Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Maybe it was Lu Zhou’s age which made him feel closer to his students, or maybe it was because Hardy and Qin Yue were actually one year older than Lu Zhou and that there was barely an age gap…
Maybe in his students’ eyes, he was more of a figure that deserved respect as opposed to a strict “boss”.
In order to convince Lu Zhou, Hardy pulled out the “This is a Princeton tradition” card on him. Lu Zhou had been living at Princeton for a long time, but this was his first time hearing of this tradition of having a party to celebrate for an award.
Obviously, Hardy made it up.
However, seeing that Hardy and his other students were so enthusiastic, Lu Zhou agreed.
The location for the party was at Lu Zhou’s house, and there were originally six attendees.
However, the scale of this party went out of Lu Zhou’s expectations.
Originally, he only planned to invite his students for a celebration. However, the news of his party was spread around and more and more people started to arrive at his house.
First, it was Luo Wenxuan and his girlfriend. After that, it was Edward and his supervisor, Witten.
Then, it was Deligne. Although this old Belgium man didn’t like crowded places, he still came to the party with a bottle of whiskey.
After that, it was Lu Zhou’s friends from the Ivy Club, his professor friends, and researchers…
Thankfully, Lu Zhou had prepared a lot of food and champagne beforehand.
The lawn in front of the small house was filled with the smell of barbecue and beer.
Lu Zhou stood next to the long table, and he was discussing with his previous supervisor.
Deligne had a different point of view than Lu Zhou, and he thought that this was a meaningless job and that Lu Zhou was wasting time.
“… Mathematics is pure, it’s more of an art than a tool. Mathematicians should leave the applications to chemists and physicists.”
The old man took a sip of whiskey and looked sharp as ever.
Witten suddenly joined in the conversation and said, “My dear Professor Deligne, I have to disagree with you. Mathematics is a great tool, but its greatness cannot be shown only in the field of applied mathematics. It has to be applied to other fields to truly show its value… For example, mathematical physics.”
Deligne then responded ruthlessly, “I don’t see your M theory being applied anywhere.” He turned to Lu Zhou and raised his glass.
“Regardless, congratulations on the award.”
Lu Zhou toasted with his ex-supervisor and said, “Thank you.”
“Congratulations as well,” said Witten as he smiled and toasted with Lu Zhou. He then casually said, “Maybe the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study should open a new department…”
Deligne said, “Impossible.”
Witten shrugged and said, “Okay, I was only joking.”
The original intention of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study was to establish an institute engaged in purely theoretical research. The seven full-time researchers in the Natural Science Research Institute were all researching theoretical physics and astrophysics.
As for the mathematics department, there were many fields of research, but they were mainly in pure mathematics.
After all, there were more than enough people studying applied science. There was a need for people to engage in purely theoretical research.
As for the point of theoretical research?
Before computer chips, no one knew the importance of quantum mechanics and theory of relativity.
…
Everyone had a great time at the party; Lu Zhou was also quite happy.
The Adams Chemistry Prize was unexpected.
He thought that his first non-mathematical award would be in the field of theoretical physics; he didn’t expect it to be chemistry.
Although the US$10,000 prize money wasn’t much, most scholars didn’t care about the money.
Chemistry scholars were more industrious than mathematics and physics scholars. As long as they dabbled in intellectual property, they could easily achieve financial success.
Lu Zhou would have to give a speech at the Organic Chemistry Conference held in San Francisco in April this year.
This speech could be either academic or non-academic; it was up to the prize winner.
Even though Lu Zhou didn’t have to submit a thesis in advance, he still wanted to prepare for it.
Coincidentally, the third day after he returned to Princeton, Professor Sarrot video-called him and reported on the research progress.
“… According to your request, we have done 200 sets of experiments. The relevant experiment data has been sent to your email. However, I have some bad news. We didn’t observe your prediction of the cage-like molecular molecules. In my opinion, the use of carbon nanotubes to modify fullerene materials sounds interesting, but it isn’t a good research idea.”
Sarrot sounded burnt out.
He had been dealing with this matter for a month— controlling reaction temperatures, reaction times, and doing a lot of experiments. Unfortunately, they didn’t discover any surprising result.
Lu Zhou sat in his office chair as he twisted his pen and asked, “So, nothing came of it?”
“Not necessarily.” Sarrot shrugged and said, “Although we didn’t get what you wanted, we still found a lot of by-products that were never seen before… But we don’t know what the samples could be used for.”
Lu Zhou was interested, and he said, “Send me the by-products.”
Sarrot: “Okay, I’ll send it to your office at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study?”
Lu Zhou said, “Send it to the Frick Chemistry Laboratory. I’m not sure if the reception at Princeton Institute for Advanced Study allows chemical packages.”
Lu Zhou hung up the call and turned on his computer. He then pulled up the email from Sarrot.
The email contained product information, analysis tests, and other data.
Lu Zhou carefully read the experiment report and sighed. He leaned back on his chair and went into deep thought.
From the data, Lu Zhou could see that against his predictions, the π-bonded carbon nanotubes and fullerene materials didn’t recombine under the thermal reaction.
Although this reaction was theoretically feasible, from a practical perspective, the countless side reactions made this process extremely difficult to achieve.
Lu Zhou didn’t expect that he wouldn’t even receive a microgram of a sample.
“It seems that I have to redesign the experiment!”
Lu Zhou lightly tapped his pen on the desk and began to think.
