all of them are pure mathematics without exception.

After all, there are enough people who study applied science, and there must be a group of noble people who continue to explore in the field of theory.

As for what is the use of this?

Before the birth of semiconductor technology, no one knew what the use of relativity and quantum mechanics was.

...

Everyone at the party had a great time, and Lu Zhou also had a great time.

For him, the Adams Prize in Chemistry was undoubtedly a pleasant surprise.

He originally thought that his first cross-field medal would be born in the field of theoretical physics, but he didn't expect that it would be chemistry that brought him this surprise.

The $10,000 bonus is not expensive. In fact, almost all the winners don't care about this meager bonus.

Compared with scholars who study mathematics and theoretical physics, scholars who study chemistry are relatively rich. Financial freedom can be achieved very easily with a little attention to intellectual property rights.

As usual, in addition to accepting the award, Lu Zhou will also give a speech at the Organic Chemistry Symposium held in San Francisco in April this year.

This talk can be academic or non-academic, it's all a matter of personal choice.

However, although there is no need to submit a manuscript in advance, Lu Zhou still intends to prepare seriously.

Coincidentally, on the third day after he returned to Princeton, Professor Sarot made a video call with him and reported the research progress during this period.

"...According to your request, we have done 200 sets of experiments, and the relevant experimental data have been sent to your mailbox. However, I must tell you an unfortunate news, we were not observed in the reaction chamber as you predicted. A cage-like structure molecule. IMHO, decorating fullerene materials with carbon nanotubes sounds interesting, but it is not a good research idea."

When saying this, Sarot looked tired.

For the past month, he has been busy with this matter, controlling the reaction temperature and reaction time, and doing a lot of experiments. Unfortunately, there were no surprises at all, except for a pile of complex and useless carbon ash.

Sitting on the office chair, Lu Zhou, who was spinning a ballpoint pen, had a thoughtful look on his face.

"Get nothing?"

"That's not true," Sarot shrugged, "Although I didn't get what you wanted, but according to the experiment you designed, we still harvested many samples that we have never seen before in the by-products of the experiment... …although I'm not sure what works for what."

Lu Zhou's heart moved slightly, and he said, "Send some of those by-products."

Sarot: "Okay, directly to your office at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton?"

Lu Zhou thought for a while and said, "Send it to the Frick Chemical Laboratory, and just write my name. I'm not sure if the mailroom of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton accepts packages marked with chemical information."

After hanging up the phone, Lu Zhou turned on the computer and found the email that Sarot sent to him.

The product information, quality analysis test results and other data are listed in the email.

After carefully reading the experiment report to the end, Lu Zhou heaved a sigh of relief, leaned back on the office chair, and fell into thinking.

From the macroscopic data, the carbon nanotubes and fullerene materials that open the π bond did not reorganize as he expected under the thermal reaction conditions.

Although this is theoretically possible, from a practical point of view, countless side effects make this operation difficult to achieve.

It's just that he still didn't expect that even a microgram of the sample was not collected.

"It seems that the experiment needs to be redesigned!"

The ballpoint pen tapped lightly on the desk, Lu Zhou thought to himself.

It's the end of the month, please recommend a ticket, a monthly ticket~~~