Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
If Lu Zhou could solve the controllable nuclear fusion problem, having his own research institute would be a given. In fact, Lu Zhou would receive even better benefits.
After all, China was a country good at adapting and attracting international talents was one of the highest priorities.
Furthermore, China didn’t care about the domestic academic community’s reactions to attracting outside talent.
It was getting closer and closer to October. The physics field weren’t the only ones that paid attention to Lu Zhou. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry committee in Stockholm was also paying attention to him.
Inside a research building at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Olof Ramstrom had just finished a Nobel Prize in Chemistry committee meeting. He sat in front of his desk, reading the thesis in his hand.
Peter Brzezinski also attended the meeting. He looked at the thesis in his colleague’s hand and said, “Physics? You really are involved in everything.”
“I’m not researching physics. It’s just that this paper seems to have caused quite a commotion in the physics field. I heard several professors talking about it. Therefore, I went to find a friend to get me a copy.”
Olof definitely couldn’t understand the mathematical formulas in the thesis. After all, he wasn’t in the field of mathematics.
However, this didn’t prevent him from reading Physical Review Letters, consulting the experts’ comments, understanding why the thesis was brilliant, and finding out which age-old physics problem was solved.
Peter stared at the thesis for a while before he said in an uncertain tone, “Lu Zhou?”
“That’s right. The guy that’s a pain in the a*s.” Olof paused for a second and said in a joking tone, “Maybe we’ll see his name on the nominations for the Nobel Prize for Physics next year.”
Olof Ramstrom was an organic chemistry professor at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, an academician at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and also a 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry committee member.
Standing next to him was Peter Brzezinski, a biochemistry expert from the University of Stockholm. He was also an academician from the Royal Academy of Sciences, and this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry committee member.
Over the past month, the Nobel Prize Committee had spent countless hours debating about Lu Zhou. They had had several meetings about Lu Zhou but hadn’t arrived at an agreement.
Interestingly, the debates weren’t centered around Lu Zhou’s achievements. After all, whether it was the “shuttle effect” of lithium-sulfur batteries or the problem of lithium dendrites, they were all brilliant research results.
Also, Lu Zhou’s achievements went beyond the applied fields.
Last year, he established his “Theoretical Model of the Electrochemical Interface Structure” which caused a sensation in the fields of computational chemistry, surface chemistry, and even condensed matter physics. This also won him the Hoffman Prize.
However, the Nobel Prize wasn’t an ordinary prize. The committee had to consider other aspects.
Even though Lu Zhou had made brilliant achievements, there were plenty of other people that made equally amazing achievements.
Many people had waited for decades to win this prize; some had even waited for their entire lives…
The opinions among the Nobel Prize in Chemistry committee members varied greatly. Some people believed Lu Zhou and his research results were too young while other people believed that age was just a number and that Lu Zhou’s age didn’t hinder the significance of his research results.
For example, Professor Olof believed that age was just a number.
In his opinion, the modified PDMS material and HCS-1 was debatable. After all, these two results had to be proven through industry application, and they hadn’t made outstanding contributions to the chemistry field yet. However, in his opinion, the “Theoretical Model of the Electrochemical Interface Structure” undoubtedly made an enormous contribution.
Over the past year, many scholars had produced valuable research results by using Lu Zhou’s theoretical model.
It was not an exaggeration to say that Lu Zhou’s theoretical model had completely redefined the surface chemistry field and opened up new research ideas for the computational chemistry field.
“The 2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was given to the cryogenic electron microscopy. The DNA repair research that won the 2015 prize should have been the Karolinska Institute’s job. I’m serious, if we don’t think about what counts as true chemistry results, we might as well change the name to the Nobel Prize in Biology committee.”
Professor Peter was in the field of biochemistry, and he coughed awkwardly.
“Not like this, my friend. Biochemistry is also a part of chemistry… Also, the cryogenic electron microscopy isn’t totally in the field of biology. It also counts as analytical chemistry, right?”
Olof shook his head and said, “There’s no point playing with words. We all know which industry is impacted.”
Someone calculated an interesting statistic among the five sub-disciplines of chemistry. A third of the Nobel Prizes were given to the fields of macromolecule and biochemistry, 26 awards in biochemistry, and six awards in structural biology.
In contrast, there had only been 12 awards given to the organic synthesis field, and even less for the inorganic chemistry field…
If one considered a strand of DNA to be a macromolecule, then the Nobel Committee for Chemistry didn’t make a wrong decision; it was justifiable.
However, everyone knew that this wasn’t fair for chemists.
After all, the biologists should aim for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Now that even the cryogenic electron microscopy won a prize, the chemistry field was bound to revolt.
Peter looked at his old friend and sighed.
“I understand where you’re coming from. His work in surface chemistry has been outstanding. Although I wasn’t there for his Berlin report, I’ve talked with several Max Planck Institute professors about him, and they all have high opinions of him… But I have to say, this result is too young.”
Olof said, “What does that have to do with anything? When we gave the award for the ‘design and production of molecular machines’, were we not thinking about the future potential contributions of the technology?”
“That’s why that year’s award caused a huge amount of controversy as people weren’t expecting it. But this isn’t the focus; the key problem is his age.” Peter shook his head and said, “24-year-old nominee… If he wins the Nobel Prize, he would undoubtedly be the youngest Nobel Prize winner in history.”
Prior to this, the youngest Nobel Prize laureate was the 25-year-old Lawrence Bragg.
There were no rules regarding a Nobel Prize winner’s age. However, some people didn’t like it when the record was broken by a new winner.
Unless the winner was truly brilliant.
However, this was a subjective problem that was difficult to assess unless there was a surface chemistry scholar in the Nobel Prize Committee who could objectively rate Lu Zhou’s work…
But unfortunately, there weren’t any surface chemistry scholars in the committee.
In fact, Olof was hesitant about whether or not he was correct.
He just felt like this year’s Nobel Prize should be given to a pure chemistry result.
Or rather, they should give the award for the “Theoretical Model of the Electrochemical Interface Structure”.
After all, producing such an important chemistry theory in the 21st century was extremely difficult…
