Not to mention that there was another equally important physics experiment waiting for him in a week.
The next morning, Lu Zhou asked Wang Peng to drive him to the faculty buildings for a visit to Old Tang’s house.
Lu Zhou knocked on the door. Old Tang saw Lu Zhou at his front door and looked shocked.
“Why are you here? Didn’t I tell you to call me?”
Lu Zhou smiled and said, “I can just come here, no problem.”
As his previous teacher, Lu Zhou had a lot of respect for Old Tang.
If he had never met Old Tang, his road to success might not have been as smooth as it was.
Even though he had far surpassed Professor Tang in terms of academia, he was still grateful for Professor Tang’s lessons.
“You’re too polite… Come on in.” Old Tang looked at Lu Zhou standing at his front door and said, “I have nothing to do all day, I wanted to go outside and have a chat with you. There’s no need for you to come here, you should be spending your time reading papers and teaching students, not visiting an old man like me.”
“No problem, I happened to be on the way.” Lu Zhou took off his shoes and said, “Speaking of which… What was the thing you talked about yesterday?”
Old Tang smiled awkwardly.
“Well, here’s the thing. Sit first, I’ll pour you some tea, then we can talk…”
Old Tang told Lu Zhou the whole story.
After hearing Old Tang, Lu Zhou was baffled.
Lu Zhou’s guess was correct.
The reason why Old Tang was being so mysterious on the phone was that he wanted something from Lu Zhou.
“Is it necessary to publish a book? Isn’t that something people do in their 50s or 60s?”
“Of course it is necessary. If we let go of this opportunity, someone else might grab it first,” Old Tang said with an energetic tone. He tried his best to persuade Lu Zhou. “Also, we don’t need too much from you. It’s not like a textbook can be written by one person alone! I’ve talked with Old Qin, we’ll assemble a group of young academic scholars from the mathematics department that will help write this book.
“Just do as much as you want, you don’t have to delay your own work! It won’t be troublesome!”
Lu Zhou was not interested in passing down his knowledge, nor was he interested in creating a school of thought.
Research was something that made him happy.
If it could bring value to the society, that would be great. When a person created enough value, the society would naturally treat them well.
As for everything else, that was secondary.
However, after Lu Zhou thought about Old Tang’s words, he realized that Old Tang was making sense.
This opportunity was quite unnecessary since he was already undisputed in terms of mathematical achievements. Whether the future generation could make any mathematics breakthroughs would depend on how hard the future mathematicians work. It wouldn’t matter if he wrote an academic book or not.
But as Old Tang said, even though this didn’t make sense for him personally, this was a golden opportunity for the Jin Ling University mathematics department.
This book could create an entire school of thought.
In the distant future, people would spread Lu Zhou’s doctrine, allowing it to influence more people.
After Lu Zhou left Old Tang’s apartment, he went to Jin Ling University.
Along the way, he was thinking about how to write the academic book, as well as how to work with Dean Qin to find capable young scholars.
Lu Zhou happened to bump into Chen Yang at the stairs of the mathematics department building.
Lu Zhou suddenly had an idea. He walked up and asked, “Morning, what are you up to?”
“I just came from the cafeteria,” Chen Yang said while waiting for Lu Zhou to catch up to him. He then said, “What about you?”
“I went to my former mentor’s house,” Lu Zhou said. “Have you read my paper on the Grand Unified Theory?”
Chen Yang nodded.
“… I have, why?”
“I might need something from you.” Lu Zhou smiled and said, “I have a task for you.”
Chen Yang put on a serious face and spoke.
“Please, tell me.”
“No need to be so nervous, it’s nothing difficult, and it should be easy for you.” Lu Zhou smiled at Chen Yang and said, “Here’s the thing, Jin Ling University plans on publishing a… theory of mathematics book, mainly regarding the Grand Unified Theory and some related theorems.”
Chen Yang frowned and said, “Theory of Mathematics?”
“Yeah, this book will be long. We haven’t decided on how many volumes yet, maybe it will be constantly updated,” Lu Zhou said. He purposely didn’t tell Chen Yang that he came up with the book title on the spot. He continued in a solemn tone, “You’re obviously capable at something like this. After thinking about it carefully, I’ve decided to entrust you on this glorious task!
“Of course, if you don’t want to, that’s fine. After all, writing a book is not easy—”
“I accept.”
Seeing how easily Chen Yang agreed, Lu Zhou almost felt sorry.
This guy is too easily persuaded.
Lu Zhou didn’t know what to say. He reached out and patted Chen Yang on the shoulder.
“I knew I selected the right person… Thank you then.”
They finished walking up the stairs.
Lu Zhou bid farewell and began walking toward his office.
However, he heard a voice from behind.
“Wait a second.”
Lu Zhou turned around and said, “Yes?”
Chen Yang suddenly remembered something, and he said, “I tried to research the method you used to prove the second part of the Grothendieck’s standard conjectures.”
Lu Zhou frowned and said, “Any new discoveries?”
“… Yes, actually.”
Chen Yang nodded and spoke.
“I think I have some ideas… about the Hodge conjecture.”
