Actually, when Perelman asked Lu Zhou why he didn’t participate in the project, Lu Zhou only told him one of the reasons.
In addition to not having enough time, the other reason was that he wanted to give this opportunity to other people.
In fact, halfway through Chen Yang’s writing, he already had a complete solution blueprint in his mind. When Chen Yang finished writing his ideas on the whiteboard, he already had a basic idea of how to solve this problem.
He wasn’t trying to brag, but ever since he leveled up to mathematics level 10, his mathematical intuition had reached an inhuman level.
When he upgraded up to level 10, one of the biggest changes was that no matter how abstract or complex a mathematical concept was, it was as clear as day. Most scientific research level problems were a piece of cake for him.
However, one person alone wasn’t enough to advance the mathematical field.
Solving problems wasn’t the ultimate gold of mathematics, new methods and theorems are constantly being discovered. These theorems captured the essence of the universe.
If he was the one who solved all of the problems, many people would begin worshiping him. That might not be a good thing for civilization.
Everything had to follow a law of progression, and exponential growth in a short amount of time might produce gaps between generations, which could cause the mathematical field to fall into a bottleneck.
This was why Lu Zhou spent 5 pages of his 40-page thesis writing out a series of general conclusions he believed to be correct but purposely left out any detailed proofs.
He wanted to give a chance for other people to solve the problems.
He wanted other people to lose sleep over the problems.
Lu Zhou suddenly believed that maybe when Fermat wrote down Fermat’s last theorem, he really did have an ingenious proof.
As for why he didn’t write down the proof, only to be solved by Wiles three and a half centuries later…
Maybe Fermat was feeling the same way.
Regardless of what the true reason was, Lu Zhou knew that it wasn’t because of a lack of writing paper.
…
Ever since December arrived around the corner, the weather in Jinling had gotten colder and colder.
Lu Zhou sat at his desk, drinking a hot cup of coffee made by his assistant. He browsed the latest developments in the physics community and began to feel emotional.
Over the past few years, the status of the Chinese mathematics and physics community among international academia had changed drastically.
He felt like he should at least take half of the credit.
Suddenly, the door opened, interrupting his train of thought.
He heard a familiar voice.
“Pretty nutty! Brother Lu.”
Lu Zhou looked up and saw Luo Wenxuan walking over with a smile on his face.
“I heard you made a big breakthrough again recently?”
Lu Zhou smiled and said, “It’s alright, nothing big.”
“Don’t be humble. When I was coming back from Shanghai, I heard several physicists talking about how to extend your theory to particle physics. Especially string theory. When I was reading some papers, I saw a lot of opinions that the Grand Unified Theory can provide a new mathematical explanation for string theory. Apparently, someone at Stanford University is already researching this area, and I did a bit of research myself… Sigh, what a shame.”
Lu Zhou: “What’s a shame?”
“If I wasn’t occupied with my work at the ILHCRC, I would be doing this research project,” Luo Wenxuan said with a sad look on his face. He looked at Lu Zhou with a resentful look on his face.
Lu Zhou felt the hair on his body stand up.
Fortunately, he wasn’t drinking coffee; otherwise, he would definitely spill it all over his desk.
But honestly speaking, Luo Wenxuan’s complaints weren’t without warrant.
Ever since the opening of the ILHCRC headquarters in Shanghai, Lu Zhou made him Secretary-General of ILHCRC, making him tied up in Shanghai.
Even though the office was quieter without him here, Lu Zhou thought about it and realized he missed the guy quite a lot.
Lu Zhou stared at his keyboard for a while and suddenly spoke.
“I plan on opening a physics research institute in Africa.”
Luo Wenxuan stopped walking.
“… Africa?”
Lu Zhou: “Yeah.”
Luo Wenxuan frowned and said, “Is there a physics community there?”
“No…” Lu Zhou sighed and said, “But precisely because there isn’t a physics community, as scientific researchers, we should contribute to society.”
He paused for a second, looked at Luo Wenxuan, and spoke.
“In order for physics to expand all over the world, we should plan a seed of physics in third world countries. I plan on making you the dean of the new physics research institute.”
The smile suddenly disappeared from Luo Wenxuan’s face.
“Don’t, bro, if you’re not happy with me, just tell me. I don’t want to go to Africa.”
Han Mengqi was sitting nearby. She tried to contain her laughter as her shoulders began shaking from the chuckles. He Changwen was able to contain the laughter, but he accidentally dropped his pen to the ground.
Lu Zhou looked at Luo Wenxuan’s worried look and smiled. He coughed and spoke.
“I’m just kidding, lightening the atmosphere… Speaking of which, why did you come back from Shanghai?”
“The Lunar Hadron Collider conference is about to begin, I’m here to report to you! But now you’re saying you want to send me to Africa, I’m heartbroken!”
Lu Zhou grinned at Luo Wenxuan.
Well, it was just a joke.
Seeing how Lu Zhou didn’t speak for a while, Luo Wenxuan asked in a soft voice, “So the African physics research institute isn’t real?”
Lu Zhou rolled his eyes and said, “What do you think?”
Luo Wenxuan coughed and said, “I’ll just pretend you were joking.”
I am joking.
I might as well make you the director of an African zoo instead.
Lu Zhou shook his head at how gullible Luo Wenxuan was.
Even though the guy was quite naive at times, he was a good physics researcher.
Lu Zhou was quite satisfied with his work.
The construction of the Lunar Hadron Collider was mainly handled by the Lunar Orbit Committee, and as long as the ILHCRC did its job, there shouldn’t be any problems.
Luo Wenxuan hadn’t caused him any trouble, and he had quietly done his jobs and assignments. Lu Zhou was quite satisfied with him.
“I came back to Jinling to sort out some business with the university, as well as give you a report on the situation. There are some documents you need to look at and sign,” Luo Wenxuan said as he placed some documents on the desk. He looked around and asked, “Where is Assistant Kong?”
“She’s on leave.”
“On leave?” Luo Wenxuan looked disappointed as he said, “Oh, nevermind then, that’s unlucky.”
Lu Zhou looked at how disappointed Luo Wenxuan was and shook his head.
This guy still hasn’t given up…
Maybe he really loves her.
Lu Zhou almost wanted to set the two up for a date.
Of course, he wouldn’t actually.
What if they break up in the future?
He would be the one taking the blame.
I’ll just leave them alone.
